Every time I see children playing
With their respective mothers,
How lucky they are! I tell to myself.
Hiding my tears under my eyelids,
I console myself for having lost
My mother when I was just a baby.
She was an epitome of kindness,
What her contemporaries tell me.
She was generosity incarnate,
The members of our family describe her.
If I’m given the power to travel back in time,
I would like to alter her death and see
How she looked like and get back
Her love that I’ve lost all these years.
I would like to sleep on her lap
Forgetting the world around me.
I postponed being amazed by time, a traveler without aim,
Until, before my soul could die, I learned,
That all that aches has dissipated like smoke under the silver moon,
A flock and a shepherd, shadows of a long-forgotten tale.
Whoever places my bare and fragile bones in an envelope,
Will write a letter of my cowardly and humble feelings,
The black angel, ruling over all that love touches,
Forbids your bleeding heart the wellspring that cries.
Bandaged with a death buried in the stretching future,
The eternity of the moment hides in the despair that surprises us,
The tears of my life, wilted fortune floods you,
The universe in my inspired soul seeks to hide away.
To our earthly life, I give an imponderable and gentle meaning,
Your perfection, my love, only you make it seem without pain,
You are the one who will birth my steps into eternity, forever,
Because your love, like a god, spreads within my soul.
Your love carries a dull dissatisfaction, ever-present,
Our contemporaries feel it and echo it along the way,
Announcing to the present-past, until the last breath,
That your Christ, my beauty, long ago ceased to exist, but turns into our dream.
I had the worst terrors last night
My mind was in a gruesome sight
The ‘ol apocryphal scene
Insighted by the new regime
Migration bill stirs fear among
Farmworkers chant that It’s Wrong!
Phone app saves Honduran journalist
Can’t go back she’s on their death list
Can’t walk ‘n get food without stress
ICE is cold, enforcing arrests
Or anywhere, nonetheless
For a green card is meaningless
Now a tourist destination
Gaza's newest sensation
Take over plans for a Riviera
Palestine people’s tierra*
Taken; territory sovereign
New rich owner YOU ONLY gain
Who be the beneficiaries
Billionaire contemporaries
For undoence he’s called a hero
Those sacrificed their life for, zero
Those fought for everyone’s freedom
In vain forgotten in this new kingdom
Unbeknownst me how it plays out
Living in the USA, peace-out
In an age of cheap poets and marketplace philosophers,
When words intertwine beautifully but lack depth,
My contemporaries have already given me the greatest reward,
Their indifference, their silence, heavy like a spider’s web.
In a world where applause is the echo of an illusion,
Rise those who believe themselves original,
For they have an audience that claps but does not understand,
And they do not know that true poets live only posthumously.
I wish to be a shadow in the book of time,
To write my words on dead leaves, carried by the wind,
Melancholy as my ink, and my heart as the paper,
To tell my stories in a stream of thoughts.
For what does it mean to be alive, if not to be forgotten?
To leave only a sad echo and a lost smile,
In a world of those who have eyes but do not see,
In a mechanical universe, where souls are mere cogs.
But perhaps one day, when silence will sing,
My words will bloom in the light of dusk,
And they will tell the story of those who were,
Those who wrote silence, while the world screamed.
OUR Hero Has ARRIVED
When we were children playing in the street
we had our hero, usually a rugged actor
perhaps it was Gary Cooper. He had to be tall
walk with a swagger
To be able to do things like flying a plane, drive
a car, horseback riding a must
There was Mars, a planet we spoke of mainly
because it sounded warrior-like
We knew Mars was the planet our hero would
go to Mars sorting out the people, there would
be a shot out, he won easily despite a bullet hit
his sheriff shield
When landed back on earth, spend time with
us teaching us how to tame a wild horse
what do you know?
among us here and now, let me present our
here of yore was not fantasy, Elon Musk!
He lives or dreams, a hero who can do anything
a beautiful mother who doesn't shout at him
for not eating porridge and sardines
He lives our dreams, and best of all, he is going
to Mars and slay the dragon
Elon Musk is a living example that dreams
can become real, lamentable, it took too long
most of my contemporaries have gone to Valhalla
or for those who became sailors on
the island of Saragossa
Back in the days
of yesterday and today, or,
traditions and contemporaries
... she came.
Yesterday and tradition say ...
leave your things home, she'll leave your things alone.
Today and contemporaries say ...
in so many words ... heart heeds all abilities.
Yesterday and tradition say ...
you leave, she leaves, or you take, she takes.
Today and contemporaries say ...
that theirs were words of comfort.
She came and they left ... she never came back, nor did they, except one, me, [oldest parents and siblings passed]--I'm the lone inheritor, with a piece of paper of a new sizeable land and redesigned coastline, turned into a new land deed, along with my new will, --sits in a bank, I, in a beach townhouse in Hilo town. All three (3) are well-deposited earning interests, one happily due in ~June~.
Robert Polhill Bevan
an under rated atitic man
Rival with contemporaries in the Bloomsberry set
though critics say a better bet
Not long ago, in a faraway land,
people: lived amongst dragons and fairies.
