Best Undoing Poems
shivering dewdrops
yearn for warmth
naïve innocence
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Contest: Magicicada 13
Sponsor: Maureen McGreavy
20th June, 2018
I want to be an artist.
I want to create a piece if be proud of for the rest of my life.
Id peel back the skin, cutting the fat away until it was the perfect size.
then id mold it - shape it until it was just right.
Pulling muscles like clay, threading through blood vessels and veins like string, digging through the mess of myself and scraping away every inch until i loved what i saw.
every flaw,
carved out of my body until all the was left was absolute perfection
when im finished, id stitch the skin back over in a beautiful mess, - tight, trembling
and standing in the mirror, ill know -
i made the greatest art piece id ever see
they say, an artist greatest masterpiece is themselves.
Tombs begin to bloom like raw, bloodless wounds.
Tomes are written with truths of her dead moon’s
tones. A keening lunacy keeps the dirges alive, while
bones rise out of repose. A degloved hand on the dial
hones into a night rainbow's radio, she runs on solar,
hopes for the rhythm to wrench free from her toller—
copes with the captivity of being bodiless hands. Twilight
comes to chance escape—open palms toward birthright.
Coves burst into flame; a hungry fire wants holier water.
Coven circles, recovers the skinless limbs of their daughter.
Woven like song, sirens' balm to restore coats of missing arms,
women are spells read correctly, using words as our alarms,
woken to language, resurrecting ancient pairs of sacred charms.
He unlooped the strings
with some urgency
without breaking
the accord
he took the bow
turned her around
placing one hand
on her silky curve
and the other
like cupid scored
pierced her heart
played her
like a cello burning
he held her to him fast
his eyes like arrows
without a word
between them
never spoke
these little deaths
became the music
that set them alight
never apart
Candide Diderot. ‘24
tombeaux.
tombeau de Vivaldi.
So, he came and dazzled you with his plume
And you simply succumbed to his grooming.
Pregnant, he’s gone, what have you got to do?
This may very well be your undoing.
5th Place
Bird-of-Paradise Poetry Writing Contest
Sponsored by Suzette Richards
tropical forests,
ten areas burn daily
sans replanted trees ...
falling
one feather at a time
raven black quills
swept from full wings.
if it's for mass they're amassing,
this demon wont disappoint.
dagger in hand,
the damage is done
but what is can always be un-
A tumbler climbs a rain
in all crimelessness.
Perhaps you will never know
my in******ting self. The thirst has
become a river.
A pile of books and I cannot read.
The shadow lengthens on the wall.
An eagle melts in the air.
They are shifting him for amputation.
Truth cannot walk.
I become my father tonight
and watch the house burning .
I am told there was lot of bleeding before.
There will be no need to rescuscitate.
The dead man says, why not ?
Satish Verma
I will try and hide the
mushroom cloud and restore
the skinless bodies, I will
un-char the charred, reassemble
the dead children, I will then
un-vitrify the rocks and the sand and
rebuild cities and cafes and hope;
undoing your atrocities is high
on my list, just
leave me enough milk
for morning
Things are what they've become
no undoing what is done.
Another night has become day
as the past just fades away.
No making what was not
right now is what we've got.
No time now for regret
we may forgive but not forget.
Things are what they've become
no undoing what is done.
Proof is truly
Undoing sums,
Sure mystery
In right outcomes.
Fact is clearly
Unwinding tact,
See fine beauty
As finesse acts.
Truth is rightly
The pulse that rhymes,
See things pretty
Fill space and time.
Poise greets fond voice
As rapture frees,
Live that sure choice
With worth you see.
Leon Enriquez
06 March 2015
Singapore
A thirst for moon,
on the mute, speechless, dark night.
Why now ?
Is this not the right to feel guilt and regret ?
When the snow was falling ?
Who is going to ask the questions ?
From the bloodthirsty bed
where the moon slept last night ?
Slowly the alienation melts.
You wanted to lead a normal life.
Sometimes a poem wakes?
in the body.
Was it a déjà vu ?
Bird-snow ?
Satish Verma
(untitled blockprint block, 2023)
Undoing The Ties That Bind
Moments tasted within
the gaps
between moments
undo the ties that bind.
Bit by bit we settle and rest
setting off little avalanches
of undoing
unraveling the links
of a mind-chain
it has taken an eternity to forge.
(first published in my 6th book of poem, OUT OF TIME OUT OF MIND, 2022)
To step back through time
to change what happened for good
is to risk yourself—
the wound you long to unmake
is the scar that forged our fate
One thread pulled apart
unravels what you can't see—
unpredictably
reshapes the tapestry threads
woven by intervention
Who dares choose which grief
was needless, or wrongly borne
in egg unscrambled—
erase one hurtful moment
unmakes strength in resilience
When you do return
to the new now you have made
the past is erased—
But your memories retain
the world that once held your past
Stand in the present
the only way time allows—
see what might have been
as way paving the future
teaching us not to turn back
My Own Undoing
Coursing through an unknown milky way ???. Well, that's my fate. Were we not born to succeed?
This and many more should be answered, blatantly, if not unequivocally.
I am me, and you, should be you.
How far do we go to establish a point of un-duress? We should be cunning, as well as kind with our "Knowing" (Knowledge).
So let's be fortunate in radically Undoing our own
Thank you.
By Asangalisah Akantere Isaiah