Best Wreathed Poems
She saw my pain and gifted me a crown
and named me Queen when I felt like a clown
She sent her gift cross the many miles
And wreathed my teary face in rainbow smiles
She knew what words and rhymes all mean to me
And so she gifted joy to poetry
A chance to add an image to my rhyme
And write of life and what makes it sublime
She left this place for she could not abide
discrimination’s sneer; it touched her pride
But she came back for me in time of need
When others brought me down, my heart she freed
In every line she writes my heart can trace
The beauty of an angel filled with grace
For Silent One's Tribute Contest
Revised August 6, 2015
F J (Flo) Thompson is a woman I admire with my whole heart. Some of you may know the story of how she named me Queen and wrote a poem about my kingdom here on the Soup. Knowing the sensitivity of my heart, she sent me a tiara and hair decorations in the mail all the way here to lift my spirits. She gifted me my first Premium Membership and now….a year later, she gifted me the second one along with a Lifetime Membership. I discovered that she anonymously gifted others Premium Memberships as well. Friends like this are so rare and precious. I’m overwhelmed as I write. I love being able to add photos to my poems and being able to blog. People don’t know what joy I find in writing. FJ knows. She’s my angel in disguise. I’m forever grateful. I love her poetry because of the strength of passion and conviction with which she writes.
I found myself against a willow propped.
The stones nearby me were a hundred-fold.
and one by one I tossed them as they plopped
into a rill while other pebbles rolled,
as if with one accord, away from me.
Their hundred ripples bubbled sweet champagne.
I drank. . . and then I tasted poetry.
saw flowers dance, and nothing was mundane!
Elysian then became the air I breathed.
The sun glowed purplescent. Hocus-pocus!
I lay in greenest green while music wreathed
the meadow, lulling me. . . till I lost focus.
I woke to dusk and that inquietude
that ever shadows my dark solitude.
Honorable Mention poem
Is there enough adjectives I can use,
to sew these sensitive sensations to you,
when my dandelion heart is
dense with combustible phrases,
and my sunken soul is weeping
into the weariness of wildfires?
They say beauty can never
be found in the dark,
oblivious to the
vibrancy of neon nights~
streaks of fluorescent flares glaring
above forests of flickering lights,
there iridescent colors run through the
skyline like vast vibratos,
filling my lungs with iridescent phrases
too enigmatic to roll of my tongue.
Yet your flourishing name
flows in flawless
frequencies through
this forsaken surface,
and I wear these wings drenched
in burning fresh-spring waters,
glistening in immeasurable
shades of opalescent feathers,
as the majestic moon still graces
my somber sky with all those
stolen smiles I’ve left unseen,
for I am but a floating spirit just
above demonic halos
that shine so deceptively,
carrying my strength wreathed in
fireflies fortifying
my faceless complexion,
where the only home to
my name is beneath the stars
in the wilderness of your
ambrosial affection,
whilst I keep sprinkling
traces of what is
now left in my empathy
that has been pinioned~
to the grains of gratitude
in gardenia love.
If only you knew, without you,
I’ll be trashed in turmoil,
wrecked in disarray~
you are the poetic reason,
I am an inked poem
woven with an iron quill,
rippling with amorous alliterations
and magnolia metaphors,
as the nightly creatures still lurk
in the shadows of
our twin-flame footprints,
constantly trying to seize
the alluring aurora that lessens
the miles between my electric dusk
and your honeysuckle dawn…
My heart may break, wreathed in somber silence.
Yet I care, I search for valleys of peace,
where rare black orchids bloom through violence,
for fallen leaves too shall caramelize,
and kindness too will be what the wind sees.
Time is a traitor only truth can stain.
Are we lost, hiding behind masks of pain?
Is my rhythm of speech, now a song of shame?
Whilst I'm weaving hope amidst woes in vain,
deaf to your hate that burns strength of my name.
This is what the wicked are like— always free of care, they go on amassing wealth. Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence ~ Psalm 73:12-13
A wise man long ago bemoaned the thought
that those who seek the paths of righteousness
so often struggle mightily. Their lot
seems only to be wreathed in hopelessness.
Meanwhile, the wicked reap rich dividends
while disregarding others' poverty -
they'll use whatever means may suit their ends,
neglecting justice, love, humility.
