Best Tamped Poems
I know you're out there
I can hear you ... typing, rat-a-tat-tat
I echo it, but place with intent
each finger-step just SO
each notion a necklace of keystrokes
individually-knotted
pearlescent beauties, round ...
~ I squeeze my mind of chaos, tamped and blessed
Thoughts gossamer, these tapestries I've pressed
'Tween leaves of crimped reprieves, if dispossessed ~
I scream without a face
my voice of subtle silence howling windward
I scratch messages on cell walls
my red breath burnt with the truth of negligence
exquisite sculptures ...
the words dripping like stigmata
Madonna's bloody tears, each precious ...
~ I place these golden dreams in phrased bequests
Bright dazzled shining gems of hearts expressed
Adorned with tender odes to thrum their breasts ~
How do SUCH ears not hear?
How can such breath-embezzling eyes not capture?!?
Should your own gray matter dance a-tongue
its metallic tang of truth would be lost
I would BEG you hate me ... with every fibre
but that is not love's opposite
THAT demon is the monster called 'Indifference' ...
~ I knot the rope wrapped 'round my throat, aware
That you and yours are pleased to kick the chair
Is there naught ONE poetic soul ... should care?? ~
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Does Anyone Care" Poetry Contest, Emile Pinet, Judge & Sponsor.
Categories:
tamped, appreciation, introspection, poetry, society,
Form:
Free verse
I know you're out there ...
I can hear you ... typing, rat-a-tat-tat
I echo it, but place with intent
each finger-step, just SO
each notion a necklace of keystrokes
individually-knotted ...
pearlescent beauties, round ...
~ I squeeze my mind of chaos, tamped and blessed
Thoughts gossamer, these tapestries I've pressed
'Tween leaves of crimped reprieves, if dispossessed ~
I scream without a face
my voice of subtle silence howling windward
I scratch messages on cell walls
my red breath burnt with the truth of negligence
exquisite sculptures ...
the words dripping like stigmata
Madonna's bloody tears, each precious ...
~ I place these golden dreams in phrased bequests
Bright dazzled shining gems of hearts expressed
Adorned with tender odes to thrum their breasts ~
how do SUCH ears not hear?
how can such breath-embezzling eyes not capture?!?
should your own gray matter dance a-tongue
its metallic tang of truth would be lost ...
I would BEG you hate me ... with every fibre
but that is not love's opposite
THAT demon is the monster called 'indifference' ...
~ I knot the rope wrapped 'round my throat, aware
That you and yours are pleased to kick the chair
Is there naught ONE poetic soul ... should care?? ~
... not one?
Categories:
tamped, analogy, care, metaphor, wisdom,
Form:
Free verse
Within a night, a simple crop field has been transformed into a magnificent work of art, the overnight cryptic formations capture the attention of all as the large section of the crop has been tamped into marvellous morphic designs of art, rings and other intricate accomplished geometric patterns.
Edges so neat, it appears that they have been crafted meticulously with most advanced gadgets, with such precision that even though the stalks are bent, they are not damaged at all.
One scientific theory explains the spinning columns force a burst of air down to the ground, which flattens the crops, yet the myth remains how can a few seconds works of spinning air creates such intricate and absolutely perfect circles, sometimes plain, sometimes circles within the circles with myriads of meticulous patterns within patterns? Some says aliens hands behind, some negates them as man-made hoaxes.
Wonder! People close to those rings of crops, encounter strange physical and emotional reactions as the circles rotate clockwise and anti-clockwise as unseen hands or remote controls are controlling them from unknown realms.
From Hollywood magic to spirits of secret weapons, from evidences of UFOs to erudite explanations, there is something hypnotic in their architectures, in their cryptic presences, in their aesthetic textures for inquisitive minds to continue further quests to unravel their enigmatic riddles.
© Silpika Kalita
Categories:
tamped, adventure, appreciation, earth, environment,
Form:
Free verse
…the seeds of neo-Nazism are germinating
Markus Nierth, former mayor of Tröglitz, Germany 2015
Germany’s rock candy windows and cookie like shingles make seeing the oven inside impossible. At first, the obsessive compulsive cleanliness of Nuremberg’s post-WWII streets is a joy. For a child of the melting pot, born after The Big One, it’s painful to recall the grimmer aspects of the Third Reich with their proposed eugenics. Nuremberg [rebuilt] roots in an elitist past hiding behind half-timbered houses of wattle and daub. Once the seat of the Holy Roman Empire seeped in power, then, a base for Hitler’s wunderkind rallies—now a soul-blighted bloom, a minor stop on the tourist trail.
