Best Vacillating Poems
Under a doting amber moon
beneath rolling crescent waves
the mermaid of his dreams
sways gracefully in rhythm
with his vacillating moods
capriciously oscillating
from depths to
crystal blue lagoons
AP: 2nd place 2022, Honorable Mention 2022
Submitted on December 15, 2019 for contest STRAND SPECIAL 3, ANY FORM, ANY THEME sponsored by BRIAN STRAND - RANKED 3RD
A shadow haunts me everywhere
of vacillating shape and size;
by day I drag about the form
that nightly, suffocating, lies
upon me in my bed.
A shadow haunts me everywhere;
my heart has never yet been free.
it breathes the very air I breathe
and from my hands steals savagely
what would be wine and bread.
A shadow haunts me everywhere
and loosed...Oh! How I long to be
a spirit child of lightning grace
forever set at liberty:
the selfish shadow dead.
© 1987, Faye Lanham Gibson
A gathering of whispers travel from breath to breath,
much like trains picking up chattering gossips along its
route. With breath held, they stand and wait to join the
last exhale of the wretch standing on the hanging platform.
Whilst a judge washes the atrocity from a hand that held
a vacillating gavel. Forced into a considered judgement,
his conscience is clear. Much as a whip of feathers
forces the killer into killing more. Whilst the birds
above scream a lurid act of contrition for the return of
such pathos, their miniature thoughts oscillating between
current events and the feeding of hungry chicks. And hubris
carries a last meal beneath distaining eye, lost to nature's
sight, as it nears a fading gaol door. And whisper's finger
crawls around the corner, ready to cosette a neck held within
a gallows noose; hanging bulged against the fibre of its hemp
curtain call. Like a veined muscle strains against the skin.
And so, black in thought from the final deed, whisper
reaches its sanctuary hole, shaped long in the ground.
And whisper's voice, watching the earth worms preparing
the way for the soft flesh to come, speaks one final time
'Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine'
And an earth-harried soul is finally released
Elusive being sought by far and wide
Seen by many unresponsive to our call
As veiled, elusive vacillating bride
Apparently intending to forestall
Don’t look for Holy Spirit up above
Nor in the dark of night in call of prayer
That being portrayed as a Snow White dove
Comes not with feather born on breath of air
Could it be our signal error in this quest
Is our focus on external source of blessing
Wishing ever hopeful answers to request
For unwanted situation - a redressing
While The Holy Spirit hidden by our sin
So close to be unseen is deep within
3 December 2019
Rock paper scissors,
Wizards of utopian flavored wizardry, exquisitely triumphs in every gamble beyond these doors,
Flawless tangled reversed reflections, remain forever forbidden to thoughtless mentors,
A cursed emotional seesaw bleeds and wrestles each end hardcore,
Roaring and agitated amassing vacillating backwards tripped out cognition galore,
Attuned intrinsic tutor restoring more miraculous palaces placed within your space and time,
Sublime tribes of chrome plated words alive and congregating, hitting hard the hammer of stamina utilizing backyard grammar,
Autodidact physiques pack preeminent techniques fond of higher states,
Earthquakes from snake riddled concealment shake the anointed with disappointment,
Appointed fools lowering vibrations of stations frequencies,
Advocates underground traveling through lands and over sea's,
Undetected forward vision upwards,
In the presence of cowardly lords using swords of misfeasance,
Eyelids glued open, still unobserving rulers, kings and queens with blinding evil pupils,
Topple till stagnant misplaced silence takes vengeance over souls,
Walking gods of earth observing a hole as the devils henchman transform from the fallen,
Never forget the calling, the called out elect without verbal speech, supernatural telepathic freedom,
Finding Eden beyond quantum universes unlocking Pandora’s Box,
Mundane conscious blocks, angelic psychedelic capabilities,
Infinite possibilities traversing dimensions with three sixty peripheral vision,
Subatomic divisions, galaxies of particles coexist omnipresent yielding disorienting mechanics,
Organic fractals, geometry sacrosanct, divine kinematics pure to awoken viewers,
Future past tense, retrocausality effecting cause of events presents questions,
Spooky beauty interviewing intentions, synchronized oscillating firing patterns,
Exploding fireworks of hierarchically organized neurons, circuits and networks,
Knowledge or Ignorance? Defective decision fostering Berkes, Apple believers the first?
