Desert Poems | Examples

List of Member Poems

Premium Member The Dark Night of the Soul 'The desert muse only visits the intellectually thirsty'

The skull looks out with those cavernous eyes
My eye fell upon it this dark moonless night
What had it seen in the days when it roamed
Did it count this as home, arrive here at length
Day's sunrise no longer visits to bring it to life
What's passed before it now passes it by
Once counting for all it's now out of sight 
What more can be said of these jaws clenching teeth
No lively tongue placed in that cheek turned to bone
Not a sight for the weak with no word left to say
And what of the rest of the skeleton crew
Who all did their best with what they had left
What separates them now from my contemplation
Is the flesh all that's weak... or is my spirit, too?

Premium Member Cowgirl Rondelet

Fixing to rise
Giddy-up now, friend, don't delay
Fixin' to ride

Where the silver morning sun plays
On the range, I keep the wild ways
Let's go forth together today
Fixin' to ride

Fixing to rise
Giddy-up, my friend, don't delay
Fixin' to ride

Where golden morning sunlight plays
Across the range, we'll ride freely
Let's chase the open sky today
Fixin' to ride

Fixing to thrive
Giddy-up, Cowboy, don't you delay
Fixin' to ride

Where the desert moonlight can play
With sunset and hearts runnin' free
We'll leave some tracks behind today
Fixin' to ride

Fixin' to brighten the sky!

Wake Within The Rose Wilderness

In this mid autumn, 
I could not imagine to see
Cute roses and flowers,
In uninhabited desert area
In its natural condition
But, that what had happened!
Wonderful neat surprise!


Premium Member Chef Armadillo

at dawn, Chef Armadillo opens his sun-scorched café.
jalapeños jump on the counter like tiny green fireworks.
tortillas twirl as he flips them into sky-high desert specials.
coyotes queue up for his legendary inferno tacos.

Just another average day in the desert....

Premium Member Searching for Tempo in Desert Sands

                In Arabian singsong, the dancer began
                   Searching for tempo in desert sands
                Torso twisting and turning to the rhythm of time
                    With a toss of her head and a shake of her mane

                 Tambourines rang, spectators clapped
                     the dancer transformed, shot into his lap
                 Wriggling her belly and lighting his fire
                     she struggled to control her desire… 

              … At the end of the night, slumped over, frail, spent
                     too many years barely paying the rent

Premium Member A Drought That Drowns

You do not need a riverbed to drown.
The drought is carried deep within the chest.
There is no water in this quiet room,
Yet sudden silence floods the empty lungs.

The drought is carried deep within the chest,
A cracked and ochre basin of the mind.
Yet sudden silence floods the empty lungs,
And absence brings a current of its own.

A cracked and ochre basin of the mind,
Where reaching for a memory builds a sea.
And absence brings a current of its own,
The sheer starvation rising like a tide.

Where reaching for a memory builds a sea,
You gasp for breath in perfectly dry air.
The sheer starvation rising like a tide,
The devastating weight of being alone.

You gasp for breath in perfectly dry air,
There is no water in this quiet room.
The devastating weight of being alone—
You do not need a riverbed to drown.


Premium Member Dolls on the High Desert

Onto the high desert of a low-browed world.
Lost in the me of their scratchy egos.
Doll-eyed souls raped by the gears of techno.

Premium Member HAMMOCK OF THE WIND

Between two mesquite limbs, the wind slings its cradle,
a slow sway rising from the sun-struck sand.
Warm desert air gathers like woven cloth,
lifting the body into a drifting, heat-soft lull.

Light flickers through thorn-shadow and dust-gold,
the world rocking in wide, breath-born stillness.
The Chihuahuan breeze loosens the grip of the day,
holding it in the wind’s quiet keeping across the desert’s spine.

Premium Member DESERT NIGHTFALL

the desert sky slipped into indigo, 
coy and slow. 

a single star blinked awake, 
checking to see if
the desert was ready for company

Premium Member CHIHUAHUAN BREEZE

a breeze wandered through the dunes 
carrying the faint scent of mesquite
 and something older~

 a whisper of the land remembering its own stories.

Premium Member FALL IN THE CHIHUAHUAN DESERT

The desert cools beneath a copper sky,  
mesquite leaves tremble in the autumn air;  
poppies remember spring but do not cry,  
their silence glowing soft without fanfare.  

Mesquite leaves tremble in the autumn air,  
the mountains blush in rust and fading gold;  
their silence glowing soft without fanfare, 
a story whispered but never fully told.  

The mountains blush in rust and fading gold,  
the wind grows gentle, shedding summer’s blaze;  
a story whispered but never fully told,  
the desert shifts into its twilight phase.  

The wind grows gentle, shedding summer’s blaze,  
poppies remember spring but do not cry;  
the desert shifts into its twilight phase,  
the desert cools beneath a copper sky.

Premium Member DESERT TIME

tumbleweeds blowing
across the wide-breathing dunes
sunlight bleaches time

Premium Member CHIHUANAN DESERT SUNFLOWERS

glow
stirs,
quiet
spirals rise,
sun-tuned murmurs bloom,
shaping warm chromatic hushes,
petals are soft ciphers of radiant symmetry,
gathering sun gold light into one slow-turning, bright ring of living geometry.

Premium Member DAWN ON THE CHIHUAHUAN DESERT

dawn drifts in,
desert light loosens
dust-soft dreams
deep within~

a dry wind draws creation
down the quiet dunes

Premium Member Desert Rain



                                                   cascading silver

                                          thunder awakens the dead

                                                     river rises up

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.

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