Best Teemed Poems
The Urban Jungle
Where trees once stood, oh so proud
Now a tower, hosts a crowd
In a place, where water flowed
Now a lawn freshly mowed
Once a cry from Tarzan heard
Now a car horn blasts a nerd!
Wildlife teemed in wood and bogs
Only now roam packs of dogs
A safe place for frog and toad
Now a highway overload
Bird song filled the air aloud
Now we have a toxic cloud
Wild cats hunted for prey in vain
Now we bathe in acid rain
NOW all wildlife in distress
In the name of OUR progress!
For weeks now the two young males had been watching,
waiting for their opportunity and now it was time.
They were now strong enough to take over the pride.
Signalling his intent to his brother Moto stood up
and started forward with Javier following behind.
As the reached the pride a battle royal ensued
The lionesses desperate to drive them off knowing
if they succeeded vast changes would occur.
Far in the distance Soto heard the roars and growls
as the take over ensued and rushed to protect them.
The fight was long and hard with some fatalities.
Soto received wounds that would take months to heal
as he was banished by the brothers, his life now as an outcast.
Luckily for him Zanidar joined him with her cubs of nearly a year old
She and they would keep him fed as he slowly healed.
Back at the pride the brothers set about their gruesome task
all the cubs were hunted down and killed without mercy.
Now the lionesses would soon be ready to mate again
and it would be their blood that the offspring would bear
perpetuating their line and increasing the size of the pride.
Life in the African Savannah was always cruel and hard
the brothers would face many challengers in their time.
Food always an issue once the migrating herds moved on.
Now a time of little the pride suffered and grew weaker.
The only saving grace was the buffalo not without their risks.
Valiant fighters who protected each other forming a ringed barrier
around the more vulnerable, ready to fight to the death.
With very young cubs the lionesses needed food to feed them
and desperation drove them on, finally they made a good kill
none would go hungry for a few days. In the distance the clouds
gathered rain falling far up country at last reaching them and
with the rain the vast herds once more returned and life teemed.
Now was a time of plenty and the pride recovered their health.
For seven years the brothers ruled supreme yet in the background
there were many waiting their own time. Two males in particular
Janto and Batso sons of Soto watched and waited eager to take over
until at last it was their time and turn to roust the pride males.
And so the never ending cycle started again until the next time.
Rivulets of rain run down my misty window pane
All day long the cats and dogs have teemed down
I really need some sunshine on my pale skin
Non-stop rain makes me feel chilled to the bone
Drip, drip, drip, crystal teardrops fall from the sky
Rivers are swollen I hope there is no more flooding
Overcoats and wellies are worn by everyone
Please can the rain stop falling
Summer sunshine you are welcome to come and visit us soon
22nd July 2015
FOR SUSANNE
I came in search of skill and I found virtue
In your climb up the stairs you were neat and clear
Making no excuse for the way he hurt you
But you cling to reality with a straight and peer-
Less eye. On lined paper you have set your mark
What could you deviate from, if not from right
And knowing you is quite enough to park
Truth on the lines, the tine your birthright.
In this dark house Jews lived and hoped and dreamed
Of a land where their strangeness was a claim
To universal justice. How in the dark they teemed
Until hope ran like melted butter on the name
They must excise. Born in a country that did them wrong
You forbid yourself the luxury of song.
(c) Rosemarie Rowley
From IN MEMORY OF HER
(2008)
An apple orchard was close to my boyhood home.
In fall, three-legged ladders walked among the trees.
They seemed tall enough to pierce heaven’s dome.
I marveled they didn’t topple in the October breeze.
Once I tried to see how high my legs might take me.
The weather-warped treads thought to creak an alarm.
At five feet up I knew I had found how brave to be—
I wasn’t keen (as Dad would say) on “buying the farm.”
The orchard teemed with vibrant, wondrous things,
Worms, beetles, bees, and creatures I’d never seen.
There were curious red ants that sprouted wings.
All of it was to my young eyes an intoxicating scene.
Apple-picking took full days for a week to complete.
And then the ladders walked away from the trees.
Each fall, I yearn to return to that time and repeat
Lessons learned about ladders, beetles, and bees.
I walked a country lane at dawn
After rain had fallen in the night.
Because my life was going wrong,
I felt the walk would ease my plight.
The countryside was coming alive
Under the rays of the rising sun.
Birds and squirrels began to arrive;
A forest chorus made the air hum.
Under my feet, above my head,
The lane teemed with pulsing vitality.
It moved me to recall what Jesus said*
About lilies and clothes and morality.
My country lane walk provided a cure
For much that was askew in my life.
It caused me to affirm all that is pure
And subdued my troubles and strife.
*Matthew 6:25-31
Wicked
Young minds
They delude innocence
Forever they act sovereign
Ameer
Childish
Their behavior
Often they clamor
Wail their emotions behemoth
Dour
Play
With gesture
Time befriend rejoice
Busied with oneirisms foretold
Pollyannaish
Cozened
Hatful alibis
Bebop their paroles
Disputes often looked battles
Liberty
Bored
By pages
Books limned cartoons
Brains mattered to creations
Jejune
Love
Yet teemed
Maneuvered by care
Parents seek for smile
Charismatic
------------x----------------
The sparsity of congregants
reminds me of the absence
of jestful boys schooled
in the faux arts
of throwing hymnbooks
across the nave.
The smelters ran two shifts,
fed us beattitudes
of paid mortgages
and Sunday roast beef
as the school teemed every year
with five-year-olds.
Sidewalks buckle
atop the roots of oak canopies,
as the breath of traffic
grows sparer;
the psalms of our minister grow fainter.
