Suitors lined up, hoping to court me
Promising plethoras of pleasure
Tantalizing, teasing hints of treasure
To move my reticent, reluctant lips to say ‘Oui’
To obsequious bow to my innumerable charms,
While in a mirror of pomp, I primp and pose
When spot a man – mustachioed, mysterious – undisposed
To flatter my golden hair, narrow waist or delicate arms
An unlikely king or composer of Psalms
Ill-at-ease with strongmen and heroes
Counselor to hobos, weirdos and zeroes
And I, drawn to his visage with increasing alarm
Entry in "When You are Old" contest
Sponsor: Sara Kendrick
Date: Jan. 14, 2025
No– shadows do not love
the angles of your face.
Reflection in a cage;
the mirror— enemy
in atmosphere of age,
no.. shadows do not love
the smoother skin of youth.
Your worries; furrow wears,
a trench where troops retreat,
—accumulated years.
No! shadows do not love
mascara and soft light;
distracts from sense of time
and wishes drowned in wells…
damn clock’s incessant chime—
no, shadows do not love
the wrinkles and the lines.
They etch your map their ink;
topography of life
where sun o’er valleys sink.
With your mouth to stop my sleep
I be as silent as the grave
Cheek by jowl
I hunger for the truth
unlike this silent appareil
that devoids the last spiders return
Mediocre we need not flatter
With laurels on a cheap platter:
Hero’s Effort make a matter;
A dropped metal’s heavy clatter…
“What is right” we foully batter
And Future Foundation scatter,
When save we just can The Latter
And ensure True Victory later…
Mediocre we must not flatter:
On our clothes staining mud spatter;
Problems feed and they are fatter,
Tires allowed to be flatter...
Don’t forget FIFA’s Staunch Blatter;
No Cups to have on a platter.
Butterflies make me
Shiver
And speachless.
My mind freezes,
My blood flows backwards.
Butterflies make me
Quiver
And breathless.
My being astounded,
My faith questionable.
Butterflies make me in
Flatter
And break hearts.
My selfish desires satisfied,
My heart left to joy.
Deep in my stomach
They fly and never stop,
They laugh till they shed tears,
They love but for a little time,
Butterflies make me!
You seek to guile me
with poisoned words
corrosive flattery
whispered
softly
with a vipers tongue
Please, do not try to flatter me
with those capricious words you speak,
perspicuous but inurbane...
their undercurrent, quite oblique.
They may seem kind to you for sure;
beneath, though sweet, alienate
with mean, malignant metaphors
that make the sugar dissipate.
I will not be your sought scapegoat
and gravitate to cunning words;
with meanings so transitory...
they're swished away like flocks of birds.
Sandra M. Haight
~2nd Place~
Contest: Ten Word Challenge
Sponsor: John Hamilton
Judged: 09/17/2016
Required Words to Use:
alienate, capricious, dissipate, gravitate, flatter, inurbane,
malignant, perspicuous, transitory, scapegoat
Number 2:
FLATTER
Watch that extra sweet tongue
That curls and swings and stirs
Sweetening the high strung
In clever touch that spurs
Leon Enriquez
15 December 2014
Singapore
don't flatter yourself
you stand massive
but fall frail
people see right through you
To Flatter a Large Woman
Call ‘er
Smaller
For Brian Strand's Footle Retrospective Contest
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.