Best Unraveling Poems
When you were born...
a gift you received.
Invisible knitting needles...
can you believe?
The yarn started out white,
then you added the the colors...
depending what happened
as you reacted to others.
You are the creator of your own scarfs design,
It's based on life's lessons...
let's keep that in mind.
The longer the scarf...
the warmer you feel,
as the cold winds of defeat...
are right on your heels.
The negative remarks that get you to question,
your value in life...
may I offer a suggestion?
Start knitting yourself in the opposite direction,
just ask God for help and his loving protection.
Good thoughts of self will make your scarf grow.
At the end of your life...
the results they will show.
With each negative belief...
your scarf will start to unravel.
One can not go back...
for there is no time travel.
You are the knitter...
so It's all up to you...
believe in yourself...
and to yourself always be true.
P.R.Deremer
Written: August 19, 2025 for contest sponsored by John Anderson,
***********
through the slack of spring
where orchids shivered, we met—
your hand brushed my sleeve
and the wind forgot its name
just to listen to our hush
I kept you folded
within a dusk-colored thought—
years passed like soft rain
and still, I never told them
how you lit my shadowed rooms
I speak your name, now
and the sky does not shudder
only the sparrows
pause mid-flight, as if they knew
what I had buried in bloom
I have a frightening mental block,
Poetic reserves lost, no stock,
My mood is down and damp,
My hand has constant cramp,
Imagination not worth a dime,
Brain all mushy, turned to slime,
Fantasy faded oh dear oh dear,
Inspiration none, it’s gone I fear,
Funny, horror, politics, history or love,
Blankly, see grey cloudy skies above,
My thoughts are less than dazzling,
Stop me, for I think I’m babbling,
My poetic sanity is somehow unraveling,
But hey, just made up a rhyme,
Guess all I need is time!
My muse just texted me, she is on a plane back home!
Unraveling miscommunication
Is not always sought out, but rather wise.
The key to understanding is simple.
Just listen closely to these next few steps;
First step is to humble yourself right then,
Like a lowly slave, sinking to his knees.
Every bit of confidence vanishing,
Like myself before a presentation.
Sharpen your ability to listen.
Your opponent will give up otherwise.
Questions such as “how?” and “why?” are solid.
Like a child with a lust for great knowledge.
Figuring out the other’s point of view
Will provide insight for your conception.
Much like a dog’s interest in your food,
You must make an effort for your rival.
Next, agilely contrast your ideas.
Determine whether you still take your side.
Like a tragic love story on TV,
This may cause tenderness in your spirit.
Be sure to clearly show your point of view.
Make your theories obvious to them,
Like a horse among a herd of donkeys.
Offer parallels between ideas.
The next step is to explain rationale.
If they don’t get where you are coming from,
You will have no chance to prove yourself just.
Sort of like a suspect at a trial.
The final step is to make sweet amends.
Cover your tracks with buttery comments,
Like a sly character with his gossip.
This, my friend, is how to heal your own speech.
I've wrecked me again, scattered, undone...
and here...
We were foolish to believe and he was simple, then, I could have told him...
underneath me...
but I turned upside down, you see, and tumbled from up above.
Bee stings and southern air, and if I thought I didn't remember, if I thought it was
easier to smile when words weren't spoken...
brilliance is never found in silence and oh, how I knew I was right, how I knew hearts
didn't break when the moon was full...
I forgot to look, through the months that his eyes shone brighter, and I almost stopped
myself because when almost everything is right....
what does it matter?
I wished that he was never enough, though I felt him deep inside, though I rocked through
weeks that confused me, though I slipped through fear alone by his side and Wednesday
whispered her premonitions from skies that were slightly too dark....
too full of August...
for safety.
I wanted him to hold me, just once, when the sky fell, I repeated words over and again and
found myself...
wishing...
I was new...
and I could feel him breathing when I stopped as irony slapped me back to life, I saw the
mirrors crack a little, I saw who I was underneath, I kissed the surface to convince
myself I was still beautiful, despite the changes in my mind....
I knew I loved him, I knew...
I couldn't hold his hand...
so I held onto nothing a little bit tighter, I suffocated circulation, I stopped....
breathing...
and came undone...
because I could still feel August...
and I still...
needed him.
