Best Whereof Poems
If only I could respond to this woman who shrieks
Who knows so little about whereof she speaks,
Belittles comments she so desperately seeks
Her social and political rantings go on for weeks.
I am amazed that her poetry is so ungrammatical
We would all be better off if she took a sabbatical,
Or spent her time in some more profitable pursuit
Hasn’t she learned that most of us don’t give a hoot.
Today she ignored all the facts and hit on vaccines
Spewed more venom on our president, it seems,
Took a few shots at the world situation in general
Has nothing positive to say, it borders on criminal.
I’ve noticed the recent absence of others of her ilk
They seem to have wilted like early fall cornsilk,
Apparently, folks like her do not fade with neglect
Poetry Soup is best when everyone shows respect.
Those poets who choose to share their beliefs
Are welcome, great; hatred, however, offers no relief
Putting down my country, my president, my politics
With disrespect, I will respond to these lunatics.
Written October 1, 2021
44th on Best 100 Poems of the Month
Poetry Soup, October 3, 2021
POEM OF THE DAY
October 2, 2021
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by, and
That has made all the difference".
The Road Not Taken. Robert Frost
We deem it normal for babies to cry when they arrive.
Perhaps it's the best indication that they are alive.
But in their minds, it seems they are issuing a protest.
Notwithstanding, it takes only a little bit of loving caress,
and, just like that, newborns succumb to affection and tenderness.
It's as if a baby accepts it by saying, "Now that I am here"....
What if we were just as adjusting when life presents us with the
unexpected? "Now that we are here" would be a calming and mature
manner of course. We will never know the difference our lives would have been or would have made had it gone just as we had planned or how we
had prepared for it to be.
Before now, I had not given much thought to what might be happening at
birth in the minds of the baby, but I believe that there is a God-designed element within us at birth that gives us an untrained instinct or hidden
desire to make adjustments when so required.
Sometimes, when we are drawn into places that are unplanned and unsuitable, or by our own intention, we have every right and a need to
protest and seek an exit. But then, there are times that we of necessity
must bow to the situation and say, "Now that we are here", let's make the best of the circumstance. Let's reevaluate and recalculate. Let's reconsider and recheck the GPS that God has given us.
"Now that we are here", who knows but what God has brought us or allowed us to enter this place, this season, this misfortune, for such a time as this?
Like newborn babies, let us indeed protest this strange turn of events. We
absolutely have been given a will, a uniqueness, and a mind of our very own.
By the same token, we must occasionally turn aside and say, "Now that we are here", what now? Now that we are here, a place we never intended to be or to go, what shall we now do? Does this way lead to my destiny? What new ideas and inspiration await us? I know whereof I speak, and I must say, mine has been quite a ride.
031923PSCtest, Now that we are here. Unseeking Seeker
What thou art to me may I gladly
shout and proclaim to thee most well?
Thou art to me a high-born lady
of style whereof I'd love to tell,
a princess that's sage and lovely—
whose mind is like a pleasant dell.
Thou art to me a raven-haired
of graciousness that's never seen.
Thou art the friend that boldly dared
to be the one and hopeful Queen,
a source of ruth who cried and shared
her tears through eyes of limpid green.
Thou art to me a fresh new start,
a renaissance of hope that's true:—
God's gift of grace to my sinful heart
and to my shame that I so rue;
thou art thus the most blessèd part
of faith and joy that now ensue.
Abstraction is an old story with the philosophers, but it has been like a new toy in the hands of the artists of our day. Why can't we have any one quality of poetry we choose by itself? We can have in thought. Then it will go hard if we can't in practice. Our lives for it.
Granted no one but a humanist much cares how sound a poem is if it is only a sound. The sound is the gold in the ore. Then we will have the sound out alone and dispense with the inessential. We do till we make the discovery that the object in writing poetry is to make all poems sound as different as possible from each other, and the resources for that of vowels, consonants, punctuation, syntax, words, sentences, metre are not enough. We need the help of context- meaning-subject matter. That is the greatest help towards variety. All that can be done with words is soon told. So also with metres-particularly in our language where there are virtually but two, strict iambic and loose iambic. The ancients with many were still poor if they depended on metres for all tune. It is painful to watch our sprung-rhythmists straining at the point of omitting one short from a foot for relief from monotony. The possibilities for tune from the dramatic tones of meaning struck across the rigidity of a limited metre are endless. And we are back in poetry as merely one more art of having something to say, sound or unsound. Probably better if sound, because deeper and from wider experience.
