Best Turbid Poems
This Medusa had no power to turn us into stone
but when she ran aground over Poseidon's throne
his anger stirred, and into the sea the crew was flung.
On a raft urgently built of salvaged timbers we clung.
A hundred and more escaped before the frigate sunk
and after four days adrift, our number had shrunk.
With naught but salted sea to sate our massive thirst
I vowed not to give in. I swore I'd not be the first
to yield to temptation and drink myself to death
though feverish from the intensity of the sun's breath.
On the eighth day, hunger turned men into savages,
feasting on flesh in a moment of rapacious ravages.
Bloated bodies bobbled like apples off Africa's coast.
I contemplated my fate to become what I dreaded most-
being tossed off the raft, into a shark's clamping jaws.
To survive, no one had agreed to abide by man's laws.
I'll not forget the look of fear in the eyes of others,
sailors who once proudly called themselves 'brothers.'
Each of us clutched and clawed for an inch of the raft.
The feeble ones cackled as though they'd gone daft.
Arms and legs entangled among the living and dead,
as an alabaster corpse pillowed a sun-blistered head.
The demented swam away, flailing arms in roiling waves
until they perished in the depths of their turbid graves.
Alas the day, two weeks in, a ship sighted on the horizon.
Fifteen survivors with charred skin, lean and wizened
rescued from death's grip in a morbid human experience.
Men who'd given up on hoping for a timely deliverance,
their bodies emaciated, and their clothing, threadbare,
destined to relive the catastrophe in gruesome nightmare.
August 4th 2022
2022 Marathon mile 11 Contest
Sponsor: Mark Toney
NOTE: In June 1816, the French frigate Medusa, ran aground off the coast of Senegal. Because of a shortage of lifeboats, some 150 survivors embarked on a raft and were decimated by starvation during a 13-day ordeal, which descended into murder and cannibalism. Only a handful remained when they were rescued at sea.
Categories:
turbid, death, sea,
Form:
Narrative
Seraphic, turbid waves in turgid waters; turning
Amid my spindrift Soul wherein loves tumult rages....
Crashing through this pulsing heart that knowingly craves her ~
Aneath these turquoise tides, which tear burnt pages?!
Washed upon the shore to feed the pyramids pyre
Torn from destined books carving ancient time....
Spirits chanting dreams while dancing in the fire
Captured by the flames of oranges burning; loves sublime ~
Sunrise, now gathering blue horizons to kiss the wrested nights
Waning heavens waving a million reflections left, glittering deep inside....
Astringent embers touching tranquility while as floating through the rougish sky
Seraphic, turbid waves in turgid waters still, only to subside!?
Torn from destined books carving ancient time; this
My own Aphrodite....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
...."My, Beautiful *Star Light" ~
Categories:
turbid, faith, life, love, passionbooks,
Form:
Across from this municipality by the bay
I silently stand here
Looking deeply upon the open waters
Currents that make there way
Beyond the moon reflecting tide
The colourful lights....
Stillness drowns, the sounds all around
What a pretty montage, the skyline seems
Before my searching eyes, these images....
Turning inward, toward the depths of my mind
This quietness of floating, through time
With these metal laced wings
Weighing my spirit, to this place!
Caught within a world that I have never belonged....
But oh how it looks so lovely
Such portraits upon the wall
Except for these ones here
In black pearl frames; blank....
Center stage; as they stare back at me
Fireflies with fangs, swarming above the waves
On their way atop the jangled, turbid turquoise sea
Towards the glitter and the dreams
In the nighttime....You stand there?
Until one day you finally find
Reality....
Is but an illusion
Played amid varied and disappearing shells
This flicker of light; this vapor of sight
Beautiful chords of enticing pastel shades
Vanishing behind, a fog shroud mist....
These turning currents; which sweep towards the dissertings despair
With invisible brush strokes; charcoal
Splattered upon this absorbing canvas
The crimson crawl; changelings, like a disease
Clingling shawls....
Turning bright to bitter red
While the concerto plays on, its joyous song
And metal laced wings, fall from me
Beyond the skydome, of tangible tides
As poison basted water lilies....
Beckoned beneath the solidago; smiling
Pointing to all their pretty pictures
Before the fireflies with sharpened fangs
Hung their veils....
