I learned to swim in waters of amoeba
You shout "Regarde!" as I float to the surface
But it's far from Paris in this viscous river
Your hands of guidance turned to scoffs
Trading my pain for stacks of coins~
I no longer hear the crowds beg for mercy
Forced to nurse groupings of septic cells
My chest covered in ripples and blisters
The wet nurse of a generation of youth
Doctor, how come I must be a vessel?
Because my skirt fell above my knees
My womb is no factory of steel
All of this for more soldiers to train
For the crippling economy and labor
Why must your wealth stay tightly packed?
I will never earn my dress of white
Men of our nation will deem me impure
Forever a mandatory mother, never a wife
My body shall remain my own
Free of your legislature~
Where is this? Are we on Mars?
America – just count the stores,
capitalist carnivores.
That so-familiar movie score,
the swish of passing cars.
The city built on Brotherly Love
(Wells Fargo, Fitch and Abercrombie)
at the mercy of Pam Bondi
- was that a person, or a zombie? –
What was Madison thinking of?
Car’s no use: no place to park it.
Arrested at a funeral home.
No gravel pits, no air, no loam
- eat your heart out, Kristi Noem
(Checks Cashed Here, Medina Market)
Can this be noon? It feels like night.
What are these groupings? Hangouts? Dives?
They’re ganglions? They’re human hives?
Squandered talent, wasted lives.
Subway line blocks out the light.
Sidewalk garbage. Mostly men.
That hokey old verbal agility,
“insure domestic tranquillity”
correctional facility
for the heirs of William Penn.
Human beings are detritus
(Lifetime Nails, Olympic Sports):
To clean it up, we use the courts
Perhaps we ought to build more forts
- and thus our id comes back to bite us.
"Running through a mile of wasted compiled vile
I find myself conflicted sitting in a position
groaning I'm foul planting a seed of tan and brown
the snake comes out of me and it flees deposited manure
Gastly every movement is not pure, sometime it's deterred
so now I gravitate as I clasp my cheeks
out from the plummets from the tests intestinal ...
verbiage I'm not on my knees
Yet, yes I bow down bowel comes out of me
What I just planted was healthy indeed
it was a groupings of so many seeds
running in through my garden
or would you pardon
Me as I sit posture above a toilet
and now I let Go of the grouping for you see is my bowels moving
My waste has been displaced
into a porcelain throne filled with water clear
as I touch the handle it's spirals down
Maneuvered Manure
the tunnel to eventually become one with the sewer"
I have over 400 comic books
with groupings of
Wolverine, Dead Pool, Doctor Strange,
Carnage, Moon Knight, Spider-Man,
Godzilla, Batman, Hellboy, Spawn,
Captain America and Ghost Rider
so who do I select to follow and read the most
yes, it would certainly be the Red Skull
so why would I select this man of hatred and evil
to be my muse
why do I stack his comic books by my laying ground
why am I obsessed and enthralled by such a villian
it's because people see me as they see him
an outcast, a loser, a man on a mission alone
no, I am not evil, but my past jokes portray me this way
no, I do not hate, but my actions have painted me awry
I wear a Red Skull t-shirt everyday
and am thinking about getting a tattoo of him
so people will know that I'm an innocent child
blessed by God but hated by the masses
Captain America can try to take me down
I have a couple lives left to spare as does the Red Skull
we are not one
but we are the same
hated, abused, shunned and disliked
so spend your time drinking your tea
I'll be reading and enjoying my Red Skull comics
A longing look back at dusty thoughts
colors my musings of childhood days.
And I miss Mom's hugs, outings, and trips,
and phantasmagorical picnics.
My imagination starts to stir;
conjuring up past visions of fun.
And I wish that I could go hog-wild,
or switch curiosity back on.
Thinking about family groupings
instantly summons up happy thoughts.
And my mind oft lovingly looks back,
to a past without guilt or worry.
Occasionally, I wish I could
go back to what I had long ago.
And that pang of nostalgia calls forth
an amalgamation of lost joys.
Significance, magnificence, noncoincidence
elegance, eloquence, grandiloquence
effervescence, prepubescence, convalescence
quintessence, fluorescence, omnipresence
What makes these kind of groupings pleasing
It's not you, dear read, I am appeasing
Nor am I in any way illicit or licentious
~ As I take full advantage of poetic license
Crisp grasses reflect ghost-white;
Ethereal shafts of moonlight.
Tenebrous shifting shadows;
Declivity of dolerite rows.
A lonely spirit roams freely —
A fresh headstone in the lee.
POET'S NOTE
When written in English, sijo may be written in six lines, with each line containing two syllable groupings instead of four. This arrangement was exploited by the modern sijo poet, Kim Unsong, who introduced end-rhymes to the couplets.
