Best Winced Poems
It’s always a good practice when living on a farm,
To have a family of cats living in the barn
They always keep the rats and mice at bay and furnish humor too –
Wherever you find kittens there’s usually a laugh or two.
Now, I remember one time, I was out there milking cows,
When I noticed three young kittens, out and on the prowl.
One, a fine young tomcat, was really acting brave
And I wondered if he faced some fear just how he would behave.
Skillfully I squeezed and threw some milk across his face –
He winced a bit, then licked his lips – he knew he’d found the place.
We played around awhile and soon the playing stalled
When he stopped and took a minute to answer nature’s call.
He didn’t know it but he backed himself up to a fresh cow pad
He grunted; then had the best little poop a kitten ever had.
He turned around to cover it; then began the fun.
He knew what he saw lying there was more than he had done.
He arched his back, let out a scream and broke into a run.
I thought, at first, it might have been something I had done.
But soon it was no mystery what scared that little cat.
There was the giant pile of poop I couldn’t help laughing at.
This kitten was the alpha kitten of the litter
Who ultimately proved to me that he was no quitter.
So, when the time came to find him a name…
Well ….. I just called him……”Fraidy”
Written By John Posey
05/29/13
Before I scarred the page
Raging what your letters cannot invent
Let me invite you to other books
I wrote before you owed me wage
For all maladjustment and discontent
Tettering on tentacles on hooks
Invite you to an open age
Of change and discourse transfigurment.
In a quiet moment read again
Shards of clay and artefacts beyond
A material functional disdain.
Look at the words like old bones
Bringing chromosomal tablets to rinse
The eyes of prejudices and conceit
You may wince
At what your arrogance did delete.
I have winced for years in broken jars
Unleashing rivulets of tears
For I gave you humanity as a gift, stars
Gave you dust and vessel for it
Time etched your abuse against this spirit
As you idolized barren observations
As if them alone could tell truths
Without the presence of experience.
Strange how you so prone to the material
Destroyed so much of its substance
In us. Yet it is inescapbale in the footprints of dust
The chromosomal bridges in our bodies
Linking us, reaffirming the gift again
Documents on my body like a stain
Irreducible by Mercator's illusions
There is no survival without the spiritual.
After protests, marches, firehoses and ropes
Still hanging from leftover branches of fear
I have earned the right to forgive you
The inherent gift make me your brother, here.
So now let us turn the map upside down
And draw again the latitudes unbending
In a straight line to your old thoughts,
Can we agree about the silence of the moon
Is a prohibiting noise in our head, a blind despair.
My grandma was a steeple jack,
Of heights she had no fear.
The crowds would gather round to watch.
They came from far and near,
To see her swing and pirouette,
Doff her hat and wave.
And gasped and cheered each time she feigned
A slip and then a save.
Roof-toppers winced and bit their lips,
Tight rope walkers screamed.
Treetop loggers looked away
At the daring they were seeing.
Women gasped and children shrieked,
Fearful she would fall,
But at full ascent a massive roar
As she stood upon the ball!
She blew a kiss to the those below
As she turned around with ease,
Then there atop removed her scarf
And cast it to the breeze
But the crowd went wild as before their eyes
They viewed her final feat…
Into a handstand Grandma rose,
Then she waved and kicked her feet!
Whether flag pole, steeple, TV tower…
My grandma climbed them all.
For the freedom felt there in the clouds,
She was at their beck and call.
That grand old gal inspired me
Her legacy I've retraced.
Now I too dance upon a pole
At a club called Mary’s Place.
fo'c·'sle /'fohksel/ noun deriv: forecastle
1. the forward part of a ship below the deck, traditionally used as the crew's living quarters.
2. historical: a raised deck at the front of a ship.
With the equinox illuminating a fortnight of recovery
On pelts spread like Ionian jars left askew,
My flame-keep sparked alight against the doldrums of
Greed. Stagnant and fetid.
My bark beats out a call stretched
Skin-tight over the sea’s virgin core
And sets trust aflame.
Ashes collected into the collated casks and
Corked with animus, Moon Girl pounded on.
Drumming a dirge on the tanner's own flesh.
Pounding the seed of echoing hope.
Pounding the corpus beat of life anew.
Those echoed my own harmony and emptied my ears.
My tunes would now be true and crisp.
My struggle to syncopate the middle eight
Was like on the saltchuck the time before.
Before we crossed the bar,
Breakers chasing, pounding aft of stern.
Now in the glow of the coal oil lamp
Sat The Dane who came to trade.
He mumbled a Chinookian curse and winced.
He sensed my mariner's cred, how I lit my smoke;
Muscle memory and addiction married in my subconscious.
But His eyes would never sense the venomous flow
Of the seabreak distant,
Like hounds baying to the highway of stars
And up to the dunes ran with phosphorescent faces
Fermenting the blackness.
Hell-hounds bounding.
Lungs pounding.
Driving on.
River may lick Disappointment’s shanks
But Drake’s gold remains unfound.