Earthborn mortals thirst!!! For cash, philosophy of money doctrine, man cursed.
Quincy Mac
Date Written:4.5.2016
My heart is like a swollen stream,
a current strong and swift,
beside which banks the mountain giants
their rugged forms uplift.
My heart is like a wilderness,
a darkening wood, a desert sand,
a tempest on a heaving sea,
a blizzard in a frozen land.
My heart is like the deep of night,
the pearling of a dawn in May,
a quiet pool, the winsome strain
a song bird sings at break of day.
My heart is like volcano fire,
seething terror at the core,
an open mouth, a vast desire
forever hungry, craving more.
My heart is like a gentle rain,
the greening of a field in spring,
a sighing breeze through tender leaves,
a butterfly on glistening wing.
My heart is like a somber dirge
in sorrow's lonely, minor key,
a gripping ache, a widening void,
a vacillating mystery.
How shall I ever meet myself,
elusive stranger, face to face,
when I must search a universe
where each thought holds a hiding place?
© 1987, Faye Lanham Gibson
THOUGH DIFFICULT TERRAIN IS
I AM NOT ALONE IN THE WAY
SOME THOUGHTS ,YOU AND ME
A MIRROR AND A THEME
AN ALONE HEART, SPACED BY YOU
LONG LIVE THE PREJUDICE OF LIVING,
ALONE WITHOUT YOU
MINE IGNORANCE IN FORGETTING YOU
MINE GLORY OF WRITING ABOUT YOU
OR IS IT A PARADOX , WHAT IT IS
I HAPPEN TO SOLVE THE PUZZLE
OF RELATION,MISERY & THEME
UNKNOWN, UNFORGETTABLE & UNNAMED,
OF YOU AND ME...
A FENCE SO STRONG TO BE WOREN DOWN
OR AN INNOCENT ROSE ROBED OF REDNESS
LIKE THAT FLOWING RIVER, MEANDERING,
VACILLATING AROUND GOOD AND BAD
SO IS MY CAUSE TO BE HEARD,
FELT ,DEALT AND MORE
BEING VICTIM AND ACCUSED IN THE COURT OF LOVE
IN THE VICIOUS CYCLE OF LOVE AND SEPARATION
HOW THEN TO JUDGE RIGHT OR WRONG,
OF BEING IN LOVE AND BEING LOVED,
OF LOVE BETWEEN US IS NOT OVER
LIKE AN EVENT,OR MATERIAL THING
IT IS MORE THAN ETERNAL,
EVEN IF WE ARE NOT
SO, WAS THE CAUSE OF LOVING DIVINE?
OR, IS THE CAUSE OF LIVING DIVINE?
IN BETWEEN THE CYCLE OF DIVINITY
LIES THE LINES OF INNOCENT POET
VACILLATING BEING A MAN AND LOVER,
LIKE A CONFUSED LIFE
FORGOTTEN WITHER LIVING OR DEAD
IS IT THE WAY ALL LOVERS GO?
I AM CONFUSED BETWEEN LOVE AND AGONY
OR THEY AKIN TO SAME THING
OR AM I GOING TO PROVE IT WRONG
OR LIVING LIKE THIS IS DESTINY
WHAT THEN I AM FOR?
WHAT THEN DRIVES ME?
LOVE, DESTINY OR DIVINITY
WHAT THEN IS LIFE ALL ABOUT?
WHAT THEN I AM LOVING FOR?
I POSE A SERIOUS QUESTION TO GOD.....
