Best Yellowing Poems
Oh, splendorous, spectacular, resplendent autumn!
Boldly you dye cypress ~ flaunting ochre, cinnamon,
Yellowing sugar-maple, glazing tangerine emotions,
As scarlet winds warble in accents of majestic aspens,
Responding in purple whispers, tupelo leaves flutter
Reminiscing in revelries evoked by red-oak crimson
Lingering in blazing meadows, enchanting red maple.
Oh, autumn! fly me there, into depths of the season,
Frolicking upon gamboge hills, wrap me in your vision,
Tour with me dazzling terrains of flamboyant foliage
Composing deep pleasure in brilliant changing colors,
Hang your portrait upon cobalt cliffs of ruby horizon
Painting blushing hearts in amber hints of setting sun,
Mindful still of wistful shudders quivering barren trees
And unsung withering yearnings of falling golden leaves,
Aspiring blossoming kisses--on lips of flowering spring.
I reach onto the bookshelf
Carefully removing the photograph album from the top shelf
We nestle together on the sofa
I slowly turn over the pages
Yellowing photographs that capture precious moments frozen in time
Suddenly you become animated
Hidden memories begin to return …
We laugh as you recall stories from the past
You lovingly stroke the faces of those now long gone
Wishing they were there by your side for real
Tears fill your green eyes as you reach out and gently squeeze my hand
Nostalgia Contest
Sponsored by Nayda Ivette Negron
11~25~16
Fall and
red yellowing
leaves in the trees
an old man sitting
on a bench
watches them
fall
and thinks of his youth
a youth
sitting on a bench
looking into his iPhone
simulates the falling
red yellowing leaves
and googles
the future
of trees
So still and beautiful lays the rose in the heather,
Lifeless and dying, given to bring you happiness,
So fragile is this rose laying in heather,
Slowly withering and drying, crumbling to a powder,
I look at you and see this rose ever fading,
Once growing, living, accenting its surroundings,
But now gone, plucked from the bush by one mans lust,
I could never compare you to this rose laying in the heather,
For your beauty surpasses its own,
So still and beautiful lays this rose in the heather,
Now dried cracking and dead, stored in a book to bring memories,
So weak and faded is this rose in yellowing heather,
Slowly falling apart as you touch the fragile petals,
I look at you and remember the flower when it faded,
That germinated and grew where I had sown its seed,
Now gone, plucked from the ground by one mans hope,
I would never compare you to this old heather and roses,
For its life was surpassed by yours,
Now I tell you I love you with cellophaned roses in heather,
Draining lifeless this dying confession of my dreaming,
This rose is more fragile then the first had I gave you,
But I could’t approach, my courage eroding at your sight,
I look at you now and see the love I sought inward,
Once alive and growing but only within lost confines of myself,
But never quite gone I hold this consuming fire close inside,
I could never combine your world with mine,
You always looked passed never noticing me,
Now I open my book that holds the first rose, wishing I gave it for the sake of
chance,
Instead I hold a created memory that never came passing,
That never could I fear,
I hold tight to the lie that through wonted silence I painted,
But that chance for your love died with the first rose wrapped in heather.
FICTIONAL EMOTIVE WRITE
Since I was a tiny baby I was brought up by my grandparents and had a very happy childhood. I knew that they were not my real parents but they gave me such love that I didn’t ask any questions for fear of upsetting them. Grandma’s eyes would mist over any time anyone mentioned my parents so I knew something bad had happened to them
Whispers in the hall
The child is too young to know
They passed so quickly
I left home at 20, married and moved to a small town about 50 miles from where I grew up. I was always in touch with my grandparents, but over time old age crept upon them and I recently cleared the family home when grandma passed away. I discovered yellowing newspaper cuttings, which told of how my parents had been killed in a horrific car crash, it also detailed their final resting place in the local cemetery.
Family secrets
Scrapbook of old photographs
My parents smiling
Dawn is breaking and dappled sunlight streams through the trees. A veil of grey swirling mist shrouds the cemetery. I pull my shawl closely around my shoulders and begin my search. Strands of ivy hang down from the towering yew trees, its dark green tendrils wrapped around the grey granite graves clinging so tightly as if it was trying to hold up the graves like a puppet on a string. The fallen gravestones remind me of decaying teeth with many gaps where stones had crumbled with age and neglect. I walk slowly, reading the names of those who now had eternal rest. Eventually I found their grave at plot 142, where a marble angel watches over them sleeping. I scrape off the thick lichen, which obscures their names. Tears fall and I hug the gravestone wishing I could embrace my parents for real.