Upon the black pearl frames; blank
Chanting their songs, alluringly, to them all
As the splash of fallen things, fell; set my soul free
A new tune to compose, that shall never fade, away
While looking across the panthered purple waves, towards the city
Tides turning from arcane blue, unto another hue
Now rising....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Red Rabbit!?
Categories:
turbid, life,
Form:
The blood and lapis daylight sets
in ether. How the mind resets
brutality of winter chill
with February's codicil;
what gossamer a dream begets.
I hear the crickets in the dark,
their clicking takes up where the lark
has been. The flagrant marigolds
have huddled into twilight's folds,
on sanguine nightfall to embark.
The eastern zephyrs fall and rise
with rapid movement of my eyes
and echo whispers midnight makes
of blood white trails on moonlit lakes.
In silhouette I recognize
a dogwood, though can only sense
its glowing coral consequence.
The blossoms tell me they comprise
sweet spawn of sun rays in disguise
and capture all my heartbeats hence.
Now honeysuckle is entwined
on crisscrossed pathways of my mind
with jasmine in a potpourri
to conjure shamrock reverie
that leaves the pewter scape behind.
Around the lambent dogwood tree
alone upon that verdant lea
buds can prosper, bees will hum.
As though seduced by opium
I greet a vista I can't see,
at least not quite. I know it's there
and feel the dogwood everywhere,
behind me, flanking left and right,
an omnipresence in the night,
like answers to unconscious prayer.
Now high upon a clovered scarp
the tree is standing clear and sharp.
In silence I see restless blooms
play music that my ear assumes
is chiming dulcet as a harp.
Such Efflorescent star bursts splay
like windmills on a gusty day
that in ebullience do portend
a vibrance that will never end
and all my reticence allay.
In waking to a winter storm
that's February's gelid norm
I long still for my fulgid tree,
resplendence that surrounded me,
but only meet a turbid swarm.
I rise and pull back hermit drapes
to see the torrid flurries traipse,
yet through the chaos can discern
the leafless frame for which I yearn
beyond the window storming scrapes.
The dogwood stands just as before
unclad upon the icy moor
with nascent berries undeterred
as though through humble verse and word
like daylight through an unclosed door.
2/23/18
Strength Thru Adversity
Gregory R. Barden
Categories:
turbid, dream, imagery, nature, tree,
Form:
Quintilla
Tethered by life's boundless gyre;
doltish in the headlong plunge.
Swirling in its turbid mire;
mock demur feigns to expunge.
Inchoate thoughts swell pathos' rosters;
errant guides whose hack beguiles.
Pay scant regard to such impostors;
debar with glee their rueful smiles.
Then peerless grow your firm resolve;
abjure ego its tumescence.
Ascend the arc and thus evolve;
render glacial your senescence.
Else succumb as prisoner of your thought;
Fashioned into something you are not.
Categories:
turbid, character, life,
Form:
Sonnet
Turbidity
Turbidity’s
An artifice of
Being Human
One who is
So confused
So disordered
Or even one
With a Turbid
Imagination!
Being Turbid
Allows its Owner
To be or seem to be
In turmoil or
In degrees of
Real or Fake
Confusion
Making situations
Quite interesting!
This attributes
A most likely
Pejorative symbol
When intentionally
Used to obfuscate
Human interactions
Or to be just
Plain difficult or
Uncooperative!
Possessing bouts of
Seeming Turbidity
For the Poet
Can also be
That perfect
Literary Conceit
To challenge
To mystify
All readers true!
Such notions of
Verisimilitude
Or better yet
Literary Truth
Methinks would
Maketh the likes of
Keats, Eliot, Pound
Among other greats
Jumpeth all for joy!
Gary Bateman, Copyright © All Rights Reserved,
January 14, 2016 (Accentual Meter)
Categories:
turbid, allegory, analogy, emotions, imagination,
Form:
Free verse
The night emits a citronella scent
From tiki torches topped with living flame;
I swim in circles -- softly speak your name --
While starlight washes over us, content.
Cicadas still sing secrets to the trees
Like Summer's heartbeat throbbing in the dark --
While on a new adventure we embark,
Sped onward by a silent, gentle breeze.
