Best Thronging Poems
A field afire
papery petals glow like ruby votive candles
a collection of cupped solar flames
vowed to shine despite the dew before dawn
evaporating any doubt the sun would rise
the mist would lift
consoling one in darkness
Rising up where wildflowers past have fallen
victim to soil fallow and shallow
your Spring growth resurrects my hope
as your resurgent blooms stretch to the heavens
I awaken thawed from the frost of loss
regenerated by dreams
of undying love sacrifice and joy
O poppy blood red
vast your bed a symbol of life and death
and imagination.. you inspire me with your irony
your roots belie a feathery foliage
anchored though airy
light and looking like you might take flight
but spirited blossoms stand an army of angels
earthbound and blushing
My breath stops when I gaze upon you — yet
when I walk among your thronging whorls
grazed by your grace
my chest rises and falls
my bloodstream set ablaze
by the grandeur of your inner light
my heart rejoices with the voices of breezes
aswirl with a swish through your scarlet banners of peace
We share a savor for new-day chardonnay skies
tender the warm tinge before summer’s singe
rhythmic air moves us with singsong sighs
a swaying dance of sepaled celebrants
with nary a fresh bud trod upon
crimson and sunrise spirit and flesh
raising palms and psalms in thanks and praise
festive in rebirth and remembrance
where tears fall not as rain but as
c o n f e t t i
as my heart carries the bouquet of your immortal beauty
like a bride on her May wedding day
Susan Ashley
March 11, 2022
*Dedicated to my father who gently passed on June 10, 2021.
You are loved and missed dearly, dad
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: Spring Showers or Spring Flowers
Sponsor: Regina McIntosh
*nary: not, or not any
(Image: Glow with pride: Express.co.uk)
O April
how I’ve longed for your return
to breathe new life
into this gnarled body..
for these roots to be unfettered
from the grasping earthen frost -
the past season of fanged nor’easters gnashed
me bare - leaving me mauled and dulled
alone with stiffened limbs
lifted to face
the hard glower of old man winter
with not a morsel of mercy to be gained
but April
now that you're here to share
the innocence of the daisy
and the honeyed scent of the sweet pea
I feel inspirited like a sapling young and tender again;
mild is the fog’s embrace in early morn
as I taste your sweetened rainwater
and gentle is the rhythm of baptizing
showers bathing dark days away..
and ever grateful is my grayed heart
as it begins to beat
with the fresh pulse of verdant rebirth
oh April
how easily you inspire
my shy imagination to fly
with the zephyr's muse
to expand my artistry
in an afternoon’s brushstroke of forsythia light
dreams once frozen now thawed and golden
eager to flourish in bloom
awakening the poetry
in a new leaf’s unfurling whisper -
a whisper that grows a praising wind-psalm
as choirs of bursting buds
celebrate revival
with a rustling alleluia!
star-shaped sails rouse in swishing sounds
their leafy lyrical breath one with the breeze
my green-laden boughs now a wellspring
of exuberant born-again voices
a thronging rejoice lifted
to the heavens on the whisk of the westerlies;
supple is my sweep and sway ‘neath
the soft-bellied skies of Spring
dear lady, April
how I revel in the glorious abundance of your Nature;
your nurture enlivens my humble woody being
and though gray may shade my weather-beaten heart..
evergreen is my soul
Susan Ashley
April 12, 2021
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: April
Sponsor: Regina McIntosh
Solitude all around. 'In there' I am lost; midst a thronging everywhere'
Though I have never walked, a planet cold; a lonliness to me has talked,
As a sea of silence surges, await I the breaking dawn of love & gentle urges,
Imagining that they could come, outside of this indifferent lot; that is my sum.'
Dim the light, and worn the day; I exist despite.. Evil times & trecherous ways,
If only 'one' could break the doom, forbid the hold of this living tomb,
But no.. No one I even guess.' Would warm me with true & safe caress's
I've fallen down to lay alone, my future colder than a frozen stone.'
Botched Artwork Saves Town
Sometime last year, in late August 2015, something unusual went viral..
It was an ancient picture on the wall, vastly unlike its original art..
A piece of botched artwork, unfinished, and yet all over the world it enthralled..
People, the tourist kind, they made a quick bee line, to see for themselves..
Ecce Homo, a seemingly priceless ancient painting in a church , upon one of its wall..
Time has ravaged its brilliant colours , and its paintwork well flaked off the wall..
One artistic old lady of 83, she took it upon herself to try restore its beauty..
Painstakingly she laboured upon days on end, as expertly as she can..
She meant well, it hurts her artistic soul to see the priceless artwork fade..
