Counters Poems | Examples

I Want that World

Her throat is a reliquary of shards.
Every sob races through burial yards.
Her words erupt.

Surgeons laced her scars not the stare.
Scalding eyes ignited the trauma's flare.
Sympathy was bankrupt.

Someone baptized her in venom
the spit of patriarchy, cold and solemn.
Faith turned abrupt.

Sold over counters like candy for cowards
Hurled like rosewater, laced with hazards.
A love-rage concept.
She didn’t get strong but radioactive
Unceasingly culprit and the captive.
Conscience stayed corrupt.

Law wore stilettoes for penance
Verdict tiptoed through violence.
Mercy collapsed disrupt.

Tourists of virtue post flash ads.
Empathy filters through grief pads
Healing cycles interrupt.

"An eye for an will make the world blind"
I want that world..
where no one sees a face and think its mine,
where no one falls in love and claims it like land.

Let blindness bloom in the rocky terrain of laws,
where suffering is measured in grams and minutes.

The Mage Whispers

The Mage Whispers

Do you see past your reality tunnels

Your every day to day
Safe plays

As your Geiger Counters
Ticks left to right
As it slowly sways

Do you see the struggles
Of life's many broken runners

In dire trouble
At home or worldwide 

Do you see the villains with the dirty bruised knuckles 

On television preaching or in real time

Standing in someone else's home

Their back garden
Their jungle 
As the world just watches

Engaging in endless bellicose discussions

Will you only take note
When one of the world's elected great hunters

Pushes the red nuclear button 

So I summon the power of the Four Elemental Gods

Earth, Air, Fire, and Water
To wake you up

Before that Old Fallen Power 
Grows so much stronger

That hope will no longer matter, as it will shatter

Stopping one climbing Jacob's Ladder 

The bridge one seeks at birth 
Between Heaven and Earth

So be it

What will be
Will be


(C) Copyright John Duffy

Cleaning Frenzied Me

I started with one small corner of my kitchen
Set the timer, so I could stop in fifteen minutes
Set the timer eight more times until the floor was scrubbed
The counters were scraped, the table was polished to a shine
Might as well do the microwave
I kept shutting the refrigerator door
I was not ready to tackle that monster yet
Hardened ketchup drips and syrup from a year ago

The living room now looks amazingly dirty
Weird since it was cleaned yesterday
I wanted it to sparkle like the kitchen
Before I had quite finished, I had to run to the bathroom
Which I am now painting because it was incredibly dingy
Nothing is done, but lots of things are started.
My husband is poking around in the frig.
He yells “when are you cleaning the refrigerator?”
If there is a homicide on my street, you will know it was me.

We are Food Connoisseurs

I am from the Midwest
We eat our cattle while they are running
Condiments?
Ha!
I scoff at that

Rabbit stew made of their feet
We allow them to hop around on their other paws
We are not unkind, just because we are carnivores

I am a sweet eater
My husband used to leave my sweets alone
Times have changed
Is it our age?
Unsure, but now we fight over the chocolate donuts and twinkies

We are salt-lovers too
Do not care if it is good for us, it makes us happy
Gives us the thirst we need to devour our bubbly sweet soda pop

Both of us turn up our noses at vegetables unless it is a potato
Or a sweet corn slathered in a vat of butter with salt and pepper
We are food connoisseurs; we only eat what tastes delicious

Not calorie counters
Choosy eaters? I laugh

Severance Pay

Time hands seconds past the minute,
winter melts the sands,
sprung barter the seeds to take root,
petals leave for lands.

Abandoned juice bathes the barren,
weather soaks wet dreams,
towering outstretched limbs fashion,
cries tear up the streams.

Quartered the core green overgrowth,
sweet fester the sour,
fertile soil sources root approach,
West turn sunset lour.

Stockers fatten wanting store shelves,
greens packaged refreshed,
farmers loaded like Christmas elves,
checks at counters cashed.

Shoppers and grocers swapping smiles,
carts staggering highs,
past harvested fields, endless miles,
as New Year's Eve, nigh's.

The River

Stepha Kaye and Ima Gen

(B. Marquardt-Alexander is retiring. I am taking over this now). 

A Siamese cat, with bright emerald eyes
Light and dark in the night looked on
With an element of surprise. 

He searched high and low after midnight
For milky goodness, sweet and white. 
A feline craving and misbehaving
For the only item on which he was sold. 

He sniffed the bowls, counters, and nooks
Knowing he would soon be a crook. 
But there was no milk to be found
So he sat sadly on the ground. 

Disappointment crept in
As the last moon ray swept in
He turned to the side
Then saw the river in his sight.

The sound of the water flow
Black the seeds he might sow
Somehow, he made it through the window
He wished for a perch on a pillow.

He found another comfort
Not warm or soft, not his concern
For in his belief, he found his relief.

THE NIGHT BEFORE

THE NIGHT BEFORE

Twas the night before Christmas
Just after Yule, the winter solstice
Two big events need no poultice
Between these dates, an isthmus

All stores had now finally closed
Counters emptied of festive fayre
Shelves now nearly stripped bare
A Rudolph toy forever red nosed

Last minute gifts due for wrapping
Santa is left with a billion deliveries
His reindeer waiting in their liveries
And tired elves told off for napping

By morning, it may feel like a chore
Yet a critical task worth completing
But houses now have central heating
With no working chimneys anymore

Fun Observations on Poetry

 


Like hard, dry toast, with no aroma,
Poetry minus heart and soul, puts me in 
an endless coma!


My brain short circuits, the longer the poem!
I get a poetic seizure and my mind
is lost and endlessly roams.


Then come the poets, who are would-be 
philosophers!
As fascinating, and exciting as wooden bean 
counters.


Finally, those poets, who think the divine 
Thesaurus, makes a poem a dream?
I sit here, in agonizing tears and do a 
howling scream!


                      11/12/2024

Endless Days

All I do is sleep, cook, clean,
the rhythm of each day blurring into the next.
Morning breaks and I’m on my feet,
scrambling eggs, packing lunches,
wiping counters and tears alike.

I never did have those things
they say make a girl whole.
I never went to the gym,
never had a boyfriend,
never walked the halls with a smile,
arms linked with friends.

School is just a place in stories.
Friends are faces I can barely remember.
It’s me and these walls,
these dishes, this laundry,
the soft cries of my siblings in the night.

I never dressed up for prom,
never knew the thrill of whispered secrets,
hidden notes passed in class,
the simple joy of not being needed.
It’s strange how normal that seems now—
a life that doesn’t ask for anything back.

I am the hands that tuck them in,
the voice that soothes, the arms that hold.
Outside, the world hums by—
proms, laughter, things I’ve never known.

But here, in this house,
I am everything and nothing.
Just a girl who learned too young
to carry the weight of lives.

The Lunch Counter

It was a whole other world
No cellphones or tablets
No text messages
People gathered and talked
The most popular places no longer exist
Every afternoon and all weekends
The place to be was the lunch counter
Woolworth’s always had the best
Every store in every mall and street
Great food that never emptied your pocket
And a staff that would make your day happy
No matter what mood you were in
It is so sad that Woolworth’s had to die
Sadder yet, the lunch counters went with them
But we do have memories and pictures
That way, they will always be alive

© Poem – XXVIII/X/MMXXIV
LRET

cleaning does not interest me

I could clean while I listen to TV
I do not
I could wipe the counters
I do not
I could sweep the floor
I do not
cleaning does not interest me
I do not do things that are boring and redundant

Strategy of Life

                                        Life is convoluted
                          Coming across happiness and sorrow
                                       Love and betrayal
                                      Hunger and riches
                              Steering through the opposites
                           Consistency with the confrontations
                                       Saps the solace
                           Tired and broken, no longer thoughtful
                                  One counters the events

                            The wise ones see similarity in all
                                Allow the things to happen
                              Spontaneity breeds many paths
                       One continues to walk, brightness unfolds
                             Calm waters greet, spring returns
                              Past is past, oblivion overwhelms 
                               Smiles, zest and thrill embrace
                                 Bad is gone, good overtakes
                          Life is a game, reconciliation is the key

MANHOOD V WOMANHOOD

MANHOOD V WOMANHOOD

I use my favourite chat-up line as I join her at the bar,
”What’s a girl like you doing without a man like me?”
She raises her eyes disdainfully, “That’s the worst I’ve heard by far.”
And when I think  about it, I really have to agree.

Next, she questions my manhood. I tell her, “My eyes are up here.”
“I see your eyes,” she counters. But where do you keep your brain?”
By now the alarm bells are ringing; She’s outwitting me I fear.
So I’ll think of another chat-up line and come back in again

Information Highway Overload

In my possession

Right here right now

In the palm of my hand

At the click of a button

Simply tapping keys

Institaneously a seemingly limitless

And insurmountable stream of knowledge

And information i am able to access

The only problem I am now personally finding

Is deciphering the difference between

Which is true and which is fake

As both sides can not be both right

2 sides to every story

Problem is if you listen to both

It sometimes leaves me feeling even

More confused than when I started

Trying to find my own answers

1 says this the other 1 counters

It with something else completely different

And it has become so hard to distinguish

Between the 2 even with all the facts

Because to much information

Can blur the lines and work against

You discovering either way

What you initially began starting out

To find the answers to

In the end it leaves you back to square 1

Having to decide and choose for yourself

What you believe in and think

Is wrong or right

Queue

Queue, in my nation, is a customary circumstance, 
Women, each day, stand in queues for municipal water;
Young and old, before government ration stores, stand in trance,
Youths, with diplomas, stand in queues for the imprimatur...!

Banks have long queues and the A.T.M counters have no less,
One could find, in front of Public Washrooms, the longest queues; 
Sure, one could read on the faces of those in queues, big stress,
Yet, in a system where there is no system, can one choose...?

As queue has become part of our life we seldom anguish,
We have accepted and resigned to this fate, merrily;
We make friends with the one near us and, hence, never languish,
We take, hence, our physical and psychic aches airily...! 

Though an imminent evil, queue teaches me endurance,
This, in turn, molds me and brings to life a vast difference...!!!

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