Choose Democracy Cascade Poem
choose democracy
or fascism
or rightism
That is the question
We must answer
choose democracy
Do we have a king
or a dictator
Or fascism?
No King Day is coming
protest
rightism
from heights
majestic beauty
rushing to a roar
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
no sound
in a cascade of nerves
submerged
amid a myriad of silences
a serpentine fold
slices through the viscera
and a breath
of phosphor
burns
in the chest’s hollow
a crawling rhythm
of an aborted name
shapeless
a lunar longing
locks into the bones
among the remnants
of a collapsed nebula
I do not heal
I do not return
I am
flesh that refuses form
You had me
for a year, I believed it all was true.
Every moment, every action,
how could it not be?
Like a serpentine snake,
you slithered inside my mind, my body,
squeezing out all my trust,
all I believed in you.
You made me lower my guards.
I believed.
I wished I didn’t.
You showered me with love,
a cascade, a toxic waterfall,
drowning me in a myriad of lies,
your words with a cruel lilt,
twisting truth like a blade.
Like a lunar glow, you fooled me,
your eyes deceiving.
I fell, head over heels.
Now I’m stuck, haunted like a nebula
that never fades.
Star Studded Night
Myriad stars like tiny jewels greet me
as I set up my telescope
a new moon was the current
Lunar cycle, no light to interfere
Ophiuchus the Serpentine constellation
Slithers across the sky trailing
Phosphorous dust in its wake
I train my scope on the pinwheel shaped
Andromeda constellation its spiral arms
reaching far out to space
the Helix Nebula comes into view
its brilliant colors from a shrinking star
a Cascade of meteors from the Perseid shower
cap off my night with a glorious display
streaking across the dark sky.
flowers grow wild
where water spills from green cliffs -
an e n d l e s s spring
'Tis November,
Downpour!
The rain rained in torrents,
Potholes filled with flood,
Automobiles
Snailed their way to and from,
Our climate changed.
The wretched,
Made wretched
By corrupt officialdom,
Famished,
Drenched,
Huddled in makeshift shelters
Bemoaning their sorry state.
The flood transported
Lifeless bodies of street beggars
To the depths of big drains.
The sirens blared,
Indifferent state officials
Driven
To and from nowhere
By daredevil drivers.
My eyes stricken with grief,
My heart heavy with sadness,
Cascade of tears
From my grief stricken eyes.
Cold water cascades in rainbow shades
Down from the Wicklow Hills nearby
Heather and Gorse it will evade
To magical pool where waters sigh.
Enchanted pool hears silent desire
With spell-binding sympathy
Deep love that burns like white-hot fire
Tender heart imbued with misery.
Mystic spring cascades from high ground
Rainbow prisms of light excite
Spellbound moment spreads all around
Broken heart mended it has taken flight.
You could look for me forever
in the well of words that
float or drown in your mind
and I’d be forever
your reflection
lapping at your fingers
inky love rippling,
teasing and intangible,
just a little out of reach,
like a fountain,
the sweet condition
slow burn,
bubbling up,
you feeling
the familiar,
you’re about
ready to spill,
mind wet,
you take a sip
from the cup
Candide Diderot. ‘24
Crystal spring water
flowing freely over rocks
it's sound is soothing
her words cascade with spell in the strings of harp…echoless melody
The cascade runs through thy terrain
The flora and hills chant thy name
The celestial bodies look on
Thou are returning to thy den
To enjoy the night thoroughly!!
Water, fall upon my heart
Let His love from above impart
Fill my rivers, fill my veins
Slake my thirst like first fall rains
Water, fall upon my soul
Make me green and clean and whole
Wash away my doubts and sins
And make me sure and pure again
Water, fall upon my life
Drown my pain and strain and strife
Make beauty blossom everywhere
And flood my mind with kindest prayers.
ferns cascade
along a woodland trail
verdigris spires
The things people do with the poetic forms:
the Japanese nature’s to keep the thing short;
the Welsh and the Irish like gnashing their teeth.
They’re smashing glass ceilings and breaking the norms.
Just add one more rule, and we’ll name it for you.
The things people do with the poetic forms…
The tanka’s a haiku plus two line retort;
The monoku rests on a line of its own.
The Japanese nature’s to keep the thing short.
Seems ‘seadna’ is shay-nay, and ‘gywydd’, good grief!
Six consonants strung and you say it ‘gee-youth’?
The Welsh and the Irish like gnashing their teeth.
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A Cascade: this one seems full of possibilities. You write a stanza
of N lines, then write N more stanzas where each line from the first
stanza is the last line of the subsequent stanzas. There's no other
requirement, but I added a little rhyming: ABC/axA/bxB/cxC.
https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/poetic-form-cascade-poem
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