Best Treeless Poems
I waded with a cross through sea beds
bone-dry now of torrential rains
from last night's summer storm
my arms carrying the boat to treeless banks
And heard whispers , an angelic song
amen-rowing from distant shores
drowned by thunder-shouts of repentance
from a rainstorm world that could end no sooner
than tomorrow, bleeding the shore...
Our town world did not end yet,
but it could be near as the fork
from a raging gale became a drowning plate
gushing into bones, scabs of children... dead.
What force came to the Sea of Noah
after the third , fourth day ended in pain?
Today, I ask,where shall i cast my nets
when the light of calm wipes out, shuts down?
SKAT's Deep And Dark Contest
The Inuit call the Narwhal the one that points to the sky,
Because of their unique way of aiming their tusk upward;
The scientific name Narwhal means one tooth and one horn,
Narwhals are the subject of mythical tales, legend and lore.
Mottled white gray and black is their skin , so corpse-like,
Most spend the winter in Baffin Bay, northern Canada;
In heavy packs of ice, a world of giant crashing ice burgs,
A treeless white tundra that goes on forever and ever.
The Narwhal can dive down miles in the water to feed,
Sadly some die of suffocation due to the surface freezing;
They do need to take breaths through cracks in the ice,
One must wonder, why they choose this frozen location.
Narwhals summer in Hudson Bay, Greenland and Russia,
Moving through narrow channels during the spring melt;
They are threatened by overhunting by the Inuit for food and ivory,
Also from mining and drilling and from global warming.
Such amazing creatures, a fantastic animal of fifteen feet,
With this incredible long spiraled tusk, unicorn-like;
An eight foot flexible horn that bends to the left, mysteriously,
Actually a tooth that continues to grow all of their life.
All males have these tusks along with another smaller tooth,
Emerging from their upper jaw, with no apparent use;
Not anything to do with a weapon or for fishing or for eating fish,
It seems to be a beautiful male adornment for finding love.
Often they are seen rubbing tusks, this is called tusking,
It is thought to be not only part of mating but hierarchy;
Narwhals communicate by clicking, whistling and knocking,
A haunting sound the pierces the frozen silent ice world.
In past years, many were captured for scientific study,
However, they all died in captivity, it seems they need ice;
Some wild creatures are just not meant to be kept captive,
Many of God's animals are just suppose to be free in nature.
________________________
September 19, 2015
Verse
Written by Broken Wings
For the contest, Impress Me With A Narwhal Poem, sponsor, Skat
Ninth Place
Step out on a treeless plain,
Earth scoured with monsoon ruts.
It's not that we never learn,
Just not fast enough!
The hot savannah in late September
Too far back to quite remember
Born in plains surrounded by the sands
An oasis of the treeless woodlands
To be uniquely chic I always tried
Yet it never showed on my solid hide
One day hiding from cheetahs in tall grass
With my stubborn cousin, (he’s an ass)
I noticed our complete lack of camouflage
And sparked an idea fleeing their barrage
We zig-zagged an escape from jaws and paws
And set to work on my mono-color flaws
Happily braying proud a-ha’s from my pipes
I trotted around showing off new painted stripes
Blending in reeds better than a horse
Looking suave and stylish too, of course
Jealous mammals barely keep control
When I strut my stuff at the watering hole
Drooling and licking lips in envy
Carnivores can’t keep their eyes off me
So to boring old coats, hasta la vista
Now I’m a savvy equine fashionista
Savannah’s newly striped and charming Libra
Hey lion’s and hyena’s, you can call me Zebra
*Wink*
*Sassy mane toss*
…..*RUUUN!
[SIZE=5][B]Reaping Whatever Dark Gods Decreed[/B][/SIZE]
Did we dare too much thus reap the bitter wind?
Dark, greedy days creep by, our lives grown far apart
Is this how such treasured and deep love dares to end?
Like cast away trash in a street beggar's cart?
Did we fail, reaping whatever dark Gods decreed?
Penny a ton, garbage flowing into a dump?
Nay my love! We both found our lost, bitter seed.
Fallen from a well-worn, broken treeless stump!
Why did we abandon the blazing heat of our lust?
Step into dark regions to satisfy morbid dreams.
We are thus decayed, our metal eaten with rust.
Joined Fates, destined to be on separate teams!
Yet my love, all you had to do was believe in me.
We both sharing truth from the same golden tree.