Your kisses ripple slowly down my spine --
Your touch is strong and steady, like the tide --
Warm bodies wrapped in motion dip and glide --
You turn the turbid sea to fragrant wine.
The rising moon gives witness to my cries;
Tonight I drown within your ocean eyes.
Categories:
turbid, adventure, allegory, happiness, love,
Form:
Sonnet
At some stage in a turbid life,
Temptation stalks around the bend.
The devil waits with a friendly smile
At the cross-road time we spend.
The cross-roads are our troubled time,
where sin and prayer do blend;
If we can read the devils smile,
God wins out in the end.
For prayer is our line to heaven
to rejoice in every day
through teaching from our saviour,
may life always stay that way.
But hellfire is sent to tempt us;
and destroy us too they may!
If we choose to take the devil’s route
when at the cross-roads we delay.
We've all been to the cross-roads,
where temptation seems a friend …
Through love, faith and prayer
God wins out in the end.
Categories:
turbid, faith, life,
Form:
Rhyme
Abaft the beam the aberration spun
Below the turbid surface like a pearl
Commanding all attentions, overrun
Dissolving as colloidal midst the swirl
Encircled tons of matter as dissolved
Fierce vortices, toroidal in their whorl
Gesticulating with his mates, involved
Hypotheses suffused the captain's ire
Intense 'twas this anomaly, unsolved
Just as a jester moon dipped to retire
Kinetic phosphorescence flit the mast
Low on the mizzen, as St. Elmo's fire
Miraculous, a beam shone in its caste
Now tying ship to sea by water brake
On deck the crew were timidly aghast
Pervading all, their need to undertake
Quick means to thus escape adversity
Relinquishing to flee that eddy's wake
Surmising that the undertow would be
Too close to e'er escape its pearly skin
Unhesitant the captain plunged the sea
Virulent, boiled the brine, he in its spin
With sword held tight, defiantly above
Xiphoidals sliced the vortex from within
Yet with the ebbing sea his crew thereof
Zeus in his glory, never knew such love.
~ 2nd Place ~ in the "Quirky Tercets" Poetry Contest, Nina Parmenter, Judge & Sponsor.
~ 3rd Place ~ in the "Abecedarian Contest" Poetry Contest, Caren Krutsinger, Judge & Sponsor.
( This form is called "ABC" or "Abecedarian", and it's also an Epic Terza Rima in Iambic Pentameter, with 10 syllables/line, counted @ HowManySyllables.com )
Categories:
turbid, fantasy, history, mythology, nostalgia,
Form:
Abecedarian
I try to be a poet, turning everything I feel
into the magic dusted fairy phrases that I steal
from scattered, peeling pages of a strybook within
the cluttered combination of my unforgotten sins.
I pen forsaken fallibles surrounded by a word
or sometimes sweet soliloquy the likes you've never heard
to transfer tiny twinkles of my heartbeat intertwined
unraveling vocabulay's voiceless valentine.
I write to make the parchment sing in choired harmony
between the soured notes that echo of a diff'rent me
I bang upon the beggar's door and scratch a little while
to softly offer spices to my peppered paper pile.
I scribble, tearing barriers belonging to us all
with scripted scenes cascading over turbid waterfalls
pouring metered movements in a liquid sea of motion
washing over thirsty souls who drink my clear emotion.
I try to be the treasured tome as written by my muse
expressing me uniquely through these hands she likes to use
composed in crying chords of sorrowed laughter's ecstasy,
I try to be a poet, but that choice is not for me.
Categories:
turbid, imagination, on writing and
Form:
Alliteration
Across from this municipality by the bay
I silently stand here
Looking deeply upon the open waters
Currents that make there way
Beyond the moon reflecting tide
The colourful lights....
Stillness drowns, the sounds all around
What a pretty montage, the skyline seems
Before my searching eyes, these images....
Turning inward, toward the depths of my mind
This quietness of floating, through time
With these metal laced wings
Weighing my spirit, to this place!
Caught within a world that I have never belonged....
But oh how it looks so lovely
Such portraits upon the wall
Except for these ones here
In black pearl frames; blank....