Then there is this wildness whereof it is spoken. Granted again that it has an equal claim with sound to being a poem's better half. If it is a wild tune, it is a Poem. Our problem then is, as modern abstractionists, to have the wildness pure; to be wild with nothing to be wild about. We bring up as aberrationists, giving way to undirected associations and kicking ourselves from one chance suggestion to another in all directions as of a hot afternoon in the life of a grasshopper. Theme alone can steady us down. just as the first mystery was how a poem could have a tune in such a straightness as metre, so the second mystery is how a poem can have wildness and at the same time a subject that shall be fulfilled.
"Shades"
You shade me
I shade you
stops the sun burning
eternally through
long nights’ deep bleed
the blue birds lead the way;
"definitely no more flowers",
you say.
I say, "fancy some
foxgloves?"
You say, "Slinky opera-like?"
I say, "No way, Prospero
digitalis are us
behind eyes that pray."
Just for good measure
I say,
"I’m not Miranda,
I’m Prospera,
by the way,
my high charms work,
and these my enemies
are all knit up in their
distractions, they are
now in my power.
I hear tell that
Hell is now empty
and all the devils are here."
"I believe you", you say,
"digitalis ready
lead the way."
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
“This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air: thence I have follow’d it”
“Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.”
“We all were sea-swallow’d, though some cast again.
And by that destiny to perform an act
Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge.”
“I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.”
“Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.”
Those born into a family large will know whereof I speak.
Your chances of donning the newest clothes was very, very bleak!
Alas, hand-me-downs became a tradition at our humble house.
Being at the end of the clothes chain always made me grouse!
I had the dubious honor of wearing things that were always patched.
Color coordination was out of the question since nothing ever matched!
The fedoras I wore flopped down over my very ample ears.
I resembled a tiny Al Capone, embarrassing me to tears!
The pants I wore were wrapped around me once or twice.
"You'll grow into them", said Mom. "For now they will suffice!"
The sleeves of the jackets I wore came nearly to my knees,
Making it hard to find my hands to stifle an onrushing sneeze!
The shoes I wore were usually two sizes too long and wide.
I waddled like a wounded duck with every painful stride!
The neckties I wore were of big brother's dreadful taste.
Looped around my scrawny neck, they hung well below my waist!
Teenage years flew by, a reprieve from this predicament I could see.
The guys in Air Force recruiting posters looked mighty sharp to me!
I enlisted anticipating wearing a snappy suit of Air Force blue,
Only to be issued olive drab hand-me-downs from World War Two!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Before I tramp the course of my cause,
A family indeed we were, I and Kole
But I short of years from the other.
Only by words we keep memory of
A deceased mother like morning dew
Sought for by the gloaming. We knew
Only a father whose right hand does
The masculine labour and his left hand
Undertook the feminine chore
And grew us up from tendril to maturity.
Nothing moves the heart as do feelings,
The impression creates of a moving mountain.
But with one mind accept I all that be
And live a life devoid of melodrama.
Behind laughter abide the trail of tears
And in my tears was laughter’s bare face.
Work, leisure, sickness, health, joy, sadness
Nothing so transporting or so flummoxing
As to heave my heart off the balance of life.
As an ass, it does not sigh over its burdens
And the camel do not complain of thirst
Through the drought of the desert.
By Fate’s design we lost Kole who had
Found natural escapism from life in death
Whereof the dead cannot forgo to return.
I, left with a father I pampered and cared for
Always after his heels and by his lounge
And all lips hailed the good son of a father.
Time takes precedence to test all values
And fate takes no cognizance of kinship.
Every cord has been broken by birth.
Day by day is the wake of another day
And again it would go back to slumber.
Harmattan made the land to be bard,
It would smile while the sun is out but
Only to become moody with drops.
Playing, gaming, travelling, interacting,
Have excused the drabness of existence.
Below the earth is the hue of brown
And above the sky is the hue of grey.
I have left my father and home into
The city to make a fortune and a name
For they all have queried a son cannot
Always be a honeybunch to a father
But must seek to be a sovereign man.
Now I traverse through the fleeting land
All my goods and affiliates lay aside.
Being an heir, I am no heir to fleeting goods.
Why throw away the bad grains
And then store up the chaff?
I will walk through the sands of time until
I halt in my course to become sand.
A father I commit to the hands of nature
And goodwill of kinsmen and friends.
