Best Yawp Poems
Beneath the yawning, azure skies of Earth,
We left our seed to wend the Sea of Suns,
And prove the binding mettle of our worth,
Beyond the sullied world we'd left undone.
Across the Great Expanse we bounded, free
To stretch the limits of our brains and bones
Though sailing 'cross that ancient, starlit sea
We heard the gods of ages yawp and moan.
We plunged an aching void of endless night,
Through spinning rainbow nebulae of death,
To wondrous planets, multi-hued and bright,
But none with Terra's sweet, enchanting breath.
Ten thousand worlds of mystery, we found
Grand vistas, picturesque, for us to roam,
Yet in the end, we turned our trek around,
Still yearning for those colors of our home.
To wade again, the meadows of our birth ...
Beneath the yawning, azure skies of Earth.
Years and years have been lost to time, thousands of days,
nights, and morrows seen and despised out of immense ache,
The Juliet of my early youth is no more, transformed into a
stranger, yet my love dies not! Though I plead and beg for
her to recall and rekindle the love affair of many moments ago,
She bears news of her plans of wedded bliss to another, news that
I curse my eyes for seeing, ears for hearing, and heart for knowing
is true! With desolate heart and soul, corrupted mind, and disregard
of future as that of a mad man, I fall to my knees and scream,
"God and heaven alike, I defy and deny you both! For no
father of mine would rip asunder my motivation for humanity!
Nor does any paradise remain alive without her presence!"
Be it his decree that I hurt for eternity both alive and deceased
then be it my decree that his life and love never was!
Thus I have become what I am, with no rue nor shame,
For I am not the tender Romeo that once lived and breathed,
No more do I dwell in her heart or mind, and no more do I wish
any essence of a Romeo dwell inside my soul, for my Juliet
is buried and lost in abundances of new days. No day, nor night,
nor morrow is good for me, Sans trust, Sans faith, Sans morality,
Sans love do I wish to have or hold, Dead but still breathing I am,
Condemned to memories and dreams of elated yesteryears,
denying my own will, but loyal to that promise which cannot
be broken by even the cold lifelessness of heartache, I shriek,
and yawp, and yell, and raise my voice beyond the sting of pain, as
I wake each night, bleeding the same sound from my lips,
"Juliet!, Juliet!!, Juliet!!!" Repeated until my eyes are dry and
my voice is drained to the most silent of whispers, I force out,
over tears, over ache, over agony, over all, in one last breath,
"Juliet"
Oh, My Dear Walter, how your words have slayed
Humbled me, broken me, molded, remade
To taste of your world, see above or below it
Wit of a wordsmith, wry pith of a poet
To so construe love without using the phrase
Scrawl the sinew of war, yet delight in the days
To yawp of the grass - journeywork of the stars
Help heal a nation, attend to its scars
Find grace among horrors, sift beauty from death
The soul-pull of tides - briny kiss of their breath
To habit us all ... to the dazzle of light
Celebrate ourselves, bequeath us the night
Ask recurring questions of romance and life
Of presidents, boot soles, and moldering strife
Demons and mockingbirds, Paumanok's dunes
The pale, horrid witness of unstinted moons
'Twas sad-blown, a bugle, convulsed, was a drum
Yet exquisite, the dirge for a soldier and son
The sorrow of clouds in a ravening sky
The weep of a child should the Pleiades die
Knit airy-fresh words, with uncommon phrases
Draw Apollo and Neptune in all of their phases
Be there adoration as hapless as mine
Yet no soul more ardently leveled, supine
No writer has reached deeper into my heart
Idioms and phrases ... such allurement, impart
Ah, yes, what I'd give to have just one chat
With the rare human being who afforded all that
And maybe I'm biased, if perhaps to a fault
But the name of MY Captain, O Captain ...
Is WALT.
Benumbed Jane!
"he'd never give a plain Jane like you a second's thought"
(but hellishly reign his godly wife)
O Jane!
