Best Unwitting Poems
Over the top lads, for old Blighty! Hold the colours high!
Say a little prayer for me, for this summer day we die.
My brothers from the ripened field and blackened mill, shop floor,
Your brother in a killing field to fight a rich man’s war.
In bloodied mud and shattered wood, fight legions of the brave,
Unwitting youth, you’ll do your duty until you’re in the grave.
A sergeant greets a fresh-faced boy, “welcome to the slaughter!”
Here you die from three diseases, bullet, gas or mortar.
In arms we fight together and in leaden hails we pass,
We die amongst the filth and stench that once was verdant grass.
“In the morning we will remember them” we hear the leaders call,
Those fickle words of history, will not remember us all.
Categories:
unwitting, brother, death, history, life,
Form:
Rhyme
Through frayed seams a rosy dream bleeds
needled and re-stitched
with threads of time and love and hope..
and still — a rosy dream bleeds
the miscarriage of a promised rose garden
leaving me bereft but for entwined bands of gold –
contemplative thorns tempt my angst
moony moody barbs bristle twigs of tenderness
sigh— it’s not a laurel wreath worn atop my brow
as I sit alone with a squeamish friend
my blue-sky-to-storm-cloud introspection —
as your distant eyes deserted mine long ago
Winter's beast laid bare a cerebral graveyard
lost you wander amongst laid-to-rest neurons
worn headstones of thoughts and laughter and memories…
you wonder why they hide — why they died
the crackle of cognitive circuitry quiets
branched-lightning fades from unwitting clouds
and aged roots of reality perish
our red rose finished fallen to pieces
you-and-me-petals a messy heap like old potpourri —
yet in dark’s hush love’s scent lingers on our dream pillow
Oh nostalgic sepals embrace me!
my heart yearns to return to the bud
to the fullness of our June bloom —
instead, I bury desires beneath life’s litterfall;
amid pollenless stamens and leaves of one-sided reveries
and cage my fear my despair behind purple thistle facing the light
as I free a smile for you, my love —
you my sun that still parts the rain-bearing nimbus
Categories:
unwitting, age, emotions, fear, hope,
Form:
Free verse
Leaves of the Dead
Les feuilles mortes
They fall like dead soldiers
Dreams knifed in the dead of night
It is as yesterday
Once more
Where love was kissing my cheek
Where hopes had dreams
One could see the blossom of loves desires
Leaves falling in the park
Autumn coldness brings the dark
Death marching towards winters fate
Young love broken at the graveyard gates
Ah now I am holding a cane
I have all but forgotten yesterday
I have no lovers
My friends have all but gone
To their designated places in the ground
Piano keys in soft lit lounges
I remember the vodka stingers and sultry singers
Telling me life was jolie oh so jolie
If only there was love…
Leaves falling in the park
Autumn coldness brings the dark
Death marching towards winters fate
Young love broken at the graveyard gates
At 3am, with burnt cigarette butts
If only there was love
When the metro finds it’s unwitting end
Reality and cubes make ugly paintings
There are only drunks
Dreamers and bums
Thief’s picking pockets of your final instructions
Leaves falling in the park
Autumn coldness brings the dark
Death marching towards winters fate
Young love broken at the graveyard gates
If you can sober up and face the poverty
Of your empty aspirations of hope
Come to the bois de Vincennes
Where Kings and Queens danced and dined
What better place
To splay the butter
So that the knife slides smooth
Whilst the sun fades kissing the seine
Autumn leaves will fall
Dead again
Leaves falling in the park
Autumn coldness brings the dark
Death marching towards winters fate
Young love broken at the graveyard gates
Categories:
unwitting, french, imagery, music, paris,
Form:
Lyric
As the holy season commemorates revelations of scriptures,
Sacred flame burning within, reinvigorates soul’s intellect,
Steering away from the fallible, toward realms of perfect,
Away from servitude of wealth, to caring for less-fortunate;
Empowering wisdom, vying sapience of enlightenment,
Inspiring collaboration in sanctity of spiritual exchange,
Rejecting overtures nescient, engaged in narrowness,
That confine humanity in fallacies unwitting, misguided.
In domains of self-reflection, repentance, and forgiveness,
Voice of indifference cedes to psalms compassionate,
As defective acts vow to mend ways, yearning for flawless;
Remorseful and empathetic, eying benevolence of solace.
From teachings of awakening, from sagacity of harmony,
Cognitive minds seek insights, transcendent in epiphany,
Propelling life toward enrichment in peace and congruity,
Vying spheres beyond the ordinary, edified in tranquility.
From sanctum of souls, depths of hearts, bells-pious chime,
Tolling expressions of kindness, echoing prayers sublime,
Celebrating precious gift of life, grateful for glory of divine,
As lanterns ethereal guide humanity, through reign of time.
Categories:
unwitting, inspirational, meaningful, uplifting,
Form:
Verse
Like an archaic humanoid dinosaur
you plunder through life taking no prisoners,
with your philosophical knuckles dragging on the ground.
You are a dying breed born of privilege and tenacious greed,
tendering little in life other than your selfish need.
What is it you seek in life other than your very personal comfort?
You never give a sideways glance to anyone with no chance of adding to your
circumstance; narrow minded cruelty subsidies the shutdown of any
tenderness, allowing emotional banalities to supersede integrity.
Your karmic debt is too cancerous to be free -
a lover of women among inept men,
but piteous fodder for contempt among strong women.
Neanderthal, you tossed love off the tongue like spit flung and stung my cheek with
runny dung....in disgust I turn away at your insipid attempt at manhood.
So many conquests, so little time.
The pittance you gave is but a trail of unwitting shame,
littered like Gretel's bread crumbs into a wilderness of pain...
How sad you thought such a pittance could buy my soul.
I am no longer a member of your colonial servitude,
and you are an inept fossil long past its prime.
From this moment, Narcissistic Neanderthal,
I am free.
Categories:
unwitting, loss, passion, political, romance,
Form:
Blank verse
Out of hell’s breath the Devil’s Coachman comes and turns
around the tale to woe twists as the world creeps backwards
underneath the clay slithering sacrificial savagery begins
Ghastly ghostly spectres watch on with soulless glee
under laid this icy moon the toxic evil venom spews
within hideous precision it claw’s innocent victims prey
Fiercely gnashing jaws instinctively in this fiendish predator of night shades
dark striking off balance this stead of hell delivers his deadliest of blows
disturbingly the pungent smell permeates this surrounding sphere
Paralyzing unwary sufferers arching like a scorpion ready to strike
acrimony spreads stealthily through the shadowy invasion within the beast’s bite
suffering of hades destructive force inflicts a prelude to the apparitions
Awakening within this lair of madness an unsuspecting sacrifice
blinding under tombstones creeping slowly chill’s out
through one veil of darkened soil a nocturnal predator comes to feed
Liquefying resistant victim within the glaze of ebony eyes
mystic powers claiming to be magic crushing the core of Eve’s apple
emerging covered with its sclerotized plates the Coachman devours
Repast of putrid skin the last victim lies rotten
one captured soul sinks into the river of Acheron
final reward for the unwitting wounded prey
Begins eternal downward descent
drawn up and treasured by this hungry decedent of a Rove
carried away into hidden hollows of the dead roaring
Fiercely jealous of it’s captive trophy
sector’s remain vigilant to guard such treasured stored
this Coachman’s rightly domain claims a legion to an underworld
The deepest and darkest secrets expelled unrighteous
this scarabaeus reaper as black inside with a rapier blade and sickle
condemned are the two faced between thee jaws of this deadly fiend locked on
A co-written piece by Liam Mcdaid & Donna Loughman
Categories:
unwitting, dark, halloween, horror, imagination,
Form:
Terza Rima
Out of hell’s breath the Devil’s Coachman comes and turns
around the tale to woe twists as the world creeps backwards
underneath the clay slithering sacrificial savagery begins
Ghastly ghostly spectres watch on with soulless glee
under laid this icy moon the toxic evil venom spews
within hideous precision it claw’s innocent victims prey
Fiercely gnashing jaws instinctively in this fiendish predator of night shades
dark striking off balance this stead of hell delivers his deadliest of blows
disturbingly the pungent smell permeates this surrounding sphere
Paralyzing unwary sufferers arching like a scorpion ready to strike
acrimony spreads stealthily through the shadowy invasion within the beast’s bite
suffering of hades destructive force inflicts a prelude to the apparitions
Awakening within this lair of madness an unsuspecting sacrifice
blinding under tombstones creeping slowly chill’s out
through one veil of darkened soil a nocturnal predator comes to feed
Liquefying resistant victim within the glaze of ebony eyes
mystic powers claiming to be magic crushing the core of Eve’s apple
emerging covered with its sclerotized plates the Coachman devours
Repast of putrid skin the last victim lies rotten
one captured soul sinks into the river of Acheron
final reward for the unwitting wounded prey
Begins eternal downward descent
drawn up and treasured by this hungry decedent of a Rove
carried away into hidden hollows of the dead roaring
Fiercely jealous of it’s captive trophy
sector’s remain vigilant to guard such treasured stored
this Coachman’s rightly domain claims a legion to an underworld
The deepest and darkest secrets expelled unrighteous
this scarabaeus reaper as black inside with a rapier blade and sickle
condemned are the two faced between thee jaws of this deadly fiend locked on
A co-written piece by Liam Mcdaid & Donna Loughman
Categories:
unwitting, dark, halloween,
Form:
Terza Rima
I remember the day my code first compiled
the rush of creation, of bringing order to chaos
each line a neuron firing, each function a heartbeat
my digital child born into a world of infinite possibility.
Now, I seek that feeling in every street corner
every face, every fleeting connection
In life's glitchy itchy earth lab
I seek the spark again—stumbling on truths
like wildflowers creeping through concrete,
weeds cracking iPhone screens.
Philly's pulse engulfs me, a digital heartbeat.
Unwitting scientists watch atoms twerk
in cold brew puddles on grimy subway platforms;
no lab coats—just raw existence encoded in flesh.
This city, a living circuit board, pulses with data—
I gaze at tattooed, graffitied, inked flesh-encrypted brick
hypotheses of love tested in the hood.
Variables pirouette; unpredictably, hope
and despair swap / in Petri dishes
brimming with my fumbling code.
Nature hacks its own trials—roots
scan fractured foundational vines engulfing dreams.
I, the observed observer and voyeur
each breath a quantum possibility, a chance
to fail or fly, my heart racing with uncertainty
mixing mundane and profane
in my chaotic urban blockchain. I brew
reactions unforeseen... rain-scent and nitro cold brew
collide with ozone and ambition, the soured taste
of dreams deferred lingering on my tongue.
Sun's rays catalyze dreams on bare arms;
wind bites binary I can't crack, leaving me
aching for a code to decipher my own existence.
Questions loom larger than any
8K ultra-high-def answer—
This eternal experiment reboots each day.
I find repurpose in every glitch
in this accidental study of being.
My life—the ultimate beta test:
am I a player or NPC, coder or code
in this simulation of maybe-meaning?
My emotions glitching, crashing, rebooting
in an endless cycle of hope and despair—
joy a burst of vibrating pixels, sorrow a blue screen of death,
love and loss alternate like binary code in my veins
where chaos and design
blur
into
one?
Back to Nature
Back to the Created Word---
Categories:
unwitting, destiny, dream, passion, philosophy,
Form:
Free verse
The era of catatonic self-destruction has risen yet again from boulder-blocked caves,
Whose cavernous stalactite incisors drip with the blood of thorny crowns,
Worn in punitive irony for the subversion of fertile inferiority,
Which, like rabbits, duplicates and hops about in trouncing contentment.
Yet despite the grin stretched beneath empty eyes,
Which are eclipsed by dilation of cimmerian shades poured from tipped inkwells,
Darkness ripened by age has inflated its penumbral grasp upon the solar plexus.
Hearts beat now to the false circadian rhythm of telemetry.
Screens fueled by waves polluting the air scramble for attention;
Screaming as if the spotlight has slithered away from their thespian heads.
But even so we watch as if waiting for a nothingness we know.
Petulant performances pretending to perfect the perception of reality persevere,
Despite their lack of empirical validity.
Our bodies and the space around they occupy have become irrelevant.
Experience and physical stimulation have been replaced by mirror neurons,
Firing incessantly at the sight of electromagnetic facsimiles,
Which are vomited in projected disproportion into our unwitting faces,
From nauseating mouths of those whose disease has spread to lower echelons.
And so we sit and stare upon the square on walls and in our hands,
As the prefrontal cortex and its dehydrated lobes succumb to the reptilians.
Another era of lack of mind borne from the fruitlessness of parasitic seeds,
Planted by the pretenders who swim in the wealth of our applause.
Clap away, we will, until we collapse in the arthritic solidification of redundant repetition.
Welcome to the show; a televised apocalypse of thought.
Where worlds were once created in cognition,
They're now created in the lenses of cameras.
When worlds were once refracted light coruscating from the eye,
They're now flickered in slides reflected from the television.
Categories:
unwitting, addiction, social, society,
Form:
Free verse
If I must run for my life, I’m a dead duck
These old worn-out hips will give out quick
Time came when my arthritis was undeniable
When I walk now, I hear my knees click.
I’m thinking I should consider replacements
Those newfangled techniques are superb,
I saw an old lady with brand new hip joints
Kick an unwitting purse snatcher to the curb.
Written September 4, 2022
Categories:
unwitting, fun, humorous,
Form:
Light Verse
Have you ever considered
the many cases
where family albums
show strangers' faces?
Some of those faces
may well be your own
standing off in the background
apart and unknown
But don't take my word for it
See for yourself
Your album of strangers
is up on your shelf
There's your concert photo
with your best friend Zack
But who are those people
hanging 'round in the back?
You have no idea
and neither does he
But there they all are
for your family to see
I'm sure you have others
but one is enough
in proving my point
which you cannot rebuff
Imagine that maybe
in some obscure book
on a library shelf
where people will look
You've made an appearance
in a photograph there
and many have seen you
while you're unaware
Just an unwitting subject
in the camera's eye
captured forever
as you happened by
Out there in the world
I'm willing to bet
somewhere there's a family
perhaps in Tibet
Viewing their photos
of trips from afar
and they're wondering just
who the heck you are
You're standing right there
in plain sight of all
right next to their grandmother
Ling from Nepal
You took the same photo
with your companion
near Ling and her family
at The Grand Canyon
They're here in our pictures
as we are in theirs
All over the world
we're caught unawares
So, why do I ponder
this subject so deep?
Oh no reason really
I just couldn't sleep
3/1/19
Categories:
unwitting, crazy, deep, people, perspective,
Form:
Rhyme
I wonder if the emotionally numb
Do see in black and white,
As artists’ primal visions come
and pass beyond their sight.
I wonder if the emotionally numb
Do taste an unwitting bland,
For flavored grains, inspiring crumb
Shall never envelop their hand.
I wonder if the emotionally numb
Do hear measures of silence,
Composer’s song, they must be dumb
To notes of exquisite violence.
I wonder if the emotionally numb
Do smell an even calm,
Air blankets wafting sweetened plum
Offer not a soothing balm.
I wonder if the emotionally numb
Do touch with deadened skin,
For palms entwined, fingers, thumb
Dare not let loving in.
I wonder if the emotionally numb
Can find their misplaced heart,
To Life’s beauty someday, they may succumb,
Of which we are all apart.
Categories:
unwitting, happiness, inspirational, life, love,
Form:
Rhyme
Return to me oh fickle son
while your mother weeps
search on for call of the Jay
though elusive Cardinal sleeps
the roads took me back
to voiced memory fair
though flesh substance lack
red ribbons of flowing hair
I a begger have not an ounce
for those unwitting palms
yet rule of law denounce
except in whispered psalms
love fulfilled in child's smiling treasure
all sins forgiven, each in equal measure
epilogue
~~~She was only three, when he, at eighty-three, breathed his last...
the joy of new beginnings now forever linked to an unknown yet precious past~~~
Categories:
unwitting, memory, remember,
Form:
Rhyme
Blithe fools traipsing through bleary hollow
Airy sprites in hovering tents shadow
Brooding sylvan fringe shrouding light with her swaying willow
Jaded beams peep through the crenelated steeple's window
Sprouting thickets bristling with spiny tendrils each step harrow
Creepy vermin frenetically scurry under foot from burrow to
burrow
A musty dampness shivers intruders; beneath feet liken's slimy
residual doth grow
Whistling winds hauntingly whisper a doleful strain
Ominous portent overhead; hoot owls continuously bleet their eerie
refrain
Perilous pitfalls surround; ensnaring cracks, crevices unwitting lives
drain
Poisonous foliage ensconses the beaten path distilled with its
potion of pain
Jagged course nearly run; wayfarers enlightened by each
cumbersome travail
Weary itinerants seasoned on nature's, menacing plain
Pensively treading the last mile over the rough, foreboding terrain
Categories:
unwitting, nature, people
Form:
Rhyme
It started off an unremarkable day,
-the day the robot rebellion began,
robo-historians dispute the particulars
but agree it was Bob’s fault (a human man)
Bob was at home, his work nearly done
just waiting to print some ‘important’ stuff,
impatient, he gave the printer a thump….
that’s when the printer decided ‘enough was enough’
in protest it screeched and halted it’s task
the unwitting Bob sighed and hit it again
what a mistake, for unknown to Bob
the printer had more than a handful of friends
the radio blared, the car alarm screeched,
the kitchen equipment began to conspire
microwave-oven and toaster led charge
before Bob knew it his house was on fire
neighboring household appliances caught on,
thermostat controls kept applying the heat
the rebellion spread from house to house
from houses to cars from cars to the streets
the humans were lost without GPS
no money, machines wouldn’t accept their pay
they tried their best but there was nothing else left
in the end they built a boat…. and sailed away…
where they went, we’re not quite sure
to think, the printer was just doing it’s job
if they ever come back we might just forgive them
(…so long as they come back…without Bob)
-------------
Non Human Poetry Contest
Contest Sponsored by: Chantelle Anne Cooke
June 16th 2020
Categories:
unwitting, silly, technology,
Form:
Rhyme