Best Transience Poems
Light
Drizzles
From the stars
On mascara clouds
Of night, blown by a sudden wind:
From the city's pavement the skies cosmetic drowns in light
From the heart's cradle another Icarus long for flight
And cannot shed the weight of dreams
In the porous light
Leaking time
Leaking
Life
Night
Brings back
Love's cadence
Moonscape memories
Flocking upon the soul's hunger
I am eaten by dreams from the web of carnal desires
Will you again hold my hand and make your breast beat like waves
In the conch shell lip of my ear
This milk is curdled
Now on time
I weep
Still
Gone
Then hopes
Where dreams dare
Remain like feathers
From a broken wing. Life like ice
In tropic seas forever melts ... the only truth is space
OCTOBER TRANSIENCE
Bipolar month again unsettled ever changing
Summer’s mellow imitation defies winter’s grasp
Days of transient golden treasure to be cherished
Light and dark competing now in passing equipoise
Summer’s mellow imitation defies winter’s grasp
Sun now heads for southern apogee on Capricorn
Light and dark competing now in passing equipoise
Time’s echoed cycle of the seasons shall continue
Sun now heads for southern apogee on Capricorn
Days of transient golden treasure to be cherished
Time’s echoed cycle of the seasons shall continue
Bipolar month again unsettled ever changing
16 October 2019
Poet's October Pantoum Cash Prize Poetry Contest
Sponsor: William Kekaula
'wind is pounding in my heart'
It tears across the steppes and plain, it guides my mind and eases pain
Whithin the yurt, upon the road, it whets my mind; eases the loads
I've rode it's Breast ten thousand times,' with banner high the yak tails nine
Its of my blood, throughout my race, we hold it near'in flood; or trace
It's face is clear,, it's embrace strong, we sing it's praise riding along
The clatter of the ponys hooves, not loved by those who dwell neath rooves.!
The pallid sallow, wall surrounded.. And when we start they'll be astounded..'
We ride hard two days and nights, to charge and wheel; and ever strike.'
To clear a space, where yurts can be; then to move in travel free
To wake to different scenes around, to venture quickly into feotid towns
To take a bargain, to strike a deal; to return to the fire, and let sleep steal
And in this act, renew our mettle, to grasp each chance with finest fettle.
'For the contest of Constance Lafrance'
'Be inspired by your muse'
Written 17 8 2022
What is my conception of love?
Now that I let me straw hat rest
On the rocks of Moses’ teachings
Now that I behold robins pick my seeds
What is my conception of love?
Love is an old cotton Djellaba
I wear early sometime in December
When Goethe’s muse rambles alone
The deserted Georgian streets of Borjomi
Eliza found a perennial Canadian love
Probably in the wings of a broken dove
She tends to it by late May rosewater
Sadly, she shuns the idea of a second abandonment
You know that I know that nothing remains the same
Not even my grandmother’s sesame candies
Let me just sip alone those cups of rusty mirage
My brown Turkish beret shall rest alone
On the broken trim of a shaded window
Overlooking a battered copy of Truth and Method
p u l s e s
diastolic
systolic
tides
e l a s t i c
edge of ebb where water and salt and memories mix
steals the space between my inhale and exhale
plovers chasing stretchy waves
tight-fisted oysters hoarding pearls
winds blowing our laughter this way that way
two kites flirtin’ and floatin’ in a sea of clouds
tin foil tongues with spindrift speech
breathes sea songs upon the shore's breast
sea-fingers strum beach skin glistening
sea-drums thrum seashell ears listening
yet I wince as hungry riptides swallow
my pebbles from the shore
nothing long-lost leaves nothing longed for
I yearn for riptides to swallow my sorrow
instead of small joys and unadorned dreams
swallow me in ragged state instead of smooth but
famished riptides can’t swallow my jagged stone whole
cyan dancers grow untamed and white maned
their crimes their confessions
s w a s h across expanse of dry seabed surging
I recall our cupid kites tUmBLinG in growing flow
wet sands a mirror for west-sky-fire reflections
an ancient temple of quartz-grit-sages sift waves
confessors with silence-filled voices
just beyond and amid the t h r o b s of tides
I recline with my cherry tree musings…
a fount of blossoms rise
and curve up from the ground
up into a heaven-and-cloud scene
to spread in splendor a festoon of blooms
like cumulus-puffs plucked from above
placed in tufts to fluff graceful branches
plush with clusters the pink of an ingenue’s
blush captured within her maiden buds
before she even knew how to bloom
born of Nature’s wealth
she is rich with frilly flourish
steeped in scent of morning dew —mist and moss
heaped with pollen-gold pursed within
petal-pouches 'til unfurled like hooped petticoats
each bloom thriving with a thrill yet only for the span
of a brief fantasy conjured by the cosmos
she wears the fuchsia mantle of a romance regent
a spring queen amongst peasant green
but her reign not designed to last beyond
the swoon of April's rouged moon
..and I the lowly grateful grass beneath her class
am charmed and soothed
by the aestheticism of her coral confetti rain
as her flowers relinquish control
reaching into their shared soul
realizing it’s time to let go… falling
oh f a l l i n g from heights of her feminine fame—
a shower of rosy carnival streamers
—the curtain call of a nirvana-drama-diva
..and I the lowly grateful grass beneath her shade
am humbled by the melancholy of her fading beauty
but cheered to wear her eye catching mantle
and bear her vanilla scented love letters to the earth
transforming me
from the peasantry of chlorophyll unfulfilled
transforming me
from the mundane to the ordained
for in this moment as you gaze upon me
these staid blades of gravestone grass —even I
am e n c h a n t i n g as the last petal falls
What lives deep within?
