Best Vain Attempt Poems
Heart impenetrable.
I hammer a nail
In a vain attempt
To hang my portrait.
In the depth of her soul.
She loves me not,
The spark has long died,
Like a weak light
In a hurricane lamp.
Everything's dark
And hard.....
Like granite.
On the road to cessation,
I discovered tiny tears,
The kind most accompanied
By legions of saviors
(albeit rented for just a few hours)
Undeterred, my race resumed;
Candles lighting my path
Through the forest, avoiding
Sparks that often ignite lies,
A vain attempt to retrace tracks
Of my runaway memory, drowning
Me in delusions of laughter, gripping
Tightly to descending cries of lost
Hearbeats, the sound green makes,
Each tear a field of poppies, as far as
My eyes can see; behold
Jupiter ascending, under the watchful
Eyes of Pisces,
Whispering
Eternity.
Fragrant flower, Jasmine infused,
the evening breathes comic book laughter,
colors white and green and yellow.
Our heroes, our saviors in bold of
twilight blue and mud red ocher.
Perfume fingers stretch forth on evening breeze
searching for that champion
only to find, beneath primary hues,
a miriad of diffuse pastel hides
beneath balloon exclamations,
our vain attempt to save us from ourselves.
04/22/18
INTO THE WILD
I dreamed ......
An arboreal wandering into the wild
Creeping in narrow-leaved green herbage
Afraid to be mashed by other wolverines got riled
Their safe abode is now in the siege
The rampage and stampede make a harsh noise
Joining the rumble will stumble into near-death
Swiftly moving away, intend to do a ploy
Taking hold of strength and a grasp of pure breath
Chasing the weak and hear the piercing shriek of pains
The fauna now in a vain attempt to meet and regroup from the maze
A lurking prowler just outside ready to take his aim
A Carnivore’s rendezvous dealing another round of faze
Forays refrain them from regression
Marsupial bearing young is watchful and vigilant
For a hostile entry, a swift run from apprehension
Saving the younglings and safely back to Taiga so verdant
With balsam fir’s magical warming in winter and cooling summer
Tall trees get blown over osiers, shrubs, and miniature spruce
Hear the wind swayed the trees gently just like a hummer
A walk to wet spongy forest ground that has a soft carpet of moss
A truly look at life into the wild is precarious
Feeding on flesh and a quench from trickling stream
Some nocturnal species tending to be gregarious
To survive in this biome is a short-lived dream
Previously posted in voicesnet.com poetry site last 21 October 2009.
Because of you I will engage
In a futile, vain attempt,
To put in words upon this page
What loving you has meant.
Through miles between unmeasured
And the boundaries of time,
You’ve been my greatest treasure
In the back roads of my mind.
Since we were young and so unyielding
And impatient to hold on,
To what we both were feeling
That eternal, behemoth bond.
That comes but once a lifetime
And ends but never more,
Not every verse ends up in rhyme
Nor fairness even scored.
Somehow we turned one winter night
With neither one suspecting,
Cold winds cutting like a knife
And destines bisecting.
Into the snow and ice I steered
Off to find my soul,
All the while you cried your tears
For a love that lost its hold.
Though that’s a lie in waiting
If true love exists at all,
These words are well worth stating:
I still can hear your call.
Late at night with moon and stars
And comets flying by,
And morning when I think how far’s
The separation between you and I.
Not knowing if I’ll ever see
Your smiling face again,
Like a gentle breeze I feel set free
In the comfort of your memory, dear friend.
Her hands were happy,
she fluttered them against
a cliché sense of blue in the air
and laughed when the allure of
the flowers further on trilled against
her skin. She submerges herself in light,
filtering through veined jade appendages.
-deeper-
Life is what she lusts for,
twirling in circles with the moon
to see if she can become a world of her own.
She picks roses and strips the petals
to smell the thorns –and shakes her head
because none of her pain is original.
Even so, she breaks into a run, bitter
at the dust beneath her and
every single one of the
footprint after footprint scars.
She might as well not even try the other road,
they tell her.
-the light bends around her, she rubs her eyes
to rid them of the green edge-
She realizes too late, the thorns are disappeared.
The path stretches on without end –it draws her into
a malachite mist.
She inhales slowly and
gags against the moisture that now
condenses on the walls of her lungs.
Clawing at her tongue, she stains her fingers
with mucous.
-The sky bleeds poisonous green arcs-
-what happened to the blue-
The heels of her palm against her eyes
-a vain attempt to salvage color-
she screams as she turns –
inside out, emerald. She feels them
sour, glassing over premature
and dripping venom. Liquid
strains her veins against her clouding skin.
She vomits bark,
desecrating the space between her toes –
putrid, willowy leaves sprout from her hair.
She looks up as if from beneath miles of
sea water, her undulating legs firmly rooted.
-I don’t want it-
she says faintly.
and the forest groans against her weight,
settling slowly like ash on the residue of thorn-ridden existence.
-The pulse glows green-
For Didds
Four tankards found at the foot of the hill
Bet someone got w*nkered, and now they feel ill
Bet it went down so easy that no one resisted
And now they’ve forgotten the tankards existed
But down at the pub there are rumours of scandals
Of boisterousness, and the theft of four candles
And a gap on the shelf where the tankards once sat
And out on the roof someone’s comedy hat
Maybe barred from the pub and a walk out of town?
With enough beer in tow to conceivably drown
As they woke up the town with their loud shouty glee
And blessed all the hedges with vomit and pee
“Here’s bashin’ yer metal” and “Cheers, me old china”
Drinking alfresco, well, what could be finer
Well, ale, I suppose, for it goes down a treat
Not that one cares when one’s drunk on the street
The next day the tankards just sat by the road
All hopeful and waiting, but nobody showed
Until round the corner a giant appeared
Wearing a rugby shirt, smile and beard
“I’ll tell you what, lads, all back to mine”
Four trusting tankards all followed in line
Expressing their heartfelt and infinite thanks
With tinkles, and clatters, and resonant clanks
There followed a search, and some transient glory
And some vain attempt to uncover their story
So brightly they shone in their moment of fame
Then they just disappeared, in the way that they came
‘Tis said, down in Rowde, that the veil is thin
That mischievous fairies throw stuff in the bin
That strange things do happen, when folk have been drinking
All myth mixed with moonshine and magical thinking
Whatever, wherever, they’re not coming back
So; whose were the tankards, and what was the crack?
by Gail
Love’s Sullied Rose
He emptied the trash and his heart
the detritus of loving’s pain,
vain attempt to erase the start,
He emptied the trash and his heart
of sullied sweetness turned to tart
of loving's roses gone to stain.
He emptied the trash and his heart
the detritus of loving's pain.
9/2/2014
for the Zeugma - Poetry Contest
You Cut – You Choose
“you cut – you choose”
Solomon-like solution
last cookie dilemma.
Not so easy with a duplicitous heart.
Clutching both halves in vain attempt
at holding each denied love’s fullness.
Fickle fallacy of need’s
wants demanding more of less,
fresh fire from once scorched timber
purity from the darkness of deceit.
Deceptions thrill - sad mockery
of racing heart – trembling hand.
Half hearted lust – cold fires sigh -
amid the loneliness of lies
free falling fantasy. Forever -
trailing stars – disappearing,
dimming in the chasm of despair’s
distrust – heartache halved –
chambered confusion
beating on the doors of death.
“you choose”
“you cut”
12/28/2015
submitted to – Free Verse Extravaganza – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Catie Lindsey
The evening dark and foggy as the children in their guises
with Mums and Dads in tow; collecting trick or treat surprises.
My porch, festooned with spiders, ghosts and ugly-looking gore,
signalled that I’d welcome them if they knocked at my door.
I watched them move along my street, in groups of two’s and threes,
their lanterns lighting up the darkened branches of the trees.
Barking dogs and screeching cats, bemused at all the noise,
continued to berate these oddly scary girls and boys.
Stooping down to check that I had my supply of sweets,
I shivered as a gust of wind blew right along my street.
Catching me off guard, the bowl of sweeties overturned
and knocked a candle over, whereupon my hands were burned.
Not thinking of the consequences, I let out a yell -
just as a mini monster raised his hand to ring my bell.
And though not known for swearing, nonetheless I hurled a curse,
tearing clear throughout the sky - and mini monster dropped his purse.
The raucous discord, mini-monster, me, the dogs, the cats,
did not quite wake the dead ( but several witches lost their hats )
The flaming contents of my porch was tossed into the air,
but the children saw this only as a vain attempt to scare.
The parents, standing some way back, delighting at this sight,
could not see through the fog that my front porch was well alight.