Some villagers swore they'd seen them firsthand:
while out gathering mushrooms or berries.
We were friends back then, not adversaries:
and were treated as contemporaries.
It's believed fairies and dragons were kin,
glimpse either one, and the other's nearby.
They loved the soft sound of a mandolin,
and somehow magically learned to fly:
often zipping across the open sky,
quick as you please; in the blink of an eye.
In time, jealous humans hunted them down,
until most Dragons and fairies were slain.
And where forest once grew, Man built a town:
sowing the once open meadows with grain.
And dragons and fairies fled Man's disdain:
vowing they'd never trust humans again.
Mere figments of our imagination,
or creatures, once part of God's creation?
Could you tell me
when
America became so selfish, introspective,
a host of clueless, unrealistic fools,
that see only ourselves above all others,
sole contemporaries of time and history?
When
did we forget the points and purpose of freedom
to follow one man's power hungry dream,
ill-conceived?
When
did the cost of freedom give way
to the conspiracies of delusionary sways
cutting back the realities of the day?
When
did we hold fast to a lie,
never seeking truth
pushing fact aside, truth denied?
When
did we stop caring about the future free
within folds of democracy
for our children and their hopes and dreams?
When
will we ever learn from history
its lessons
that freedom isn't free,
there is a price to pay
in everything we do,
in everything we say,
we must act not just pray
before it all slips away.
The Owelle
of the realm
of Onitsha
their title,
Zik of Africa
Our vintage title.
Zik a real patriot
with core values
your contemporaries
were at the regions
but you dreamt of one
Nigeria at the center
Tribe and tongue in vain.
The Owelle was a champion
a champion of the center
though your ideals were
thawed by your peers
he solidly stood by it
even in the face
of the civil war
One Nigeria! One Nigeria!!
echoes that kept reverberating
One Nigeria! One Nigeria!!
Time and time again your
relevance proven
Turned sounds of Nigeria
relished.
Owelle of Onitsha
Zik of Africa.
(Written on the 30th March, 2015)
I can still remember the day,
And it wasn't that long ago.
Where we sought some inspiration,
From those we might call, our hero.
Their stories were often fed to us,
Like mothers feed newborn.
Nurturing body, mind, and soul,
Allowing dreams flight,
With an elusive unicorn.
As the pages of time have turned,
New characters are now in view.
Where former masks have lost favor,
And novel contemporaries are the few.
Since my illusions of Mickey Mantle & 007,
Are now the dust of faded memory,
Our progeny will have new hero's,
Web-surfing champions . . .
Without artillery.
Know me?
Not even close ...
If I were to write about ANYone that I had "issues" with
It would be to them directly
Not hidden in poetic device or analogy
My use of metaphor is for ambiguity and generalization
(Or events and people in the past)
Not hiding my sentiments about contemporaries
Don't assume that I care enough about hateful, contrary people
To waste any time on creative tapestries about them
There is far too much negative and hate in this world already
Without me seeking it out in those bent by its ire
Love and kindness and understanding
Are the only worthwhile human pursuits
And all I truly care about
Not petty personal peeves
Know me? Not even close ...
But please, GET to ...
None of us have too many friends ... or too much love!
Submitted on December 24, 2018
To the "Late 2018 Standard Any Form" Poetry Contest
Brian Strand, Judge & Sponsor.
pen, paper, stereo, a tapper
me with Eric B a nice plate of fish
before you begin to take the great plunge with the pen
hold your breath and count to the number ten
box, dice, loose change & credit card
we get tide up with knots
hands that welcome new pursuits
never relent in your pursuits
rejection letters
there is a part that explodes in me
e mails in the delete function
learn to think before you write
what did your contemporaries do
perhaps we have bitten off far more then we could chew
a renegade that's got it made
faces in the window with storms in the night
learn proper grammar
put into the right format
working to hard can give you a heart attack
learn from your mistakes
call it fate
yet someday you will succeed
it's called determination
knock you to your knees
To gain biblical insight from the beauty of the stars is of itself, all things glorious and grand of intention. Yet, it is by whatever the prideful man or woman has learned from this shown extension of universe, sought acknowledgment of such, - most assuredly will come offered only through like contemporaries exacting of value from other noted considerations - all gain from previous investigative and scientific failures. Likewise then, the same shall stand for those who continually seek to question what powers the Word of God, providence will have shown more than a certain probability, - the recorded measure of their lack in faith and eventual pitching of soul into the Valley of Gehenna - long forgotten by life.
"Like stars to the night sky, so many will soon forever cry out exhaltingly, as if once our joyful tears held back - now known only to Jehovah"
It is by whatever mankind has learned from this shown universe, an acknowledgment of such, - most assuredly comes offered only through his contemporaries extracting of other noted considerations from numerous scientific failures. Likewise then, the same shall stand for those who continually seek to question what powers the Word of God. When providence will show more than a certain probability, - the recorded measure of their lacked faith and eventual pitching of soul into the Valley of Gehenna - long forgotten by life!
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