Best Taloned Poems
We wander all, in feral dreams
of jagged thoughts and cryptic yearns;
a labyrinth of mirrored turns.
Along a ridge of moon stitched seams,
lie melancholic tapestries,
unfolded in an abstract frieze.
Subconscious angst weaves heart loomed themes
from pain sewn deep, through puerile eyes,
till daybreak’s alabaster guise.
As savage beasts from darkened streams,
complicit servants of the id,
form insights purged at slumber’s bid.
Claw toward light as urging deems;
these taloned gasps of hidden truth,
burst from the depths of shuttered youth.
We wander all, in feral dreams
along a ridge of moon stitched seams.
Subconscious angst weaves heart loomed themes,
as savage beasts from darkened streams,
claw toward light as urging deems.
19 Nov 2019
POLITICS
Propriety demands - we do not speak
Of others, either strong – or weak
Lest in the foray of the quest
Insiders, fall from grace, of safety’s nest
Take residence alongside taloned beast
Intent on making you the winner’s feast
Cloned puppets denying there are strings
Surrendering their truth to cell phone rings.
John G. Lawless
8/26/2014
for Judy Konos
How’s Your Acrostic? contest
Gloaming is wont to quell
the ginger smoke,
expunge the crimson flames
that surround the mill.
Lilac shadows encroach
to cloak the hull's mossy patina.
Autumn's wild rooster,
struts its brash plumage
among fallen shingles and rotted planks
until a black hawk soars,
eclipsing feral zinnias' embers
just as calliope chimes
of a fallen carousel
disappear in taloned pine air.
5/22/18
Pain in the prophecy of wings through sultry sky
Orchestrating vision, love, destiny
Emancipating the tongue to tattle tales taloned with grief
Triumphing in truth to tumult another joy
Reel all poets in, glistening on a silver sliver of string
Yearning to for a final travail, immortality on wing.
Please God, tonight, dry her tears
Oyster her heart in your love
Eternal comforter of cares
Mystic center of the universe, a dove
Perpetual are music mustering our minds to sing
Overtones from the litany of emotions
Easeless wonder, sacrifice, oblation, offering
Tremulous thunder eastering devotions
Sweetly from the ragged anthems of our gift.
What would you do then pretty lady
Should my passion turn to love
And when the eagle in my heart
Becomes the gentle dove
Do you cage the taloned beast
Before it tears the flesh
Or entwine the white dove
To sing within your breast?
Can you see the heaven
That lives above this hell
And will you lift the soul in me
To where it longs to dwell
written 2017.09.21
Robin of the Hoodie
Alas, resides in Sherwood Forest,
one Robin of the Hoodie. He’s lost
amid the greenery, weeping
as sunset nears for underneath
the Hood he hides his deep
and lonely fears. The Hoodie
no protection here amid the
bug filled darkness, nor can
it quell the eerie sounds of
hoodless creature calls,
his secret handshake useless
among the clawed and taloned.
He drifts to sleep with visions
of “Air Jordans” that can fly,
carry him to safety, the
streetlit yellow streaks
of alleyways and thoroughfares
the Hoodie creatures know.
Summoning his courage
he storms the distant hut
enters into murky stink,
old wooden planks,
and curses those who left him
on his own, abandoned him
to Hoodie misery.
Fools who took
a city kid out camping,
fed him beans and franks
and stories until
“HE HAD TO GO”.
2/16/2016
submitted to – A twisted poem about Robin Hood – Poetry Contest
sponsor – C. T.
1
A Vietnam veteran and a mother
Stand shoulder to shoulder
Before it's patriotic domain,
Amazed at the hard stone's ability
To accept the lost with such soft hands.
Their faces, caught in the black granite,
Merge into one.
With a secret map
Etched into the tips of their fingers,
They grope the wall
As if given a short reprieve
From the distance of the dead,
Running their fingers over the names -
Speaking an ancient language
Whose letters sink
Back into the earth.
I eavesdrop only in the reflection,
Because their emotion is awkward,
Like the first time your father cried.
2
She stands vulnerable under an indifferent sky
The color of cold ashes.
Taloned memories swoop in
Like birds of prey,
Bleeding the air with an archaic wound,
Ripping the scabs
From the emptiness of her womb.
Each visit is the first -
As if Mary Magdalene had rolled
Back the massive boulder to find
Jesus' body - the resurrection an elaborate hoax.
She instinctively reaches for his name,
And like a nervous, young mother,
Wipes a tear from his moist eye.
3
The black pool shimmers in his dark eyes.
He rides a wave of time,
Each ebb and flow a cruel cycle,
Living with what is brought ashore,
Coping with that
Which is taken back.
A crash from above
Evicts him from the root of his foundation.
A flash!
And he is caught inside again,
Offering his arm for its construction.
Barely audible,
He utters a single protest and reaches
For the man in front of him.
Is he once again attempting
To stop the bleeding
Or desperately trying
To add his own name to the list?
Stunned I stare from a rocky shore
As eagle architects swoop and soar.
Avian aerobats stretch my mind.
Carving arcs in cerulean air
Building an aerial cathedral
Framing clear high walls across the sky
With headlong three-sixties upside down
Form gothic spandrels toward the ground
Flickering feathers turned them around
Racing sunward as a fleur de lis
In a uniting swirl upward bound,
Forming a pole for staffing a cross
Construction stopped at the sight of fish.
As if their cathedral struck the sea
Eagles spun in tsunamic circles
Diving for salmon they taloned tight
Flying swiftly off, soon beyond sight.
I shrugged, amazed by what raptors do.
Jet jockeys may but sigh and admire
Eagles flight gift with dreamy desire.