The cavities carved along the capes
Echo an emptied ethos and sapped spirit
Which salal and sage cannot clense.
Walk with me now Sister Ilchee.
Beat your dirge
Along the pock-marked ports of plunder
Laid before the flattened corpse of
Ebbing freedom found.
The soldier boy was sitting calmly underneath that tree,
As I approached it, I could see him beckoning to me.
The battle had been long and hard and lasted through the night
And scored of figured on the ground lay still by mornings light.
"I wonder if you'd help me, sir", he smiled as best he could.
"A sip of water on this morn would surely do me good.
We fought all day and fought all night with scarcely any rest-
A sip of water for I have a small pain in my chest."
As I looked at him, I could see the large stain on his shirt
All reddish-brown from his warm blood mixed with dirt.
"Not much", he said."I count myself more lucky that the rest
They're all gone while I just have a small pain in my chest."
"Must be fatigue", he weakly smiled. "I must be getting old.
I see the sun is shinning bright and yet I'm feeling cold.
We climbed the hill two-hundred strong, but as we cleared the crest,
The night exploded and I felt this small pain in my chest."
I looked around to get some aid-the only things I found
Were big, deep craters in the earth-bodies on the ground.
"I kept on firing at them sir. I tried to do my best,
But finally I sat down with this small pain in my chest."
"What would my wife be thinking of her man so strong and grown,
If she could see me sitting here, too weak to stand alone?
Could my mother have imagined, as she held me to her breast,
That I'd be sitting here one day with this pain in my chest?"
"Can it be getting dark so soon?" He winced up at the sun.
"Its growing dim and I thought that the day had just begun.
I think, before I travel on, I'll get a bit of rest.....
And, quietly, the boy died from that small pain in his chest.
I don't recall what happened then. I think I must have cried
I put my arms around him and pulled him to my side
And, as I held him to me, I could feel our wounds were pressed
The large one in my heart against the small one in his chest.
He fell, fell to the ground
At the gunshot that created such a sound
Nobody took notice of the injured soldier
He was left there lying as the war grew thicker.
He screamed from the pain growing in his shoulder
Nobody realized the pain he would suffer
Trampling feet and screams grew monotonous
The injured soldier tried to ignore the pain that was so venomous.
He made a decision for himself
If he was to survive he'd have to help himself
Nobody was going to come to his aid
Not when each one was looking out for their own head.
He winced in pain as he got to his feet
He wouldn't give up now, not when he still had an army to beat
His shoulder cried out to him in vain
He had already chose to ignore the pain.
He took his rifle up
He adjusted his helmet and refused to give up
He kept fighting till the war was over
Each soldier fighting for their country, their home and their lover.
When the war was done and the battle was won
Every single soldier put down their gun
the injured soldier's shoulder still bleeding
now blinded him with pain and made him lose all feeling.
This time they gave him attention
This time he was treated to friendly affection
He wondered what would have happened if had given up that night
Would they have still won after all that fight?
But he was glad he hadn't for he would have been seen
As a pitiful injured soldier who wasn't keen.
It's the choices we make
And the chances we take
That set us apart
Only when, of course, the decision is made from the heart.
Night!
Midnight!
Dark midnight!
My world, tight-lipped,
awed by your tightness;
stars, blind in the clouds,
creatures crept, no footfalls.
Hushed, I craned: will I see the
morrow? Crawl past the burrow?
Will my fond desires eye the light,
new dawn? I winced from the pang,
shoulders hunched, head on sweaty
palms, gazing at space for an insight,
groping for a ray of light to think right;
to pry into my future. But for the pain!
Then, trees stirred, branches swayed
awake sleeping leaves; they winked,
the leaves waved while wind sighed.
I jerked, my eyes popped up at a
distant dot. A ray of white light
peeped from the dark folds.
I stared as a ball formed,
growing, blurred halo,
like stained glass of
a clerestory window.
A midnight rainbow!
I heard myself: Light! ...
Then, a bang: A new dawn
smiled, nestling in my bosom.
© 2014
I dreamed of floating in a toxic sea
with lifeless fish and plants surrounding me.
Above the heavens cast down acid rain
to burn my skin as I winced from the pain.
Volcano Island rumbled to my east
until red plumes of lava were released.
‘Twas then I woke and found myself in bed
with overwhelming feelings of deep dread.
Outside my window, robins on the wing
were building nests on this first day of spring.
The willow’s long arms fell to earth like rain
and I was pleased to be awake again.
Then suddenly, a ring from my alarm
as colors fade to gray, day’s lost its charm.
I’m so confused that now I can’t recall
just which world was my “dream state” after all.
I see two worlds, one heaven and one hell;
our choices will determine where we dwell.
May 13, 2021
Spirit of the night
Spirit of the night soil man
Spirit of the night soil man is awake
Spirit of the night soil man is abroad,
Here, the emerging mystery, more a sinister from a
dungeon,
When twilight sat on sad rooftops,
Lurking eyes, creeping limbs in the damp backyards,
To Loo looking gunt in the gloomy moonlight
Where broiling broths in chamberpots and bedpans are
emptied.
