He has a pencil and imagination.
He sits above a marble tabletop
a commanding plateau aloft -
shadow-shades of wintery geese.
A sea swept fable
overlooked by a high stool
and a six-year-old Zeus.
Eggshells grain and creamy caps,
a crystalline surf slaps swirly shores,
blue veins score billowing stone
deep unto watery bone.
Contours of light
shelf, trench and darkling nights
there jabberwocky did roam.
A vast wave engraved realm
where pencil-thin old salts
jig, and swing
upon deck or land.
Grand fleets stand
flogging savage coasts.
Guns hammer truculent hosts
with smokey enfilades
and thick odors of bacon.
Odyssean voyages are lost
in greasy spots,
while an embattled buccaneer
spreads his buttery art across
a voluminous chart.
Then he, the breakfast boy
bends above the roving,
the erstwhile and damned,
sketches a gull or three
with a sailor's hand.
With a god-like paw
the child draws shallows, sandbars
reefs and more
swallow or befog a seascape,
while great ships converge to rescue
a bold seaman
and his bandy-legged dog.
Oh please don't spank your monkey my friend
Your animosity has no end
Much like flogging a dog
You keep flogging your log
First you spank it, then spank it again
Seeking and saving the lost have been parts of your story.
Passion, death, and resurrection must pave paths for glory.
How could you be rarer than all if you don't die and rise?
For the crimes of the souls of the world, you must pay the price.
Did your disciples want this? They wished you to be the king.
You knew, yet, blood should overflow from you like a wellspring.
Your ways were unique in the world. They could not understand.
Your mocking at and flogging at could they ever withstand?
The grain that springs, grows, and bears fruits stays within the earth's womb.
The one who saves all should sleep within the womb of the tomb.
Fulfilling the laws and the prophets should be done by death.
By dying on the cross for all, you should spread your life's breath.
The gift and the giver—you're the lamb who took sins away.
Kingdoms and kingships of this world could not stand on your way.
Beyond the wave-sacked pebbles
lie the pockmarked dunes,
sea-wind swept heaps,
burrowed by the claws of scaly thrashers.
Here they huddle, the working class,
flogging grim pleasures,
wolfing eggy sandwiches,
dipping tea-stained teeth into beakers
as a chill summer drizzles on.
I am a brine-spattered small fry,
a boyhood caught in a swirl
and flounder, bare feet
skimming the slimy kelp, stalking
an ankle tugging surf.
Mother, her demeanor
soggy and sagging at last,
pleads to be led back
to the creaking camper.
Father smokes a plug of leathery shag,
grunts upright, walks toward the sea,
looks to see God knows what,
then turns to drag me away,
from our holiday day.
Sudden snakes in my brain
what a waste are my inaudible cries
mental welts I give myself
because I made you leave
now you hate me
screw my life
it's all just too hard to believe
Inaudibly I crumble and fall into the dirt
don't bury me, just leave me here
dead inside, inert
I died the day you left me
I'd never felt so hurt
Hope in the shape of Zoloft
just doesn't do the trick
I read our chats over and over
and the flogging bud of failure
knowing how much I lost
leaves me feeling sick
you said I was toxic maybe that's true
I only know
I've never loved anyone the way I love you
my mental mosh pit, my hodgepodge mind
I feel so much, but I'll never say
and the snakes in my brain
will probably never go away
Flogging
as punishment
confessed adultery
the lover pleaded not guilty
- coward
Tried I once again to you hold
But-Alas- you had just been sold
To The Shrewdest Merchant of Old,
Whose merchandise should first go sold…
Tears hot I tried to boldly check
But soon guessed it correct not a wreck
Whether ascended I a deck
To cry or not, it is Death’s Peck!
The Ever Crazy With Power,
Mankind hitting every hour,
‘Dearest’ once treasured like Flower,
You would glimpse and turn A Tower!
Giant I would hold by the tail,
So that he could never me fail
And just like that wrought his escape
Me leaving with fooled mouth to gape…
Death its flogging does with wire
Sadist that never could tire!
We carry small talk above our heads, ceilings drip clouds.
Nothing is put away. Coats dangle over chairs in layers.
Drugged by spate and mizzle, denim droops,
snagged over rummage
and the outstretched arms of impedimenta.
The house awakes to a soft toed patter.
Around us, cuffs pull the roof closer to damp collars,
hangers weep in wardrobes,
while the unhung sink in muddy shallows.
Before the light paddles away, calico, cotton, and shirttails
are rescued, bundled into higher heaps;
the soggy separated from the merely mildewed.