Begin by stripping my skin to the bone
Misfortune is baked in layers
Mania in DNA is more than kin
I trust nurture entwined with nature
Tattered veils obscure perspective's light
Shameful gauzes are undressed
Ran madly half-bare to sis's arms
Suicidal wolf cries no longer tempt me
Re-parenting without weed strips me
No more wine ushering the beast
Make abstinence my embalmer
Repatriate this childish soul to the slab
But, bare days are still in need of veils
Nicotine measures hours hemmed
Buried childhood squirms for treason
I have yet to abandon painful threads
Terrors of walking nude will be learned
No parents to steady with hands
This old man-child still wants claps
The past waits for touch inside the tomb
Miles of selfish ribbons unwind clinging
Stand half mummified yet alive
Walk roads of perils on bare feet
My uncloaked condition accepts it's terminal
Life without bandaids is one beginning
My mania unwinds what's hidden
I'll rise from the crypt together
Till ash revealed is cleaved from soul
John 19:41
At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.
in silence
i declare violence
a warm chill rises from the former latter
yet i am just another person in search of something better beautiful
in noise
i perfect my poise
I
Tangles
Life in bang - les and jangles
One angle
Unravels the tangles
One bang - le at a time
II
My only angle
Of untying any tangle
Is to hop on Faith - plane
Even if time made it a debris jungle
Faith rescues me every time
Paralyzed by an unexplainable grip
Left side blanketed in weakness
Levels off brimming with dread
Countless questions lingering
No answers just hoping time helps
Waiting for silence to soften the edge
But the static still crackles in my head
Hands shake like awakening memories
A battle my body won’t let me forget
Counting the hours in shallow breaths
Tracing the fault lines beneath my skin
Between surrender and restless defiance
I wonder if balance will come crawling back
(this actually a rondolet, a shortened form of rondeau)
Unraveling
Stitches from our wedding quilt
Unraveling
Your so-called “business traveling"
Anniversary streamers of guilt
25 years - the life we built
Unraveling
12/1/11
Received 1st place
To a child with an inquisitive mind
It takes them on a journey.
Everything in life is intertwined
Even the things that are nonaligned.
A child can open the door to the secrets
Of the universe by using the key.
To a child with a inquisitive mind
That old saying look with your eyes not
Your hands was left behind
With what they see.
Everything in life is intertwined
It's all combined
The child doesn't need a written guarantee.
The child with an inquisitive mind
Goes after the intricately designed
Mostly out of curiosity.
Everything in life is intertwined
Why are adults so blind?
The only thing they say is you need a college
Degree.
To a child with an inquisitive mind
Everything in life in intertwined.
I think of those legions who would suffer,
those people who have had lots less than me.
You think your life couldn't be tougher
until through their eyes, you finally see.
Squeeze out one tiny drop of compassion
to then see surely how far it could spread.
Actually not knowing in what fashion
it will brighten the dim lit road ahead.
We all sit so high, judging on our stools
prideful we know all about life, the game -
till thunderstruck wide awake by blind fools
to the truth that we all are made the same.
Unravel your ego, wipe your mind clear;
put to inner rest all your selfish fear.
110 words sonnet 6/22/23
A Metamucil Moment"
Woke up this morning
Feeling rather blue
Ran out of Metamucil
Don't know what to do
Muscles really aching
Joints are creaky sore
I ran out of Ben-Gay
Have to run down to the store
Blood pressure medicine
Seems too have disappeared
Can't remember if I used it all
My tummy's feeling kinda of weird
Where did I put my glasses
Can't see a gosh darn thing
Can't drive with out them
Now the phone it starts to ring
Who would be calling me
Should I answer it or leave
It's a damn telemarketer
Now I'm really peeved
Do you need your carpets cleaned
A written pitch I'd heard before
No!! But could use some Metamucil
Hung up and headed out the door
My car is almost out of gas
The Kona coffee kicking in
Don't think I need that Metamucil
As my stomach starts to spin
Ran back to the bathroom
In a hurry I did run
Found there wasn't any T.P.
Grrrr !!! This is not a lot of fun
But did find my Ben-Gay
Wish I found my glasses first
Thought I brushed my teeth with Colgate
Now I'm really at my worst
My blood pressure's rising
Still can't find my med's
Think I'm gonna give up
I'm going back to bed
seeds unraveling into branches
branches spawning into flowers
flowers dispensing their fruit
fruit distributing their seeds
I was certain.
I was sure.
I knew what I knew—
until I didn’t.
A thread pulled,
a question I never meant to ask,
a whisper splitting at the seams.
The more I learn,
the less I know.
The less I know,
the more I understand.
I trace the edges of truth,
only to find them fraying.
I tighten the knot.
I loosen the knot.
I untangle it. I make it worse.
I follow the thread back to the beginning—
but the beginning isn’t there.
The fibers unravel between my fingers,
silk turning to dust,
logic thinning like stretched cloth.
I tell myself it makes sense.
I tell myself it doesn’t.
Both things are true.
Neither is.
I pull again.
The thread coils, writhes, tightens around my wrists—
or maybe those aren’t my wrists.
If I keep pulling,
will anything be left of me at all?