R.J. Lindley
Sept 16th, 1976
Old Note-- Life carries on, I find solace in wild woods,
whiskey and memories....( Sept 16th, 1976 )
New Note-- Hope and Fate have conspired to let me live to see
that youthful woes, follies and exciting life sought are the makings of sadness
that teach one must no stray too far from the LIGHT! ( 6-07-2016 ).
Fire at the edge of the world.
Eyes deep within the shoreless forest sea,
Witnesses of most ancient ways
Watch smoke rising from the approaching front
Of treeless, naked land
Stripped bare by blind ambition,
Quietly await the end.
Five thousand acres a day
The last great garden drifts into the skies
To join the circling storms that once nourished it.
The fires lick and crawl their way
Into its green heart.
Fire is eating the soul of the world
Reducing the face of its childhood to ash;
- Behold here the sorrow of Eden's last relic
Becoming the charnel-house of Creation.
On the frozen side of the sun lies Svalbard.
A barren, treeless stretch of land
Buried beneath snow and stillness.
Here, the cold doesn’t just bite;
It consumes.
The whirlwind air scrapes skin with surgical precision.
For months each year, the sun abandons the sky.
Svalbard drifts beneath a vaulted night.
Darkness bleeds through permafrost,
Settling in the earth’s frozen marrow.
But beneath this ice-scarred wilderness,
Where avalanche and ash calcify,
A vault lies hidden deep in the mountain’s underbelly.
It cradles the future;
A womb of waiting seeds,
Asleep in rows of glass and steel.
Hope, suspended in time.
In this tomb of preservation,
Life isn’t gone.
Just waiting with a promise of rebirth.
And when the sun returns,
Brushing marigold hues across glistening glaciers
Like a kiss upon Snow-White's lips,
Those seeds will stir with life.
They will remember the sun.
They will rise.
Lipstick red
a wet rose opens
A treeless leaf
turns in the heavy air
as if
seeking where
I put my arms around you, your heart melts into mine;
the borders of your anguish I can easily define.
There is no need for language explaining agony,
I perceive a griever’s heartache in black telepathy.
Your landscape is familiar, I know one similar
in the trackless barren places, in the lonely city spaces
where people neither know nor care.
I gleaned shriveled fruit from withered vines,
crushed, distilled, and drank the acrid wine.
I climbed the treeless summit, trekked the tundra of despair,
heard the mountain winds dark harmony
to a mourning mother’s keening prayer.
I know because my heart has heard
within its depths your soundless words.
Copyright, July 11, 2026
"The Wind-Up Man, The Patch-Work Girl and The Remaining Time"
What do you do when your heart breaks into a million pieces?
You turn into metal, what’s left of your heart freezes.
What do you do when your world ceases?
You lock the shards of your flimsy trust behind iron walls, you escape battles, Death teases.
What do you do when your bird is caged and it’s will to live rattles, then is smothered by vile whispers and flying monkey cold screaming breezes?
You look for the key that the past swallowed, it’s fallen between the cracks of your mind’s barbed wire nettles and torpid grey hollows, the yard’s a war zone, there it remains buried in the void that is treeless, dead temporoparietal.
What do you do when your heart shatters and Life’s colour drains before your windows, invisible, all that ever mattered?
You look in the mirrors for ways out of the maze puzzle, walking with all the other ghosts there who are lost, shattered, battered and muzzled.
What do you do when you Return to Oz?
You look for the good grace not to draw blood.
What do you do when you are free?
You return to the Ones who loved you once, you just "BE".
What do you do when you look for you?
You open your heart, you learn to be TRUE.
(Lovejoy-Burton/April 2018)
For gvlm/scm
"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only LIGHT can do that."
"There is no LOVE without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without LOVE".
"Return to Oz", Scissor Sisters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5S0NdraxTA
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/scissorsisters/returntooz.html
"Tsundoku Tower"
Bluebird windowsill
peers in, strange terrain
“Rain Rain Go Away”,
mysterious singing
eerie refrain.
Ghost Girl sitting still
tears falling
she is haunting
Tsundoku Tower
laying vacant
on Treeless Hill.
Looks up
her glow attracts
all the Tiger Moths,
are gathering ‘round
holds out her hands to them
She’s no longer bound -
so she gently kisses them
they are her new friends
In this, her newest ghost town.
Bluebird looks
While she builds
her tower full of
unused books.