The muddled and fusty raised above an imagined tide.
Tomorrow, front steps will be scoured;
the washed-out made to flap.
Squirrels may walk the earth again,
and if a blotting wind returns, we will wave
from dry bathtubs.
Beyond the wave-sacked,
lie the pockmarked dunes, heaps dug
by the claws of scaly thrashers.
Here they huddle, my blood kin
flogging grim pleasures,
wolfing eggy sandwiches,
dipping tea-stained teeth into beakers.
By a shoaling shale and monochrome spray
one brine-splattered small fry.
A boyhood caught in a swirling freshet,
he whales barefoot in the flounder,
skimming the slimy kelp, stalking
a slippage of tugging surf.
Her demeanor soggy at last, mother
goads to be led to the creaking camper.
Father smokes a plug of leathery shag,
grunts upright, walks toward the sea.
A toppled thermos and leftovers
scooped up and lugged away.
Windswept, the lingerers
trudge from the chilly churn,
while a soused and hectoring bay
records a working-class holiday.
ISIS-K blew up a girls' school*
al-Qaida claim flogging is cool
No girl is worth
A clump of earth
Wherever the Taliban rule
Jihadists strive to be lanky
To decapitate a Yankee
If Allah were judge
Would He prefer fudge
To another bloodstained hanky?
*whilst school was in session!
3's a crowd
A triplet,
trio loud
6 is a pair of three's
It's half a dozen eggs
A sextet strums to please
'tis the sixth planet, Saturn
Biggest score thrown on die
Perfect number pattern
3 plus 6, and 3 times 3 is 9
Months mum must wait for bub to be born
Number of lives enjoyed by cat, kind
Pluto's buddy out beyond Neptune
Riding on cloud nine, to the nines dressed
Stitched in time to save nine rags be strewn
In your possession, its nine tenths yours
A cat-o'-nine-tails metes a flogging
There it's done, 3-6-9 hors d'oeuvres
DEAR MAMA
We've come to tell you that we never forgot.
Yeah, .. We never forgot you.
In all you went through
Trying to be a mother
Trying to be a good wife
Trying to be our teacher
Trying to be our friend
Trying to be the mediator
Trying to be our motivator
Still our cornerstone
On your bended knees to pray for us
Still our advocates before our father
Sew at home with no designer name
Dear mama, we saw it all
From the frowns to the smiles
From the pains to the gains
From the freshness to the wrinkles
From the flat belly to the stretch marks
From the baby bumps to the backing
From the scolding to the praises
From the flogging to the prayers
From the stitched to the new clothes
From the uniform to Christmas wears
From the welcome to the goodbyes
From the visit to the leaving
From the warnings to the accolades
From your jerry curls to this weak grey hair
Dear mama, through these all... We are grateful and determined to make you proud.
Happy Mother's day to you my dear mother.
Witches and warlocks marching their truth
Pouring discarded spells on poor Sister Ruth
Laughing as they dance and run on her head.
Showing her what will happen when she is dead.
But I am a nun she yells, thinking it will stop their play.
Not realizing they are determined.to have fun today.
A ornery old ghost in the corner joins in on the fun.
Ebony bats in the belfry fly toward the sweet nun.
I am writing it down laughing loud like a loon.
When suddenly it gets quiet. The whole third grade room.
Mother Superior looking at my paper now.
I try to hide it but she is tough, this old sow.
I am in trouble big time. I am going to get a flogging.
I run home in the rain, and my paper is slogging.
Witches and warlocks and Sister Ruth. What was I thinking?
Why did I not smell her perfume? She is always stinking.
Formidable floundering frisky fish followed furiously,
Flogging fourteen flustered freshman froggies
Furious followers filed fine-tuning finesse
Frostily furthering fruitless froggy fortitude.
Beyond the wave-sacked,
lie the pockmarked dunes, heaps dug
by the claws of scaly thrashers.
Here they huddle, my blood kin
flogging grim pleasures,
wolfing eggy sandwiches,
dipping tea-stained teeth into beakers.
By a shoaling shale and monochrome spray
one brine-splattered small fry.
A boyhood caught in a swirling freshet,
he whales barefoot in the flounder,
skimming the slimy kelp, stalking
a slippage of tugging surf.
Her demeanor soggy at last, mother
goads to be led to the creaking camper.
Father smokes a plug of leathery shag,
grunts upright, walks toward the sea.
A toppled thermos and leftovers
scooped up and lugged away.
Windswept, the lingerers
trudge from the chilly churn,
while a soused and hectoring bay
records a working-class holiday.
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.