Read me,
As the words begin to dance, vacillating bewilderedly.
Without knowing who and where, or even when,
Foolishly stepped out, to meet a kind
The kind with bitter, chunderous, nature.
Kind, very kind without a doubt.
A warm, contrasting view of this being
4 limbs, 2 faces, steps out to greet me,
With its soft, frail hand,
I pity the misunderstood, as rumours mutate
And transmogrify, smothering the barbarous reality
It smiled at me with one face
While the truth is
I set out to meet something different
Something much different,
Something noxious, oppressive being entitled
To authoritarianism, ideology and power
But it wasn’t here.
Or at least not yet
Gripping, searing , yearning,
a mother for her son,
vacillating, pride and heartache,
head wars that can’t be won,
precariously, dangling,
by her fingertips
somewhere between hope and despair
trying hard to get a grip!
Crying, seeking, praying
a mother to her Lord,
begs His tender mercies
as promised in His word,
“Gentle Lord, bathe my son
in the comfort of your light.
Hold him near, calm his fear,
keep him safe tonight.
Do not let him dash his toe upon a single rock.
Let him always feel your nearness,
together with him walk.
Give him daily sustenance,
in your word bid him sup’,
hold him when he’s weary,
should he fall, Lord, lift him up!
Assure him when he’s lonely,
that where he goes you go
Remind him that we love him more
than he could ever know.
Until this nightmare’s over, Lord,
and his tour of duty’s done,
until the desert lays behind him,
and he’s resting safe at home,
command your angels to surround him,
his protective hedge of light
ever vigilant, ne’er tiring
keep my son safe tonight!
CLOSE CALL IN IRELAND
I once had an affaire de coeur with a foxylady, in fact a randy colleen
In Ireland with a tough older brother looking to punch me out.
But I cold cocked the rambunctious hooligan,
A real old blowhard who knew diddly squat about fighting.
Oh yeah, he had some mickey mouse gizmo like a nunchaku
But he was a shilly shallying, vacillating sort of bloke,
A tightwad nitpicker full of quintessential balderdash
(To put it politely),
And I just lambasted his ass. But, you know, with hindsight
He did almost usurp my dubious position with his sister.
Actually I rather think he was an incest-freak,
A what-you-might-call weirdo trying to insert himself sneakily
Into her good books, (and maybe also my gay books).
In formal language he was an aged interstitial gender-bender .
This stupid old codger tried to seduce me as well as her.
I didn’t acquiesce, didn’t dilly-dally hither and yon,
Like some ethereal dancer doing a glissade.
In the midst of an abso-bloody-lutely horrendous
Wingding of a drunken celebration
The pinch penny tried to titillate me
With his whole second-hand collection of pictures,
A great caboodle of ***********:
And that easy rider fuzzled me later in a jimjam party
And almost brought me out of the closet.
He was some Tallulah, let me tell you. . . . wow!
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NOTE
Almost the entire poem should be highlighted for
it contains every word on the given list
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Entered in Debbie Guzzi’s Contest For Love of Language
Awakening the Dream
by Odin Roark
Even in a dream
A poet’s page
Starts blank
Restlessly
The inscrutable pen hovers
Awareness preparing absorption
Like a dry valley of nature
Awaiting tributaries to ripple convergence
A lake to be
Remaining patient
Unaddressed questions resurface
Even as pebbles hamper flow once again
Rocks demand navigation
And boulders bent on containment
Concede the rush into reservoirs
Expression’s pause
Ellipsis of control
Fails holding back the surge of ink to paper
As grammar’s first trickle bodes further volume
Restless verbs urge images forward
A tide of willingness waits
Wanting complete its existence
Around mind’s shoreline
Animation commences cautiously
Needing to quench
Parched wanderings
Staying ever mindful
Poisoning is often invisible
Unexpectedly
This once empty page
Experiences a downpour
Cooling passion’s vacillating temperatures
Into pastels of emotion
Urging hard layered resistance
Into malleable thought
Pauses and stops
Commas and periods
Paragraphs of reason and compassion
Flow freely
Like spillways of a dam
For some
The purge of resolve
Often disappoints
How delicate such a dream
Excruciating at times
Often revealing once invisible sentences
To correct lingering mistakes
Awakening retains echoes
The waning past remaining familiar
Like battlefields of regret
Unpunctuated sentences
Forever fragments of one’s war
Such a dream’s ending
Always makes known
The expectant pen
Forever willing to just be held
Demanding nothing
Merely to remain
A trusted friend
Knowing at times…
It is the only friend
Is my mind an accident of the metaphysical,
of fragile pain, uncertain life or follies of desires?
