Best Traipsing Poems
I closed my eyes to the pain
and all I saw was beauty
your beauty
caressing the blues away
I gathered ice for the swelling
but certain swelling
I didn't want to go away
there were pills
penetrating from your pupils
staring directly into my sky
now a blushing hue
of scarlet
traipsing the plateaus
of your soul
it was more than mere love
or admiration
intimacy held the door
as other gentlemen sauntered away
I stayed, piercing my friendship
to your bosoms
suckling the nipple
of your beatitudes
laying down in the wisdom
written upon your skin
it was no sin to love you
and it never will
I will bide my time
just on the other side of the darkness
and in the morning
I'll be waking
in the sparkling aura
that is you
A time of change awaits you, friend.
It crouches on your track.
It peeps its head round yonder bend
and knows you can’t go back.
And being time, itself it bides,
(albeit a time of change).
You cannot know how well it hides
and still be in your range!
Your path might be a jolly jaunt
when suddenly appears
that deviation there to daunt
you in the coming years.
A monster ever stalking you. . .
then one day it may pale,
and thankfully you start anew
upon another trail.
Or maybe you’ve gone traipsing down
a road of misery,
and wishing only you could drown,
you stand beside a sea.
But look! What beckons you away?
A time of change, (no beast)
has handed you a bright new day
and hopelessness has ceased!
for Giorgio's Impress Me IV Contest
Motif: Philosophical
Like Harry Potter, the sorting hat (my mom)
has placed me in a bloody, crimson colored school.
It’s disorienting, as I go about, the logos are wack.
Poor little rich girl
no beachside lovers
this interminable, scorching summer.
I’m swept up by scholastic spirit.
Can you hear it? Cause it’s deafening me,
on this cool, dry, Boston orientation day.
As we finished our morning 8k jog,
the sunrise blossomed, painting hot lava clouds
with hues of yellow, orange and pink.
We’re traipsing unfamiliar paths,
It’s not what we’re used to, the roads are uneven
and the architecture’s all boxy and wrong.
.
.
Songs for this:
New Toy by Lene Lovich
Better After All by Jonatha Brooke
Now At Last by Feist
The wait seemed eternal to feel inspiration.
Minutes were mountains as each one ticked by,
my hand poised grasping a pen, and then
seated without hitting one stroke on a key.
A closed mind submits nothing, zero and zilch
in a life that's been deeply anchored
in the annals of an abyss shrouded by opacity.
Somewhere between midnight's noirs
and the misty grey flow of morning fog,
I'd fallen into a cavern, deprived of light.
I'd built a bulwark fortress that fenced me in
and the key to my cell... held in my own hand.
I brandished a pen that became a sharpened sword
that hacked and sliced at my every written word.
My dreams were gone, along with life's sensation.
No wonder I could not find a cause for inspiration.
A poet who doesn't write is of no use, none at all.
I stood at the edge of a cliff ~ should I jump or fall?
Sounds of laughter caught the attention of my ears
and through eyes blurred by tears,
I saw children running along the water's edge.
Hesitant, I decided to watch them from upon the ledge.
I sat atop the cliff with legs overhanging that day,
wishing I was a child of ten again to join in their play.
"Well, poet," spoke my muse. "Are you a withered bloom?"
A scolding for thinking of naught but notions of doom
A flurry of fussing she threw at me, hassling like a Harpy.
Exactly what I needed for living in doldrums of gloom.
"Now, see what you've done," she was decidedly terse!
"Your burden is that you always begin in free verse
but always end up writing lines ending in rhyme.
You continually do that. Time after time."
My laughter was louder than the children at play
who stopped traipsing in the surf to look up my way.
A wave of my hand and down to the beach I ran.
Inspiration filling me like waves crashing upon the sand.
As the sun awakens the forest,
I ascend the faded trail.
A doe and her fawn spring,
startled by the stranger,
traipsing through their paradise.
These overlooked alpine slopes
soak in tranquility,
and newly conceived sunshine.
Enchanted and purified I drink
from untouched springs of refreshment.
Give the valleys to the cities.
Grant the plains to the farmers.
Leave the mountains to her unsettled visitors.
Where civilization grows,
ugliness breeds in desperate streets.
Pollution collects beside her gutters.
Man turns on himself in greed.
In the places people gather,
desecration and hatred are common,
and he is cut off from himself.
His cities are bastions of confusion,
concrete coffins awaiting the fill.
Save me from our urban abominations.
I'm Just Getting Started
I'm just getting started, though I'm not in control,
But I am all dressed and indubitably, very well-composed,
virtuously loved by many, with honored adulation exposed,
so I lie and wait, but ready to go, anew, in my dapper clothes.