Pages and Pages
of unread tomes
Are the walls
of her new home
she builds them extra high
around her like a womb
to keeps the Others out -
This is not their tomb.
Strong spines on their side
top one on top the other
to the Ceiling neat
so dark, so black noire
Jacobs Ladder for her
ascension climb
to her empty silent boudouir.
Wrips out the hearts
of useless books
all those blank white pages
all that wasted time
wallpaper to cover with colour
all her empty stages
with enraptured rhyme.
An antique fountain pen
dipped in pure ghost blood
so crimson dripping wet
from the cuts upon her wrists
she begins to scrawl
her new story, First Chapter
and it begins with this -
“I AM NOT DEAD YET”.
(Lovejoy-Burton/2017 Dec)
1. Ghost Girl - XavieRinato
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=rkGeq65ejMA
Irene went for her usual morning walk around six;
the August breeze was dry and fragrantly crisp,
one could tell she was injured as her aching hips
made her miss a step as she bit on her weathered lips.
Not far from her stone cottage, there was a cave never hit by sun rays,
it was hidden from sight by shrubs and weeds that almost
covered her cavity and at nighttime it seemed a ghost;
wasn't it the refuge of persecuted Christians when Celts were pagans?
The streets were very narrow and cracked cobblestones
made her slow down...using caution could have prevented a serious sprain;
an athlete is known for strength and endurance and she fought pain
by looking down and running downhill towards the treeless hills.
Irene had two wonderful kids: one was a gorgeous boy and the other a pretty girl,
and they both had hair as golden wheat and eyes as the wild Irish Sea;
and whispering to herself, " I will miss my walks in the Fall with Kelly and Bill...
and after the baby is born, wouldn't I stare out of the window with melancholy?"
While pondering that thought, she heard a puppy's cry coming out of the dark cave
that gave her goosebumps and searching carefully she saw the pitiless animal
struggling on three legs, but the fourth leg was badly injured or broken by the fall;
rapidly she grabbed the long rope and started her descend as a coffin into a grave.
Helen hit the ground hard and that startled the poor puppy laying on a plate of chrome,
" You are safe with me and because I've found you in this cave, I'm going
to name you Cavy, lucky pooch! This bad accident was a turning point for you!"
And he barked for approval, being happy to have survived and found a new home.
Questions exist
with no answers
In my quest for origins and ends
I see others like me, sociable
open to beauty, struggling
to know divinity- Yet in
all my quiet contemplation
I cannot screen out war
or incomprehensible cruelty
The ranks in uniform, the tanks
the weapons of destruction
The history which never
wipes out thought of
new aggressions
Boundary fences, treeless camps
ugly emotions, shouting, fists
the build-up to destruction
The sudden hurt, the
grinding discomfort
The tears, the flowers,
the prayers with hope
and reverence
Our pity for the suffering
We blame God
not seeing his mercy
yet only he above all
sees everything
Awake beneath a blazing, pulsing sun
as ocean waves continue slapping shore
against my naked, bloody, tired feet.
Need to widen search for cleaner water
quenching thirst tomorrow thru tomorrow.
Alone I craft robust and treeless hut
yet lacking binding metal - paste to seal.
Without the use of tools, I stack and stack
the brush against a slope of sod and rock.
Voids allow incessant pests to enter;
then discover use of lilac warfare,
by and by the suckers cease invading.
Establish snaring food from calm lagoon
that feeds the roots of ripened nuts and fruit;
surviving on a tiny sultry isle.
I befriend a vivid flying mimic,
feebly flying against the wind of strength,
to sea of slayers; within chilly depths.
Parrot quick to mock my voice with language,
giving friendship - creating lasting faith
for hopeful rescue - seeing social world.
Unearth required flint to discourage
sleepless nights; to fashion knife and spear for
shield against unknown and what was needed
when, caring ruled in free and thriving land.
Recalling hatred all throughout the globe
and timely choice for making journey to
escape the callous worldly turmoil force;
until a cyclone capsized lonely yacht.
Tonight a fire ignites my soul with warmth
protecting life and shedding light to see.
Must rescue come to me; imploring not …
Copyright © 2017 By Caryl S. Muzzey
1/23/17
Sixth Place Winner ~ "Tropical Island" Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Shadow Hamilton’s
Feb. 6, 2017
Treeless horizons
in sepulcher aperture
sand dunes and dust