Best Unheld Poems
In the corner café across from the sea
he sits alone reading his book
Thinking of love while drinking his tea
and memories of chances he never took
Her name resonates gently
recalling moments,
of cheek touched whispers
yet hands unheld
and lips unsealed
What if?
What if he turned back time
Would she ever know,
what lies woken
in the dormitory of his mind
What keeps lingering,
in the alley of his heart
Would she be struck by cupid's arrow
tongue-tied and wanted
Would her heart melt
at the sound of his voice,
the touch of his hand
Would his feelings resonate
deep within her soul
What if?
What if then was now
Would she be the keeper,
of his heart
The object of his affection
Would she dawn into his eyes
like early sunbeams
Or disperse into the night
like the autumn mist
Would she tread her dreams
upon his footprints
Would she share the truth
which lies so still within
Or would she be restored
to a mirthless mouth
and twisted smile,
to somber moods
and bleak commands.
To griefing pain
that killed her life
Where would her chambered heart lead
What if she would confess
The last of his caress
is all she needs to breathe
Categories:
unheld, fantasy, feelings,
Form:
Free verse
I am November, the chilling winds
blend with the conditions in my heart
My heart blends with 13 years of not
blending to the conditions very well
I am December, the morning shares
the same blackness as the nights
To which I divert from the light
calling for the morning to prolong its darkness
I am January, 5 days since you first said
my full name without a word being spoken
As my ice dispenses a single drop
unfelt before you appeared in a shadowy halo
I am February, too soon to whisper
three words into your untested by me ears
Though 14 days in, I find comfort there
while you reach for the top shelf of doubt
I am March, uncertainty keeps the ground
wrapped in snow and the lake waits for
Lovers to fall deep into its trap
one in which we barely escape
I am April, change has captured a soul
within the song of a bird that decides
Not to fly but instead make a home
of old leaves and unbloomed flowers
I am May, now into the 5th month
of finding a home, a shelter for brokeness
A hand to be unheld but very much held
in a quiver of complete togetherness
I am June, there is sun...vigorous sun
shining across ponds and glistening into
Conversations of a life to be lived and others
to be brought into our world, our home within us
I am July, I am tired and battered
by the maybes and some days
I am restless in a worn shell
that dreams of being in that lake still
I am August, gardens have given of themselves
and now drift into the acceptance of expiration
There in all that greyness of upcoming death we find
the tethers of a tomorrow bonding our ankles to the bedposts
I am September, how the moments now go do not
will not and can not matter because
I am you and you are me and from this month on
we breathe in the love and only exhale to the Heavens
I am October, I am blessed by the cool air
that rises from an imported breeze
that has taken this heart, the one once frozen
and given it a beat, a hop and always a skip
Categories:
unheld, i love you, i
Form:
Free verse
Who can deny the carnival thrill
Spilling through Great White American hope
To be pleased and teased
Like every adventurous American girl
Unheld by tradition's claim
Paving new paths
On feminist wave
Women in power that flower like tycoons
With nothing to prove
Categories:
unheld, fantasy,
Form:
Free verse
On a frosty opaque day in windy winter
I, an old defoliated tree denied the sky and the soil
by the young aggressive ones spreading branches,
walk out of the green forest in sheer desperation.
Crossing the contorted contours of the barren badlands,
I go across the pallid plateau to a city quite far,
where I could see no sun shining with survival panacea,
so I couldn’t soak the rays to get my lost foliage back.
I could neither find sustaining soil of bonding sympathy,
so I couldn’t stand upright in the storm of strife.
Dejected, I then morph into a human figure without roots
in the remote corner of the concrete forest.
In dismal unkind desolateness my heart soon breaks,
and the forsaken fragile hands hang unheld,
picking up pining the strewn shards abandoned,
from the cauldron of a smoldering summer day.
Disillusioned, I walk back to the forest I once left,
and burn the essence of humanity in the forest fire.
January 29, 2021
Title used : If I Were A Tree
Contest : If I Were A?
Sponsor : Mysytic Rose Rose
Categories:
unheld, analogy, city, humanity, tree,
Form:
Personification
On a frosty day in winter an old defoliated tree
denied the sky and the soil by the younger ones
walks out of the green forest in sheer desperation.