Believers know "these three remain" to guide
up peaks appearing insurmountable:
Faith is that trust in Him who walks beside;
Hope is that blessed wealth uncountable;
and Love, which guides us to eternity -
For "God is love", the greatest of the three.
Every year from spring through fall, if you peered between the cattails you could see the swans in the center of the pond, head to head, their love peering back. On the pond's edges, from the tops of lily pads, frogs were singing of love's song as dragon flies frolicked gleefully above. We would sit and watch them countless hours, day after day as they gracefully swayed to the rhythm encircled in the reflections of love. One year in the dawning of spring, he returned alone, we watched him slowly swim with downcast head to the center of the pond, within the shadows of lost love he'd pause in the ripples that surrounded him, his sadness reaching the edges of the pond, where abandoned lily pads tilted downward caught in the spirals of his lonely tears. He still comes to the pond, muddied and alone from spring through fall, through clouded eyes we still watch him swim, wreathed within his pain we taste his loneliness.
head downcast, he swims
enclosed in the pond's ripples
his tears splashing back
October 12, 2019
Writing Challenge, October, 2019 -Bird-
Sponsor, Dear Heart - Wiishkobi Ode
I hold my breath, impatiently
anticipating spring
and dress the sky delicately
in stars your bright eyes bring.
Spring days are flushed with love’s warm glow,
the nights untamed by sparks.
Our rhythmic dance for two bestows
full moon to light the dark.
I’ll never stammer for excuse
to ask for your soft kiss,
or with my words unkind bemuse.
Our love means more than this -
the shady oak, the rose’s bloom,
a waterfall’s cascade.
The beauty of a starling’s plume
when near you seems to fade.
Your words are all the air I breathe.
In your embrace, I’m whole;
your love’s a thousand spring blooms wreathed
around my yielding soul.
In summer, winter and in fall,
I’ll seek your rambling heart,
but with a breath of love in spring,
we’ll never be apart.
Aloft, with keen eyes in sorbet skies’ raspberry half-light
visceral vibrations of vitality does await.
Soaring in a hush, with plumage plush, a silent stealth kite,
he glissades on ghostly winds with mystical wings of fate.
Poised to plummet from his summit of purple sundown spread
with wingspan wide, wreathed gradual glide, hunts a twilight hawk.
Floating form causes flocks to brainstorm on life or death dread,
those flying forlorn, late to roost, are reduced by his stalk.
Aerodynamic, his dramatic dive deals destiny,
raptor raptly pursues passerine through air’s plum-bruised dim.
Whispering wings whisk to live and not die desperately,
over the arborvitaes the future for one is grim.
If it’s true that energy never dies; its cries transform,
then songbird's notes will ascend on hunter's wings in reform.
Susan Ashley
December 3, 2017
~ First Place ~
Contest: Your Best Poem In The Last Year
Sponsor: Silent One
~ Seventh Place ~
Contest: Best Rhyming Poem October - December 2017
Sponsor: John Hamilton
Speak not to me of love, I cannot bear to hear
The fervent pleas you stoop to whisper in my ear
Speak not to me proclaiming staunch fidelity
Or how you will adore me through eternity
Speak not of how your love is stronger now by far
Than what it was before, so I must lift the bar
Speak not in vows regarding purity
Of how you swear to worship me, and only me
I've heard confessions of this sort quite oft before,
No proof are they of love, I'll show you now the door
My heart has bled enough, I want the pain to end
Our love has run its course, why must I now pretend
While you were loving her, he started loving me
My broken heart he healed and showed me ecstasy
The shroud of pain you gave, he turned to joyous gown
My head with kisses wreathed and gifted me a crown
His ravished all the places unbeknownst to you
Each fantasy he played, each dream he made come true
His tongue, it sweetly roamed to each delicious place
Our bodies fused in rhythm, lost to time and place
Speak not of sad regrets and turning back in time
Of seeking to recapture love that was sublime
Each night he speaks to me in passion's lovely rhyme
With heart and soul I speak and tell him he is mine!