When first the flame, a wayward glance
Is met in kind, as if by chance
A timer starts, till fervor tame
A wayward glance, when first the flame
The path to love, a thorny briar
How oft it ends an ashen pyre
Infatuation’s taloned dove
A thorny briar, the path to love
As fever quells, two captives smile
When both acquitted passion’s trial
Now free to thrive where reason dwells
Two captives smile as fever quells
The tempered heart, love’s cooling balm
A mooring true as tempests calm
Devotion blooms with frenzy’s part
Love’s cooling balm, the tempered heart
12 Jun 2020 - Swap Quatrain
From Talkeetna by bush plane to a frozen bog
under the white gaze of Denali.
“Snow’ll be too soft to land this afternoon,”
our pilot says. “See you in the morning.”
He points to a wrinkle in the field of snow.
“Kroto Creek.” And then he’s gone.
Check topo map, take compass reading.
Strap on snowshoes. East to Kroto;
follow the creekbed north. Smaller drainage
from the west. Map-check. Drainage
runs the wrong direction. Keep walking.
Landmarks don’t match map.
Study USGS quad-sheet top to bottom.
Find a stretch of creek that fits.
Six miles from where we ought to be.
No longer lost – we now know
where we are. But does our pilot?
Will he find us in the morning?
Follow our tracks back to frozen bog
and packs, survival gear,
honey and granola to feed us
for at least a day. End of March, dark
comes early. Night thoughts, taloned, fly.
The closest road’s a world away.
Frantically, I walk on a lane of vile secrets,
past glared dazes from hooded eyes
marking me as obsession’s target where a quest
to nail me taunts my fear : with endless
shrieks echoing , “ I will follow you, “ … a voice
raspy as brittle tones imposes its eerie
presence. And I quiver in coiled form,
Helpless, while the breath of uncertainty
wipes the restful assurance of most nights:
In a click of time, life smells danger
knowing not if those taloned hands would
clutch me in the darkness or light.
All at once, I watch myself drenched
In the cloud of foreboding , torturing
my lucid hours now haunted by one
incensed predator. Until I confront this
ghastly shadow laden with karmic
sins, wolves of yesterday assaulting my every
breath's intake…that I come face to face
with this damned nemesis in guileful pursuit
and the nemesis which haunts my spirit …is me.
Written for Silent One: STALKER 11/13/2017
O' world turning among the stars again
from deep darkest fathom to alpine drift,
in shaking mountain ash in molten rain -
in currents and winds and plates that shift.
Afar nomadic wildebeest in legions herd
million dark across an African plain,
and ‘neath the mighty taloned hunting bird
beasts of prey over a great kingdom reign.
See lobtail singing whales depth to shore
beach on the burial sands - and on sea wing
the great ocean albatross the upwinds soar
beyond far blue horizons wandering.
In jungle mist and rain the silverback
mountain gorillas eat leaf, bark and husk -
trophied like the beasts poachers kill and hack
sold for rhino horn and elephant tusk.
To the far ends of a deep frozen paradise
among seal and pup and hunting orca fin -
over egg and young in snow and polar ice
stands huddled the emperor penguin.
In the great southern land on tree and rock
perch the wedge-tail eagle and cockatoo,
loggerhead and leatherback turtle and croc
nest and outback hops the bush kangaroo.
Across prairie and plains the buffalo roam
and howling wolf and coyote lay their lair -
in salmon stream and spring wilderness home
hunt and fish the fearsome grizzly bear.
Our ecosphere of sea, land and sky shine
like the rare wild oyster and cultured pearl,
from snow caps to desert wadi to coastline
our blue planet is a mother of worlds.
Written: November 2001
Angels Of Dragons
You heralded my wing-swept thunder
with garlands annointing the ground.
Sweet petals spiraling upwards
as I stood majestic, towering over
my protected children of Earth....
mankind, it was you.
You greeted me with song, dancing,
feasting of meat I brought when
times were lean for you.
I brought fire to your cold caves,
taloned megaliths for your cities....
mankind, it was you.
I taught shamans their wisdom,
knowledge that stars were your home,
shredded deadly storms into breezes,
dispelled nightmares in my cuddling wings.
You flew skies on the backs of my children....
mankind, it was you.
When did you teach me to cry....
to be wary of your weapons,
to keep my gold under mountains,
when it was yours
all along....
In panic’s metered dirge,
A sentinel of hope;
Amid a parlous surge,
One swirling lumened rope.
Vexed vessels churn and gaze,
In rabid waves of froth,
For safety’s tethered rays,
Through nature’s taloned swath.
One hopes that through the rage,
Lost souls will see the light;
Veer toward that flickered sage
…Escape Poseidon’s smite.
**09 Apr 2016**
Dominions' in keyboards are placid occupants in a bracket brace. But a bracelet is an undeniable part of an observation of arm. And the armies of the finger caps will ride ride ride. Whipping an atmosphere into atmospheric pressure. Weaving a salted sugary sweet into a ten kilometre blanket. Such format of frog. Wow. Wise is the shrew whose eyes could halt a stream at base thought. But no baskets. No no no. That would be very very hazardous. And a freaky fat feather picnics with a skipping shapely shard. But no picture pickling. Ooh great good. An orbital melon. Rotating. Spinning. Cat splat meow. And a monstrous bellowing can of moons beckoning to a whistling table. Erosions of each element is an entrance not an exit. And proud is the kangaroo who is under a branch. Walking a tightrope over a shower is often quite exciting. But portraying a cap in a tap is recording a highly amusing visual disturbance in a lecturers cavern. Fantastic. Pick not a paint. Pick a taloned worm or a interlocking grape machine. Tickle no takeaway box. And always eat sideways in a lane. Hahahaha now go to the gym. Hahahaha and horse having heated heavenly house. Xxxxx superfluous style ship. Xxxxx establishments Z with a pineapple head. Xxxxx educationalist