***
dolerite: It is a hard stone akin to shale. It caps many low hills, which have a base of sandstone. This lends a flat top appearance to the hills. It is a common feature in the Great Karoo area of South Africa. Diabase is the preferred name in North America.
tenebrous: dark
In the sheltered shadows of dreams,
boundaries and limitations are nonexistent.
Imagination liquefies the ebony of space,
while thoughts swim amongst the stars.
And immersed in a sea of quietude,
silence suppresses sound;
amplifying the murmurs of silent thoughts.
And your restless pen leaks ink, leaving a trail
of dribbles down the face of time
somewhere in your subconscious mind.
Dodging distractions,
while avoiding the perils of indifference:
feelings, untethered from reality, are allowed to roam free.
And a plethora of poetic musings
morph into verses and stanzas;
as vowels and consonants stand shoulder to shoulder
culminating in groupings of witty words.
And upon awakening, an outpouring
of creativity and talent
gleaned from your heart and soul;
bleeds onto the page, and a poem takes form.
Encased in a box
Clawing, Screaming, petrified
"Focus on what's good..."
Light growing inside
planting seeds in my garden
drowning out evil
Mineralized wood
sparkling gemstone colors
standing tall and strong
In the darkness, calls
delusions, tangled theories
twisted processes
Presenting half-truths
mangled behind closed curtains
devil's alchemy
Thoughts as fireflies
exploration commences
purge the corruption
Garden of gemstones
seeds planted into wood's cracks
luminous facets
Patrolling in groupings
revealing machinations
always on guard here
Devoured corpses shown
skeletons of last battle
must keep on going
Drive out the madness
cultivated sufferings
weeds plucked from the roots
imagery, nature, sun, water, wind, word play
The mountains speak out
From under clouds soaring high
Light strikes down below!
Mountain ridges stick out
Crags and crevices shadow deep
Cloud cover adds frost!
Billowing white clouds
Rearrange themselves in groupings
Formatting anew!
The sun’s reflection
Sparkling the rolling wave tips
Sent by the strong breezes!
Gracefully gliding, reaching you in sky,
Chasing all notes on air in sublime rhyme,
With shining leotard, my wish is to fly.
I feel every rhythm from time to time,
The sweet smiles lift every spirit so high,
My magic fingers draw a paradigm.
Tiptoeing on the ice, so cold and dry,
Most chilled pirouette, impressive in sight,
Everyone wishes me for one more try.
“My picture”, I look wistfully in sigh,
I stand with shaking knees, my dance is wry.
Aug. 17,2013 11.05pm
by Leonora Galinta
Note:
Terza rima is a verse form composed of iambic tercets (three-line groupings). The rhyme scheme for this form of poetry is "aba bcb cdc, etc." The second line of each tercet sets the rhyme for the following tercet, and thus supplying the verse with a common thread, a way to link the stanzas.
My first terza rima poem. This poem was late for the contest with the theme, "Picture Perfect" so I entered it in the other contest.
Third Place
Contest: Metrical Verse
Judged: 9/20/2013
Sponsor: Poet Giorgio Veneto
Reds, golds, and umbers
The trees all have shades of these
When Autumn does start
A lovely display they are
Smart groupings of radiance
Russell Sivey
burden of the westernized nuclear family
a need for a keeper of the skeletons
may or may not be sufficient conversation
at the annual reunion of the extended
where advantages of the tribe & like-minded
human groupings of non-western peoples
shine over the gossiping keeper
as s/he weaves a web of half-truths
that have been passed down through the ages
so that no one really knows the family history
because he said-she said mentalities
clog
what could have been a rich telling of
factual tales
which may not have been as talk-showy & sappy
but would nonetheless have been
true.
Such a colorful bird so pleasing to the sight.
You gathered in huge flocks as armadas in flight.
Massive groupings enough to eclipse the sun’s light,
countless millions living two centuries ago,
with numbers that once would rapidly grow.
You were successful as a species would go.
Your flying is a sighting I will never know.
As many conservationists would plead,
you were hapless victims of insurmountable greed.
Killed in quantities that would often succeed
large amounts surpassing sustenance need.
The story of your extinction is hard to believe.
How quickly it happened is difficult to conceive.
Why does Congress still have a Black Caucus?
Do we still need the N.A.A. C. P.?
Congress says we are all equal
The law says that everyone’s free
We would never allow a White Caucus
Although white is a minority
They can’t pursue unequal advancements
Though discrimination there be
So let’s drop these race focused groupings
Let’s put race issues back on the shelf
Let’s act like we really are equals
And let everyone fend for themselves!
Mdailey 8/1/11
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