Be little prettier
Be more wiser
Crucify your benumbed senses
Resurrect your eloquent vehement
Why she choose to be the godly wife?
Why he choose to be the beastful husband?
Let's not brawl and yawp
Let's not cuddlerape and strangled with a scarf
In unwieldy guilts and sins of the battlefields of the Great Marriage
Give up now
Or
Surrender to salvation
You are not owing to “Beauty and the Beast” - A French Fairy Tale
Time has no time
Be little prettier
Be more wiser
O Jane!
See the recumbent lion,
it yawns, mouth stretched open
a wide silence – he is not tired,
just philosophically bored.
It is a yawp
as much as the startled jaw
of a newborn kitten
is a visible caricature of surprise
for having arrived and survived.
Sparrows yawp in the beaks of raptors,
raptors yawp also in the frozen mandibles
of a relentless winter
but pity the man or woman
that does not yawp
at least once in a lifetime
their lips will become sewn tight
and an innocent horror
locked in forever.
* There is one person I would bring back in a heartbeat, and that's my favorite human being of all-time, Walt Whitman - he literally changed my life with his poetry, and brought true beauty and joy to my life. Never underestimate the power of words. *
__________________________________________________
Oh, My Dear Walter, how your words have slayed,
Humbled me, broken me, molded and remade.
To taste of your world, see above or below it,
Wit of a wordsmith, wry pith of a poet ...
To so construe love without using the phrase,
Scrawl the sinew of war, yet delight in the days.
To yawp of the grass - journeywork of the stars,
Help revivify a nation, attend to its scars.
Find grace among horrors, sift beauty from death,
The soul-pull of tides - briny buss of their breath.
To habit us all ... to the dazzle of light,
Celebrate ourselves, bequeath us the night.
Ask recurring questions of romance and life,
Of presidents, bootsoles, and a moldering strife.
Demons and mockingbirds, Paumanok's dunes ...
The pale, horrid witness of unstinted moons.
'Twas sad-blown, a bugle, convulsed, was a drum,
Yet exquisite, the dirge for a soldier and son.
The sorrow of clouds in a ravening sky,
The weep of a child should the Pleiades die.
Knit airy-fresh words, with uncommon phrases,
Draw Apollo and Neptune in all of their phases.
Be there adoration as hapless as mine?
Yet no soul more ardently leveled, supine ...
No writer has reached deeper into my heart,
Idioms and phrases ... such allurement, impart.
Ah, yes, what I'd give to have just one chat,
With the rare human being who afforded all that.
And maybe I'm biased, if perhaps to a fault,
But the name of MY Captain, O Captain ...
Is WALT.
If I am but a man, then be it so.
And I eat strength and breathe fallibility.
But I confess, to be man is a gift by
one name and burden by another.
Heartbeat and fresh flesh is my honor.
And still, I weep for my bleeding core
that proves so fragile.
For I am beast with evolved morality,
fish with lung, and bird with broken wing.
Tamed by that which drove Romeo
and twisted Hitler. Love and Hate.
And love do I the beauty of hatred
seen, examined, and understood.
Between the poet and the sleeping lion
lies my identity. Intact and scarred.
So if I be man, then drench my brow
with sweat, break my back with labor,
but layer my tongue with stanzas that
burst free and drip from my lips like honey!
And with that identity, I shall yawp
with barbaric thunder and scream
my mortality from the highest mountain.
With Pride!
The 2nd Trump Presidency Begins
To express my own Whitmanesque
"barbaric yawp", constrained by
internal (and external) barriers,
mentally constipated, I merely mutter,
feel pressures steadily mounting.
Hesitant, I expel grunts and breaths --
disinhibit streams of consciousness,
encourage verbal fluidity, ease
the heaviness I feel, the weight
upon my chest. I breathe deeply.
Physiological processes require
tiring conscious effort. I decide
to be calm, to relax, to direct
myself away from temporal reality
to mere existence without excess
self-awareness, without fearfiul
anticipation of "future", which
other animals on earth seem happily
to lack. (Or do they?)