So Edward Kamanzola was born on the Christmas Day
The year 1943 and this was declared a rare luck;
And fortune was expected to trail his life all the way
To his doubtless toothless longevity of an octogenarian.
And true luck was his mate throughout
For his success no one could doubt.
He joined school at an unusual young age
Where his class he topped to the final year,
Outshining his peers at every examinable stage
Till he moved to the best secondary school in Kenya.
Alliance High School was not every Tom’s cup of tea
But it was to Kamanzola as cheap as a grain of pea.
As you had guessed, our genius went to the University of Nairobi
Where a degree in heart surgery he pursued to the end;
And rewarding our academic stalwart who opposed all anomie,
He became a government adviser on aristocratic cardiovascular details
Whereof he for long helped disentangle top thorny assassination tales.
He feared the honking of motor vehicles,
And loathed the beggary of the hordes on the streets;
So he locked himself in his office with other learned Michaels
Till he came down with a woeful heart attack,
A disease that ended the 60-year trail of luck.
Finding a new phone case you want
Didn’t even get a follow back on
DVT HR in a while ago but
Thrift store in a while ago but
Ends with the new version is better
Ended my life and the rest of
Dusty to be the first half of
4/9/16
In case you're wondering:
DVT = Deep vein thrombosis
HR = Heart rate
This poem was constructed in the following manner: I closed my eyes and hit my iPhone text keypad five times, then hit "autocorrect" to get the first word. The next 6 words of each line were the first suggested word by the iPhone text program. Pure randomness, inspired by the random word orderer found in Gulliver's Travels:
"Every one knew how laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas, by his contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study." He then led me to the frame, about the sides, whereof all his pupils stood in ranks. It was twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the room. The superfices was composed of several bits of wood, about the bigness of a die, but some larger than others. They were all linked together by slender wires. These bits of wood were covered, on every square, with paper pasted on them; and on these papers were written all the words of their language, in their several moods, tenses, and declensions; but without any order. The professor then desired me "to observe; for he was going to set his engine at work." The pupils, at his command, took each of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the edges of the frame; and giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of the words was entirely changed. He then commanded six-and-thirty of the lads, to read the several lines softly, as they appeared upon the frame; and where they found three or four words together that might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four remaining boys, who were scribes. This work was repeated three or four times, and at every turn, the engine was so contrived, that the words shifted into new places, as the square bits of wood moved upside down."--Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, Part 3, Chapter 5
So here is a "Story as it was told" Of a Cow who strayed across the road!
on the outskirts of a small country town. Away from the Brown's Dairy Farm,
and her little Red Barn, and the Pasture where She did Grazed.
and finding a Babbling Brook whereof she did took!
and drink to her fill, some Brew from an Old Moonshine Still?
that flowed into the stream from out of them hills!
until She was drunk and passed out and slump,
and fell there to the grown.
So Upon her Awakening and dismayed by her thinking!
She proposed to make a vow. To tell a Bizarre and most Labyrinth Taller tale!
and never to take a Cow, too a moonshine still,
and Certainly not to drink a whole gallon from a Jug again?
So Being that she was the Daughter of the towns biggest liar.
Know as Farmer Brown!
Poet: John J Myers
Copyright ©2011 John J Myers
Genuine love is loveless
Whereof the heart is beclouded
With mystic, monastic and metaphysical aura
Only minds as deep as the Congo river can contain.
'Tis when fair love subsist
That spiritual, ethical and philosophical
Transcend all mundane forms and allures
That are subject to the acid test of time and change.
'Tis to disdain honeycombs
To find relish in bitter herbs is rare
And have wants and longings lay in catacombs
Beside the sweet amusing bed of roses it is but to dare.
'Tis to know what it is
Love dwells in spirit and not physique
And its form is literal but not imaginative
And its essence not naive but rather philosophical!
Like seraphim whose wings unfold,
your majesty goes not untold!
As the light of your brilliant face
moves in me all of time and space;
as planets orbit heaven's Sun
and encircle it one by one;
so, too, am I caught in your sway,
enrapt with you from day to day.
The hosts of God bring attention,
with horns of holy dimension,
and trumpet your great might whereof
they blast their praise from up above.
You are The Incarnation
who sparks this cosmos's causation,
through which effects exist from laws,
in worship to cosmic First Cause:
in Latin, “Primum Mobile,”—
“first mover” of Ptolemy,
which answers Infinite Regress
from the pre-Socratics' egress.