A broken watch on a floor, as time ticks onwards as before,
A kiss that's giving--believing, a kiss that's receiving--deceiving,
The moon coasts to attuned hearts that are squabbling on a lane,
Stars twinkle to sparkled wishes pouring from tear ducts of the hopeless,
Night waves surge, tickling the traipsing shoeless of the fully-clothed.
Baby falls to ahhs!--cries--carried, cuddled to coos,
Then wide-eyed to wonders of weird faces of two adult fools,
A writer's measure can be the length of a Tolstoy novel or the brevity of a Haiku,
Mata Hari can read her victims like a book, while Cassanova can undress pages with his looks,
The blessed and the bliss read scriptures from this,
While Cain to the cursed cast spells and do their worst,
From the sublime to the lowly, to the noteworthy and the ordinary,
From Titanic's affluent first-class to her destitute in steerage,
One day we will stand equals, titless bearing none other,
The Book Of Life is read, there stands, once a king next to a pauper.
2019 September 13
*5th Place*
I'm just getting started
~~John Hamilton
Blithe fools traipsing through bleary hollow
Airy sprites in hovering tents shadow
Brooding sylvan fringe shrouding light with her swaying willow
Jaded beams peep through the crenelated steeple's window
Sprouting thickets bristling with spiny tendrils each step harrow
Creepy vermin frenetically scurry under foot from burrow to
burrow
A musty dampness shivers intruders; beneath feet liken's slimy
residual doth grow
Whistling winds hauntingly whisper a doleful strain
Ominous portent overhead; hoot owls continuously bleet their eerie
refrain
Perilous pitfalls surround; ensnaring cracks, crevices unwitting lives
drain
Poisonous foliage ensconses the beaten path distilled with its
potion of pain
Jagged course nearly run; wayfarers enlightened by each
cumbersome travail
Weary itinerants seasoned on nature's, menacing plain
Pensively treading the last mile over the rough, foreboding terrain
The orchids in the Garden show,
So gorgeous, on display,
Must wonder what they’re doing there
In colorful array.
For it’s a long way off from where
They usually grow,
Where animals and insects
Are the creatures that they know.
Yet here the crowds come traipsing
To take photographs and gawk,
For orchids aren’t native to
The boroughs of New Yawk.
I’m sure they’d rather be back home
In jungle/forest setting,
But maybe they’re enjoying
The attention that they’re getting.
Gentling verses, like softly spoken dawns,
Pour out rhythms, releasing hungers,
Stirring hearts to breathe, restoring hopes,
Prayerful moments trembling,
Echoing, glistening shafts of heated praises,
Mysteries in shadows, embracing – erasing
Shades of inspiration, focusing on joys
Alive like the dancing winds, traipsing
Through autumn, leaves crisp and light – waltzing
Colors – boldest scarlet, tangerine and gold,
Laughing whispers who respond to the skies
Rich with cerulean grace, risking the lazuline lines
In attractive fogs, mists rising over the mountains
Where memories blur the past with now,
Lighting the way for passions to cry out…
Inside the wall of pines, which could tell of so much more
Than memories could hold, more laughter,
More love, more entreaties to God who knows us
Like the ordinary groanings, who release burdens
Too heavy for souls, too difficult for moments when
Blessings rain down through the tears,
Liquid prayers, alive with feelings and fears,
Enemies of perfection but best friends with relinquishment,
Fulfilling wishes, bold and pleasant as the stars
Winking at the moon, holding burdens too heavy
With inklings of fiery melodies, tender
Like the noon when bees travel from rose to lily,
Milking the nectar, fostering frames – tiny
Gospels told by those who remember the sting,
Singing through the song, revealing
Purpose in the hurt, when the tingle – the throbbing
Inspires light to fade, weakening, dying …
Insipid, gushing, rhapsodizing a night when stars hide,
Exposing the naked truth – just like the sun
Who births light and reveals every new dawn, baring
With it – a beautiful far more soothing than the moon’s,
A beautiful that abides in the new day, the new smile,
The newness of a hope, a prayer, a dream…
Releasing vanilla sighs to signal the moon
That, yes, oh yes…
It is time for rest, time to test the skies
Who are eternally blessed with God’s wondrous light!
We have a mouse in the house.
Not an average mouse
But rather a mouse with some nous
That trips traps as it goes traipsing through the house.
A mouse whose downfall I am planning
Even while I am jotting.
A foolproof trap I will find,
Before I go out of my mind.
It will be one of a kind,
That will attest to my state of mind.
And show beyond doubt that I have more nous
Than a mouse.
It will send a message to all mouse kind
That it is time to leave this city behind
In case I lose my nous
And sacrifice the house to get rid of a mouse.
What does she see in this tour path puddle?
It is her mother's longing lucid dream.
Shimmering shadows that are so subtle,
fading liberty hopes, that she has seen.
An aspiration of just what might be
openly revealed on a brick walkway.