She tried her best, but the colours, they ran and it was a difficult task..
She had to go away for a short while, she left behind a half restored art...
Someone in church, horrified no doubt, took a picture of it as a matter of fact..
The uploaded picture in the internet, it was shared and quickly it went viral..
Many found it amusing, there was so much scorn, it was soundly ridiculed..
The Ecce *****fresno, or Behold The Man, it now looks like a monkey or a porcupine…
A picture of a mournful Jesus is no more, in its place is an artwork that is one of its kind…
Poor Cecilia, a widow and amateur painter, she never had a chance to finish her effort..
Her failed restoration effort rocketed around the globe and then a miracle of sorts..
People started thronging to this church in Borja, Spain, it was a pilgrimage of some kind...
After the viral picture on the internet, people just had to see and view this new find…..
Now that 150,000 visitors have come and gone, Borja is a town rejuvenated and restored..
In this village of medieval palaces and winding lanes, this botched artwork has the town resurrected…
All the free publicity from a botched artpiece, it has been a breath of life to the local economy..
God works in mysterious ways, it explains the good fortunes that follows from the smudgy renderings..
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/world/a-town-if-not-a-painting-is-restored.html?_r=0
Like a nest on a little church
indented in the rocks.
The sky is low.
The twitch
of the air flower-beds –
the passing angels.
And voices like gushing
streams; rivers before the sea.
The day is silent.
The body is growing up –
some birds are thronging.
To wander lonely as a cloud
And drift along within a breeze,
Up away from thronging crowds
To pick my course, as I please.
Oh the freedom midst the blue
Far removed from earthly ties,
Who then could resist it too,
The allure of cobalt skies.
In somnolent and silent vein
An errant bird for company,
In such a mood I could remain,
Were it but my destiny.
Entry for
Famous poetic lines that inspire Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Silent One
1/2/2020
Inspired by the line 'I wandered lonely as a cloud'
By William Wordsworth. Placed 2nd.
Lamb
delightful, joyful
loving, giving, caring
Master, Savior, demon, human
ranting, raving, thronging
sedition, affliction
goat
=======
In Honor of Dane Ann
And contest
She’s still; an interlude in solitude.
Twilight mournful, his voice ghostly distant,
introspection.., meditation imbued,
she sits alone, bitter-sweet existent.
Lamentations she weeps in glissando.
Cacophony! Consciously in discord,
love reminisce, arpeggio tempo,
she sits alone, remembrance, two-edged sword.
Bethought bliss, wedded they waltzed plucking notes,
of musical blues and exotic spiced scents…
their life of love evocative emotes,
she sits alone mingling blessings - repents.
Chrystal-tone melodies, bass-tone longing,
Moonlight Sonata melancholy eyes..
pain and pleasure, her reverie thronging,
she sits alone, his ghostly voice in guise.
Susan Ashley
August 5, 2017
~ Second Place ~
Contest: Best Rhyming Poem July-September 2017
Sponsor: John Hamilton
~ Third Place ~
Contest: She Sits Alone
Sponsor: Eve Roper
Lost in the wilderness
For so many years
Suffering the loneliness
With no one to dry his tears.
His sanity depending
Upon his beautiful memories
Climbing mountains never ending
Alone with the valley's streams and tree's.
He is escaping life's pressures
The pain that haunts his mind
Taking drastic measures
Himself he has to find .
Sleeping outdoors under the sky above
Feeding from the land
He remembers his true love
and the life that they had planned.
By campfire he's smiling
Feeling so serene
Her beauty so beguiling
Tonight of her he'll dream.
Butterflies ascending
In his heart he knows
Forever love he's defending
and it follows wherever he goes.
He gathers his belongings
Packing them in his canoe
The sound of rapids thronging
He knows what he must do.
He'll hug her eagerly
No more will he roam
Then kiss her tenderly
As she whispers ''welcome home''
Any poem#16 contest
Sponsor Poet destroyer A
ALONG THE ROAD OF LIFE I CARRY WITH ME MEMORIES
Recollected childhood trips seem an intensely hot affair.
We took a bus, tight-filled with sweaty people’s feet
For hours; but then at the end, there was air.
And gone were the constriction and glaring heat -
In the tranquil cool shade of the springtime wood.
There were spreading red campions and more -
In places where a little sun shimmered and could
Make yellow pools on the woodland floor.
And everywhere the fairy bluebells all
Nodding in crowds blue and thronging.
In life I carry with me and oft recall
That day, the happiness, the feeling of belonging.
I picked armfuls hoping to preserve their beauty till later,
Wrapping them in wet cloth in a water-pail
To survive the torrid heat of the bus-incinerator,
Unaware that their happy lives I would thus curtail.
