Best Thorny Poems


Premium Member Cactus Kiss

White wails of weeping willows 
Winding in the blue breeze
Like lover hoping for heart’s hero
A lifeguard for the passionate sea

Failed relationships create creatures
Some salty some sour some sweet
You are the red rose with features 
A thorny tongue meant to deceive 

To appear hazel harder and tougher 
Than is your true tender blue heart
Overcompensating for past lover
Satin smile hides your cherry scars 

What tells you’re still a red romantic 
Is the light behind your emerald eyes 
The quiet way you purple panic
When bluff is called by the perfect guy

Fairytales may be only in books
And life isn’t always so grand
You are read in one look
By a man who understands 

Thorny tongue’s kiss is sweet
Despite its first green reveal
Sour and mysteriously tricky
Until you found love the real deal

Premium Member I Walked a Thorny Path Alone

I Walked A Thorny Path Alone

I walked a thorny path alone,
Bare feet eating dusty ground:
I looked back, you were gone,
Remained only hollow empty sound,
We both racing homeward bound.

That Spring morn, you were all mine,
Smiling with heart all aglow-
Blazing sun you did outshine,
Future love, would we know:
Loving food yet still refuse to dine?

Time told me this pain once before
You had shattered me that day
I wanted you , desired you, all the more
Reunited again each night we could play
Until you departed to another shore.

Now memories show me your smile
Sexy legs and red-hot lips
Soft witchery that so beguiles,
Face that launched a thousand ships
Now I look back a thousand miles!

Robert J. Lindley, 4-28-2016

Premium Member The Thorny Rose

It seemed like only yesterday
When our love first bloomed
In the breeze our hearts did sway
By passion we were consumed

But over time our love did wilt
And tears fell through the night
In my heart the thorns of guilt
Bled crimson in morning's light

But like the thorns upon a rose
That sometimes cause us pain
We must be sure that when love grows
To avoid the thorny remains

Though love is blind we often find
That we overlook each others faults
But the rose's thorns does not define
The beauty it exalts
© Joseph May  Create an image from this poem.

The Rose and Thorny Stem

My children are a beautiful rose
I am the thorny stem.

I was a young bride
with no home of my own
mistreated and forced to abide
I left my children behind....

Their fate was to be with out
always longing for our brief moments together
They always excepted me with out a doubt.

Destiny did not abandon them
it provided a firm bond between them
Now that I've come home to stay
The Lord has taken me away
In Heaven I will wait for them.

Madre mia, your mistaken
you may have seen yourself as a thorny stem
we saw you  as our own precious jem
Your fiery and vibrant soul The Lord has taken
Our unforgettable memories of you can not be taken
we will hold on to them until we reunite again.

The Thorny Rose

The thorny Rose

I will sing to you
Of raindrops
That glisten as the dew
Upon the thorny rose

Where transparent pearls
Are caught from the eyes
Of sadness and fears
Born alone
In the garden of night

In the brightness of morning
Each heartfelt drop
Full of colors and shapes
Caught in rose colored tears
Now glisten with insight and hope

For out of pain and sorrow
A clear day will follow
Born from wisdom
And the beauty shining forth
Upon The Thorny Rose

©?  Brenda V Northeast

Premium Member THORNY ROSE LIFE

Defeated with frustration and despair
There you are plunging into failure’s pit
Lamenting, “Oh, for me, no one does care…”
From life of thorns, let me exit a bit!

Friends do rebuke your distressful venture
With counsel to free your heart from gloom's pain
Saying, “Hate grips you with misadventure,”
See the roses blooming in glowing gain.”

Learn rose-thorns' lessons well, though sometimes hard;
That’s the commencement of triumphant race
Keep on trusting* God around His safeguard
Midst thorny trials to be won by grace.

Life is not a bed of roses indeed
Yet faith makes thorn-filled cross bearing succeed.

*Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

August 4, 2018
Edited on January 4, 2024
1st place, "Sonnet - Old or New" Poetry Writing Contest
Sponsored by Joseph May; judged on 1/6/2025

Thorny Lessons

Come frail dreamer, raise your lids
the midnight veils are brightening
and sunshine dwells where your confusion hid,
within the shadows that are lightening
undoing dim-day disarray.

These bruises splayed upon your pride
are only notes that you have taken from
unwelcome lessons you've endured inside
the briars and brambles that succumb
to knowledge learned because you sought.

Instructive pain is but a state
that comes upon the tired
just go with it and let it take
you to the answers you've desired
to know, to learn and own.

The bruise and prick might skew the mind
but still there lives a craving for the rose,
the stings and aches oft melt behind
when hurting purpose is exposed
as answers pinched in petaled folds.

