Best Unclaimed Poems
Spring winds clean winter branches
Leaves billow far from home
A maple tree sheds its own in tune
No one is around to collect them
Flat and perfect to be pressed in a book
Unlike humanity’s tree in March
It sheds its leaves year-round
We gather around its floating remains
We mourn our buds yet unfurled
We cry when our crimson leaves fall
But some are not so lucky
Some are unclaimed and unloved leaves
Like dead leaves blown by Spring winds
Ordinary as the ones that pass you by
No one to press them between leaves
They belong to the careless breeze
Free to disappear from existence
There is a terror in freedom
Adrift and alone
With no one to catch one from falling
As our stems fail and we fall
A human fallen leaf is a sad sight
Sadder when no one catches them
No one to press in a folio
Place a gravestone as a bookmark
A novel with pages forever shut
Never to see the light of day
Isn’t it better to land on the ground
With all the other compost?
All the leaves nameless alike
Under the cruel sunshine
Under the cool moonlight
Rather than a maple leaf loved
Safely tucked in a page
Between nine and infinity?
Those who have no one who loves them
Those maple leaves unclaimed
Make the pages for those who are loved
Like fallen and unloved maple leaves
Still making the soil we tread upon
We've decided to sell our souls,
for the pursuit of Utopia,
But it seems that it's still there,
In between two heartbeats,
Of the opposite spirit.
Written: June 27, 2022
An unclaimed Gift
For you, I have placed my beating heart on a silver plate.
You have chosen to let it die – not to become your fate.
You see me through eyes of a miss perceived past.
You hear of me through troves of gossip – believe – cast.
You cast me in a light of doubts, uncertainties and fears.
For me – knowing these things, brings on a world of tears.
You espy me in a light that is filled with many shadows
- from which I am unable to extricate myself, escape –
that drown out possibilities, the desire - to shine - I have
to know you, as all the colours harboured by this universe,
as they are transformed, refracted through the prism of you,
- the refracted, the reflected, the unfettered by inhibitions –
the you that seems to desperately hang on tightly to the past
and all the past experiences that keep you back from taking,
taking in every nuance of joy, enjoying every flake of a moment.
Ah but therefore, lost for ever, all that might have been.
B. J. “A” 2
April 13th 2007
He says he loves me then he says he loves me not
He loves me today but by tomorrow I'm forgot
He runs from my love but returns wanting more
I guess I'm to blame for letting the traveler explore,
See travellers just wander and are never here to stay
They admire the scenery and enjoy the display
They tour the land and ride the attractions
So memories become their only subtractions,
They search for an experience that is what they yearn
The condition once they leave is none of their concern!
So how can the land be devoted and true
When travellers come and go out of the blue.
The present is now and where he's travelled to,
But the past he calls home so he must return soon
Most likely just a visit although time can only tell,
But what he lusts is in this land and he knows it very well
He may call that place home but its this land that he seeks
Travellers on a mission never realize until they hit their peek
He continues to damage this land down to its core
So what's left to offer when their is nothing left in store?
The resources were depleted and the land left bare
He comes and goes as he pleases it doesn't seem fair;
See this land has been abused time and time again
Seeds that were planted, were means to an end
But pleasure and satisfaction was always accomplished
Because this land provided where the homeland was disadvantaged!
But despite the history and despite the trust
Submit to his urges is something he must.
So this time around his departure is permanent
Lack of faith and loyalty was the final determinant.
The damage he caused cannot be rendered,
So his visitation rights he has surrendered!
So leave this land I say and never look back
This is the path you chose I hope you can stay on track,
Cause travellers have memories of the lands they have stained
But the land only remembers the one that remained!
Compulsory contentment shown by this man
above whose temple a large bridge passes
and his spacious serenity glorified by highways
and his dwelling in a direct romance with the skies.
Cars uncountable, his sight delights
while people visit and pass but with no attraction.
Cleaners and sanitary officers in government clothing;
who are his usual unofficial employees.
Struggling with busy-faced and fast paced individuals
becoming his live event without a screen.
But when the rains begin and the sun scorches
he’ll hide in his rags and face the challenge of homelessness.
con conveyor ~ belting blame
***
UNCLAIMED FREIGHT
I offered myself to you - Rejected many for you, made myself
Exclusively yours - You never understood that I was not here
To endure jealousy, hate or envy –
Only to serve you and teach you how to include instead of excluding...
You looked over and under but never really looked at me.
Patted my head most appeasingly.
I felt like the puppy with eyes waiting for that proverbial bone.
Then, when keener eyes saw what you never saw;
Benefited from my earthly presence;
Suddenly like a spoiled child who never
played with his wind-up toy;
Until someone else wound it up he,
Now wanted to claim that toy to be his favorite.
You should have examined me; and found my key…
loved me, and explore my inner workings up close,
Before it was too late to relate...
Another metaphor would be
They valued what you failed to see.
You were blind to see my worth…
You never claimed me for yourself.
Left me sitting on the warehouse shelf
You seemed surprised, they bided high
Because what’s yours is not yours
“If you don't claim it!”!
Unclaimed freight…
“goes to the highest bidder”.
Drowning in utter pain
black dog bites
Once again
I can't breath
I cannot cope
Heading for the torrid gutter
via the slippery slope
Lost in the srounding confounding darkness
Where I blindly fear to tread
I crawl into the sanctuary of a shell
of my bed
A bed of nails that stab so deep
My only escape and allie is sleep
But when I awake
My overwhelming hits me like a bolt of lightening
And i quake
I stare down from the edge of the abyss
Calling me invitingly
To jump
And feel deaths kiss.
How much longer can I carry on
When life is empty meaningless and all joy of living has gone
Umbilical chord severed from the world
So lonely and cut to the bone
Once I lived and had so much love to give
but it was never good enough
i live my life in limbo
With no one to love
Lost luggage no one claims
Never loved never missed
A human punch bag hit with an iron fist
Pain hits me like falling razor blades like rain
I follow the same path to a dead end street again and again
All I ever wanted was a simple life
A child or two and a loving wife
my ship of dreams sunk
And never came.
Hurt
Broken
Rejected
Face pushed into the dirt
A fading name on a tombstone
No one knows
Hidden in a grave yard over grown and neglected
Out of sight out of mind
For once I dwellled in hell
Who cares.
Peter Dome. Copyright.2017.
Dropping like a bomb,
always missing its mark
Your echo explodes,
a sound hollow and dark
Answers unquestioned,
all bombast enflamed
Smoke drifting abandoned,
—its silence unclaimed
(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)
Thorns and shackles, bumbles and hurdles
Tears are nothing but fountain of pain
How hard we try to fix everything
Seems like a piece of work In vain
Deep inside I am heartless and cold
They think I am so flawless and bold
Who knows deception is my expertise
I fix my face with a smile and a mold
Life is happening, people are dying in hoards
Some say its circle of life, rest say it’s unfortunate
My brain and thoughts are spinning in circles
Just wish to stand still until “the quite” is allured .
An unclaimed Gift
For you, I have placed my heart on a silver plate.
You have chosen to let it die – not to be your fate.
You see me through eyes – of a missed perceived past,
hear of me, through troves of gossip – believed – that cast
me in a light of doubt, uncertainty and fears.
For me, this knowledge brings on a world of tears.
You espy me in a light filled with shadows –
From which I am unable to escape the shallows,
that drown out any desire I have to shine -
in your eyes, in your mind, make you mine.
Oh to know you in all the colours of this universe
as they come at me though a prism – the prism that is you.
To be refracted, reflected, unfettered by inhibitions.
Now that would make for a great verse
But, if only - if only you knew,
all is but traditions.
You seem to hang on so tightly to the past.
Nothing that painful should ever last!
Yet you let these passed experiences hold you back
from taking in – enjoying the full essence of each moment,
therefore, lost forever, all that could have been.
My Dear, that is cruel, it is mean!
I know, and fully realize that it is self preservation,
but no way to live - do not give – stops creation.
B. J. “A” 2
April 13th 2007
Writing in obscurity,
musings unrestrained
Words to live both free and clear
—nothing to repay
(The New Room: April, 2021)
Ten siblings
though an only child
Divorced fraternal
bastardis wild
Ten reminders
of what I’m not
Isolated
dropped not caught
Ten siblings
that share my name
Whose backs have turned
with eyes that blame
Regret incessant
to live outside
This name a prison
—wherein I hide
(Dreamsleep: May, 2022)
Conspicuous
by his absence
Entrenched
in his abeyance
Condemned
in his reluctance
All feelings
askant
Forgiveness
but a carrot
From a garden
long estranged
Those closest
to his exit point
Bereft
— and unclaimed
(Villanova University: January, 2025)
Present ordained
past future in shame
The Poet and Jester
as one
Living unclaimed
free and unnamed
Archangel and Devil
—undone
(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)