A watery wish this lone child can see
sparking a lifelong quest for her today.
She surely has the right to liberty
even blind bigots can't deny her that.
Diverse people strive for their dignity
yet may fall prey to cruel caveat.
Traipsing timidly through these near narrows
remember rainbows can't cast dark shadows.
Sonnet 97 words 14 lines 12/22
Color pencil illustration by G. Gaul
Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA USA
pictured in the puddle. Imaginary future
image of the young girl who is looking,
appears in front of Independence Hall.
“Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair...”
~ Susan Polis Schutz
It always seems like a magical moment when Spring yields
blooms of flaxen color across verdant meadows and fields
There, on stems waving in the air on a warm gentle breeze
buttercups, ebb and flow like restless tides on rolling seas
A wildflower, petals so delicate, I can trace its fragile veins
They grow quickly, nourished by the sun and gentle rains
In profusion they flourish as the gift of Mother Nature,
inspiring pastoral artists to paint their likeness in portraiture
I remember many soft Spring days when I was just a child
traipsing lightly through them, I was charmed and beguiled
I danced with them in my hair; glorious sun-kissed flowers
and laughed when clouds drenched me with sudden showers
When I wandered, mother didn't wonder where I'd strayed
She knew she would find me in the golden buttercup glade
Petal laced, are these comely wildflowers with sweet center
welcoming bees, birds and butterflies; inviting them to enter
March 12, 2021
Flower or Flowers in Imagism Form
Sponsored by: Constance La France
Lithesome lines of rapturous rhymes and torrid truths,
Written with piteous pleas and tantalized tease;
Left to others' wits to be interpretive sleuths
Of our loves, lusts, confessional musts and envies.
Rhythm ripping or cadence caressing penned words,
Weeping a caustic choice or singing a heart's rejoice;
Gathered in silken sentiments or stampeding herds
Inkwell of traipsing thoughts etched in poetic voice.
Susan Ashley
October 16, 2017
*'The Love Letter' - Painting by Samuel Luke Fildes*
Who is Bigfoot’s Great-grand Daddy?
Whether living in a city or on the mountain side,
People from the world around astound us with their views.
He’s nine-feet tall, a hairy thing, uprightly he flees astride.
Only tracks are left behind and the mystery accrues.
They say that Big Foot does exist and for eons has survived.
A humanoid of greatest size a hairy manlike beast.
Is he really all they say, or are the stories contrived?
And if he lives, tell me, are our imaginations fleeced?
(Genesis 27 … paraphrased…)
Jacob goes to get two goats and steal his father’s blessing.
Their mom prepared a feast of goat, delicious, to Isaac’s taste.
Then, tied goatskin to Jacob’s neck and hands, realizing.
Jacob dressed in Esau’s clothes calmly goes to his father with haste.
Meanwhile, Esau, far away was hunting for venison as asked.
Traipsing around through the scrubby woods tracking.
Moving quickly with his great might to fulfill his father’s task.
A man with hair like that of a goat, his birthright was loosing.
Jacob smelled like Esau and the fields, but his voice…
Isaac questioned, so he felt Jacob’s goatskin clad hands.
Satisfied by the goatskin disguise, destiny made its choice.
Jacob received a blessing of wealth and all of his father’s lands.
When Esau returned with the venison feast, deceit was revealed.
But it was too late his birthright was gone; he was very mad.
“Give me a blessing, father please.” He begged as he kneeled.
You shall live on the fat of the earth…unyoked…his father said.
I wonder –
Is Bigfoot, like Esau, a hunter-gatherer with hands as hairy as a goat?
Does he live independently, a type of man, a scary giant beast?
Wandering upon earth, too and fro, with life barely afloat.
Brothers separated by that ancient deceit filled feast.
Is Bigfoot the hunter-gatherer living on the fat of the land?
Has he since the day of Rachael’s scam lived secluded and beastly?
Have generation upon generation descended that ancient hunting man?
Could Isaac in the Bible be Big Foot’s ancient Great-grand Daddy?
steely-eyed bunny wabbits
she smells like perfumed soaps and spray paints
i want parts of her reality in unnatural ways
steely-eyed bunny wabbits couldn't be more bold
as she is traipsing round the backstreets at a quarter to three
with a dogeared copy of catcher in the rye
just wants to be heard
just wants somebody to know how it feels
she writes it all out longhand on college ruled paper
a diary of an unkempt heart
her youthful rebel head filled with strong dreams
gonna make a difference
gonna get heard
so she stuffs all her worldly possessions
into a beat up backpack
long with bus fare and snacks
gonna find us some steely eyed bunny wabbits
and wrestle bright futures and rainy days from them
gonna get our fare share
this is why she is special to me
as she chases butterfly's in army boots
as she the navigates lovely night
(reference to: "the catcher in the rye" 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger)