Best Underlay Poems


Becoming

When the leaves fall, 
I feel their green call to me
unto death. 
Whispering that what was fresh 
is no more. 
I hear their silence, see their veins 
weave through their becoming -  
from brittle leaves to tomorrow’s dust. 
And as the tree, limb to limb 
with the others,  
stands tall like a soldier ready for battle,  
the leaves fragment as they fall.  
They never try to hold on 
for they know their fate. 
They land as one 
with winter’s snowy lace calling 
to the bitterness all around 
to remind of what once was new 
born to beauty on high. 
Ignored by passerby, 
they lay desolate beneath the underlay  
of moments gone by, 
every kindness and cruelty and breath. 
December’s frozen face tries to smile 
in remembrance  
but can only shudder under the sullen sky,  
mourning reflected in an icy mirror,   
as it stings the earth (and I) 
with sleeted tears 
and the woeful winds commiserate.  
Oh, how they call to the small within 
me like innocent days 
and love taken for granted, 
but I, like the leaves, am silent.  

Life is wondrous and beautiful 
until the end.  
As the season of white melts into gray,  
the leaves, (and I), 
softly fade away.     


Written 5/7/22

Stress Not Mother

Please do not stress Mother dearest

As i do not want to add to your woes

But the dog has just come in covered
in ticks and fleas

And my sister and I have both knits and
scrapped knees respectively

So many troubles and this won't be the
last to try and comb over or sweep under 
the already threadbare underlay or 
cardboard box dinning table

Yet just more ammunition and stick's of
rock to be labeled and taunted by other's
with

Exactly just how much of laugh are you
having and enjoying at our expense

I've barely 23 cent's left after i've 
settled my rent to patch up the 
holes in the front door from the
bailiff's constantly knocking down
my door

But nevermind me what really strings
and breaks my heart are seeing my
children's faces bony and haunt

Like ghost's me do haunt knowing
hug's won't alone keep them warm
when the winter cold night's draw in

But those very kid's despite all of
this and apparently having nothing
are both happy and content at the
same time

Because 1 thing they know for sure 
is that there are far worse fates than
being poor

So long as they know Mother loves
them

Penelope Alecknavage

Penelope Alecknavage nee perskin whose death aye assay
to comprehend, this son of the late Harriet Harris - 
   November thirteenth 2016 marked her eighty first birthday
if she still lived these last eleven years - instead met crossway
where grim reaper awaited - though my mum sought to delay
futility to accept Pyrrhic outcome - homage pep rally
   thru poetry n essay
writing, and finding cadence of words 
   helps me (with powder milk biscuits) 
   gather courageous foray
   and means to grapple with demise 
   of a loved one, and hence my gray
matter sifts thru childhoods' end, 
   where remembrance of hooray
amidst claque of chattering aunts, cousins, and uncles
   the fuzzy interplay
of Penny racing at dog speed across lawn of family home
   cordoned off via a jackstay
looms in forefront of my mind, 
   vulnerable to grief most people sad - me, oh kay,
reckons cessation of life = equalizer of sorts
   when significant person without breath doth lay
Tom foolery deft hands of motley crue prestidigitation 
   playing game versus sobbing as corpse 
   driven to graveside viz motorway,
where belief at such stark catastrophe - nay
numbness pervades next of kin survivors
   especially when passing occurs pre-holiday,
yet no matter whence one departs 
   bobbing along River Styx to unreachable quay
mourning iz broken with nary sunny and Cher full ray
to warm earth, wind and fire - seeking soul asylum, 
   trying to blink away ill logic cheap trick re: acceptance, 
   but inxs of tears for fears begs scene 2b screenplay
   not hard rocking coldplay accursed reality
   terminal illness ushers helplessness cuz part of ourselves 
   agonizingly rent asunder, which psychic tearaway 
far exceeds any physical pain, and will underlay
the immediate future, which bodes hollow 
   with the sounds of silence
   despite informing musicians or veejay
to lighten moody blue - 
   boot invariably bono fide, green day, 
   Lady gaga emitting beat,
   per the human league (plus the culture club 
   of heart felt village people affiliated with goo goo doll    
   traversing into nirvana) 
   creates clangorous discordant ringing 
   increasing nostalgia for loved one lost before yesterday!
Form: Ode


Bird Soar

Once thicket thickened            
         Mossy, leafy
            Underlay.
Chance to catch starling
       Or barn swallow
Amidst slumbering umber.

Eyes pinched-- tiny prickles
        Star thistle glistens
         By green-lit moon.

          Craned and swoop,
                     Echoic;
           Plume beats hilarity.
            Lest they sail asunder,
                        Beaks...

White capped-- bold and noble
             Strand guarded;
      Acronymic to the other
          Guided by the sea.
© Jan Backes  Create an image from this poem.

Birdsoar

Once thicket thickened,
           Mossy, leafy
               Underlay.
Chance to catch starling
         Or barn swallow
Amidst slumbering umber.

Eyes pinched--tiny prickles--
         Star thistle glistens
            By green-lit moon.

             Craned and swoop,
                          Echoic;
              Plume beats hilarity.
             Lest they sail asunder,
                            Beaks...

White capped--bold and noble--
              Strand guarded;
        Acronymic to the other
             Guided by the sea.
© Jan Backes  Create an image from this poem.
Form:

Premium Member If You Pull a Long Face - Part Xxxiii

IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE : Part XXXIII

IF you pull a long non-plussed face
Astrophysicists declare Science no Absolute Truths underlay
Big-Crunch might on Big-Bang back bounce about face
Who'll say All-This's but mere hearsay

If you pull a long heretical face
Opt for accidentally ordered Life as did Hawking portray
Almighty be a Barrau's " tout comme " Lord of Multiverse
Who'll say All-This's but mere hearsay

If you pull a long Question-Marked face
Two brothers in '43 jumped into the Future to aver
Great Lakes all make for one big sea surface
Who'll say All-This's but mere hearsay

If you pull a long besotted face
Long walls of Black Holes tugging pulling us in disarray
Andromeda throttle surge through our Milky Way interlace
Who'll say All-This's but mere hearsay

So if you must pull a long-lost inane face
Light-propelled ET-ships visit us NASA-men say
If you can the future tell e'en of one of the human race
Then nothing anyone can ever do the FUTURE gainsay

© T. Wignesan - Paris, February 14, 2019
© T Wignesan  Create an image from this poem.


My Balls and My Words At Play

Thoughts are electric that's 4 times gravity... talk about defying the laws! 
How mad is we, right now!? Bet ya not as mad as me, i bet i seem mad as! crazy right!!.. 
Now. 
How can i continue without being absurd? All i can give you is my word. 
I'll keep it simple, i ain't looking for a single or a signing bonus. 
To minapulate the masses can't ya see they own us. 
I got my cahonas, i stand alone. 
less afraid. Don't have a home and if i worked it'd be underpaid.. 
Call a spade a spade, it is what it is. I'll underlay and roll out the carpet. 
Soften the blow when its come to the market. 
I'm talkin stock if ya connect the dots, i'll show ya the elephant who never forgot. 
Its all about capital, ya believe its capital! how much do ya know, about ya own little capital? 
Its only the financial epicenter. Rome controls the religous sector and washington is the state acting protector. 
Policing the world, killing boys and girls. Innocent i might add, wanna hurl? 
Makes me sick, i ain't american.. 
I ain't that thick! That's stereotyping and not very slick. 
I ain't that ignorant prick. So get over yaself and over it? 
We hypnotised by the media, witnessed the lies and hysteria. 
Thinking me inferior but i strike the fear in yer. 
Remind ya of things you were made to forget. 
Ya blind when they sings sounds shady and yet. 
Who am i? I'm runnin outta breath
© Lee Dobson  Create an image from this poem.
Form: Rhyme

Molecule

1234 CLUCK. Decisive time for sea monsters on a cruise to seventh bay. No ... NO..... towering underlay on carpets. It might sink the cabbage leaf, and pickles cant float in water so you cannot ski in a pan. 
 
Take care in harbours as jester fish can pull with several hands. It is wise to be aware of globs of mucus omiting from tall buildings containiing dark energies. 
 
Oh how wonderful to taste the tempting laughing soup. 
 
It takes great effort to boIL, a small egg. 
 
And would you bathE in bean? IF so look out for curd and plankton. Dive to the nine quarters of the tramping water to alleviate mind mould and re ignite the forces  of a rested snail
 
ALIVE.ALIGHT.AWAKE.ADVENTURE.ANEW.ABODE.ABIDE.ANIMAL.AMEN
Form:

Beyond the Quiet Face

Images of ghosts fly behind my eyes
I shudder
sometimes it's cold here 
below the belly of warm eyes.

If you could would you transcend?
Slip in between the day to day
and stop time in your mind 
to look at me?

Beyond the quiet face
into the underlay
meshwork of elements
paradox, uncertainty, childlike hope
entangled with a personal universe.

Would you look closer?
Intrigued? Interested?
Or brush your fingertips
across the weblike strands
to see which hum against your energy?

There's an internal waterfall
pulling everything down.
It slows me. 
Would you taste from it?
Or walk away hurriedly
afraid of getting wet,
afraid to drown?

I wish I could open up my palms like a book
the pages would be tissue paper thin.
It would be called layers
and it would tell the story
of the way we paper mache our souls 
and put overlays around our intentions.
I would rip at it one page at a time
and read every word to you
before throwing them into the fire.

Sometimes statements are really questions
they barely whisper their meaning 
in a look in the eye 
or the tremor of a voice.
How can we we know somebody else 
when we barely know ourselves.
Form:

Premium Member Only An Initial

A box a ribbon a card
A dozen white carnations
Attractive underlay for
Twelve sweetheart roses
Soft silky red petals
Delicate tiny buds
On the card not a word
Only an initial
She closed her eyes
Handwriting she recognized
Feelings unexpressed
Lingering embrace



AP: 3rd place 2022

Submitted on October 3, 2017 for contest ROSES AND CARNATIONS sponsored by JULIE LEIGH RODEHEAVER  -  RANKED 4TH

Scratched

There are gaps in the particleboard;
quince wads fill the breaches.
Nicotine newspapers underlay the linoleum.
It's a rented place, he tiptoes
around its yellow layers.

He has a friend he visits on Sunday afternoons.
The walls of her bedsit are paper thin.
She thinks her neighbors scratch on them;
thinks they are writing to her.
She will stand in front of him
naked, eyes closed while they both masturbate.
She wants him to watch her.
She's frightened people will overhear.
This is all the sex she needs; she tells him.
Afterward, they sit side by side
on the small bed reading the tabloids.
Then they walk to a local pub,
sit quietly in a corner, not talking,
holding hands until closing time.

She becomes a missing person.
He scans headlines, obituary columns,
classified ads.
Her parents live in Surrey,
that's all he knows.
On the other side of the city,
he lands a job with a room in a hotel.
He stops looking for her.
His new room is narrow, clean and white.
He stops smoking;
remembers the silence
once shared.

Lost Value

Lost Value 
The sun coughed 
a blob of mucus flew out 
landed on a mountain top
 set it afire, 
and for miles, total devastation.
Rain cooled the mountain,
shrouded it in steam,
when the mist cleared 
a sparkling diamond of a mountain.
Overnight the price of gems fell 
valueless now. 
No good for anything other 
than as underlay for motorways
and garden paths.

Imagination

Hence, I plunge into imagination to encumber suffering,
Athwart are the horizons wider than my pride,
I, one but three, such a symbolic trope, the Trinity,
A gorgeous exaltation gorged into voracity, itself.

The good is near me! The evil - inside of me!

The principles of distortion underlay the phenomena
Of eternal agony, above and beyond embers of Inferno.
I command the creation of the tenth circle, beyond
Boiling rivers of blood and fire, beyond the frozen lakes,
It’s the core of gravity, the centre of an inescapable certainty,
It’s darker than darkness, blacker than blindness,
It’s dwelling at the bottom of a raven’s gut – and I call it – hope.

Have none! Do not wear livery. Do not submit to a judge,
Nor allow a bailiff to cross your path in the legacy of the flames. 

On the wings of poetry far from perishing Evil, all the way to
The dawns of assorted cognizance that whirligigs the itch in me,
I exfoliate the words by setting the residuum of thoughts, in line
With the divinity of soul, that presides in my inner world, unknown 
                                                                                 to the world. 

A cipher on the head – I cannot be bought as I am not selling
The spiritual cosmology of my imagination, even when it’s ebbing,
No treatise of compromise is saccharine I crave, as I confer
A profane sense in the heathen parish of myself, for myself.         

Hence, I plunge into imagination…

As Time Goes By

Monochrome scenes blanch
but color is there as an underlay
of my own viewing history.
Black and white movies,
old even when I watched them
flicker still on an inner retina.

A hero turns conspiratorially, 
staring into my future.  
What he said into the camera then, 
is meaningless now,
but I see his lips move
as if he were predicting this moment.

A heroine hikes her skirt over her thighs;
blood fills the flesh of memory,
a dialogue recalled by younger nerve endings.
I remember I love her, but it is too late,
she is dead and she did not die young,
her ancient hand seems to
grasp my fingers now,
seeking closure.

The original King Kong 
lives a broken life in my hall closet.  
At night I hear him weeping still 
for Fay Wray.  
He is no longer tortured, angry 
and confused,
but I still must explain to him
that the sound of buzzing biplanes
is only the air-conditioner kicking in.
Eventually we both sleep.

Sometimes I think 
that all that was and ever will be 
is an on-going fiction,
a fantasy for a spliced life
left on cutting room floors.

Perhaps the real Casablanca
has yet to be scripted?
One day, 
maybe we all may get to say:
‘play it again Sam’.

My Holy Family

There is a part of me,
an obscure mossy part
that is an underlay,
a lichen-like carpeting
of scud and muddy surf
that some might call soul.

Within that membranous sub-coat
neither devils nor angles live
yet there are creatures
and they merge and mingle
swapping their miniscule bodies
with each other
just to scurry hither and thither
as different aspects
of a microcosmic awareness.

I think sweet St Francis would have
seen through me.
I believe he would have blessed 
my animalistic sub-existence
while teaching each germy,
parasitical, symbiotic
cellular organism of mine
how to knit together
the shape of God
in this filmy mire,
this gathering swarm
of innate holiness.

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