Stop thinking!
(No! Don't!)
"...Dominus orationem meam suscepit."
Burning his little jelly bottom raw,
He blisters in his liquid greenish poop.
He has no means to summon us at all
To drain the acid swamp of split pea soup.
Except to scream, a peevish infant yawp,
And so he screams, until we take his goop.
We modestly subserve our son's ejecta.
Clean, dry and warm: his everyday trifecta.
He's not alone. I've had my days of burning.
Blistered and raw, to salve my hurt I prayed
for balm from God, ultimately learning
His summit lay on far too steep a grade.
Footless in His scree, inflamed with yearning,
My wounds combusted into wrath. I brayed
My blasphemies, then heard the Logoi fall.
I had no means to summon Him at all.
Which births a trailing thought about the sainted:
Their whispered prayers, their worshipful reclusion,
Which all the hagiographers have painted.
Don't buy it. Souls corroded with confusion,
Their love of God with hatred wholly tainted,
And Doubt the only friend to their seclusion,
With blasphemies they burnt the fetid air.
Profanation is the purest form of prayer.
If I could scream truth
from the mountain tops,
and whisper false pretenses,
Then by the breath of a ghost
I would confess that I am content,
But by the yawp of a barbarian,
I would raise my voice to the heavens
and beyond, with the confession of my
affection for you, and trust in you to
hear my cry and sing me your approval,
For if by creed alone, I hold your name
upon my tongue as an escape from cynicism,
and a quick route to the definition of grace,
Thus for a moment, ending my self torture,
I reflect on what it means to be whole,
Yet I still curse myself for showing what
should be confidential, for my love for you,
is a measure that cannot and will not be contained,
not by threat, time, or life in all of its uncertainty,
But it is still the reason for my downfall,
from your recollection of who I am,
Still, with all as it has turned out to be,
I rue only that I feel for you to an extreme
that you cannot understand, for if indeed you
could comprehend the depths of my emotion
from your being to your name, then at best,
you would still have limited foresight of all
that your essence has proved to be in my life,
Thus by this phrase, I stamp with the hope of
you elevating your perception to a poetic level,
I can only say to you, that logic rules my life,
poetry frees my soul, and you are the combination
of the two,
Thus if reasons fail and logic proves fragile,
I still offer up my entirety to you at will,
Disregarding logic, disregarding all that makes
me anything that you have grown to despise,
and by the perception of a love that you once
knew, but have chosen to cast aside by reason,
I say to you, my dearest, You are the reason that
I am, A statement that if added to my emotion for
you, becomes the sincere decree, that through time,
you have managed to pull my love with you,
and through these years, you have become all
I am, I was, and I choose to be, by logic, and by
that declaration, You are all of my reasons....
Naked Truth
N~ascent truth resides at the heart of wisdom thus
A~story conjects still naked waits for refutation
T~he emperor’s clothes devoid of the latest chique
I~ntimately risqué when average normality beckons
V~ie for veracity rescued from the scrap heaps of time
I~n candour modesty disentangles sexy sound bites
T~o be naked or not for whom where how and when
Y-aup those who lie in winning words instead of reason
11th November 2016
Written for contest ‘Naked’ judged 16th November
Still Naked
Naked with no laurels for my glory could I yawp in
Awe of other poets’ winning well versed script though
Kinder to myself and fellow soupers do I give merit
Eject my sulking disappointment from the scene and
Defuse what was as to denude again the naked truth
Expanded on 26th November 2016 for the contest
‘Take The Dagger From My Heart Please - 3
Somedays, I wake up and my mind is a buzz with the low hum of drunk bees. Other days it's the homicidal scree of the Purge siren meets the absurdity of Happy Gilmore. Those days, the mood stabilizers taste like tic tacs dipped in acid and it spills out of my gaping mouth into my previously placid pen, turning it to poison. My notebook becomes a study in disease, pock marked and creased with roller coaster highs and lows and the frizzing mania inbetween unfolds like an old moth eaten static charged blanket covering the gouged pages with foul temper, brutal honesty, utter despair, and doomed flights of fancy.