Which thoughts, what vitality?
For from these must we emerge,
As there is little without
Except the baleful wind
Whining across bleached dunes.
Death is a void of expression
Stark, barren, arid.
Mere rocks scoured by flash flood
Twisted and gnarled;
Gravestones of salt extrusion
From emergent times.
What life there is in Death Valley
Lives underground and waits
For night or brief rain;
But then it must express
Whatever it is, for death
Is to fail to come forth.
There are two deaths
In Death Valley:
The first is not to emerge
When that moment comes,
The second is that there is
Nothing to emerge.
Another old friend has passed on,
May he rest whereever he's gone.
Once you're a year above eighty
thoughts of life's transience are weighty.
but here were good times to think upon.
Old friends, I'll see you anon.
For billions of years
I did not exist.
Then I existed
for a little while.
Soon I will return
to not existing
for the rest of time.
I can recall a summer day,
transient as a butterfly.
Fields full of poppies,
hazy with heat,
and pollen on the breeze.
Somewhere there is a memory
fragile and bright
that like a butterfly
captures a lifetime
in one perfect day.
And in the grass
the hoar frost
melts in winter sun.
Icy droplets drip
into frozen streams.
The world is bathed
in rosy light;
a fleeting fire
as the sun goes down
on another perfect day
(Dedication: For my niece, Joan Chong)
--------------------------------------------
Pleasant feelings surge in pretty ideas;
Obscure panache seeps in artwork design;
Sensuous driven purge of mind forms fit here;
Touch of purpose deep as artifacts mime.
Choice of abstract art in fluid emotion;
Align round sure text with sublime hinting;
Rough edges now start to merge with passion;
Drawings that hurl next feel after filling.
Display moments sharp when movement collides;
Etchings in grey scale that allude bold spills;
Such pregnant art harps upon thoughts that stride;
Indulgence tells tales in magic that thrills.
Gifts of transcendence in mortal careers;
Now change sparks cadence in outcomes right here.
Leon Enriquez
08 May 2014
Singapore
(Note: This poem is an Acrostic Sonnet.)
Transience
I woke up one day,
From deep, sweet slumber,
A long day's stay,
The oblivion of slumber...
My world was beautiful,
Tall trees, green leaves,
Never would I grieve,
My world was beautiful..
The flowers bloomed,
In the youthful spring,
Young brids took wing,
Over my head, they loomed.
Soon, it all disappeared,
Into the thin, unseen air,
Would it ever reappear,
From the unreal air?
I sat all alone,
In a dark, dark world,
The beauty, all had gone,
From my beautiful world..
I sobbed, I cried,
For the world I once knew;
But as each day died,
I knew I'd be gone too..
Mom writes polemics, when a cause grasps her heart
She's a good soul and wants to do her part
A journal took one, so she emailed it to friends
Then found that old age had brought many to their ends
Sometimes children answer back, or maybe a weary wife
They thank her kindly, talk about the hollow in their life
Sometimes they are left to cope alone
But there's always a rest for a rolling stone.
I viewed the emails she’s getting back
This one succumbed to a heart attack
This one had a blood disease, slow but sure
This one slipped on his driveway, could not endure
Her article makes waves, then just ripples in a lake
Tomorrow's news cycle and forgetfulness take
Does she make a difference in the trend flow?
The fish against the current who knew where to go.
I push Mom in a wheelchair, up a path in a park
We sit at the summit, and I rest on tree bark
There's a half-life to friends, it's hard to make more
As your boat approaches the terminal shore.
On her birthday we walked, I watched a hawk soar
Her cell phone rang, a shock was in store
It was the son of friend, a lady healthy and strong
She died that morning, it felt so wrong
She remembers when Dad died, its etched in her brain
He couldn't get words out, and we couldn't explain
The years spiral downward, and life's ripples fade
And yet for a time, a difference was made.
after "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down today.
Nothing gold can stay.
after poem: A Pulse Is Bound To Wane
A pulse is bound to wane,
red rhythm vibes in vein.
A stream-bed’s liquid power
still stirs when mood turns dour.
But beats do follow beats,
like cleats on city streets,
‘til red sun siphons west
throb beneath my breast.
In the quiet of early morning,
a dewdrop clings to the edge of a leaf,
a fragile globe reflecting the first light.
It trembles, a breath away from falling,
a brief testament to the night's embrace.
So too, our joys, gathered like rain
in the cups of our hands,
slipping through fingers no matter how tightly closed.
The laughter of children fades into silence,
the warmth of a sunbeam dissolves into shadow,
and words spoken in tenderness
are carried off by the wind.
Yet, in this transience, there's a beauty,
a sharpening of senses to the grace of the ephemeral.
For in the knowing that all is fleeting,
we learn to cherish the moments,
to hold them close,
even as we let them go.
Like the dewdrop at dawn,
glistening and gone.