I greet my parents
Stone cold grave gives me closure
Heartbroken child cries
09~26~16
Contest Overgrown With Vines Sponsored by Broken Wings
submitted to ''H'' Contest, New or Old Poems Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Constance La France
Your loosened hair
Gleaming in the benign sun
Roses in our blood inhale dense air
Decking up before departure has begun
The green is paling one by one
It's the dance of death in colour
A fountain of farewell with a hue
For the cracking bones of October
Palliating painters seated in queue
Picasso brown red and blue
The message on the train is as clear as an apple
Our hues are too fleeting to hold
Come let's dance dear before yellowing begins in maple
Before our roots get too old
Under the introverted autumn sun let's melt our gold
October 20, 2020
Autumn Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Francine Roberts
Eventide’s splendorous motifs on blazing arc rise
Tinting golden horizon of glinting vermillion skies
Where setting sun inflames decaying gilded rays
As twilight glistens graying eve’s yellowing haze
And pewter winds rustle leaves, lilting meadows
Swaying hills of trees in rhythms of tilting shadows
Where bidding the day goodbye birds hastily fly
While enchanted in luminant sky people amble by
Reveling ebullience of nightfall glowing in moonlight
Dazzled by twinkles of stars lifting tenor of night
As nightingale’s love song enthralls nocturnal appeal
When orchestra plays above scintillating astral zeal
Quietude soon endows dreams of exuberant dawn
As the reign of moon and stars sparkles on and on
Till misty morn awakens to melodies of robin’s call
And sun rises again to walk the new day to nightfall
October 19, 2020
Placed 2nd: Collaboration with Silent One Poetry Contest
"I stood still and was a tree amid the wood,
Knowing the truth of things unseen before;"
. . .
"Nathless I have been a tree amid the wood
And many a new thing understood
That was rank folly to my head before."
--- from The Tree, by Ezra Pound
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Slender, singular, filamentous fir,
Yellowing larch -- these trees
Do not speak but seem to sleep,
Sheltering skinny sheep
Handily herded -- full-fleeced
In lanolin-laden wool.
Sheep do not sleep much.
They speak their protest --
(Such ineffective baas) --
To cloning and to closeness.
All, doubles of the ovine others,
Crowded among brothers,
Cowering under silent wood:
Dissimilar dark fir;
Lone, yellowing
Larch.
The ruffle of fleece at her neck
makes her feel manufactured, not born—
brushstrokes of windswept wool,
all soft edges and curves
the color of old milk.
Her lips were no artist's accident,
nor the smirk as she lurks
in the corner more knowing
than any ewe usually dares.
Coy smile, a pearled necklace
of fur and her hind-end musk—
drew the brown ram sniffing
while a dirt-faced ex-love nearby
chews through the cud to find
whatever’s left of her.
Closer to the cliff than either,
she teeters, grazing weeds
like the dutiful daughter of lamb stew,
like she doesn’t know the cost
of this life: skin blistered by sun,
meat slow roasted to melt
on the tongue, bones cracked
for their marrow, dreams curdled
and spun into the itchy arms
of some strayed-from-the-flock husband,
all too eager to forget
the warmth of her body.
But Clover knows better.
Knows that sheep go one of two ways—
a fireside comfort or the fire itself.
Knows the herd will go
where they are led,
always too late to see
the teeth of the cliff.
She stands alone,
the day's last shadows
pooling at her feet
masticating through daisies
and regrets. And then she leaps
toward the yellowing horizon
gathering salt-wind in her wool
along with the cliff-kissed breeze
of freedom that promises nothing
but the opposite direction.
This is a decade that many wonderful things happened;
I was born, the reign of hard rock began,
Michael Jackson began to moonwalk, Cars became smoother
on the road, Cold War reigned, and also a time that soul music
massaged our souls and emotions.
This is a decade that never dies. People who were born
and lived in the 80s still live, the music still exists in hard-drives,
teenagers have immortalized the fashion sense, and
my yellowing birth certificate still lives on, with one piece.