For Georgio V's Iambic III Contest
This is written in Iambic hexameter
October 6, 2014
Eileen Manassian
Inside Old House by cujo-chan
As this old house crumbles slowly to dust,
I humbly polish the prominent rust,
and more aware of my mortality,
I search for the tallest stalks to guide me
to the wilting garden beyond the door
overgrown with ferns, red roses no more.
My hopes are crushed with a once wreathed rosette
beneath my feet where memories are swept.
Yet, love returns through an open window.
On a wistful breeze, dreams will gently flow,
and as I rebuild this decrepit home,
I will sweeten the roof with honeycomb.
Then, I will hear your footsteps on the porch,
our whispers will dance like flames of a torch.
The staircase, once grand, will again rise high
beyond the attic into bluest sky
where concave hearts fill with abundant love
and loneliness dims in starlight above.
My days ahead in this lodge once decayed
will be free to love in the home I made.
From bone to ashes, destined are the dead,
but souls grant me peace from clouds overhead.
Written 7/14/20
Contest - Decaying House
Sponsor - Constance La France
I slept and then October with stealth crept in.
I knew it when a breeze blew in. Crisp and clean,
it softly breathed and wreathed the trees and kissed my skin.
Hues of passion now show fall fashion for its trees.
Birds loudly call. When winds blow hard, leaves of fall careen.
Coolness drops by some degrees. Please let there be no early freeze.
Spiced pies have enticed me. Pumpkins look like silly saps.
On porches, their eyes- bright by night- welcome Halloween.
October then takes its leave – with a heave of wind perhaps.
Suzette Prime/Free Verse
undulating yowls
both sides of my hemispheres
reverberates through the ears
sadness
rejection
continuously play
the mind longs for its most melodious display
nature sings in sweet harmony with every raindrop
amidst the howl of the gale
whimpering of leaves
drives all the cicadas into their unpleasant sleep
sweetest warbles of the wrens
coos of other birds
flapping wings of butterflies
the enticing smiles of every colorful flower
I can’t hear
sounds trampled by the laughter of the rolling thunder
through monstrous work load
wreathed my freedom and hope
yet, I snuggle in the silence of my heart
listening
winnowing the throbs
clearing head to dross
swotting
disregard the trifling thud
with the viewing of sunrise
reaching out the synchronizer of nature
it’s a comforting feeling
trickling and flowing like dew
from tributary down to the threshold of sweetest mellowed treble
tasting the most scrumptious spiritual beauty
just within
in every garden
always
there is a beautiful music to be heard
but the heart has to be kept deep in silence
enough to hear it
and find joy
in life
in this world.
April 12,2014 2.20pm
-sharing an old poem. this poem didn't earn any dollars or cents :))) It was just asked by one of our dear great poets and authors to publish it and it was also an honor for me.
Second Place
Contest: A Million Dollar Poem Contest #1
Judged: 6/12/2015
Sponsors: My dearest fave poet sisters PD and Skat
She walks past the coffee shop window
White hair,
Face wreathed in wrinkles-
Seeming somehow lost to the world,
Pursuing another aimless day
Consumed with nothing.
Her eyes light up!
Someone approaches.
A friend,relative,
Greetings of recognition
And smiles all round.
Now animated chatter from the pair
Along with constant change of expression,
Alert,intent.
Listening one to the other.
Then the meeting ends.
Life continues,
Each go seperate ways.
She walks on
White hair
Face wreathed in wrinkles,
Only now shining with LIFE.
Warmed by the brief touch of human contact-
Of having had someone to talk to.
An Arctic wind comes reaping the mild air,
breath hangs in clouds and grass hides under frost,
low morning sun soaks branches soon stripped bare,
boots wallow in the reds and golds now lost.
Chevrons of Geese head south for warmer climes,
ground creatures bedding down until the spring,
their instincts telling them it is the time
when nature's heartbeat slows, and no birds sing.
No kindness shown as autumn's laid to rest,
no mercy given, winter's blade unsheathed,
it's willing victim gladly bares it's breast
and falls, in pallid shades the land is wreathed.
Each year this drama plays, the rise and fall
consoled by distant promise, spring will call.
The ghosts of Gods long past reclaim
the mind and heart of lovers plain.
Wreathed with arms and eyes aflame
and lips which kiss, yet long in vain
for heavenly love one must abstain.