Best Unless Poems
Because I needed to find out
~ not just feel it.
So I took a dive into the depth of my being,
there I found her ~ my soul.
Alone, floating in a dim bottomless space
with her head bends down low,
but upon sensing my approach,
she lifted her head to face me.
The instant our eyes met
my heart stopped... frozen in space.
Tears oozing down hastily.
She's alone, cold and sadness was masking
her frail face.
Visible streaks of tears gleam.
What have I done to her ~ my soul?
This profound moment has my heart weeping silently
At a lost of words, soundless scream echoing in my head.
My heart slowly melting into a pot of pain
I wanted to reach for her and hug her
to my heart forever.
Her ~ my vulnerable soul
Oh, but baby this is utterly heart shattering,
because I can't!
I can't help her ~ my soul,
unless my heart is happy...
Smile
Akkina R Downing
Life without purpose is barren indeed.
There can’t be a harvest unless you plant the seed.
There can’t be attainment unless there’s a goal.
Ask Jesus to forgive you for your trespasses so He can cleanse your soul.
If we send no ships out, no ships will come in,
And unless there’s a contest nobody can win.
For games can’t be won unless played,
And prayers can’t be answered unless they’re prayed.
So whatever is wrong with your life today.
You will find a solution if you kneel down and pray.
Not just for pleasure, enjoyment, and health.
Not just for honor and prestige and wealth.
But pray for a purpose to make life worth living,
And pray for the joy of unselfish giving.
For prayer is your gladness and blessings from heaven is your reward.
When you make your life’s purpose the choice of the Lord.
So when someone ask you today, “How you doing?”
You should say, “ fine because I prayed.”
Tempting it is to end it all
Overwhelming depression, Nothing but a normal day
Will I ever be able to put it down
The blade that has become my passage
To not a home nor place at all
But a moment trapped in time to relive
Clinging to life like a starved leech
It never seems to cut deep enough
I'll end mine to save hers
Once again I am selfless
Her wish was my command
Then I got trown into the sun
She was given everything
And asked for nothing
So in effort to alleviate her angst
I will condemn myself
My needs never mattered to anybody
So I will rid the world of my disease
Unless otherwise noted
It wouldn't be Christmas unless there's lots of snow,
Nor would it be Christmas without sprigs of mistletoe!
What would Christmas be without jolly old Saint Nick,
And Ralphie's "A Christmas Story", that all-time classic flick!
What would Christmas be without a tree with shining lights,
And carolers singing "Silent Night" on snowy winter nights!
It just wouldn't be complete without the town's Christmas parade,
With marching bands and Santa aboard a firetruck in the cavalcade!
It wouldn't be Christmas sans greeting cards noting Santa's girth,
And much more fittingly, cards heralding a little Boy's birth!
It wouldn't be Christmas without Dad receiving the usual socks and ties,
And Mom oohing and aahing over more hot-pads to use baking pies!
Can you imagine Christmas without fruit cakes and snickerdoodles,
Candy canes, peanut brittle, chocolate creams and scrumptious strudels!
Christmas wouldn't be complete without seeing the blissful joy,
On the face of every girl and boy as they unwrap their treasured toy!
It wouldn't be Christmas without the gatherings of dear kith and kin,
At happy celebrations where love and fellowship reigns therein,
Remembering that the reason we celebrate the season most of all,
Is the birth of a Royal King to a young virgin in an humble stall!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
Never let your sheep go out, unless he's with a friend
For many sheep who walk alone come to a sticky end
Because a woolly bleat for help won't reach the police
Who are not resourced anyway to save a woolly fleece.
What happens to them? Who can tell? The mystery is deep
No one knows just what becomes of loosely roaming sheep
But, tonight, if you go out into the town, it's sure
You will not see a sheep about - they don't go anymore.
So, your little sheepie friend, inside is best to keep
And watch the telly or play games until he falls asleep
There is no need to tie him up or otherwise restrained
He will not miss the nightlife if you keep him entertained.
It's strange to think that once before in days now long ago
Sheep would fill the city streets, as they passed to and fro
While taverns rang with sheepsong amidst woolly ovine cheers
As tales were told of sheeps of old, 'cross tables full of beers.
Yes, they were noisy, they were loud and they could be uncouth
And flocks would often pick fights with some of the local youth
But there was grace and strangely charm and also something dear
In species meeting in a bar, to have a friendly beer.
Those times have gone and, it may be, they do not come again
And we will all be poorer, yet, in ways we can't explain
Those happy sheep, those drunken sheep, the swaying homeward trot
As they returned to country beds - they soon will be forgot.
Unless…
by Odin Roark
Seems just yesterday the sun arced
Over precarious ice
The street’s one elm
Leaned its naked branches with the wind Bringing winter’s announcement
A Coney Island cat crouched puzzled
Gradual crusting snow layering
The boardwalk a ribbon of white awaiting the gray
Mister Cat sprung back into dumpster heaven
Closed his eyes
And returned to his lone-bird dream
The one always disappearing
Over horizon’s edge
A few blocks away
Anxious hormones kept rebellious teens
Of mere rip-torn jeans and NFL jerseys
Rubbing their friction memories
Into goose-bumped skin
Frozen leaves scurried left and right
Separated from their bark insulated origin
The once virile tree sap
Now but a cryonic life flow
Awaiting spring’s resurrection
Somewhere
A corner-park’s snowman
Bowed forgiveness to the stinging wind
Its shivering cold prepared girth and pride
For tomorrow’s collapse
Beneath Time’s Square lights
Heavy metal leapt from SUV windows
Igniting crystal air
Into a vortex of tribal dance sensations
Vibrations warming all in its path
Yesterday’s season-change
Like a surprise party
Thrown on a whim
Roared through the city’s trenches
Beneath skyscraper walls of protection
As if birthing another Also Sprach Zarathustra
Daring frozen tears to fall
Central Park’s tree branches
Clustered and embraced each other
Like mouths searching for lips of warmth
While a lone photographer
Adorned in raccoon coat
Pointed her camera at breathing drifts
Becoming icing for fantasy’s deep freeze cake
At city’s center
Twisting cables of struggling semaphores
Blinked for mercy
As the insistent primal howl echoed
Across pot holed roadways
And iron slabs of street repair
Above underground steel tracks
Awaiting metro’s ignited contact
As dawn broke
Veined tunnels continued swallowing
The rushing energy astride quickened steps
Running feet
Shoving elbows and shoulders
City dweller anxiety
Cascaded down entrance stairwells
Boarded subway cars
Merged into the city’s synaptic darkness
And awaited their stop
Most likely yet another insulated destination
Where nature happening
Might once again go unnoticed
Never to be recalled
Unless…
Unless the Lord Builds the House…
Think about what’s happening in churches today.
It seems like many just want to “socialize and play.”
Many are encouraged to come just as they are.
Whether they come from nearby, or from a far.
Many are weighed down with sinful addictions.
And are often involved in harmful situations.
They come as they are, but go home the same.
They may smile, but their lives are never changed.
What is the churches purpose? Was is it’s goal?
Isn’t it to seek salvation and to change the soul?
We need God’s power!
And soul-changing redemption!
And seek God’s holiness! Make no exception!
Without godly living and God’s righteous rules…
We deceive ourselves, and have become “fools.”
The church… Christ’ body… Let’s gather as one!
And live a life that brings honor to God’s son!
Let’s live as an example, to Christ, our king.
And allow him to be the lord, of everything!
Let’s return to our first love! In Christ alone!
And allow him to rule in our hearts and homes!
“Unless the lord builds the house,
those labor in vain that build it!”
Let’s invite him in! So is holy presence can fill it!
By Jim Pemberton 09/13/14 Read Psalm127:1
Christmas do not arrive unless we allow our hearts to be flooded by love for others!