Center stage; as they stare back at me
Fireflies with fangs, swarming above the waves
On their way atop the jangled, turbid turquoise sea
Towards the glitter and the dreams
In the nighttime....You stand there?
Until one day you finally find
Reality....
Is but an illusion
Played amid varied and disappearing shells
This flicker of light; this vapor of sight
Beautiful chords of enticing pastel shades
Vanishing behind, a fog shroud mist....
These turning currents; which sweep towards the dissertings despair
With invisible brush strokes; charcoal
Splattered upon this absorbing canvas
The crimson crawl; changelings, like a disease
Clingling shawls....
Turning bright to bitter red
While the concerto plays on, its joyous song
And metal laced wings, fall from me
Beyond the skydome, of tangible tides
As poison basted water lilies....
Beckoned beneath the solidago; smiling
Pointing to all their pretty pictures
Before the fireflies with sharpened fangs
Hung their veils....
Upon the black pearl frames; blank
Chanting their songs, alluringly, to them all
As the splash of fallen things, fell; set my soul free
A new tune to compose, that shall never fade, away
While looking across the panthered purple waves, towards the city
Tides turning from arcane blue, unto another hue
Now rising....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Red Rabbit!?
Note: This is not aimed at anyone in particular; surely not humanity!
Categories:
turbid, life
Form:
The moments that have passed, have been erased,
in as we’re always present here and now
and as breath by breath, we are by grace grazed,
vibrant, pristine presence, takes a small bow.
In midst of turbid storms, we remain still,
because we know we’re not this body-mind,
so since God breathes us, voids within will fill,
thus we simply play our role as assigned.
With the bliss current cascading within,
it’s evident we dwell in the moment,
with each heartbeat reborn, afresh begin,
melding with God’s power omnipotent.
Sleep is death and life is play, every day ~
We’ve long since granted love, the right of way
Categories:
turbid, how i feel, i
Form:
Sonnet
The ask is silence, let’s see what it takes
To hush the blush of senses five
On flow of turbid thought, to apply brakes
Yet keeping awareness alive
Sipping nectar from heart’s bliss hive
These prerequisites require surrender
Choosing to shift from head to heart
Throb of magnetism, silent bliss thunder
Ignites on adding love to cart
Enabled, no sooner we start
To become as such, we must choose to shift
It’s not a game of make belief
With focus held firm, that we do not drift
We willingly turn a new leaf
At last offering soul relief
Bliss enabled but we’re still in realm dual
As yet enslaved by time and space
Though cravings of ego no longer rule
And we have slowed down our life’s pace
We’ve yet to see God, face to face
A time does come when we see ego die
Simply stated, it falls away
It is then we see, earth life is a lie
Beholding Self, as clear as day
A vibrant, pulsating sun ray
How still is our silence, if we’ve not seen
Truth of who we really are
Light of a thousand suns, is our soul’s sheen
Here within, not somewhere afar
Aflame, like a luminous star
Categories:
turbid, spiritual,
Form:
Quintain (English)
As history unravels in front of my eyes,
hurling truths through an intermediary,
I try to see the picture clearly. The seer
had seen the turbid future long before
it came to a dead end. Who am I then
to try to amend the ancient rules?
„My child“, she says, „It started
long before you could even imagine
to be part of it“. But now
I'm on the edge of that world –
Different time, same place... And I
see her face, washed-out, the bridge,
the urge to drown the fears. And mine,
which is floating In her tears.
different person, same fate.
„For you“, says the distant voice,
„It isn't late“. But how can I ever forget
that image, frozen in time. Burried in mind.
Her face, the bridge, fears floating in the air.
Her hands pulling me towards the past,
telling me not to fight.
Categories:
turbid, memory, mystery,
Form:
Free verse
God whispers to the angels,
who open their aprons toward earth.
A thick curtain of flakes
cover life and death alike.
A swaying screen sweeps away color,
defuses light, disturbed only by a soft wind
slanting the mantle eastward;
pierced by stark sentinels whose branches
stand solid against its breath.
Schools close as kids cheer
and nature dons a turbid cloak.
The sky's roof caresses treetops.
Life stills, cocooned
in winter's satin embrace.
Who but the Creator
could alter our ambience
in one glorious afternoon?
Categories:
turbid, snow, winter,
Form:
Free verse