The screen door slams behind me
As I rush out into the blinding sunlight
Wondering where my big brother is hiding
I better get to the pool before he finds me
And throws me into the ice cold water
That flows daily into the pool
From the cold mountain streams
Of the Elbrus Mountains
I have my pretty pink flowered bathing suit on
My second skin
I smile as I remember someone calling me a dolphin
When she saw me swimming in the water
Now I can’t wait to get in again
I feel the prickly yellowing grass beneath my feet
As I run toward the weeping willow….
My favorite tree in the whole compound
First phase of the run complete
I head toward the ancient mulberry tree
How I hate the squishiness under my toes
As I trample them in this patch of green
Where the grass is protected by the mighty branches
Of this gracious tree that provides us
An abundance of luscious fruit
We gather every summer in big bed sheets
As people up in the branches
Shake the tree
I’m on my final leg
Almost there
A rebel yell
And my brother swoops down on me
From behind the tree
I scream as I try to get away
But he sweeps me up in his arms
And runs the last few feet to the pool
I shriek at the top of my lungs
Which will probably bring my uncle out yelling
Awakened from his afternoon nap
I want to go into the pool gradually
By degrees…
To get my body used to the icy coldness
And so I beg to be released
We are there
At the edge of the pool
One sweeping motion
And water splashes up in rainbow sprays
As I sink below
Down into the icy depth at the deep end
Thinking this time my heart will stop
This time I will turn into a block of ice
And sink to the bottom
I will drown
A lifetime later
I break the surface and see him smiling down at me
The one who taught me how to swim
My strong older brother
Who would rescue me in a heartbeat
If need be...
I smile up at him
As I break into a smooth swim to the other side
Happy that he didn't let me play the fool
Standing at the edge of the pool
Waiting to come down the steps
By degrees
Waiting
To get lost
Into this liquid paradise
Of azure blue...
Eileen Manassian Ghali
Oh isn't it unfair?
That,
Right there
Gone like a whisper .
For something to be
To really be,
Specials only vanish
Please,
Let me grab it
Please,
Let me hold it
I'll be careful I promise
But an idea never tarnished,
Why so eager to rot?
Why these children
Without folly
Play with costume
Do you remember playing?
When we could do that
And that was just a thing
But time a constant
Never discriminates
And this child is growing up
Cupid sends him
His first letter
The return address was
The bad part of town
Why he does it I don't know
But every time
This boy falls in love
A lady of the night
Temptress No one knows
Her name always changing
But she always
Drinks something pink
On her luggage tag
It just says, "disguise"
The fragile said something
Quietly from the corner
Ever so slightly
But now,
Louder
Louder
And Louder!
She is staring to scream.
Her breath wreaks
Stale and rotten smoke.
The room its self grasped
Is cold fills the void
It is instant
An idea has cracked
Oh but isn't this fun?
And it's making me feel good
That can't be bad,
Right?
But the walls are yellowing
And the wallpaper is sticky with tar
The only thing
keeping that ugly pattern still up there
And now it's gone
That
Just there.
The rose has been raped of her beauty
Stolen by hordes of dreary lines
And to be leached further still
Until nothing remains of her
But yellowing birthday cards
And sugar-free quotes, in italics
Like a rose is like nothing at all
My Lasting Letter
I have written these words
a thousand times, each time
so differently identical. They
have been written on the wind,
blessed by the idle warmth of
sunset, scratched into the
setting concrete of a life.
I have breathed them in the sighs
of simple joy, basking in the
laughter of youths folly,
shouted them in anger at
times passing, whispered them
into empty rooms, spoken them
to vacant playgrounds, motionless
swings, yellowing grasses.
I have left them twixt the ether of
our beings knowing someday
they will be opened in your heart.
9/20/2014
For Elly Wouterse – Maybe the last letter – poetry contest
Humanity, once upon a long time ago did live in true paradise!
Understanding nature more than we ever have, give and, or take.
Moving on when required, leaving land to recuperate, another day.
Accepting that they had to share knowledge. not to rob the land!
Never turning fertile soil to deserts, to yellowing eroding sand.
Indeed collecting, gathering would work today, why don't we try?
Take chances, stick to the simple things in life, water, fire, no strife!
Yes, we must try to understand that what were doing is'nt grand!