Best Weirdly Poems
October: I'm eighteen, shortcutting home
through an autumn-burnished churchyard -
copper-lustred leaves, moss-skinned stone -
a jaunty swing of skater skirt and arm,
college folder square-sturdy in my hand.
In the moment. In the last pale pulse of sun.
Hey, can you tell me...?
I halt. I turn...
Cold earth. Colder blade dimpling my skin.
My coral cameo earrings scatter,
daisy-dotting the green.
My back is spiked by needles of yews.
Sun skews, sky side-slides
until his face is the firmament.
I'm staring into the tumid blank-bloat of blue;
the ground hardening beneath me,
the death-spike trees stiffening.
Heavy Special Brew breaths.
Grubby, moist fingers
like grubs crawling over my breasts,
and, weirdly, I'm smelling pepper -
horror-spice of pungent lust,
its acrid nose-thrust -
and woodsmoke is drifting from somewhere...
lung-flame, tongue-flames
of searing words - his words -
blazing like the umber tumbling leaves.
Please...Please...I'll...
Fear-forced bargaining, but I'm beyond care.
And I'm aware
of the church steeple rising,
its phallus penetrating sky.
The tilting church could topple
as tears crystal-crush in my eyes.
Fear-faint, already half gone
in a soundless scream, my muted mouth
mouths silent goodbyes
to Sarah, to Mum.
Time slows to a crawl.
I try to call. Nobody comes
but the man who has me ground-pinned.
Bleachy stink of semen
whitening my ripped skater skirt,
but some things don't fade
and there is no clean in this, just dirt,
wet leaf-mulch, shame.
Ineradicable hurt.
Sacred soil is soiled, sullied.
Stunned, I stumble
shoeless, knickerless,
into the trees and heave
into the mud, into the leaves
strings of spittle-sick,
my thoughts strung out,
reality spun out.
From stinking, pulped leaves I retrieve
crushed coral earrings,
ground-grimy knickers,
my white court shoes
that whitely scream the 90s,
the scattered tatters of essays -
white, like fallen feathers, sunk in the sludge,
muddied, the red-inked words bloodied.
I gather them together.
Gather myself.
I go
forward into my future, stained from pain
and tainted touch, the smears of fear, self-disgust.
And oozing slime-soft into my ears
the mire of incongruous apology: I'm sorry
don't tell anyone - I won't.
I don't.
2
My head’n’eck will be saved,
it is where everything else exists,
not just my hair, though that's also okay.
3, 4
My arms, right (3) and left (4),
I'll need them for heavy lifting,
and probably some other stuff too.
5, 6
My legs, neither has a keener number,
they love to run
and I love them to run me around.
7
My torso, you have to keep the torso,
I'd look a damn fool
with arms, legs, head’n’eck weirdly joined
without a torso to keep them from arguing.
1
Before I'd even started on things 2 - 7,
I would expect to have saved
a heathen's prayer
to Him/Her/Them,
That which I do not know,
a prayer that I may succeed
in saving things 2 - 7,
so that I might see you again.
14th February 2019
For Seven Things Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Caren Krutsinger
Beyond an overgrowth of weeds, I see
a house with faded paint. It beckons me.
Victorian, its windows are like eyes
that hypnotize, and soon I find myself
there at its door. I tentatively knock.
Though knowing nobody will come to it,
to my surprise, I turn the door knob and
just walk into this strange but lovely house.
I look around at antique furniture
grown dingy. Cobwebs decorate the walls.
A sudden slam! I run back to the door.
It won’t come open. Panic floods my soul.
I go to every window. They won’t budge.
It’s like they’ve been sealed shut from standing still
through many years of never being used.
I shiver; from the corner of my eye,
I see a figure. Shadowy, it flits
across the dining room. I follow it
while swallowing my terror, and I go
into a small room, where the shadow crept.
Surrounding me are paintings on the wall.
I can’t take them all in, for there is one
that seems to call to me! How can that be?