Street walking pedestrians—the silent middle, staid, detached—stroll or bike along paths, immersed in white dreams. The pogroms of terror, stolen homes, and bridges made from Jewish Cemetery stones lie beneath layers of pristine paint and plaster. The Jews victimized for centuries, and the war trials, a mere subtext to tour guide chatter.
xenophobia
tamped down like an ash banked fire
waits to rise again
on a bellows breath of rage
spray painted on railroad cars
The site of my pilgrimage, The Palace of Justice—walled in panels of ashen mahogany—retains a dour mien. Judges, jurors and those to be tried, still use this hall. After-images of skeletal camp dweller and vain glorious generals rise wraith-like from the polished surfaces, paneling, pews, and copings. Greek God’s glower. A bronze crucifix castes judgment on all who pass: God fearing, or atheist. Justice is not present; horrors are not passed and conscience is now presented to the world as a fanatic in a suicide vest.
First Published in Artificium UK 2016
Categories:
tamped, anxiety, racism, , atheist,
Form:
Haibun
"To hold as 'twere, the mirror up to nature. "
William Shakespeare," Hamlet 1601."
Long ago another planted you,
My cherished Ginkgo tree.
She tamped you in so carefully
And bequeathed you unto me.
Did she then live to see you grow
So stately and so tall?
And to see your charming bright green dress
Turn golden in the fall?
You’re clothed in pretty fan shaped leaves,
A tree beyond compare.
How many robin families,
Have nested in you, Maidenhair?
Although other trees have broken,
‘Neat the north wind’s violent gale;
You, Ginkgo pay no heed at all.
To winter’s abusive rail.
Your forebears came from China,
Where they were long revered,
And studying under their branches
An old sage with his beard.
Your kind was here as early
As the first ferns and their spores.
No tree has longer history,
Your fathers knew dinosaurs.
Strange that old Mother Nature,
Decided you should survive so long,
While we humans sometimes die before
The last verse of our song.
The answer to long life and health,
Is in the leaves of the Maidenhair tree.
If you let me pluck a few of yours,
I’ll brew up my cup of tea.
If only the one who planted you,
Had known of your power.
She could have drunk of Ginkgo tea,*
And been here for happy hour.
* Ginkgo leaves are touted as being healthful . Won a 5th place
Joyce Johnson Revised April 19, 2011
From my private files, not posted. undated.
For Constance's contest "The Tree"
Categories:
tamped, natureold, tree, old, tree,
Form:
Rhyme
final dismount, final ride
pasture waits for dappled roan
girth mark of the lonely byways
lather from the battles flown
dew eyed weary, spinal backed
stumble step'd and nostril blown...
stirrup brass with bugle hung
faded strap and leather worn
bridle twisted, crackled spur
broken packboard, blanket torn
carbine scabbard, saddle sore
salt and stain wrung round the horn...
cosmoline and splintered stock
powder burned and pointed lead
flashpan crusted, blackened sight
ramrod tamped and barrel fed
faceless names etched in the action
thunder echoed, eardrums bled...
now the rider, less the man
mustered out a thousand suns
restless eye and palsied hand
scattered mind behind the gun
drumbeat sigh and breaking heart
no true glory grasped and won...
in the world
of the world
in joy's cascade as much as grief
season turns
while seasons end
wind blows down the autumn leaf.
Categories:
tamped, metaphor, veterans day, war,
Form:
Heroic Couplet
Here we hid when we heard
A knock strongly---a sudden clattered upon the ground
Everyone indoor shrieked, trembled
Out... out..... we heard
They separated males from females
Sans bother how small we were
They guided us to the boot camp field
Gave us lives and death train. Rubbed ours and
Their faces with slurry that as dark as ackee seed
Handed each with weapons. To mamas males were living dead
1939th of september to1945th of september
The days were long gone, but still remember
Told us show mercy to whom fall by your way you are dead
Victory it our goal. Words of venom and
Drug infused made our heart to strong as harden wood
Mansions become ash by fingers tamped
Animate breathless by stabbed
Stick. Raise countries devoured by swallowing lips
May the old and youth of this and coming generations
Not experience such; the heroes and
Heroines that go to rest nurture as cradle in right hand.
An interview with a veteran who happens to a victim.
Categories:
tamped, allegory, anxiety, bereavement, drug,
Form:
Rhyme
My calloused black skin got shoved in the soil by a white mans soiled thumb
Trying to make his mortgage off me
Buried
I found friends
Barely breathing
But we sang. One friend was named Hosanna.
We gathered ourselves together in song.
Mother Earth appeared in the darkness.
She pushed us together, further, until our sprouting threads joined hands in prayer singing,”Hosanna in the highest.”
And the farmer prayed while he and his children tamped us down in the dark wet black soil.
But the choir was loud that day.
Singing, “hail thee festival day”
And as we grouped, my new friends found the ground and the sun
And bloomed a watermelon
That plopped itself, all greened up,
Onto the farmers knees.
And he hugged all of us.
The green, the red, the white, and
The black.
Later, there was a picnic and the farmer kissed his wife.
And she spit me out back onto the soil.
I will always be a seed.
Categories:
tamped, black african american, color,
Form:
Free verse
What later will be filled with squeals
And peals of childish laughter,
In desolation thus reveals
What comes before and after.
The vacant swings, with chains unclasped,
Hang waiting, so forlorn.
The silver slide, unoccupied,
Gleams dully in the morn.
The jungle gyms or monkey bars
Seem bare and incomplete.
They’ll only come alive when tamped
By scores of tiny feet.
The benches, ever patient,
Bide their time, unsatisfied,
‘Til that moment when some sitters
Will enjoy what they provide.
The meat of day will change it all –
The park will thrum with *****;
But in the empty hours
It’s as silent as a monk.
Categories:
tamped, introspection, urban,
Form:
Rhyme
M aking believe that you're doing just fine,
A llowing only your best deeds to shine.
S aying what everyone wants to hear,
Q uickly quashing any sign of fear.
U gly emotions swiftly tamped down,
E nergy exerted in preventing a frown.
R eality is you are quite a mess,
A nxiety fills you, makes you feel "less".
D on't give in to that lie, it is not true.
E liminate your masks and be the real you.
4/13/21
For Brian Strand's August Poetry contest
Categories:
tamped, anxiety, emotions, identity,
Form:
Acrostic
Ashamed
I see what you have and I want it.
I am immediately ashamed.
Indignant over the fact that these feelings could breed with in me;
dismayed at the buckeye of truth that may lie dormant.
Time has a way of encouraging one on their way.
To feel crowded and herded onto the paths that are tamped down before us.
Expectation in the abstract is just a thought.
However, once that possibility comes anywhere near, it is time to move on.
An epiphany cures all.
Categories:
tamped, conflict, confusion, encouraging, jealousy,
Form:
Prose Poetry
They say that any dream is organised around a wish.
That a dream can often be the fulfilment of a wish.
Last night I dreamt. I dreamt that we were gone.
Palaeontologists declared, after
years of painstaking escavation
that remains found tamped,
under a long dried sea were
fibres of make believe, washed
to the oceans floor from the faces
of a corralled people driven down
the trails of unbridled emotion;
Complicity secreted, streamed along
sensory tributaries scoured deep
by generation of tears, fossilised
into masks fated to be held up in
white coated Neuro-typical wonder,
so called evidence of genetically
unmodified strangers never enabled
to root in unyielding earth.
A dream can also be organised around a fear.
Last night I dreamt. I dreamt that we were gone.
Proof of my fear that tolerance, for us, would come too late?
Categories:
tamped, allegory, allusion, analogy, anxiety,
Form:
Free verse
Seeds of remembrance.
Bulbs and tubers
tamped under soil,
a burial that isn’t death.
Categories:
tamped, nature
Form:
Free verse
This is a rubbish poem!
Since I was old enough to know better,
I was taught not to throw litter.
To scatter rubbish when out and about,
From our local bobby invited a clout.
Out back each house had a dust bin,
So called because all it had was dust in.
All waste the fire did consume,
And this would help to warm the room.
When the fire went out as it must,
Into the pan beneath fell the dust.
Newspapers used for a fire to light,
Any tin cans gave us kids delight.
Two cans and string made our mobile phone,
One talked, one listened with a can at your ear,
So even empty cans did we hold dear.
Some string through two cans and put on your feet,
You could clip clop around, the sounds were neat.
Milk bottles were glass, put out for the milkman,
He would exchange for full before the day began.
Bread wrappers were waxed and recycled by kids,
When rubbed on the park slide, helped us to skid.
Jam jars and bottles, collected by the score,
Returned to shop and pub to make a few pennies more.
Even coal dust was used for when the coal was spent.
It was damped and tamped into bricks left to dry,
When the coal ran out, kept us all warm by and by.
Nothing escaped the discerning folk in those days,
We had brown paper shopping bags that had their use
Even the handles were made of paper for a grip,
If they got wet or did rip the fire was their next trip.
Nothing was wasted back when I was a kid.
When you could play drums on a dustbin lid.
Turn it upside down for a big bass drum,
Too much noise , you got a clout from Mum.
The dustbin served as the wicket for cricket.
An old chair leg for a bat, just the ticket.
I have rambled on I could for much, much more,
Just to say that rubbish hardly went out the door.
© Dave Timperley 27/09/2018
Categories:
tamped, appreciation, environment, nostalgia,
Form:
Rhyme
Between your fingers slip the diamonds of each day;
Seconds, minutes, hours as well
Are strewn like cinders in the muddy mire away,
Tamped and trampled where they swiftly fell.
Inside your palm, faint diamond shapes remain—
Outlines, etched from clutching tight—
These lines remind you of gemmed years upon the wane…
Diamonds gone. Soon comes the onyx night.
Categories:
tamped, introspection
Form:
Verse