As the monsters and the witches threw their arms up to the stars,
the Mums and Dads just clapped and chirped up with their ‘Oohs’ and ‘Aahs’
I grabbed a blanket, managing to kill the growing flames,
but the smoke cloud brought a new dimension to their creepy games.
My face now blackened, arms aloft and clearly in pain,
I must have looked horrendous - as the parents clapped again.
The kids, unfazed, picked up the smouldering treats and bagged them all
and through their plastic teeth declared: I was the scariest of all!
Misspelled words and drawn remarks lend palatable distinction to the AIR
surrounding this
poems. The meaning of a word takes from the birth of the word as of a noun then applied in
a misdirection as the adverb or worse the verb herself. Never in the outrage of this history
of mankind will this poetry be repeated in this repetitive manner as this repititious drivel
indicates. The person who pens these odious smears at justice is not human. No mere mortal
could diatribe the snow or crucify a flower in the manner of a flouted lout outside the relm of
possiblitites. Eye suggest to the reader ewe not to waste your time your very valuable bean
time in a vain attempt at deciphering elements long non descript and void unless related to
Poetry or forced to give Critique.
Like a Tuber mushroom
an Authoritarian State
thrusts myriad mycelium tendrils
in a vain attempt
to control every contingency.
Like a Fragrant fern
a Constitutional Republic
radiates spores far and wide
to invariably find
the wisest way.
The Curse of the Faceless Woman
Lost in time, this story is told, about a woman, dark and bold.
She walks the streets on a foggy night, with a hood on her head to hide from sight.
Her story starts one summer’s eve, beside the lake an evil deed.
A thief stole her daughter’s life, and filled her soul with pain and strife.
On a moonlit night along the shore, two young lovers walked and more.
In each other’s arms that night, they talked of love and held on tight.
In the morning they were found, their hands and feet with rope were bound.
Eyes wide open a vacant stare, their souls are gone and no one’s there.
The police did search for the one, an evil deed to be undone.
In vain, they search to no avail, their efforts weak, lost, and pale.
A mother’s heart broken and splayed, a debt to justice went unpaid.
She walked the streets at night alone, to make the sinners pay and atone.
She searched the shores by day and night, a vain attempt to make things right.
And then one early morning dawn, she was found her spirit gone.
On foggy night’s times untold, she walks the streets dark and bold.
She only walks the streets at night, within the fog to hide her flight.
All clad in black she walks alone, an evil soul she’ll make atone.
She walks among the star-less night, sometimes seen beneath the bright streetlight.
All children know to be aware, least they see her standing there.
They hurry home at the approach of night, sure that they would die at her sight.
So in the night if you should see, a woman in black, listen to me.
Look not at her face I say, or with your soul you shall pay.
By
Josehf Lloyd Murchison
Gathered at the grave we pay our homage,
To the grand and the ominous relics we so cherish.
To the great life giving force that
Has indeed given me room for displeasure.
Inhale the pollutant and exhale the desperation,
In a vain attempt to grasp life's puzzles.
I see this distorted picture of you.
A hysterical comment offers itself,
And I pray this moment will never end.
But as the sun greets the edge of the world,
our minds drift downward...
to a more delusional hue...
the color of our smoke filled rooms.
Someone tells you change not because you are not good
But because you do not act the way they think you should
Neither is it because they don’t think you’re not bad
It is just a reaction when they are either mad or sad
A special person in your life ask you to make some change
However uniqueness allows someone to remain the same
You are special, in your own right, just the way you are
Singing out of tune and rhythm while driving in your car
Change however may not be bad in the pursuit of perfection
Sadly that journey isn’t easy and takes much introspection
What are the things you desire, and where do you want to be
Will these things make you truly happy, or only temporarily
Are these things that you can’t live without in the long run
Or temptations of the flesh, that only provide a quick fun
One asks, what does it matter only the test of time will tell
Should I place a Pascal wager to avoid what they call hell
The very thought of that seems a vain attempt at very best
However when the time comes will I did my very own test
Change, Aristotle, said was the only thing that doesn’t change
Clever word circles like these though do very little to explain
Indeed his idea was much more complex than I’ve stated
But, then again most people would say that he’s outdated
To change definitely one of the most difficult things to do
It something that you must really desire, this much is true
By Wayland Bunch 2/14/2013