Crossing barren lands goes to a modern city quite far
But could see no sun of hope to get the foliage back
And could find no soil of compassion to stand erect.
It becomes a human without roots in concrete forest
Its heart soon breaks and forsaken hands hang unheld.
It picks up its broken heart on a burning day in summer
Walks back to the forest and burns humanity in forest fire.
September 14, 2017.
Categories:
unheld, analogy, beach, humanity, tree,
Form:
Personification
THE NEW DAWN
Sitting, relaxed, atop the cool grass-filled rock,
Jutting out proudly over the calm blue ocean,
I stared in stoned-wonder; held captive
By the magnificent rising of the yellow sun,
Ascending, gracefully, across the serene horizon,
And ushering in the bright and long awaited new world;
A world, free from the shackles of religion,
Unheld by the chains of ethnicity;
Devoid of the differences in colour.
A world wrapped up in the warm covers of peace;
Overshadowed by the immutable display of inestimable love.
A world tongue-deep in sincere equality;
Lacking the Political, Social, and Economic segregations;
Where none is poor or hungry; a violence-free
Community – where morality stands overall; scoring
On all points; in all ramifications.
I see a world where there are no foes – but friends;
Where the Lions lie closely with the Lambs –
Sharing, caring; and rapturously cherishing one another;
A world where the natural unites with the
Supernatural to form a universal positive whole –
Stamped with truth and justice.
This new world, which I speak of, begins with you!
(c) Ikenna.C.Igwe
Categories:
unheld, faith, world,
Form:
Blank verse
No Imposter, I
Should I once ignore your smile
Call the undertaker
For I be dead unless I be
Imposter fraud or faker
Yet should I be, blind to thee
Even should a fraud I be
Interloper still would see
The beauty that resides in thee
Never shall I stay your kiss
Nor from your hug extract
Nor fail to stroke your flaxen strands
Never shall do that
Should we walk with hands unheld
Call the lawmen in
Tis not I you walk beside
But someone in my skin
Never shall I aim to roam
Nor draw another's eye
Change not I, lest I die
No Imposter, I
19 November 2018
Categories:
unheld, love,
Form:
Rhyme
witches came while sleeping
during dark childhood nights
cold, terrifying descent
would howl at thunderous night
as screams rip open warm cocoon
dishes shatter starry dreams
fists pound bullets against wall
shouts explode like thunder
screams tear at empty sky
trapdoor falls
my hand reaches out
darkness rips at young heart
cliff is always there
terror has been there for much of adulthood
today my hand still reaches out
unheld.
Categories:
unheld, childhood, depression, recovery from...,
Form:
Free verse
A Numberless Dream
Today while walking together with reverent hands
there are many unheld books with my unkempt dreams
To the wonderful man, who bestows my passions worn
we walk with harmonious tunes on dove gray sands
Within our heartfelt love, we never feel so forlorn
years to come we are filled with heated fires of times
Till we walk in rhythmic tune of a numberless dream
I'll always bring you my passionate verses in rhyme.
03/22/2017
Evelyn Knight
Categories:
unheld, appreciation, dream, life,
Form:
Couplet
The poet had said :
The world is a stage.
The stage
First Scene
Flood of spotlights
The actor in centre-stage, walks straight
The eyes looking up to the sky
The hands intimately hold, and held
The footsteps close, walk alongside
The figures liked, stay on
Others float around unwanted
The breath strong
The presence demanding
Cares for none.
Middle Scene
The actor runs around
A clock in hand
Pushes people on the ground
The stage is small.
Hits the wall, waits
The prompter says,
Say the line : 'time is short'.
The actor throws the clock
Doesn't care.
Last Scene
The spotlights dim
The actor bent, alone in the back of stage
A stick in hand
The eyes fixed on the ground
The hands don't hold, and hang unheld
The footsteps walk out of sight
The figures fade out.
The breath weak
The presence desolate
Searches for care.
The curtain drops
I enter the stage
The actor on the knees
Rises, and becomes my shadow.