There's an island paradise located in the blue Atlantic.
No place on earth is quite as charming and romantic!
A shangri-la where beaches are pink and everyone smiles.
The place whereof I speak are the quaint Bermuda Isles!
There are no streets with mundane names like Elm or Main,
But you will find Shinbone Alley and Old Maid's Lane,
Or Aunt Peggy's Lane and unique Featherbed Alley,
Where quaint shoppes welcome you for a spot o'tea!
Brave tourists straddle motorbikes to go for a spin,
Perhaps stopping for a rum swizzle at famed Swizzle Inn!
Or if it's something delectable they desire to munch,
May stop by the Hog Penny in Hamilton for a leisurely lunch!
If looking for a sheltered beach on which to cavort,
There's no finer than Tobacco Bay nigh St. Catherine's Fort!
Ah, to spend an evening at Ye Olde White Horse Inn,
Slurping Bermuda fish chowder and sipping tonic and gin!
At night the shimmering sea reflects the magnificent moon.
Dulcet calypso music wafts from across the glassy lagoon.
Bermuda is known for its lilies, onions and friendly blokes,
And for the beauty of its sunsets the Master Artist invokes!
Entry for Thvia Shetley's "Foreign Travel" Contest
Here in the brook a frightful sight I saw,
A frightful sight for sure!
Lo and behold! What an eerie beast of awe,
And knew I then 'tis most obscure.
How this tale would unfold I tell it true,
Of villains, of echo's in the night!
It is this and more, as distinct I'd most construe,
Whereof vultures were quite forthright.
And below, at my feet I saw terror,
A crawling freak of nature was it.
Yes, it is this and more, just no unjustly error,
But some slime 'twas there I submit.
O I couldn't ignore, I was extremely mad,
Up my leg it went slowly that vile beast.
'Tis a creature unlike any I'd thought most bad,
Likely I was dead, or plain dreaming at least.
The merest, I was in pain, and in fear,
Now upon my torso it creeped!
Scream out I wanted to ever so clear,
But there only despair had seeped.
That and the blood of woe bled tragically,
While once upon my chest it dug in.
Tearing into my flesh it did quite drastically,
Wherefore I felt my heart bleed within.
The horror of the slime was a nightmare,
Such creature above all I deplored.
Clasped I its slimy matter, and I grasped it fair,
For I'm old, yet the risk I most explored.
I acceded I must engage this fright nigh,
That others may rest in some peace.
And I'll lift the grave weight to most decry,
Hear me now, the slime I will release.
The story so is told, as fated to weep,
Of a creature bewailed and hated.
It is this and more, as till it remains a horrid creep,
In my hour of dire quiver, it was ne'er awaited.
Whence they wrought much havoc upon me,
Still this agrise I diced with fairly bent.
And 'twas fraught there something to try flee,
The villains within the slime were intent.
They'd come a rapping at my torn heart,
From within the slime they poured out.
Rapping and muttering nonsense I could't impart,
But it soon dawned on me beyond doubt.
I was dead, that I surely was and nothing more,
Tho' how, I knew not, yet 'tis quite true!
All the echoes were of ghastly demons that tore,
Bleeding merely a grim death to push thro'.
YeeHaw! We are about to be entertained with America's favorite sport!
No, it ain't football, baseball or basketballs bouncin' on the court.
Nor is it soccer, wrestlin', NASCAR racin' or tennis whereof I speak.
Nae! 'Tis the inane antics of politicians we'll watch as our votes they seek!
With bated breath we'll watch debates where buckets o' mud they'll sling,
Babblin' on and on about big schemes that in the end don't mean a thing!
They'll promise us anything, anything they think we ought to hear,
Includin' a rooster in every pot, more welfare and free pilsner beer!
We'll receive tons of useless stuff this election year in our mail slot,
Touting stellar records - no way to believe whether it's true or not!
People will be bangin' on our doors and buggin' us on the phone,
All pleadin' for our votes - all I'm pleadin' for is to be left alone!
We'll see Oberman and Matthews from the left spewin' venom,
And Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Beck from the right goin' after 'em!
There'll be vacuous panels on cable news includin' contradictions.
Self-appointed prognosticators will charm us with their wild predictions!
Politicians promise never to raise our taxes lookin' us dead in the eye.
We've heard that one too often - they'll increase them bye and bye!
I suppose we'll have to abide the hoopla and circus atmosphere.
After all, there are few other sports to entertain us at this time of year!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved