Best Vines Poems
Like tender loving arms, they wrap around
old monuments of stone set on the ground;
those silent sentinels that stand their guard
above the souls, we honor and regard.
To honor and regard through all the years
when loved ones come to speak unhappy tears.
Beneath the summer rain and winter snow,
these monuments of stone, their sorrow show.
Like tender arms, the vines embrace the stones
to comfort them, these guardians of bones
who bear the sadness brought to them to share,
by those who stand and weep in silent prayer.
The tender vines grow thicker 'round the tombs...
create a leafy shawl that lives and blooms,
and shows true hope for new life after death
which tangled vines embrace with living breath.
Like tender loving arms, they wrap around
these lasting monuments, where peace is found,
and frame the name of each whose life reclines...
now resting safe and sound, caressed by vines.
September 27, 2016
~7th Place~
Premiere Contest: Stones
Sponsor: Anthony Biaanco
Judged: 08/14/2021
~3rd Place~
Premiere Contest, 2019 Poetry Marathon Mile 18
Sponsor: Mark Toney
Judged: 02/16/2019
~3rd Place~
Contest: Your Best Rhyming Poem 2
Sponsor: John Hamilton
Judged: 02/03/2017
~2nd Place~
Contest: Overgrown With Vines
Sponsor: Broken Wings
Judged: 10/08/2016
I haven’t sat here for quite some time.
Our back patio, beneath the brown umbrella, in a chair that glides.
Someone else is with her now,
So I am here.
In this special space.
Remembering times together and with friends.
Loud laughter broken with many careless words.
Bravado to spare.
Burgers on the barbeque,
Some slow sipping wine, others chugging hard lemonade.
Too many ‘if it should ever happen to me.’
All healthy then, so such words were cheap.
But now
Green-leafed vines grow through and around
Our barbeque - not used in a year, or perhaps it’s two.
When I decide to take it back
Those damn vines won’t give up easy.
Oh, I could do it if I wanted.
But won’t.
Least not today or tomorrow.
Now black-leafed vines have taken hold,
Wrapping tight within our lives.
Oh, they’ll never let us go.
I know that now.
But still, I hold on,
Trying to kiss all better.
While black-leafed vines grow
Deep inside her
And shred my soul.
To break through the darkness, into the fresh sunlight
To press ever upwards towards the light so bright
Twisting and turning and stretching arms out wide
Climbing pushing ever upwards, no more time to bide
Nothing can stop the growth, forever on and up
Until you wrapped around me and drank from the same cup
Your arms held me tight you began to share my growth
There is no telling one from the other, we have become both…
Like a twisting tangled vine, two parts but one another
There is no separating without harm caused to each other
Knitted together forever, in a loving tangled mess
Sharing the same support, having each other to bless.
When autumn comes and our leaves age and fall
Remember vines are perennial and will grow on again so tall
Holding on to each other our vines will then bear fruit
Each year they grow stronger and none can then uproot.
© 19/07/2013 ~GG~
An oak tree, three hundred years he had stood.
Half-dryad, half-man, he has seen about everything,
Sadness and kindness, but never has he felt truly loved.
A tender vine lovingly nurtured under his darkened shade.
"Twine yourself around me, embrace me with your vine.
Perhaps a mystical chemistry will bond us for life", he said.
In this ancient woodland a magical thing happened that night.
For this vine became half-woman, and embraced him with love.
Her tendrils kept growing, twisting entirely around this old oak tree
Eventually her tangled vines sucked the life from his old soul.
So watch what you wish for, you never know what will be.
06/29/2013
For Constance La France's contest, " Tangled Vines"
Twilight, stay with me
in hours between wrong and right;
when confessions are murmured
upon this life half done,
that past mid-life,
I ask for reprieve to settle
unsolved desires those which
enable my fears a choking
of seasons' absence-
Northwinds may be cold ,
cruel but now I hold
eventide's fire with passion unbending
Contest: Heart and Soul by Kelly Deschler
Crystallized dew drops scatter across vines in winter,
while I can feel the harsh grip of the season reaching for my throat,
slithering ever closer, bitter air sweeping across crackling skin.
Loneliness weighs heavy beneath ashen clouds that coat the skies.
The scent of dry ozone fills my nostrils as I struggle to breathe.
A step upon the gelid ground makes my feet shake, trying not to fall.
I look out in every direction, seeing nothing but the barren carcass of what was once summer~
when the warmth of days seemed to stretch on forever.
The scent of fresh pine once wafted through the breeze;
those days are now just a bygone memory,
shattered , lost in the frozen mist.
I rub my hands together, desperate to feel something beyond the numbness.
I continue onward with my journey~
there is no time for rest now.
The sun begins to set upon alabaster fields below,
and the wolves begin their search at dusk.
I must find your burial shrouds before they do,
for they are the only way to bring us back together again.
tangled vines and shasta daisies embrace
long forgotten wagon wheels . . .
the whisper of a breeze
________________________
August 6, 2012
Poetry/Kimo/tangled vines
Copyright Protected, ID 08- 4116-88-06
All Rights Reserved, 2012, Constance La France
Written for the Standard contest, tangled vines
sponsor, Brian Strand, HM, Judged 08/08/2012
Featured poem week of September 20, 2015
Featured poem week of March 13, 2022
The leaves, long gone, each golden child carried
on autumn draft to reach a season's death,
portends bitter squalls will blow the harried
vines with long, cruel winter's icy breath.
Now slumber long beneath the warming banks
upon your tender roots deep in the earth.
All while stillness patrols your sentried ranks,
you strengthen sap to bring a new year's birth.
The spice of burning wood pervades the air
as gentle snipping of the pruning shear
sets free your limbs for summer fruit to bear;
from tender newborn buds, which soon appear.
And so the cycle starts for wondrous vine
to once again turn sunshine into wine.
And the cemetery was inside a grove
of tangled vines and rocks covered in moss.
Some toppled stones were scattered in the grass;
too many years had gone to honor loss.
Too many years had gone to honor loss
of souls, that passed one hundred years ago.
Their loved ones with them now were looking down
upon the toppled stones that lay below.
Upon the toppled stones that lay below,
now long forgotten in this damp, dark place,
these souls had left their mark from earthly life,
and tangled vines their memories erased.
And tangled vines their memories erased,
of loving families who gathered there;
and now, so many years have passed away,
that only tangled vines and rocks now share.
That only tangled vines and rocks now share
the memories of those who once were loved.
But, toppled stones don't matter anymore...
for up in heaven, they are well-beloved.
May 7, 2016
~2nd Place~
Contest: And The Cemetery Was
Sponsor: Broken Wings
Judged: 06/01/2016
Life was the wing that gave them flight
as they soared ever so high
now death is the darkness of their plight
where the wind mournfully sighs
Dry bones bound by eternity's chain
rest serenely 'neath tall shade trees
where dreams have decayed with the leafy debris
and silence is all that remains
Headstones stand as sentinels
Along the tree lined path
Sadness clings to the overgrown vines
in the timeless aftermath
Within the muted reverence of this place
the overgrown vines seem to speak
with a voice that will oft embrace
the departed souls mystique
When one sentinel falls
the others will stand tall
Whispering secrets to the great beyond
as the vines slowly crawl
~~~
9/30/16
Contest Name: Overgrown With Vines
Sponsor: Broken Wings
I rest my eyes away from you,
and I feel the grip of our
entwining vines.
I feel how tightly they hold us—
I smell the fragrance of the
monomaniac squeeze—
and I feel the grip of my vines
loosen.
I feel a wisp of cold wind—
the only real sign that you
have long passed me by
no longer growing
confusedly as one.
Something dreadful is reflected in this scene
Could be she's seen death in a horrid dream, or
perhaps a relapse of an affliction or addiction
has left her crestfallen, in an insentient state
with the blood of her sin dripping from her eyes.
In vines, she's entangled for having sat so long
Grieving for whatever tragedy has gone wrong.
Entwined in living vines of a scarlet rose
more alive than she appears to be.
Is it a dark disgrace she bears in this pose?
One Poe would have drawn to illustrate a poem
telling a dark tale as black ravens preen.
With iridescent wings fluttering, they hover near
plucking at an ornament worn round her neck
Cawing attention to her pox in squawking voices,
making her circumspect for being called a sinner.
Has she committed some dark dastardly deed
that's left her sitting on that garden bench
as if in widow's threads, dreading her crime
and praying Mea Culpas for forgiveness?
Forlorn she sits, weary from existence,
oblivious to the avian souls. Do they guard her
or are they being persistent in cawing her shame?
Has she been the victim of some abysmal crime?
What horror must be kept secreted in her mind
and what keeps her kohled eyes closed as if blind?
Don't ask the black bird for he has sworn allegiance
Nevermore would he tell the tale of it all as she falls
ever deeper into the madness that has left her cold.
Aa alabaster statue on a garden bench.
Is she missing her beloved when he was claimed by death
or a wench who in an act of jealousy killed her lover?
The sin committed in passion is a mortal blunder and more...
A flaw in the heart of one Poe would never call Lenore.
The old homestead is a shambles,
nearly hidden in wild brambles.
My mind reveals a happy place
that had once held your funny face.
The tree swing we once swung upon
is fallen rotted and now gone.
How many the years, or the miles,
have stolen those days of our smiles?
I survey the giant oak trees
we would climb for a cooling breeze.
Now covered in wild woody vines
that hold our secrets in confines.
All in shambles and forsaken,
my early memories shaken.
Has life, like home, come to descend
from vibrant life to final end?
somehow and in someway, just once today
ends twist, making it so hard to resist
this connection with you, it’s true
- vines became tangled -
sometime and in someway- today
with only you
~ a little scribble ~
Heather in a garden
Or heather in a store
Flowers beg a pardon,
Lovely forever more.
Vines climb up a wall,
Effortlessly tall
Vines climb up a gate,
Chopping is their fate.
Flowers and vines,
‘til the end of times.
Together forever
Trumpets and heather.