In the tart air of early Spring
those sly boys
would cup a book in a palm
and pretend to launch it,
to the mortification of their mothers.
I have been a sieve bucket
Of shiny plastic parts,
Containing reasonable sands of logic, time and place-
Drastically mixed with the fluidity of natural human race,
And oddly and inconveniently, a subspace
For an awkwardly large heart.
Why has its energy, connective and warm,
Imploded my zone of comfort?
Its vibrations teemed my walls, exploited my woes
Which till now have composed me quite conveniently
In perfect shell form?
I have molded realities into peaks and castles,
Beautiful for a brief moment as life’s own art,
Yet crumbling too soon into shackles-
The sand’s plans (though well intentioned)
Never seem to properly span across
This aforementioned large heart?
I have ignored its pulsing cries of recognition,
Smashed its value to the depths of nothingness
To breach partitions of Universal fate’s recipe
For flow and season in forced perfection;
Yet muddied and worn, wretched and torn,
It still giggles and glows-
Defying all logical reason.
In anguish I have begged, dear heart, for disintegration!
Why do you lay idle in seeming nonchalance?
Why have you not flooded these holes of my soul
And flowed out to which creation compels me?
Will Love and light ever overflow my muddy plastic half?
I smugly wait and listen in demand of a response!
A few beats, a laugh.
You shine upon me for a quiet moment, wretchedly glistening.
Have I dared to set aside my fear and gain the courage to finally listen?
The message you have needed to convey
Resonates to me quietly,
In recognition of my soul’s ambition:
“Why don’t you merely give me away?”
A simple response, I answer in action (in giving to you, my true):
For I begin building my fate only from today;
Creating with purpose and satisfaction,
Eternally anew.
As ashen clouds caress an azure sky
I walk beside this stagnate lime green pond,
and think about this path in days gone by;
the sapphire pond of which I was so fond.
So full of promise as it teemed with life;
the snow white swans that glided ‘cross her face,
and full of ocher lilies it was rife;
fond memories that time cannot erase.
But now the carelessness of all mankind
has taken toll upon this gift of God;
diminished dreams now only things you find
remaining here upon this weathered sod.
And now I walk this path with misty eye
as ashen clouds caress an azure sky.
May 16, 2019
Back in 1950 things were very different
the plains of Africa teemed with life
vast herds of elephants some 80 years or more
once a hunters paradise no thought to the future
This land was raped by people time and again
harsh years of drought cause great suffering
as the temperatures soar up in the 120's
land barren and dying parched for rain
These days we are far more enlightened
now shooting mainly done with camera
but still the damage is done numbers depleted
few elephants of even 40 years to led the herds
Now we are aware and try to conserve
their plight well known now through media
maybe in years to come the 80-90 year olds
will freely roam the African savannah again
Sadly due to man crowding the plains
we never again will see the vast herds
they say an elephant never ever forgets
what a wealth of knowledge they have
Each week now we hear news of births
of some of the rarest animals on earth
working together in conservation
we can live side by side in harmony
This twilight of all nights
Wants to hold her tight
In a grip of pain
That knows no rights!
In a virgin best
That will not let her have rest
As the heavens teemed star
Always flees so far!
As all the Lands abide
And all the peoples beside
In another portion of town
That straggles up and down!
She lingers on the pebble shore
Sends faints kisses to the sea
With wind whipping the hair of bliss
That’s sparkles with ecstasy!
Winged words on souls that pierce
Into height of loves rare universe
Birds on myrtle-bushes
With leaves in the reeds and rushes!
The love of the woods and waves
In the brink of the dewy caves
With silent I love you
In the morning dew!
Brooke
a
sad
portrait
of neglect;
arresting garden
lovers manicured teemed with life,
lulled bees, butterflies; when their love withered on the vine,
it's beauty diminished by overgrown weeds; this abandoned garden: what might've been.
Writing Challenge - D words - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Constance La France
Word Choice: Derelict
Syllables checked at HMS
Date written: 02/08/2023
exodus' plague had forewarned
dire straits if the first was scorned
and first was the crimson tide
nine more as pharoah defied
some millennia since passed
we come to know how it's caused
on bondi's beach there was red
algae teemed. massively spread
sea sparkle speaks Moses' tongue
mend ways or by plagues be stung
~25 Jul 2016~
Australia's Bondi Beach saw the Sea turning red on 27 Nov 2012. Popularly referred to as Crimson Tide it is also called Sea Sparkle or Nocturnal Scintillans, this phenomenon is observed from time to time in various parts of the world and is attributed to a sudden rise in the red algae population due to rising temperatures in sea water and other favourable conditions.
Form: Jueju with 7 syllables per line checked via www.howmanysyllables.com
The undertaker prepped him voguishly
Like there was a party six feet below
The earth where anosmic maggots
Were tamed by steep fragrance
He is dead, he is dead
Of what use is a tinseling treasure
To the naively rich sands?
The gold plated casket glitters
In the mourner's eyes
How classy is death in its house?
A gang of aggrieved groupies
Hallowed to a one time
Shylock-baron unleashes its ruckuses
At the swanky funeral
They teemed tiny shell
At the casket and in a tick
The casket transmuted into
A gold plated basket
He is dead, he is dead
The bullets ran its errands
Through and through
But death was poker faced
The deceased wife face streamed
Down tears...The triumphant groupies
Prod the remains for mockery
Until wee in the day
When the police came for a sweep
The shylock-baron was in a feast-
Romance with the houseflies...
Until the groupies dispersed
He is dead, he is dead
He who dies once is lucky
But he who dies again has lost his soul
And would be damned
What was his crime?
That he was having
More than he needs.