In the Thorny Eyes

In the thorny eyes
Truthfully I stared right through
His broken glass, in thousand pieces 
I redeemed my might... for the pain he felt                Plain my night
Not a memory inside, just an empty cloud
Clinging for something more prudent  
For old times...
Is it me my heart longing for a cracking sound!
Is it me my heart pleading for the softest songs
Yes your heart has been once brutal...
Banished and forgotten...
Though to me in thorny eyes I see you, standing fatally
Comfort is what I’m here to mender you...my love
In thorny eyes, you captured my laugh
In thorny eyes you conquered my life
Hardly believed, for your old silly mistakes...
Known by your cruelty acts...

I will cover you in many colours of light
Crystallize your world in different stars  
And cross my heart, for old times...
To reverse 
In thorny eyes...I loved.END

Thorny Sap

Michael slaps his forearm as he
     thumbs through a
     book of epitaphs,
inscriptions cemented upon a
brown volume filled with tacky
sheets

holding memories under the spotlight
     like that prickly
     crown of thorns
filled with creamy sedation. He
cranks the volume on his tiny
speaker

hoping to cling to Stevie Nicks'
     familiar gravel smoothing
     with pungent aroma
reminiscent of wood-chips and
coriander, until a twitching, frenetic
squirrel

emerges with mange in his scowl.
     He darts with corduroy
     fingers through a
navy backpack filled with bandages,
alcohol and jangling pill bottles before
sighing

in the serene orange permeating beneath
     the direct label
     warning of risk.
Despite the tremors and menacing
stings, he mashes the crispy shell with a
spoon.
© John Weber  Create an image from this poem.

A Thorny Rose

Amid day, beautiful was the rose I saw.

Among the flowers, it lay into my garden stole.

And in the evening, when the night had veiled the pole,
Its beauty shone bright, ever than could the snow.

And my desire for it being as green as emerald,
My heart sought to have it in my own abode.

Alas! Did I not know of its keen thorns,
Which pierced my body's fragile organs,
And left me with scars unlike ever known

A thorny story

I share a tree with a story to tell:
We were out for a walk round Dufton Pike
when this straggly hawthorn conveyed its spell,
holding my gaze on our afternoon hike.
A closer study showed not one but two
thorns twisted, contorted in a struggle,
their limbs,  their joints entwined and tangled through
a wrestling of arms that writhe and tussle.

Or might this be some sibling rivalry
played out for decades to all those who pass
this way? A contest to show how vitally
rivals arise competing to outclass.
Best not to draw too close lest I get caught
in this thicket of thorns without support.

Sorry I can't post the photo.(/em>

Premium Member Thorny Weather

I, we, are only
a temporary arrangement
of atoms into molecules.
Why cherish or attack
such a cloud of impermanence?
You'll know you've reached the endless shore
when you sail into the sea of nothing.

Christopher M. Swan 2008

Premium Member Plant Those Thorny Bushes

I planted these thorny bushes way back in March.
    They were hard to plant, let’s make that clear.
          Their gorgeousness is sheer delight
              Their pinkness is heaven sent.
                      Such fragrant petals
                           Silent Roses
                       Among the nettles
                 Exquisite and prettily bent.
          They do survive each winter’s blight
          Perennials, they come back each year
    Beautifully displaying themselves on garden arch.

The Thorny Path Within

Some days are a gloomy trek through an unbearably heavy heart. 
Every step taken is difficult,  and every breath seems like the world is working against me. 
I had the impression that I was stranded in an endless storm, soaking in despair and looking for a way out of the merciless gloom.
The pain persisted like a never-ending storm, unwilling to calm down. It's a constant uphill battle to get rid of the pain inside.
The agony I feel is a cruel result of decisions I can't take back. Every step I made served as an echo of the roads I've traveled and the joyous and sorrowful routes I've paved.
Sleep and I have different languages tonight. It begs me to relax, but my mind is dancing to a different beat and speaking in a restless tongue. I long in this silent conversation for the absent comfort of sleep, an escape from the noise of thoughts that won't go away. 
Oh, the yearning for unity of heart, mind, and sleep as they speak the same language! 
May they communicate in the language of calm, bringing me the solace I need and leading me to a restful night's sleep.
The feeling of quiet sleep vanishes like a far-off dream, falling from my hands like sand grains. That taste has been diminished by the long nights, leaving just a yearning for it to come back.
I know the sunrise holds its own set of torment. It is a gloomy moment, and I have no strength to face the fate.

Love Is More Than a Thorny Rose

Love Is More Than A Thorny Rose

Oh! Love is like a rose,
It is gracious in every pose,
It is beautiful,
It is red,
It is blue,
But it is sad,
It is sad from head to toes,
Love is but a thorny rose,
Love is but a thorny rose…
But it is more I suppose,
The love I know,
Is better, is different,
Love to me is no hugs or kisses,
It is much different than what all you think,
It is pure attachment, through every second,
Through every eye’s blink,
True love is rare,
Only for those who dare,
Only for those who dare to care,
True love is rare,
Only for those who dare,
Only for those who dare to care...

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace