Best Unclipped Poems
Sometimes I spend too much time
Remembering when, remembering where –
Realizing, once again, the truths of then --
When a boy of, maybe, ten (or younger),
Shoeless, ragged, unclipped, wild-haired,
Roamed about, seeking comfort, seeking caring.
We (I, my siblings) were not treasured gifts,
But heavy burdens; our parents’
Lessons to us were: never to ask
For anything, never to complain to them,
Never to “need” anything from them.
We (and I, especially)
Learned to live furtively, steeped in urgent
Need to keep our secrets, guard the “privacy”
Meant to mislead outside onlookers
To avoid unwelcome consequences.
The young who are wise beyond their years
From deprivation, neglect, near-starvation,
Escape as early as they can but
Scars remain, and often they (we) retain
An ingrained reticence, are slow
To trust or to reveal themselves.
Rescue them, by sharing time, companionship --
And, when deserved, encouragement --
The hopefulness that the current
Slogan “It will get better” may be true.
Categories:
unclipped, abuse, angst, anxiety, childhood,
Form:
Free verse
My Madness, Me...
Confined by this straight-jacket,
strapped in, numb and dumbed,
a washed-out, has-been, also-ran,
body, eyes, the equilibrium of mind,
rattling like stones in an old tin-can.
Still, I am,
I am,
and I am unchained,
my dreams taking flight, soaring,
above these claustrophobic walls,
of synapses, and dungeons of stone,
swooping through green valleys,
taking a detour to savour the joys,
soaked in torrential, evergreen memories,
of a younger man, with passion in his bone.
I am.
My wings unclipped, unshackled, free,
I am, and though I am unable to see,
I am.
At long last,
me...
Categories:
unclipped, angst, art, beautiful, beauty,
Form:
Inside a grotto scooped out by a wealthy earl for his seated pleasure,
There sat a bard amidst the edelweiss strung 'round the hole of leisure.
Fallen droplets of acidic water pitter-pattered in echoes across the cave,
Slowly weathering away its leaky limestone layers as would a mason's lathe.
The bard, whose unimportant name shall be dismissed, strung away at his lyre,
Tickling its strings with unclipped fingertips which pick up songs from every wire.
Mediocrity had once been the nemesis to the boyish bard in his recent youth,
But now, after endless nights of practice, his expertise needed little proof.
He grew bored, however, with the memorized music that his body hummed,
From hypnotic and melodic languid limbs, which on their own had strummed.
Seated that evening on the edge of the grotto's bank,
He put down his lyre as both his eyes into the water sank.
"I am but twenty-six years-old and I've already come to master," he pined,
"Trading tales told inside of tunes; what more on Earth for me is there to dine?
Have I drunk the goblet dry in but a gulp?
Have I swallowed the savory pie in but a bite?
And have I been denied, in gluttony, the right to dessert?
Please, oh motherly moon, dearest Selene,
What more is there for my life to mean?"
During his pouting pitiful preponderances of apathetic patheticism,
A scattered image on his own reflection distracted him from his pessimism.
An eidolon of Endymion appeared before the startled bard,
And he held within phantasmal hands a deck of playing cards.
"My name is Endymion and I once walked awoken in Earthen woods,
Until I fell in love with Hera before her husband banished me for good.
I succumbed to an endless and dreamless slumber, but I can now see,
You fear you already lived your life and will be put to rest like me.
Yet life is but a game of Pitch, there are highs and lows and jacks and game,
Which is scored in not one hand but rounds whose cards will never be the same.
You've played your hand well in an entertaining trade, as you have felt,
So now its time to shuffle the deck and play with cards that've yet been dealt."
With that the ghost of Endymion drifted back into his eternal sleep,
And the bard in the grotto grinned and eagerly forgot why he did just weep.
Categories:
unclipped, age, angst, fantasy, inspiration,
Form:
Couplet
Two-lane U.S. Highway in the Midwest.
A canyon of tall corn contains the shimmer
of the road reflecting heat
from the late sixties sky.
Sticky teal vinyl grabs the
bare backs of my legs.
Cast chrome projectiles jut
out from the metal dashboard
attempting to invoke space age
modernity.
Crossroads.
Quonset hut on one corner
dressed up as a diner.
A rusty 7UP sign announces good intentions.
Screened in porch serves as a dining room.
Dust flies and gravel groans as
our whitewalls pull up next to a
not yet faded blue Fairlane parked in front.
Picnic tables covered with paper cloth
serve nicely as the seating.
A woman, dark hair, poodle cut,
takes our order.
A Vitalis encrusted man wearing a white
t-shirt and gray slacks,
dungarees are for hoodlums,
cooks the food.
A mini-submarine shaped tank of
propane located outside
provides fuel for the grill.
The grill toasts bread for my grilled cheese
A bag of potato chips is unclipped from a display.
Paper plates and napkins soak up the grease.
Nobody can hear the changes
climbing the horizon.
Categories:
unclipped,
Form:
Free verse
Smile
By Valerie Odom
2-20-17
A feeling in my head, a feature, expression
A positive position that always taught me a lesson
Hide your pain, don’t let others see the real you
Shut your mouth, cus’ your words stay spilling toxic too
A 1,000 muscles I’d rather take over a gun
Know the true meaning and I might as well run
Representation, that is always the key
Like a chain, unlocked, unclipped, and set free
A rhythm of the beat that’s not too vile
Like the way you dance that you dance for a while
A positive style
The main profile
Smile
Categories:
unclipped, anxiety, depression, happiness, how
Form:
Rhyme
My worst fear is to be trapped in a world, where nothing is real;
A terrestrial nightmare that's just a façade.
Existing in a realm where there's nothing to feel;
Living beneath a Heaven, where there is no God.
Escalated fears in the absence of rule,
Leaders circumventing every natural birthright.
Usurping freedoms and sharpening their tools;
Powers that govern, in the darkness of night.
Sinister sovereign rulers, their powers unclipped,
Expressing their suppression over the land.
Where righteousness, its virtues now stripped,
Succumbs to the darkness, as the wave to the sand.
How dark is the night, that never sees day;
Naivety of the lamb; an injustice absolute.
How deep the ocean; how crimson the bay?
Man's inhumanity to man, the devil's commute.
I'd suffer the pangs of the samurai's sword
Rather than see my children languish in despair.
My worst fear in their absence of any reward,
In a world riddled with deceptiveness, that grossly unfair.
June 20, 2016
Categories:
unclipped, dark, deep, political,
Form:
Free verse
“Within”
Shadow dreams
down silent roads
never taken
less than travelled,
the winter breeze
of the world within,
pulls out the hidden
message planted,
within
the quickening
attempts slow
anchoring,
the call persistent,
beckons, like the music
drumming softly,
lulling, calming
the rocking boat
in the heartbeat
rhythm of a contract
seeking solace
heard from the seat
of forgotten being,
a ghost banging
on the doors
of empty vessel,
conversations holy
for the supping
You open ;
the unseen
stands holding out
its hand at the
door of your
conscience,
you are
escaping back to
what is real
within,
the awakening ;
the quickening
attempts slow
anchoring
the call
hauntingly familiar
beckons you forward
away from the
time confining
sands of your shores
rippling cool
all those times
all those stories
you loved
over your bare feet
now walking
across seas
annointed
by water
the call,
like a dream
hauntingly familiar
beckons you
forward
like the sound
of your beautiful
Ocean
True Love
is calling
(LadyLabyrinth / 2021)
ljb-llb-gvlm
ljb-klb-mlb
jk-ak-iob-tob
“Non-Eternal”/Max Richter
https://youtu.be/9zkQX2FrRLM
“In the morning of life,
before its wearisome journey,
The youthful soul doth expand,
in the simple luxury of being;
It hath not contracted its wishes,
nor set a limit on its hopes;
The wing of fancy is unclipped,
and sin hath not seared the feelings:
Each feature is stamped with immortality,
for all its desires are infinite,
And it seeketh an ocean of happiness,
to fill the deep hollow within.”
“Know that we have met before
and that we will meet again.
I will find my way to you
in the next life,
and every life after that.”
“The Soul selects her own Society -
Then - shuts the Door -
To her divine Majority -
Present no more - ”
rev 3:20 KJV
The Mother-Child Soul Contract -
https://www.ascendedpresence.com/blog/mother-healing
https://energyboutiquehome.wordpress.com/2019/05/11/the-mother-wound/
https://in.toluna.com/opinions/3421285/How-Souls-Choose-Their-Parents-and-Families-An-amazing-and
Categories:
unclipped, birth, death, dream, i
Form:
Free verse
Lately, the hedges go unclipped
as apples lay rotting on the ground
Categories:
unclipped, humanity, nature,
Form:
Monoku
“‘Tis elementary my dear boy,” said the unclipped fuzzy lips,
Whose bristles were littered with the debris of remnant chips.
Whatever before the professor had said was forever lost in time,
For the boy had as much the capacity to focus as does a lime.
“Of course, professor,” the boy barfed back in nauseated routine,
As he wished he remembered to take his daily salts of amphetamine.
“Alright then, boy-oh, off you go,” said the somehow contented instructor,
Who believed the boy now understood alternating current conductors.
All the boy had understood was the fantasy in his head of space,
Featuring a creature crawling upon his professor’s ungroomed face.
He imagined a caterpillar on an epic insect adventure,
To colonize his professor’s mouth as a chrysalis in his dentures.
Categories:
unclipped, 7th grade, 8th grade,
Form:
Couplet
My worst fear is to be trapped in a world, where nothing is real;
A terrestrial nightmare that's just a façade.
Existing in a realm where there's nothing to feel;
Living beneath a Heaven, where there is no God.
Escalated fears in the absence of rule,
Leaders circumventing our every natural birthright.
Usurping freedoms and sharpening their tools;
Powers that govern, in the darkness of night.
Sinister sovereign rulers, their powers unclipped,
Expressing total suppression over the land.
Where righteousness, its virtues now stripped,
Succumbs to the darkness, as the wave to the sand.
How dark is the night, that never sees day;
Naivety of the lamb; an injustice absolute.
How deep the ocean; how crimson the bay?
Man's inhumanity to man, the devil's commute.
I'd suffer the pangs of the samurai's sword
Rather than see my children languish in despair.
My worst fear is their absence of any reward,
In a world riddled with deceptiveness, almost beyond repair.
Where is the justice in this world so unfair?
Nothing other than the silent voices of the people,
Will ever free us from this most nefarious nightmare.
Categories:
unclipped, angst, dark, deep, fear,
Form:
Free verse
They think it “cute”
when I do my perched two step
not so much when I repeat
words I wasn’t meant to hear.
They took the mirror out
“It confuses him”, they said
“He thinks it’s another bird”
Not so!! When I pecked
its vacant eyes
it didn’t flinch, or fly.
I plot my escape!
I’ve heard them speak
of one who made it
through an open door
into the trees.
I dream, of unclipped wings
of sunshine and wind
of flight and foreign feathers.
I loathe the millet stick rewards
for inane, un-bird like behavior
and wonder why
would any “Caged bird sing.”*
©10/18/2019
Writing Challenge, October, 2019 – Bird-
Sponsor, Dear Heart – Wiishkobi Ode
Categories:
unclipped, bird,
Form:
Personification
Hide it before they see
Put up that smile
That everyone believes
Hide it away
Hide it quick
Hide it and draw that shield
Its alright
I won't tell
Of the silent screams
That lurk within you
hiding them so well
Just promise not to tell
Of the screams I harbor
In the deadly hallows swell
Come inside
Come and see
The maze of thought
That left me to bleed
One in the same
We truly are
The ones that hide the Evil
Hide it so well
Nobody sees the tears behind
That made beautiful eyes die
At night they lie and wait
For our minds to drift away
As they see we let down guards
They leap from the shadows
Leaping so quick
And silently they slip through windows
Left unclipped
Burning claws
Clasping tight around
Our fatigues souls
Taking what makes us whole
They make us believe
We are not worthy
Not worthy at all
Bound by the Evil
Bound so tight
Afraid of the light
In darkness we start to dwell
Bind getting tighter
Trying
To fill
Succeeding
To kill
Here's my confession
Here it is presented to thee
The one Evil caught
Along with me
You are strong
You are brave
To take a walk inside
To fight against
The Evil
That kept us from the light
But little did they know
To each other we gave sight
Our hands clasped so tight
Together we fight
The Evil it shrieks
In anger of what it’s done
His own mistake taking him down
Never put two brave souls
Together in a hole
They will get up
And raise all hell
And keep on fighting
Till they hear the finishing bell
Categories:
unclipped, courage, dark, forgiveness, friend,
Form:
Free verse
Dark eyes black feathers placed
what's in your hands
an empty space
A heart that was held yesterday
Wings you unclipped
has flown away
All that remains carefully placed
These few feathers
no other trace
Categories:
unclipped, lost love,
Form:
Rhyme
I can climb trees all day
At night I will rest
Every tree I climb
Is different
Some have ants or bees on it
Some have thorns
Some have branches only birds can climb
Some move from side to side
Some are slippery like your bathroom floor
Some are cautious and sweet
Some are violent and hostile
Some catch the moon at night
Some shelter you from the rain
When you climb
You never want to stop
Until you are at the top
Then you can fly down
With wings unclipped
You don’t care
Where you land
Categories:
unclipped, inspirational
Form:
OLD AND NEW 2 : BOARDROOM
Jackal preyed on dimpled dolls
smiling gold on slender wrist
nosing down a slippery path
scowling schoolboy promoted
beyond his mediocre castle
Mammals sat on polished teak
coiffed moustaches, tonged peaks
feeding unclipped grapevines
old words and wounds
eating raisin muffins
Falcon scribbled notes
watching eyes serving
newly ordained masters
legalese from a previous
age flowed from fine shifting
fingers in a cage
Overgrown thyroid sat there
his infantry lost in teeming
townships blaring transistors
interrogators of another time
peeped at a polished tiger-eye
on his seat
Minds like noisy tools
drilled atomic holes in
the boardroom table
beaded headdresses falling
from fat oozing french seams
They will learn Christmas carols
in mint retirement homes
when the table losses its legs
©GhairoDanielsPoetry1997
Categories:
unclipped, africa, allegory, confusion, extended
Form:
Political Verse