It’s quiet there, and yet my mind is filled
with someone’s voice. It pleads to be released.
The voice is in the painting! I am led
so weirdly to its spot upon the wall.
I get right up to it and feel a chill.
An evil presence has me in its clutch.
I know this when I see the painting’s scene. . .
Fresh horror like I’ve never known before
now grips my throat and I can’t even scream.
Inside the painting is a woman who
looks eerily like me! She stands inside
a room with many paintings, and behind
her is a hooded being. Is she me?
I dare not look behind me. . . yet I do.
The hooded figure stands behind me too!
A scream at last escapes my lips, and I’m
inside the painting now and looking out!
I’m looking out onto the tiny room
with all its paintings. I am caught inside
the confines of a frame; I’m miniature!
I know the hooded beast has captured me.
I see his shadow leave the room and know
the door to this big house he has unlocked!
Another fool will enter as did I.
They’ll get locked in and then led to this room
to that one picture where I will await
to cry out plaintively to be released. . .
(Sorry this is so long; I had to do it this way to tell the story how it formed in my mind.)
Aug. 22, 2018
Sponsor- Dear Heart
Contest- The Haunted House
In Blank verse, which is unrhymed Iambic pentameter
In the dream world I love to go and fly
No matter what I do, I still go high
During the day I go in an airplane
Up in the air I go weirdly insane
I dream of an orange sky floating there
With purple clouds moving along somewhere
In the daylight hours the sky is a blue
It has clouds in quite a lovely white hue
The city streets are amassed with people
The dream contains so many parts feeble
The fields of concrete are opened to cars
Where in the evening you can’t see the stars
Zombies run around looking for some blood
In my dream I run avoiding the flood
There are many stores on the wide sidewalks
My days are made up with shopping and talks
The poles in my dream are purple with eyes
Nowhere I go do I ever despise
There are many wires going from each pole
In the daylight the sight is from the soul
Dreams are cloudy and certainly unreal
But the day is clear, real, and has appeal
Russell Sivey
Contest: Dreaming into the Day
Sponsor: Michael J. Falotico
5/14/2013
Easy breezy mystery
Freely fancy harmony
Crazy buzzy factory
Timely spicy ecstasy
Weirdly wisely comedy
Truly creepy tragedy
Simply sadly melody
Richly wrongly fantasy
Meekly mildly mindfully
Easy breezy mentally
Leon Enriquez
22 March 2016
Singapore
I walk away from the bungalow, sand in my toes
I try to forget you, all the hurt and my woes
Life seems unfair at times, it doesn’t make sense
I thought you loved me, it must have been pretense
I walk along the rocky cliff as I start to head back
As I peer over the cliff the water looks so black
Feeling depressed, I want to jump into the water
My life has been so crazy, would it really matter?
I get closer to the edge and I hear someone yelling
I feel large arms pull me away, it is so compelling
A beautiful man has a hold of me and doesn’t let go
He said I could have been killed, as if I didn’t really know
He grabbed my hands and led me down the rocks
He asked if we could sit, try to relax and have a talk
I said no, and started to argue with some heated strife
He smiled, as he said I would since he just saved my life
We walked to our cars, weirdly parked so close
He said his name is Frank and lives here on the coast
He said he lives alone and wants to bring me there
I agreed, not really caring about myself to have any fear
8/11/19
Contest: Writing Challenge 1, August 2019 - Just Write
Sponsor: Dear Heart
You can return to earth for two days they said,
but not in that worn out body.
I knew that; and I was glad; it was almost blind,
and had a touch of dementia any way.
You have to go incognito, they told me.
They were stern, and stuck up angels,
Not the kind I was expecting to meet my
first hour in heaven. Assertive even.
Here were my body choices: fourteen year old boy,
red hair, freckles, square chin.
Eighty-nine year old body, old lady, wrinkled,
spotted hands, sweet smile, looked serene.
Or two-year-old female, blonde hair, plump and perfect.
I could not see their eyes, for the eyes do not appear
until you enter the body suit.
Two-year-olds can be dancy-prancy. But that would mean
I would have to have gatekeepers in the form of parents,
probably, and I wanted two days of freedom not naps.
Being eighty- nine did not appeal to me at all.
I have never enjoyed arthritis in my feet or a humpback.
“Fourteen year old boy,” I told them. They nodded,
being smug angels, and my self-chosen-spirit-guides for many lifetimes.
All of my relatives stared at the giggling freckled
red-haired teenage boy at my funeral.
They speculated that he had escaped from the
boys’ group home on the corner.
Every time one of them got up and said something
nice about me, the boy burst out laughing.
They did not escort him out, because weirdly enough,
he had my witch-laugh, and it comforted them.
If you are new, making friends is all ON you.
They do not care.
They are established.
They have their friends.
Be careful though.
If you try too hard, they will think something
is wrong with you.
If you do not try hard enough, they will say
that you are stuck up, unfriendly, snotty, rude.
Weirdly enough, there is an exact middle of the road balance you have to find.
The trick is, that each neighbor’s middle of the road spot is unique.
So you have to be a great people-reader in order to make new friends at all.
Good luck new neighbor.
When you started rating my poems low
I couldn’t put my finger on it
But I knew something was happening to
Make them drop and weirdly enough only
When you started commenting and acting like
A best friend to me so I
Set a trap and now I know
When you started rating my poems low.
Written by Brenda Meier-Hans
10.20.2014
Rick Paris’s Contest:
8 Lines 7 Words Enjambment
Soon I will be traveling
To the valley of the stars
And the shoreline of the Milky Way
Where near connects to far.
My senses fading rapidly
As darkness closes in
Like a fog bank over mountain tops
Void of sound or wind.
Bow and arrow-headed past Polaris
Beyond Orion’s belt –
Galaxies beyond galaxies
Or anything yet seen or felt.
Star-dust bound to that forever now
Eternally timeless life and death –
To the Maker of matter and anti-matter
And giver of life and breath.
Minstrel of music, Painter of skies
One for All and All in One –
Where old is new as morning dew
And darkness and light come from.
Where departures are deceptive and death reflective
Of times and places we’ve known –
Where déjà vu’ is nothing new
And oceans turn to snow.
Where once upon a mystery
In those early Christian miles –
I heard Jesus laughing and Buddha clapping
The day I learned to smile.
With Shiva dancing and Lipizzons prancing
In a wave-like, particle spin –
Where uncertainty turns to reality
And disappears like a by-gone wind.
Where stretching the bounds of life itself
Is a weirdly – wonderful ride –
Like falling from a roller coaster down below
And the bottom is nothing
but sky.
I’m going back there and everywhere
In the eye of the hurricane storm –
Into the realm of the looking glass
Where memories and dreams are born.
Where truth is a lie and fiction real
And proof is a playful thing –
Where telekinesis is more than a thesis
And the universe sparkles and sings.
And the warm Light of Transcendence and others in attendance
Wait where the river runs deep –
For another soul’s travel to try and unravel
How far we can go when we sleep.
Where yesterday lives with tomorrow today
And heaven is real as green grass –
For you, me and they and all who obey
In the laws of good nature that lasts.
Where consciousness resides love never dies
And home’s not a place but a thought –
Separation ended, hatred suspended
And nothing more needs to be sought.
Feathers
Unbelievably weirdly
Challenging throwing catching
The feathers changing direction
Funninsh, foolish, failish
Falling feathers
air
Take My Hand, And Be My Love
By Rick Rucker
Come with me, and be My Love,
Only seeing blue skies Above!
At odd moments, throughout the day,
At tape of recent events, in my mind, I play,
All of my defenses,
Are bypassed by my overloaded senses,
I’m sure my friends think me quite daft,
They’ve seen me oddly smile, heard that I weirdly laughed,
Although it isn’t yet Spring,
Friends mention that I often sing,
At the slightest provocation,
Due to my dearest avocation,
Which is Loving You!
The only thing I forever want to do!
I know that You are more reserved than Me,
Don’t blame me, you have set my Inhibitions Free!
I feel like some love-struck kid,
My Love for You, I never hid.
You have given my Heart wings,
Played a Lover’s tune on my Heart strings!
Take my Hand, and walk with me,
I will try to let You see,
Just how wonderful our Lives will be
Me, in Love with You, and You with Me,
In a Garden of Delight,
Loving You, both day, and night!
Being with You, I will never tire,
To be by your side, I would swim through Fire!
Though our names be not Montague, nor Capulet,
Our Love will be remembered, that I’ll bet,
For such an epic Love, it would be a sin,
If others could not listen in,
My poems are meant to record,
How blessed I am, with You as my reward,
How long will I write for you, a Love Rhyme?
Only until the end of Time!
He was an unpopular celebrity who enjoyed his liquid food
Acting weirdly normal when he was in a happy mood
He’d been on a heavy diet and was eating lots of jumbo shrimp
They were disgustingly delicious with hot chili and on his diet he won't skimp
His stomach was growing smaller and now looked awfully pretty
I hear his dieting was an open secret and not virtual reality
Once a star of film and stage he could stand out in a small crowd
His face was pretty ugly but his quiet presence was quite loud
This was his goodbye reception for he was now a failing star
Now his full time job in his retirement is propping up the bar!
08~20~16
Contest - Oxymoronic Obsession Sponsored by David Lindsay
Stanza 1 unpopular celebrity, liquid food, weirdly normal. happy mood
Stanza 2 heavy diet, jumbo shrimp. disgustingly delicious, hot chili
Stanza 3 growing smaller. open secret, virtual reality, awfully pretty
Stanza 4 small crowd, pretty ugly,
Stanza 5 goodbye reception, failing star, full time job in his retirement
I can't explain this life I have
This is what God had give me
I can't turn back now
This is what I had to do
I can't tell you why I am this way
I can't tell you anything
I behave unlike the others
But you do not have to know eveything
I am different in your eyes
I am different to anyone's sight
I am different from everybody else
But I know I am still alive
I can't change of who I am
You have to undersand that
The world is not perfect at all
And I am not that upset
I know I act weirdly
How I help people a lot
That I can't even help myself
And you think I am weird
although you know I'm not
I am different to every place
I am different from the others
I am different to go through this
I can't live normally like the others
Knowing how gifted I am
Feeling other's pain and misery
But I don't just stand and watch
I take this very seriously
I know I can't rest
I am too worried to rest
While the others suffered out there
I know I haven't did my best
I know I am different
And I thought you understand
I know i am difficult
All I need now is a hand
Happy me!
Dressed up in new pink sheath dress,
embellished with white sparkles.
Excited to flaunt it to lasses and lads.
Quickly walked out swaying my tress.
Inspecting eyes stared at me in amazement
“Baby walk with style!” that was cerebrum’s announcement.
Oh hell!
I fell down from my porch escalier,
Down into the mire.
I just hurtled to avoid the huddle.
Remembering those happy days, together we crackle.
On a holiday, at Agra Fort.
With my friends, gushing and rushing on the ramp.
Hay scattered just like sand.
Uf! Suddenly what happened?
I slipped and slithered!
“Now what was that?”, I was out of my head.
“Dry elephant dung”, bursting with laughter, someone dispreads .
Entire herd weirdly cracked up!
It was my lucky day.
I just rode my bicycle all the way.
Proudly I declared, “Hey I can ride without any strain.”
And before I could finish, found myself in the drain.
Laughing out loudly, friends applauded once again.
Hey! This is how every story must begin!
My list goes on, but I think, now I should stop!
Else, laughing out loudly, your jaws will drop!
04/03/2019
Make me actually LOL 2 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Nina Parmenter