An intensely-lived child-experience does not diminish,
But telescopes into a longer event, perhaps with fairies,
Sometimes without any definite finish.
Tiny spaces can morph into prairies.
Maybe the bluebells were just there in some garden to find ,
But I did see them somewhere, and I really made the trip,
I really smelled them. They were not just a dream in my mind :
And for years after, I wanted to relive their friendship.
But trying to recapture childhood memory
Is like trying to preserve beauty a-flowering
By picking it for a collection in a repository.
Its beauty is gone with the garnering.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written for Paula Swanson's Contest "I Carry With Me"
I know a world of sadness in your grace
because in thee, I cannot trace
my own world's longing to embrace
some crudeness wronging, some deface.
Cantingly, subjects stronging with replace
of aptitude, and songing - happier days
that built hope's erstwhile thronging, not encased
with worries staid belonging's commonplace.
Oh love, beloved will - seek thought, not maze
from crippling entities programmed abrade.
That gift of life, of God, not lean-to craze
of modern tempo's struggling with self praise!
His gift of love, I know, with thee .. He made!
NEUTRAL COLOURS
Special species in speeches,
Thronging the long lawn.
Chameleon:echelon of neutrality.
Pavillion:bullion of activities.
Springtime:symbol of productivities.
Humans abound around,
The globe for abode.
Different but not,
Inference for lot.
Global creed of love,
Total rid of war.
Loot the line-cross,
Pool the fire-molt.
ADEOLA YUSUF AMUNI
I alight from my ebony ford
Porched beneath the shady mammoth tree
One hand holding mommy
The other some grocery
As she leads me through
The mini pansy garden
Up the the rickety wooden planks
To our home in mid air
Small but sturdy as ever
On my goliath banyan tree
A small kitchenette for mommy and me
A barbie cushioned boudoir
Rested upon by welcome week-end guests
Evenings spent with bunnies at play
Love rocketing in the rustic air
Bedtime in quilts as the winds whistled
Through flying curtains and vanishing windows
Listening to tales with wide opened eyes
From the storage of books dad left behind
Peeping at the stars swirling in the summer breeze
Half drowsy eyes amidst echoing words
Throwing ladders into the clear dark sky
Effortlessly ascending as Jack on the beanstalk
Holding net on my herculean shoulders
Cautiously stealing into the gates of heaven
Thronging with some sleepy old gods
Abducting dad with quickened speed
Manufactured locks to hold him in custody
In our tree-house hideaway
That he built for mommy and me
THIRD
Balveen Cheema
September 15, 2015
Contest: A Child's First Home
Sponsor: Verlena S. Walker
*40 years down the line our tree house has been weather-beaten and destroyed.
The Ford of pre-independence is in the Ford Museum, Mumbai
THE BLIND BEGGAR
The blind man stood there begging as he had done before,
But something then was different with the coming of the Lord.
He’d heard about this person who healed the sick and lame,
And he was very certain He could do it again.
And so he cried for mercy; the crowd said, “Hold your peace,”
But he cried that much longer, he longed to be released.
Then Jesus stopped a moment and told the thronging crowd
To bring that poor, lost beggar who had cried very loud.
“What can I do for you, sir?” He asked so lovingly.
“Oh, Jesus, Son of David, I’d really like to see.”
Then Jesus reached to touch him and made his body whole.
“Your faith today is honored, and I have saved your soul.”
I once was like that blind man so burdened with my sin
Until I came to Jesus and asked Him to come in.
He took the blindness from me and I saw all things anew,
Yet what He did for me, friend, I know He’ll do for you.
He’ll take away your blindness brought on by all your sin
And take you home to heaven if you will let Him in.
I have come to the tree green with leaves
Amidst the brash blustering of winter and thawing
The prophet once the old green decieves
But he did not hear else but cold crow cawing
I am come to thronging of the voice
And the memory of years in shadows decayed
For there was no sunlight to rejoice
The heart, nothing bright for what we prayed
But there perched on a lectern like limb
On this gray day you find another voice to sing
The voice I thought I was dead, since dim
Light found you no where on your sovereign and sweet wing
Hark how it sings from Abraham to King
Hark the passion pelting the prodigal of faith
And our weariness melting, we cling
To each word, loving the song and knowing its late.
O but sweet today, and not sweeter
Before, this is the sweetest song you ever sang
Nothing in it for our hereafter
Just the reminder that dawn can still come fire-strong
As we love our leaders to be. Wet
My hope again with dew and set my love to bloom
And for this song I too shall forget
The coming sunset everywhere, the harping doom.