At my dear brother’s grave,
I paid him my respects.
It was a winter’s day.
While standing there I glimpsed
two deer not far away.
At my dear brother’s grave,
the doe drew a bit close,
and then the other deer
(though very haltingly)
was also drawing near.
At my dear brother’s grave,
it seemed those deer nearby
that watched me were a sign
as if they came from God.
It seemed a thing divine.
At my dear brother’s grave,
I thought how he was like
the deer; though still apart
from me, his spirit was
close by to touch my heart
She sit's solemnly in the weed choked garden.
Frightened so frightened.
The colourless sky above, rain trickles down like a slow running waterfall.
Hopeless so hopeless.
She sits up slowly, the pain radiating her entire frail hull.
Tormented so tormented.
She lay's down haltingly on the wet viridescent grass.
Frightened so frightened.
A light begins to shine, knowing god is with her on this journey
makes her feel enlightened..... she sleeps.
.
She laid poised
'pon mine bedroll
Eyne beaming
lips
displaying
with sweet wide smile
hern pearls
My kneez were buckling
whilst mine eyne slithered
her twisted torso
‘Exposing with relish she wuz
hern hale haunch
Cocksure’
What lover uv write
Would ignore
This share
Uv i
“mine two digits
tap tap
tapping
‘pon this machine
Whilst mine other
duke’s two digits
pulled
Haltingly with excite
her
bikini bottom’s bowed
string”
*Cocksure: overly confident
Hale: sound; free from defect
Weak and tired I fall on rough cobbled stones.
Blood oozed down my face across my cheekbones.
My knees are bruised and pain spreads from my brain,
The wooden bar hurt my back again.
Man must learn as I accept my bad fall.
The time must come for you to confess all.
I fall but sinless I still bear your sins,
Get up, repent and a new life begins.
Still, I suffer as lashes hit my back,
For soldiers hate and like a wolfish pack
They just wish me to arrive up on the hill
Whilst Pharisaic zealots curse me ill.
Yet I speak not one sole word nor complain.
I suffer pain and pray all are not in vain.
Sturdy hands roughly urge and lift me up.
Gives me my cross, and I drink my bitter cup.
I came to save humanity from hell,
That I might see you all in Heaven dwell.
Haltingly I trudge on the cobbled rocks,
Die on a cross. O happy paradox.
Stripped of the one
Whose existence gave his life
Its energy, shape and motivation
There he sat with curtains drawn
The flickering screen his sole companion
Trying to blot out
The monotonous thrum of mourning
Murmuring in his mind
Painful and prolonged.
The pharmacy.
He had to go to the local pharmacy
Heaving himself heavily from his chair
And hauling on his white coat
Now seeming more like a spectral shroud
He took his stick before opening the door
When the sunlight struck his eyes.
Haltingly and woodenly walking
Knowing in his heart
That he was going through the motions
Like a well rehearsed but tired actor
Reciting his oft repeated lines
And obeying the stage directions
There in the pharmacy
To receive his medication
For his physical pain
With nothing for his inner emptiness
Of soul.
Back he hobbled home
Dreading the closing of his door.
voices beckon to me from inside
as distant lonely echoes sigh
I hear their voices pleading
telling me to step back
from the precipice
of my despair
not wanting
the end
now
and
I stop
haltingly,
hesitating
to reconsider
the value of being
opposed to self-sacrifice
and selfish lack of concern for
those people who would mourn my passing.
written September 20, 2021
“It’s a puzzle Pa
here and here and there”
Son’s stubby finger
as indicated
Yellow balls surround
“I’m trapped in a maze”
I exclaim, confused
Start scratching my head
and turning around
“Oh Pa, I’ll show you”
Son said haltingly
Sinuous his frame
snaking and twisting
progresses the floor
“See, can touch the wall
he said, stretching arm
I have made some paths”
To amuse, I ask
“I am lost, which way?”
Wife from garden door
shouts “now play nicely”
addressing our son
“Oh Pa” gasps Toby
I’ll show you the way
hurrah, you made it”
Happy Toby danced
Said “ now find way back”
Gleefully he clapped
each successive step
My sadness rises
with the rooster robust call
in the pre-dawn
It’s haltingly reluctance
seems to hang on
to the morning mist drifting
A stubborn departure
exiting
skyward feathery
To-day
is such a fine
vapor mourning
Sublime ecstasy fills my heart,
watching
heavy tear withdrawal grief
undergo
wet pillow
evaporating disintegration
On dove wings,
the golden moist breeze
soothes me
Carrying my fears
of another hurtful separation
very far, up and away
Such a wondrous dawn of flight
beginning
to a bright future evening
starlight new day
A tree in the hills felled by the summer storm
river in spate carries from cascade to cascade.