July 14, 2017
Contest : All Yours (Jan 22)
Sponsor : Brian Strand
Categories:
unheld, care, feelings, heartbreak, old,
Form:
Free verse
No path exists that has an end
Nor soul can bar the way
No horizon with a lonely heart
at end of every day
No course unfolds without a friend
Nor hand to go unheld
No world could be that tears apart
a vision so compelled
No never land
No never more
A chain of cherished nows
No turning back
No fears embraced
All hope not placed in vows
No dream escapes when chased by two
Nor can it come up short
No afterward can it create
when two beliefs consort
No time will come when all is thru
Nor one to stand alone
No reason any need to wait
for lives to live as one
Categories:
unheld, hope, love, relationship,
Form:
Rhyme
Every day I awake in a place where the sky
is a mist mourning sleep. I stumble on a tower—
leaning, broken, alone. Its stones call my name
like someone trying to rouse me, like someone
who’s rung before.
Roots coil up its cracked sides,
ivy’s thin fingers drag me forward,
pulling at my steps like they know where I should go.
I can feel it—something’s waiting at the top,
something shifting in the shadows and growing
restless. As I climb, the stones are cold and quiet,
the kind of silence that wraps around you—
heavy as the grief of an unheld hand.
Near the top, the fog lifts just enough—
reveals a room I don’t know, but the smell
of damp earth makes it feel like a memory.
The walls curve inward, as if they’re listening.
In the corner, a chair rocks—
slowly, creaking, though there is no wind.
I step closer and hear a whisper.
Sit, it says. You’ve been here before.
The air is thick with mildew, it feels like breathing
through cloth, too dense for this closeness.
I don’t want to comply, but my feet move anyway,
toward the rocking chair, toward this place
where the strange weight of morning mist
is still rolling in.
The whisper turns soft, almost gentle:
You’ve been lost here for so long.
The words settle in my chest, next to the truth—
I am the whisper, the stone, the mist.
That’s the gist—I am the one who called myself here.
The one who long ago left, but never let go.
I want to scream, but my voice is a ghost.
I close my eyes, and I fall—
back into the fog,
back to the beginning
where the tower leans in the distance.
Categories:
unheld, lost,
Form:
Free verse
Helplessness seeks help in despondency
When resources slip out of porous hands
A tacit realization of innate inadequacy
Devours the dregs of impaired self-esteem.
The feeling sinks in the pool of pale psyche
Averse however to breathe the air of truth
Lies there unfelt in suspended animation
A state assiduously unaccepted by the mind.
The hostile wrecking winds are thwarted
By the helping hands morphing into shield
The needs are quenched like the arid thirst
By the cloud burst of benign magnanimity.
Time turns to flow in the course so desired
The legs that couldn’t walk a foot forward
If and whenever the hands are left unheld
Become boat sailing smooth in waveless sea.
Tides of time inundate the changed ethics
Latent self-respect floats on flood of sense
The bruised mind gets busy digging channel
For the repulsive memory to flow to oblivion.
The meagerness that created helplessness
Turns to debased maze of inferiority complex
A psychic makeover wangled by innate reflex
Produces odium and derision for the helper.
The helper then wonders in state of conundrum
If unvalued effort and dented intent are mislaid
On the ungrateful and the undeserving of help
For helplessness helps breed contempt in the end.
July 21, 2021
Contest : Word Play Poems With Play-On-Words Raison D'etre
Sponsor : John Anderson
Categories:
unheld, change, word play,
Form:
Free verse
Today while walking together with reverent hands
There are so many unheld books within my unkempt dreams
to the wonderful man that bestows my passions has worn
as we walk together holding hands, in the dove-gray sands
Within our heartfelt love we will never feel so, so forlorn
Years to come, we'll be filled with the heated fires of time
till then we'll never be able to be within a numberless dream
I will always bring you my passionate verses in poetic rhyme.
03/22/2017
Erin A.Charles
Categories:
unheld, appreciation, beach,
Form:
Rhyme
Sails unfurled in disarray
Helm unheld to swing away
Canting yaw in surf wet roll
This ship of state without a goal
Some would call this gone adrift
While fools would call it freedom
Some of us are somewhat miffed
While shoals just wait to see them
Passengers without a clue
Trusting to a motley crew
Of greed crazed re-elected fools
Who just ignore their rusted tools
And shed their blame by pointing
And know they're worth anointing
Categories:
unheld, natural disasters,
Form:
Sonnet