It's a curse, like a lesbian lost to menstruation...shes paying rent in a house she doesn't live in, the lonely walls sing or scream it all depends on the dopamine. Sometimes, I want to draw these breath stealing fiends, but their shape eludes me, they slide over my fingers like the rainbow slick of an oil spill, tangible but unable to be captured, just enough residue sticks to my fingers, daring me to try and paint the face of it on the sidewalk.
Somedays, theres jet fuel in my veins and my hands are brushes and my skin in an untreated canvas; the cool pigment dries and hardens inti crackling waves of war paint. My yawp shakes the trees and the birds and the needs, yes THE bees startle skyward into patterns flung by the breeze, stippling the sky in polka dotted relief. These days burn like untreated leprosy. Because, as bits fall away, I know the meat underneath is really me. I come crashing down to earth face first, eating my teeth so that the gaps in my smile are the map of a picasso and so my veins spew blue and my face twists upon itself like it was trapped in one hell of a vacuum, but you can still taste the salt of my tears and hear the howling of the out of tune guitar weeping in my uneducated fingers.
The area between the twp poles is the buzzing radio wormhole radiating lazy circles impaled by tight frantic circles, intersected by crazy 8s and venn diagramed with healthy doses of rage, creating a vomit inducing masterpiece of optical illusion bubbles swelling and flowing in wiggling vertigo. Illness is art. Art transforms illness. It's not always beautiful. Sometimes beauty is in the intersection of fascination and revulsion.
Crossing the dark miry ford, thwarted by the skull colored fog Ill feelings of awe fall upon me, as whispers scrape through the trees Regrets; have I transgressed doom’s law, should I have burned a yule log Glowing decayed foxfire eyes, appear within a sunken death-blue face, with stench breath of thousand rotten corpses, my heart is a race I’m a fierce berserker wielding sword but I cannot move in the freeze
I try to yawp but it is scant, for in my throat crawls a bleak frog For this ugly nightmarish thing, is on one of its slaughtering sprees and I have looked into the wrong windows, of a hellish green eyed dog Within the Draugr’s snare, it will devour me at its own pace, like a freshly flayed steak and I will die in this outlawed place my bones will sink forgotten, never returning to the high seas 3/30/2018
On an azure expanse without prospect or sail
the debris of my ship rent asunder from gale
as I float, the last salt to endeavor my breath
my mates sent to Davey Jone's locker in death
I am lashed to this length of the mizzen, adrift
as swells rock me gently and ship riggings shift
it's too many days now I've been without water
parched to my marrow the sun growing hotter
I've now resigned grace, if I give up the ghost
and I think on the treasures of life I love most
I remember my time in the crow's nest a-sway
puff cheeks of the moon on the tail of the day
the glow of the wake as the drift ever churned
and the dancing of St. Elmo's fire as it burned
oh the heavens - as dark as the deepest abyss
yet alight with a blush from the Milky Way's kiss
a thousand suns setting and not one the same
young lasses in port with bright tresses aflame
the yawp of the sails, e'er the ship came about
a yell from the nest when we'd spotted a spout
the cold slap of spray as a cap broke too soon
or Luna's night dance like ten million doubloon
well ...
the ocean can't hold all the rules that I've bent
but I float off to sleep on these billows content
ever sure that this seafarer's life was well-spent
and my only fit grave, this ol' sea, heaven-sent
aye, my only fit grave, this ol' sea ...
~ 3rd Place ~ in the "Rattling Rhyme" Poetry Contest, Nina Parmenter, Judge & Sponsor.
Without values life may whop
And you cannot even yawp
As the destiny may strop
A valueless person nonstop.
If your values from life lop
It is zilch and make you fop –
Fop – a man with concern atop
For dress than character prop.
Without values we may drop;
Cannot stand or walk; sit or hop.
So respect values that clearly mop
All bad, illicit or forbidden crop.