A structure of planks led upstairs
Ushering to crouch in a crouching mode,
Over hot hole on the pedestial,
Displaying buttocks lob over poe
Began the winced and windy screeching sirocco,
Screaming complaining bass and solo guitars,
Can be irksome when catch unawares
Of habitual sacrificial ritual of defecating,
On other hand, when afflicted in fora,
Go gawky limping along all the way
Any convenience found,
Unleashed mixed vortex of dark diarrhoea,
Ascendancy of curl buxom python laid,
Windy circular terra-cotta thin rope
And from top, short brief beef cake grenade drop,
After, some bruisers clean with dry cardboard
Or old newspapers that headline "Hard Times"
All add up sure riches to wealth,
Well soughted out after in heap chest.
Waiting. The minutes groan arduously.
Somehow, perhaps – my heart fails to beat
with the rush of your momentary attention.
Perched precariously on spikes
Flesh colored, yet artificial –
Manikin fingers, fidgeting.
Mournfully drenched in factious apology.
Our eyes meet briefly, then dart with bashfulness,
Choreographed precisely.
Words uttered repetitively from wine stained lips
Fill the tortuous silence – hesitantly.
Your hollow ghost memory, porous and unsubstantial.
'We can work at this, ' you finally choke
An unfamiliar innocence, grasping -
Your voice childlike in its simplicity.
And for a second, I recognized that old stranger.
I muster a skeptical nod – and smile limply, dismissively
Fingering the rim of my glass.
'And deceive ourselves with promises made before?'
I winced with audacity – impatient of your feeling,
As the words ripped your heart out clean.
You clear your throat in an effort to speak -
Those words never did surface...
My acid tongue, an all too familiar indulgence.
I raise hesitantly, your gaze fixated as I shrink.
A tormenting embrace, clothing saturated in your scent
Sodden with tears unshed.
Humoring your touch with finality –
An unspoken understanding sneered behind the mask.
Face taunt with incomprehension, as sorrow squeezed out the substance.
I avoid the depths of my black dying heart, defiantly.
Anemic with reluctance – I usher the door
A smiling parody of phantom reminisce -
Poisonous and seductive.
An enormous tear got away,
As you lay fragile and broken – bereft.
I’m sorry.
The usual ashen sky
cursed the frozen road
because nothing ever changed
on that long ride home
The car skipped over the icy patches
as it so astutely had done before
there were no tepid words or half smiles
just a rattle in that old, neglected door
Yet, somehow, the car made no notice
of the rusty patches on our face
it just hugged that wintry road
leaving unforgettable tracks of rage
I remember once, when we all
laughed and stood in one place
never cowered from shadows
and the sun dried our face
But Dad raised his hand again
and I mistakenly winced in pain
I had broken my promise
we lost another game
Strawberry blonde hair blown wild by the breeze
Trailing behind as her mount she did tease
Rousing his vigour as they came to the high hedge
All the way over and still they had the edge
Will her triumph be held right up to the end
By and by we will know the answer my friend
Everyone watching and urging them on
Run boy run, is the theme of their song
Rising again to jump the very last fence
You should have heard the crowd as they winced
But though the log rattled it never quite fell
Long were the sighs as the pair did so well
Onto the finish line for a rousing cheer
Now it's all over, some will sup beer
Down at the stables much later that day
Ellie groomed her steed in the proudest of ways...
©Rhumour
July 14th 2010
Stilted words, hesitation, a pause
once best of friends, now over in an instant.
Strangled breath, stomach in knots
surreal out of body sensation.
Our bond so close, like Jonathon and David
I saw, yet ignored a fragile weakness
believed her never ending hurt and pain
escaping ills, prescription pills, a ready fix.
Many times I tried to be a loving guide
encouraging words, long walks, prayers.
Sharing life, vacations, so many good times
or so I thought, as we journeyed here and there.
And then began a subtle slide, we faltered
I caught her in a lie so grand
winced in disbelief, it hurt
trust crumbled, turning stone to sand.
No retractions on her part, no never
truth be told, those cursed drugs
had over time enslaved her
and she let me go...my love was not enough.
I pray someday that she will bow
the knee to God, to help her see
her addiction, seek help, and learn how
to break those chains and be set free.
Written on 9/25/2015
TV Land won’t be the same
Without Jon Stewart’s face,
For he’s the one man on the air
That no one can replace.
With other newsmen slinking off
Because they’ve lost our trust,
“The Daily Show’s” lead anchor
Leaves all others in the dust.
When even those who’ve winced at jokes
He’s made at their expense
Express remorse at his departure,
Sadness must commence.
They’ll fill his seat and surely
He’ll do something else real soon,
But his announcement stuck a pin
In everyone’s balloon.
Wacky Willie whittled while whistling weirdly
Widow Winnie winced at Willie's wacky whistling-
And wrecked Willie's weird wooden whittled whistle.......
Woefull winded grandchildren whooped with delight...
If you havent guessed..lol ...for the Tongue Twister contest...