Best Uselessly Poems
The balmy breeze wafted over the prairie,
Where yellow cowslips huddled in patches.
And here and there I heard a whisper echoing:
Love her, love her, love her.
But she seemed deaf and preferred the wounded wind.
How easy it was to forget and never recapture
All my wistful whisper, I would always love you.
Those sweet nothings of past affections.
We no longer trudged the path made up for two.
Forgotten were those bygone days
When we believed that thistledown tufts
Were really friendly fairies in disguise.
Thus she escaped my clutches
And like a unicorn disappearing in an eclipse,
I headed for a dull and empty living
Blaming her uselessly for I still loved her.
Weren't we the product of our time?
We slammed the doors of love in our own faces,
Building woeful walls around us
Painting it with a tinge of misunderstanding,
When we could lead such a colorful life,
Giving our hearts a chance,
Laughing at ourselves.....
And sending a whisper,
a woeful whisper to the moon above.
Placed First
Adrift in this vast,
empty sea. Silent,
save for the beckoning call
of distant gulls,
your only friend. And
the makeshift mast and sail is
uselessly flaccid.
And beneath,
concealed
by the dangling sway,
of muddy-
moss-green ribbons of waving kelp,
is the dark murk
of unknown depths.
Then the wind
panics,
arousing your sail and
it swells into life
and draws you towards home.
Ignorance....
How is it...gifted with
abilities to reason
we can all remain so unaware...
How is it...gifted with
mental ability of logic
yet,what do we really know....
Even with our limited sense
of language and words to communicate
how do you describe in uncertain terms
the unknown...yet,not completely unknown
If your regular 5 senses move beyond the norm
you hear things different
you see things different
you feel things different
again...because of our lack of impression
where do you find the tools neccesary
to convey such an inner feeling...
as you also struggle with heighten perception.....
Entropy......
As we continue forward into the unknown
with our continued lack of knowledge
we inadvertently create wider gaps
furthering ourselves from the truth
energy being spent uselessly
creating further chaos and disorder....
The ancient stone builders left us a clue
in their placement of the cornerstone....
any deviation in angled positioning
would lead to a deformed structure
like the leaning tower of Pisa.....
Consciousness...
The evolution of the mental age
requires such attention,as to rid
ourselves of the ignorant state of mind
which only furthers entropy within the self
but,also within our global community
which,if not mindful...
we continue in a deformed state of being......
HAYA....." to be...or not to be "
is not the question
it's our true quest......
When I was just four,
Baba would walk me through the olive groves,
his land stretching endlessly,
acres of trees—each one a memory,
each one rooted deep in the soil of home.
He’d set up a ladder for me,
let me climb,
picking the dark, ripe olives
from the branches heavy with history.
“Go inside,” he’d say,
“bring a bucket of water.”
I ran, feet light on the earth,
filled the bucket from the well,
its coolness a moment of peace.
But then—
a scream, sharp and raw,
cut through the air.
I rushed outside,
and saw the flames—
huge, fierce,
devouring the olive trees,
the ones Baba had cared for,
the ones my ancestors had planted.
In the distance,
soldiers stood,
their smiles cold,
ruining everything we had known,
burning the heart of our land.
I dropped the bucket.
The water poured uselessly on the ground,
while the fire took what we had left—
our home, our history,
our future,
turned to ash.
In this haunted room I feel a presence build.
So thick is the air, closing in as you capture space.
The empty chair that was, now your body filled.
Sudden cold spot blasting icy gusts upon my face.
Heart thrumming uselessly in my frail breast.
Pounding in my ears, drowning out the comfort of sleep.
Your shape of nightmares breaking hope of rest.
The black of your image forming thickly and dark too deep.
Your silence leaves open the whispers of dread.
What lurks in this ghost activity straining against the real.
A hand so close it might reach out to my bed.
The fear, overwhelming, lies in what you may next reveal.
Mundane is the car that slows close in the drive
Louder than all it seems after this panic, slowing to turn.
Light blazes through, clashing swiftly into my chilling hive.
I wait to see clearly, such excitement and fear as I learn.
Shadows revealed, nothing I might have guessed.
So clearly I see you in this light commanding dark's defeat.
A sigh passes over my lips my truest fear confessed.
For tonight, just a chair and a badly folded sheet.
www.insiderealhauntings.com
And here comes another sleepless night
I try to make light of it with all my might
I have spent my hours and minutes uselessly…feeling numb sensations
I pray for forgiveness for giving in to my wicked, yet exhilarating temptations
I am anticipating that my future will work out alright
I have so many plans that I am now confused tonight
I try to read the bible daily and it gets difficult to understand it completely
I want to abide and be obedient to His wisdom that was made beautifully
My muse has been murdering my mindset for years on end
I am so sick of the abuse I go through on a daily basis
You know what I need? I need a mend that I can comprehend
I am so tired of being lazy and acting crazy in my abyss
I wander away into my fantasy world once more
I ponder away the thoughts that are overwhelmingly harmful and absolutely negative
I have grown accustomed to Your grace galore
I need to open ajar the opportunities that lie ahead…hope it’s not far too expensive
There is benevolence and bravery in my brazen heart
I am trying to have humility and true zealousness
As well as focus on painting some bizarre, abstract art
I am crying from the inside – relieve my sadness
And here comes another sleepless night
I am oh so fervently taking flight all night long, all night long
You have frightened me with your plight
I am oh so thankful that God has mercy on me all along, all along
**Merci Dieu means Thank You, God in French.. :)**
The wheels of time keep turnin
The fires of life keep burnin.
Time’s a turnin, fire’s a burnin.
The hallowed halls of history
Waitin to spill their mystery,
From history to mystery,
The wise are always learnin.
You know the wise are learnin
History’s message they’re discernin.
If we can’t learn to discern, we may as well burn
All the written pages
Passed down through the ages.
The wheels of time are uselessly turnin.
D H Loewen
April 22/18
All Rights Reserved
What happened?
I bolt awake, the heat of the fire
Still burning in my brain.
Oh, it was just a dream.
Or was it? I look at my skin,
Realize it’s black and bloody all at once
Cracked, peeling.
I sniff,
The whisper of smoke still in my nose,
My hair.
A tear rolls down my pitted cheek
As I remember, like I always do,
After I wake up.
Reliving that night.
The last thing I remember,
I was
Home, entwined in your arms
(your fingers were entwined, too, in the hair I’m stroking now).
The heat between our bodies
So strong, that I pushed you away;
I regret it now.
(I just wanted a little space.)
Because the heat then became suffocating, consuming,
As you rolled over and said
this wasn’t the same anymore.
I couldn’t breathe.
Soon, I was sweating,
100 degrees and climbing,
as you got up and packed your things
then left the room.
The slam of the front door
Was the catalyst.
My heart was the match,
And I the fuel....
I exploded from the inside out-
The flame ripped me open,
My skin started to blacken and smoulder.
Stop drop and roll?
They never taught us what to do
In a human inferno.
In desperation, I laid there on the bed
You and I shared
My tears nothing
but puffs of smoke
as they fell uselessly upon my skin.
The tears I’m crying now
In the hospital bed
Remembering
Are no more productive...
But my dear friend sitting next to me
Who pulled me out of the flames
Is there to dry them
And to console me
Telling me I still look beautiful
the wounds will heal
And that you aren’t worth them anyway.
I now know what I have to do
once I can leave this place.
Months later,
My burns have closed, now only scars remain.
I walk up the street to the house you and I once shared,
Now only a pile of rubble.
Picking my way through the charred remains of our bedroom,
A curtain scrap there, a chunk of headboard there,
A stray blackened sock,
I stop, and kneel down in the ashes.
I begin to sift through the ashes, the memories, with my finger,
Both erasing the past,
And bringing it to life all at once,
Until I have found it.
A blade of grass.
One.
Standing tall, strong,
And unapologetically green.
In the middle of the ashes,
With the ruins of our life together all around me,
I delicately clean the area around the blade of grass
with my finger, and
I smile.
Our religion forbids all
games of chance guys
We ain't allowed to
indulge in that harmful
enterprise
But no one can claim that
gambling is at all wise
To more has gambling
brought much misery
and misfortune
Trying your luck that
way brings bad luck to
this money goon!
So goes without saying,
no need of elaborating
that harmful and
addictive are casinos and
gambling
Quick money is the lure
but gambling is such an
addictive trap
Indeed a vicious circle it
is for sure
and you can 'bet' my
warnings ain't crap!
The casino wheel doesn't
always tip the scales in
your favour many times
bringing down people
from heights of
immense affluence
to the abyss of poverty
and monetary crimes
as gamblers act as if
'under the influence'
God only wished us to
not be thus corrupt
for He foresaw most
gamblers going bankrupt
To gamble is sin
and you don't always
win
You might end up losing
even the little you had
from bad to worse,
tycoon hero to zero, alas
too sad
I amn't uselessly rambling
Better stay away from
gambling
A compulsive gambler
frequenting the casino
might forever court ill-
luck you know
from slot machine back
to home, to and fro!
As to others his bucks
shall flow.
Uselessly frightened by a knife, skin was scared
to feel transcendent touch also in vain
...
She sits by a dying hearth, an album open in her lap
The cold silent room startles like a slap
Mouldy images stare back from the past
Prints are all she has now
Memories that still cling
To the old Silverfish ravaged photographs
Like slips pegged to a line, flailing in a gale
One minute they’re there, the next they are only an apparition
Burnt to a retina searching the void, of a memory long forgotten
Her finger now rests upon the “rising sun” of the AIF
Of her son’s slouch hat, to which casts a shadow
Across a face too young to shave
Only but a boy, learning how to behave
In a moment etched in time
Yet those moments before it
Remain immortalised within her precious album
And those that came after
Lay buried in the Somme
He leans on a stool, one hand in his lap
The other supporting his shouldered rifle strap
His mouth blurred delivering a sentence
She closes her eyes, with thoughts of his independence
Sifting through the years of a boy in this room
Searching for his laugh through a cheeky grin
Probing for those silvery words etched in gelatine
Of a boy leaning on a stool, a conversation frozen
A mother’s memory of her son, reduced to yellowed images
A mother's loss between these pages
Shreds of the past fog the room
Pieces of a boy lay mute,
Within her reach
Creases form on her brow, a tear escapes
The memory slips, it flaps uselessly from the line
And hangs by a thread
Then it’s gone…
----------------------------------------------
AIF = Australian Imperial Force (1914 – 1918)
Rising Sun = AIF Insignia
Isaiah Zerbst’s Poetry Contest – Pick a Title
23 Oct. 2014
Who am I?
A fur blown away by the wind,
A small nerve detached from a great mind,
A small cheer suppressed by restless sighs,
A little chirp disappeared between big neighs.
Who am I?
A silence disturbed by the chaos,
A small nail in this big house,
A whisper lost among the screams,
A small desire beside big dreams.
Who am I?
An innocent knight in this blood shed,
A little crimson in the dark red,
A sand castle destroyed by the sea,
A refugee about to flee.
Who am I?
An unnamed letter by a passenger,
Being uselessly protected by these rangers,
I would wait till I freeze................
And now I'm a life gone away with the breeze.......
Now I understand what I was,
A mere life born for no great cause.
How funny this rain is
Wetting itself uselessly
In the sunshine.
In my green green salad days
I roamed in my thoughts over the universe
Immersed with the great writings.
Then physically exposed to different cultures
Meeting people of different sects and creed
Enacted Moliere in his own National theatre of Paris,
Oh, the Eiffel Tower and the Chateaus
The bard’s residence on Stratford-upon-Avon
Robert Burns of Eyre and Walter Scot of Scotland
The Dracula palace in Romania, the Alps in Germany
Over to Mongolia, the land of Great Chengiskhan
On to Los Angeles to stop for a landmark of
My Roamings and then of Ramblings in black and white,
The modern marvels of Disney land and Cape Kennedy
To skyscrapers of Sears and CNN
And the journey’s end at Niagara, the Antiope of Canada.
Now I am like a remnant of a cloud of autumn
Uselessly roaming in the sky
O Sun ever-glorious
Your touch has not yet melted my vapour
Make me one with your light
And thus I count months and years
Oh, take this my emptiness
Paint it with myriad colors with gold.
Dr. Ram Mehta
*The Roamings is the name of collection of my poems published in 2002.
*The Ramblings is the name of collection of my poems published in 2004
======================================
Third Placement in:
Contest: I, Roam sponsored by Drake, Eszes
If I had seven days,
I'd feed the hungry...
give milk formulas
to the needy mothers
of the suckling babies
who can't be breast-fed;
what a big smile I'd put
on every infant's face!
And from within, I'd certainly
feel a joy never experienced before!
I wouldn't stop there,
I'd continue searching for them...
for those children who ask for bread,
and a bottle of spring water...
if I were the Pope, I'd sell all the gold
in Vatican City and make them full,
hoping that others will follow his example!
Why do they have to die uselessly;
has society turned away
from human compassion?
If I had seven days
to do as I please, I would be
an ambassador for peace,
stop the violence which causes wars
by asking nations to come together and negotiate...
I would be much delighted to see them shake hands!
Some will listen, some will not
and despite their negative reaction,
I will try to convince them with an imposing voice
that they will be sorry for the destruction which will come!