Midnight,
Hoots and despondent howls
From crevasses of puking earth prompt weakness at slumber
Webs!
They encircle the pin-line threads of silence, viciously muted,
Drawing porous patterns of maladroitness
Dawn,
Loose drops of old water, cusp-sized, blend with the rays of the
Rising sun, smelting our principles.
Images,
Lachrymose consternations congeal the blood in our brows,
Stifling the grace of blinking lashes
And we lose patience.
There’s a new-nurtured ruggedness
Which opens the snouts while we yawn.
In the distance,
Moonlight, sapped, means nothing with her downward gaze.
But the sound of maudlin drums hastens closer and nearer.
The mind has peaks
no Sherpa knows
sudden drops
where thoughts
thin out
like oxygen
at twenty thousand feet.
Avalanche thoughts
bury certainty.
Your grip tears skin
on ice-sharp edges
of almost-understanding.
Below are the
crevasses deep
as yesterday's regrets,
echoing
familiar voices
lost in white.
Wind cuts through
the space between
base camp comfort
and what
waits above
the death zone.
Frostbite burns
circle your fingertips
the attempt
to hold
what altitude
has already
stolen.
Only the fallen
know the weight of thin air.
Only the hanging
over glacier cracks
know the value
of solid ground.
This terrible geography
some must
navigate alone.
Its style is a journey for my mind
providing a world onto itself
with miles to meander
and crevasses to explore
with paths to follow
allowing my soul to wander
AP: 1st place 2026, Honorable Mention 2025
Submitted on April 25, 2025 for contest YOUR CHOICE V sponsored by BRIAN STRAND - RANKED 8TH
Trickling water, a natural bell
flows in rivets with carved rock.
Lush ferns spring up in the crevasses
rather alike the children of the water.
I hear the wind call me,
as I step onto the grassy ground.
Turning to face the sun,
my shadow falls behind me.
AFTER I finish this poem and all
the alphabets are in bed
you can walk with me down the hill
where the stream is, lady
where fish dream they are stars
(now this blows my mind -- but
there they are)
Looking within their eyes with a
suddenly unsaid voice they spoke
while smoking mexican grass
And the toads croak lightly
singing, "Run upon the stones
across our river"
I ran and stepped across all
the stones and crevasses
and I found myself upon the Mountain
And there came a poetess who sang,
"Come, hold my hand, along brittle
treacherous bright streets
of memory -- ooh, come my heart,
you idiot, yealing like a drunken man!
We can be asleep, elsewhere our dreams begin
run upon my stones:
Ici? Ah non. Mon chéri, il fait trop froid.
I say again, "Here? Oh no. My drear, it is
too cold!"
The farm is in ice so Chevaux do bois!
:: 06.05.2024 ::
There are always a few
Troublesome “tickl-ings “
Daringly darting
In somnambulant slumber
Shape shifting shadows
Mocking the moonlight
Creeping through the crevasses
Of literary limitation
Weeping with the whispering words
Subtlety suppressed by silence
Like mice they meander the mind
Seeking sustenance and satiation
Borrowed brown shoes
Dancing in a dusty darkness
Gravity has no properties
No formal place of residence
There, a push, a pull of time
No education to speak of
Within, without a need to worry
A toy called inertia waiting on a cause
Gravity is your drunken friend at midnight
It takes your wife and steals your money
Leaves your wallet because it’s nice
And never lies because it’s in disguise
Gravity hates formalities like Robert
Let’s call it Bob because it bobs about
On stormy ocean surfaces
In outer space on waves of light
Riding surfaces of time and tide
Gravity is invisible to the touch
Rolling off the tongue into infinity
Sticking on to surfaces of other worlds
Turning at the curve of universes
Gravity is the dice of God
Who leaves nothing to chance
Tossing worlds like marbles to the stars
Swirling around in motion where they are
Gravity never sleeps beneath the sheets
It resides much deeper in the crevasses
The tiniest atoms want to have its baby
Down there in the fabric of time
Where crime abides
Asphalt black gets blacker still
In the total calm, sounds disappear
Wind gives up the sin of motion
Ocean tides know no boundaries
Only the pain of waves slapped back
Over the top, tippy top of mountains
Whispering over times broken spine
Step lightly. Feel the darkness there
Fill in the crevasses of the demised
It is wise to remain in silence
Snow rocked slopes grow into boulders
Once upon a drift they failed to fall
Into sleep, through no fault known
And through no fault of their own
See gray in a world gone immobile, inert
Wonder through the buried concrete slabs
Find another tunnel less dug by minors
The age of consent is over and done
Asphalt black is getting blacker every day
In the total calm there is only silence
Gazing out with midnight half-dreams
a velvet sky ripples on the frosted glass
stars peeping through the open window
the visage veiled in long shadows of grass.