Deskinned trunk haltingly moves to the bank,
sticks in mud and boulder the water deposits.
Next rains come, the river sweeps the banks.
The log floats in delight, starts to travel again,
likes to reach adrift the destination unknown.
Unanchored, it doesn’t know what the past is.
My life uprooted by the squall of rough times
drifts like a floating log, finds no hands to hold,
seeks new course for an uncertain end to reach.
Unpossessed, I don’t know what attachment is.
I float on freedom, time takes me in its course,
I make my mooring, hold on as long as I want.
People say I am a vagabond, a fallen drift wood.
Unbound, I’m glad, my memory has no memory.
September 24, 2017.
Contest : Form V - Verse Me a Poem.
Sponsor : Broken Wings.
"We both are fluent in the language of love
And I want to make sweet poetry with you"
I write my words across your chest
My single letters haltingly slow down
Incoherently forming new words
Lining up in sentences withheld
Crying for attention
Your name a foreign sound
A word without meaning
Forming strings of small pearls
And I see a thousand times your name
In a million different colours
Exploding in the air like small poems
Or fireworks
Or stars in the firmament
Of our selves
***
Meme by Mel Leach
Quote by Jason Williams
Poem by Darren White
November 24, 2016
In low tones we chatted
On the steps to her porch,
We talked of the decades
Since I’d carried her torch—
Of love we knew nothing
During young naïve years
Of kissing and fondling
‘Til I left her in tears,
For the navy enticed
With ships and adventure:
I sailed away keenly
Aware that I missed her,
Each ivory cloud roiling
I watched sculpt her face,
And the foam in ships’ wakes
Emulated her grace.
How her leer glowered down
With each floozy I’d bed;
Her glare did accost me
From the face that I wed.
But that marriage was fey,
On a short vine it died:
I had loved only once
So to find her I tried:
Thus we sat on those steps
Last night swapping stories,
We confessed of our lives,
Our failures and glories …
And the kiss that welled up
While lightning bugs popped,
Led haltingly bedside
Where our slack clothing dropped.
We then gripped and embraced
Through a torrent of mirth—
Time relented at last
And our love found rebirth.
October 22, 2016
1st place: Long Distance Love Contest/October 19, 2016
For 1st Place Only Poetry Contest
Laura Loo
In low tones we chatted
On the steps to her porch,
We talked of the decades
Since I’d carried her torch—
Of love we knew nothing
During young naïve years
Of kissing and fondling
‘Til I left her in tears,
For the navy enticed
With ships and adventure:
I sailed away keenly
Aware that I missed her,
Each ivory cloud roiling
I watched sculpt her face,
And the foam in ships’ wakes
Emulated her grace.
How her leer glowered down
With each floozy I’d bed;
Her glare did accost me
From the face that I wed.
But that marriage was fey,
On a short vine it died:
I had loved only once
So to find her I tried:
Thus we sat on those steps
Last night swapping stories,
We confessed of our lives,
Our failures and glories …
And the kiss that welled up
While lightning bugs popped,
Led haltingly bedside
Where our slack clothing dropped.
We then gripped and embraced
Through a torrent of mirth—
Time relented at last
And our love found rebirth.
October 14, 2016
Long Distance Love Contest
Nicola Byrne
My body, small and crooked,
Twists and turns, can't walk.
But walks through life with humour,
And grins, haltingly talks.
Within his eyes I'm perfect.
In him lives love alone.
And when we melt together,
His eyes do bring me home.
***
Honoarable mention in contest: Brief Memories.
Sponsored by: FJ Thomas
October 9, 2016
November 8: Phrase also needs to be in poem body.
Completely missed that, oh boy! Only seeing it now.
Ah well, I love my little poem anyway! Good luck judging :)
APROPOS THE REFUGEE...
There is nothing left here
for death to claim; even hunger
has abandoned the swollen bellies
and parched skin of the walking dead:
eyes of gigantic pupils sunken deep
into desiccated cranial caverns.
In this fenced graveyard of waning life, flies
soar to and fro---depositing metaphoric maggots
in the midst of the festering wounds of despair.
In this God forsaken place, the flame of hope
grows dimmer with the wrinkling nipples of the breast
of time---her hourglass---haltingly emptying its self:
There is no refuge here
for the refugee.
A mood as dark as a winters midnight
Haltingly adrift, she is rudderless
Bound to a coastal route
As she nears the quay, she cries out
But emits no sound
As strong currents
Guide her soul
To deeper depths
And perils
Where light has no importance
A salient angle away and afar
She collapses in upon herself, like the Black Hole
Black does not describe its murkiness
She is lost to humanity
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