(c) Demetrios Trifiatis
30 November 2016
My finger throbbed, sliding red water splashing upon the slick topography, it was almost impossible to hide the laceration from these half-breed hybrids. Horns and ties, flesh costumes and ash shoes these monsters shifted between frames of realm breathers and daemonic vampirism. Cold cropped stares strung to petrify the weak hearted. She displayed elegant opulence in impervious form. Shadows among and behind me I could not touch her. Sadness dampens those cheeks of blush. If I could I would dry them but these minions of yours continue to bite my hand.
Can you hear my screams?
They tend to drown out your cries. Why are you hiding inside that mentality of flawed construct? Your lashes of sorrow blessed of the memories of a past swallowed by pride.
Look in the mirror, who is the most jaded of them all? Perhaps it is you who continues to bite my hand.
Without a tongue I no longer can scream, you made sure my words would be no more.
I only wanted to ask you if my heart still beats, or have you abolished it as well?
-Mitch
Hope is not hopeless unless it's gone
Lost is not lost unless it's found
Where is the lightening
And there's no energy fire
I am deaf yet hear the sounds
Hope is not hopeless unless it's gone
Love is not love if you just say it
Hearts will not beat if the spirit vacated
Where is the peace in the minds of men
Humanities haters of liberties
I am blind and I can't see a thing
Hope is not hopeless unless it's gone
Lost is not lost unless it's found
Where is the lightening
And there's no energy fire
Singleness of man
Can only righteously stand
Only if he asks God to intervene
Small and Promises to connect,
all the dots of the heart to interject
Hope is not hopeless unless it's gone
I am deaf yet hear the sounds
I am blind and I can't see a thing
I am thought and can feel not
Trials and tests come and go lingers on
Hope is not hopeless unless it's gone
Hope is not hopeless unless it's gone
5/14/23
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr 2o23
Would it matter if he knows you
better than you know yourself?
That when you go flying off the edge
He’s there pulling you up in a harnessed-ledge
Would it matter if he majors your life’s history?
That even if he could write a book,
He chooses to pursue a master of your future
And plans to graduate as your lifetime cure.
Would it matter if he surprises you each time?
That if you cried the first time
To what follows was an unexpected kind.
The feeling that you thought you have already thrown behind.
Would it matter if he sees you every lunch?
Braves every dark alleys and forges the rain.
Trying to keep you full even If his pocket is hungry.
Offers you the last sip even if he is thirsty.
Would it matter if he calls in to work?
Just to take care of your sick self at lurk
Forces to see you even if you pushes back.
Brings you pills even if he alone is my remedy stack
Would it matter if I love him this much?
That I’d equally do all of these for him
Even if we are one bridge and too many traffic lights away
I’ll always be there even under the stars’ soiree.
Would it really matter?
A façade in an under-skin of delusions
He matters.
Even if this rhyme doesn’t. I love him.
The world wears meaning when he is around.
This matters, all of it matters.
Even when it doesn’t make sense
This affection called love is all the matters.
What will be will be, can't change the inevitable
Things progress as they should, remaining stable
Unless of course
You're a horse
Because to think rationally, you're not able
We are facing a time is history that we have never been before, election year 2025.
Some may agree and some may not, that's an individual choice.
Negative and positive we face each and every day. Who do you trust, God or man?
As I was studying this morning, this Psalm came to my heart and mind:
Psalm 127:1-5 (ESV)
"Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for He gives to His beloved asleep. Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate."
Unless you know a poets pen
you'll never experience the
feel of his unspoken words.
Eyes follow the strokes of his pen
yet you will never hear his heart
But, simply read his Bio.
Passionately, pens his lifes song
in the form of a rhythmic ballad..
describing his very essence
strong upward downward acrostic
Introducing to you - himself in a
bouncing...harmonious...haiku.
The romanticism of the night
when his lights are low..Oh
how the words freely flow
You're never wrapped in his emotion
Unless you know a poets pen
the timing's always wrong
so i press the mute button
and keep the silence to myself
believing nobody's interested
convinced nobody cares
what's deep within the well
will stay there for eternity
unless of course... i write my poetry
and cast it to the winds
AP: 3rd place 2022