pondering over stories with abrupt end
a journal of thoughts in crevasses of mind
fireflies sprinkling flecks of fragile glows
awakens a young girl from years behind.
several windows now open...one by one
she holds the full moon hiding in clouds
painting vivid dreams on a gossamer sky
curtain rising moments of cheering crowds
she said, wait I am coming
I can see you seeing me.
a smile knocked at the window pane
and she said, I am now free.
sitting at the window seat of her car
winter changed to autumn and spring,
waves of goodbyes rolled... and said,
Wait, some changes only time can bring.
if a tree should fall and there is no one to hear it
not even the merest susurrus for a poet to capture the moment
the encomium will cease
with each slight
each rejection of the light
and acknowledgement withheld
the all encompassing existence of all
called into question
the glacier crevasses gape
to engulf
the whole
however
frozen to the core
we must
remain undaunted
on a steady bedrock of the conviction
that all existence
isn’t in vain
if we can dream it we will not fade away
like unalterable photographs from bygone eras
we are the essence
the stases
holding
reality of
all life
in the
balance
23rd April 2023
A Wisdom Download Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Unseeking Seeker
3rd Place
Title changed AFTER the judging of the contest.
Chicken Chuck Chiggers chose chances of Chow
Changing curly curd curiosities that happened now
Clamping clogging cleats, classifying clones of mad cow
Colorado’s colorful colonists commanding condos of wow
Crusty cramped crullers creeping in craggy crevasses so
Crispy cartooned crestfallen consonants following below
Caroling cartons carefully consternating as catfish grow
Christmas card carolers confusing craggy-topped snow.
Confusing collars commanding colorized classification
Creating confident compact colonel’s consternation
Colliding converse comparisons in curious colorization
Commanding calendars corduroy in cellophane colonization
Arise o compatriot, Nigeria's call obey
To save her from going astray
Stand not aloof this is our Clarion call
Spread the news like you'll for a casting call
We're in for an urgent rescue mission
This isn't the time to debate religion
If we must forget about our crevasses
To have a great Nigeria without impasses
For this urgent call it's time to raise our voices
Nigeria is at the peak of many impasses
You've held many vigils to save her from attacks
In coming election let's make ourselves God's battle axe
Why would you want to sell your conscience
For those who only care about streaming in more affluence?
There's a time when silence is golden
Not this time that we should take our baton to save our barren
They say the gods do not subtract from man
the portion of his life spent sailing ships,
but she, the sea, brings ruin to ill plans.
Though harsh, this raucous mistress well equips
the one who seeks her true, with all his heart;
a bond is forged that naught else does eclipse.
To plumb her depths, to know, without a chart,
her crevasses, the cycle of her tides…
A jealous love, she’ll not abide apart.
Take care, o man, in making her your bride!
How glorious, to glide her bosom’s swell;
Let diligence and honor be your guides.
The man who faithful tends her, chooses well,
but woe befalls the careless infidel.
—————
for the Five Stanza Terza Rima Poetry Contest
sponsored by Milton Hankins
written 07/14/2022
Standing by the moon lakes of open craters
Rocks remain the same and in their place
In short supply are birds of winter
Oxygen takes flight in missing trees
Origins of which remain a mystery
In beds of dust in beds of sand found there
Wed to the granular unsaid
Reason settles all the dust of lunar trust
It is presumed there are no men on Mars
Perhaps the moon absconded with them all
And women too since we are presuming to
Know what there is to know about the moon
Eyes of the moon are deep crevasses
Attempting to bore into humanity
Consuming flesh and soul in their reflections
From a sun that never rests but only questions
Prayers for Greater Rains
David J Walker
I am no
Stranger to this land
I know each name
Of the forest of grasses
In the trails carved of rain
And the crease of crevasses
that travail the passes to the
Mesa’s that fain the same calling
As far away snowcapped mountains
That refrain from falling down
And bowing to the
Torrents of wind
That are back again
To claim
The exposed framework of
Plowed farmlands exposed by
Farm-men
Who live in the holiness and
loneliness of the red dust
of their own making
solitude for the taking
I am no
Stranger to the pains
Of bowing to demands of
Of living off the lands
Of meager means and smaller gains
And that which remains
Of the prayers for grater rains
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.