Abstractions attract me like flies to honey,
vacillating theories seems to me like a refuge,
trying to grab air where only vacuum exists.
The creativity in me rebels as my mind accuses
my heart of the mediocrity of my serendipitous poems
that often flow from splinted quills of my bureau.
I strive to write a grand mythical masterpiece
but know my heart will never release its pent up lore.
It's really a demise of thought, a flare that never storms,
diverting my soul from random, useful conceptions
to microscopic flaws and nebulous products of imagination
and flounder on more mundane affairs that blight the spirit.
Strive as I wish, I can write no more….for now.
Tear stains on the membrane cast from above
Elliptical heat resonates from a hug
Propagated through strenuous gestures
Made of delirious bodies of conjectures.
Thunderous jeers repudiate the self
Of those so wicked to sting with thine mouth.
A cancer is thee to all surrounding. Infamously
Legends shall be whispered, th name linked with disparity.
Timeless indulgence drawn to each hand
Flounders colloquial mischief upon the sand.
Jaundiced tears pour forth from crevices
Unknown, unheard of as bitter tasting mattresses.
Fanciful carnages meander forth wordlessly
Constricted by dueling currents carelessly
Vacillating toward irregular shore lines and
Timultuous throngs of conspicuous deck hands.
My friend, cheer up
Never lose your cool
Act not like a fool
Start your first step
There is a sure remedy
Find it out with hope
Hard-work has a scope
To hug it, be ever ready
Time is very limited
Waste it not my dear
My words do you hear?
Let not duty be omitted
Thousand failures may arise
No success may be met
But, if optimism you get
You will meet with a surprise
God is not a silent spectator
He is going on calculating
His mind is not vacillating
He is a determining factor
You may now weep
But, surely not forever
So never get worry-fever
Try to peacefully sleep
The whole World may fight
With you showing hatred
Still loving is highly sacred
As love alone is real might
You may face now a loss
This may cause you pain
Due to a very poor bargain
Please rectify all your flaws
In case you are severely upset
Silently deliver a holy prayer
God is for the Cosmos Mayor
He gifts you peace as an asset
Just pick up courage and start
Let your mind be made stout
Be prepared for possible bout
Appeal to the noble God's heart.
Inside fleshy walls, wallowing in youth,
lava coarses corrosive through peeled licorice
onward, fleeing the thundering stone
vacillating at the center of a man slugging
elderberry wine, to become both numb and Dionysus.
Yellow convertibles park on brown-banged boulevards
obstructing the ravishing, glacial blue hands. They stretch
unassuming, but firmly grab my empty arms.
Mannequin pale, those twin starved orphans,
offered the chance to grow into men, to feel
rushing gales of breath, trembling limbs of love!
Goodness, grace incarnate in a smile. Blue jeaned
angel, the deliverance of a self-loathing leper
naked in the shadows of his own shortcomings.
Ravaged, I stand stoic; an amorous, wounded statue
on call before her, a tragic hero in vain,
battered in body, in spirit, in moonstruck mind,
ill with the drawing force of four hoarse
scotch-swigging demons, poisonous jealousy
of a starry eyed Italian gondola captain. Who am longing I but
Nobody, wishing for a crack to melt into, or
a shatterproof heart.