Harrowed Poems | Examples

Harrowed Hum

Just as the eve has come
The joy of mourning has become undone
We tell ourselves each day is one
Expectance is the claim of none
A harrowed trail of battled drums
The humming sum of rains to come
Acceptance is the aim to some
While rejection feints the cause of shun
Epiphanies are all but done
The roar of morning has just begun
Harrowed hum will become

The Echo Returns Not

The stars dance across the sky
A nightly recital of spinning and whirling
They’re in the spotlight here
But I know they’re invisible to him
Playing hide-and-go-seek offstage
I scream his name to the cosmos
In some sort of harrowed cry
Or desolate plea for redress
It comes out raspy, choked
The faraway stars have no reply
The echo returns not
I’m left standing in the dark
Mourning his mindlessnesses
Bombarded by the silence

The Magic of the Farming Days

In the quiet morning light I see
the deep oshanas breaking round
like a boundless oasis that is bright
and the echoes of the cattle happily resound.

Manna of the north is planted 
and the mielies grow around the homestead 
harrowed as the family toiled
the soil swallows the breeze of the drizzle ahead.

Oh, how peaceful northern life 
its addictive memory is unerasable
as the sun tiptoes towards the West
and the herder's whistle resurges in the lovable forest.

The Prodigal Cries

Deafening 
   rapid fire blasts 
Shatter
   the transluscent margins of
Silence 
   with
Harrowed cries
   gasped

Howls 
   echo from one side to the other
Of the heart’s vast arena
   with a repeating chorus 
    of ruing
Pleas

Of the gone lost
Groaning for home
  in frayed syllables

Grasping 
  at last
To a measure of hope 
Possible 
  in a faith’s apologies
And abiding love’s 
Pronounced touch 
  of forgiveness…





** “I am the prodigal son every time I search for 
unconditional love where it cannot be found.”  
Henri Nouwen: “ The Prodigal Son “

—————————
(c) sally eslinger 2/3/2025

Subjective Sentiment

Harrowed heart
Abstruse abstract art 
Canvas concealed

Crying Mercy

A beaches sand of tears
Weeps the tide of my heart 
Harrowed, choking breaths
It comes for me again
Made of shadow 
Squeezing radiant beneath my ribs
Heavier than the floor
Locked in my cage
Both prisoner and jailer
Fumbling with the key
Leave me, but don’t let me go
Crying mercy

Shook

Shook

You whispered to the brokenness of my sleep
Sweet as though a pillager in a gaseous light
And as I was a castaway by every concoct
The horizon faced me forward once again
There were wars and abstractions
Ugliness and harrowed bearing
As you cooled me in the darkness and let me sleep
Where any tread to turn, you'd not understand
You were my crutches as seeming stolen to love
In luck and blessings and gracious as you were held
So deep the best weight
I took a star and always keep it
Forever you remain, perfection

Amore Nihil Mollius, Nihil Violentius

This will be the fortuitous night
When her restless spirit fully takes flight
In all four winds that fail to slow
Under the waning reflective moonlight.

They met under the delight of Luna’s soft glow
Swimming bare in warm waters amid a lovely meadow
In a déjà vu frolic touched only by heart’s desire
Somewhere behind the blind and beyond the unknown below

The dying embers of life within her prior
On the days with the loudest silence stood by her
Echoing in yesterday, no longer sleeping in the nowhere void
For her shadow now glows in his path’s fire

Tempted by winter’s falling breath enjoyed
Chilling her delicate skin, the intimate waiting thus destroyed
The whirling wind dies in a mid-dance farewell
An autumn flame becomes a lover’s grave to avoid

The fettered couple will soon be set free from their harrowed cell
A once-lost saga of starlight’s only voyaged hell
She has been swept away in death’s lingering dance
With a last glance in his direction, the end of her silenced knell

Symbols of Meancholia

SYMBOLS of MELANCHOLIA
radical visions
loneliness 
&
sadness
harrowed by
 misery
with
alienation
to the
fore
with
a
hopelessness
 between
nowhere 
&
nothing

the authenticity
 of
 pain
motionless
agony
complete
 eclipse
the
devastating 
loss 
in a
a soulful 
of
sorrow
overpowering
 the
sense of grief
in
brooding
images


NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE   using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making this enigmatic form a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood is inherently variable.
Copyright © Brian Strand

Electric

At night in the prairies,
on the savanna,
the plow harrowed land,
or the scrub and brush
of sparse hunting grounds,
creatures are illumined
by a shimmering fear.
Trepidation ignites dark niches;
blood shines.

Fox and rabbit
watch in their sleep,
in their tunnels;
both sense each other
through a voltage of fur.

They are electric,
those that are hid by a shaded moonlight
are lit by a light that consumes itself.

Eyes are flashlights,
minds openly hunt or hole up,
all watch for the dire
glimmer of danger.

Closely concealed or at a distance
all follow the trace of a searching scent,
all share the body-heat of the chase,
or the quick pounce
of a breath-snatching find.

The Fiddled

He held the torch aloft
fevered flame indignant
forged itself within his eyes
a wrath so kindled
this terrible iniquity
in recognition of its pestilence
all the corruption and the filth
in monument had erected itself
and to disgrace
its lines of perception
etched upon his harrowed face
a grim contempt
and therein a desperate hope
the blood
the gore
robed priests of the temple war
infected with wealth
their spiritual debauch
and all the lives beguiled
infesting the streets of his home
he held the burning truth aloft
he set the fire
and prayed to God
to bring freedom
from the tyranny of Rome


Fiddled : to alter or manipulate deceptively for fraudulent gain, to tamper or interfere with,
to contrive to do something by illicit means or deception, to falsify, to swindle

Dust Storm

Lifting from the Millewa;
swirling to the sky,
billowed to the heavens,
each particle drifts high.
Closing down the clearness
in an ever thickening rust,
from dry and harrowed farmland,
swirls the Mallee dust.

Fallen Soldier

Crimson cascades, unbridled, desolation intrudes, spark remains like embers a glow, the dead of the night likely to take him, the world does not see, does not know.

Fields of foreign soil, whispers masked, overshadowed, bleak is the wintry air that fills his lungs, laid harrowed.

Bright are the thoughts of days long past, moments of clarity in darkness cast.
Emphatic ruin bestowed him remains,
Honours thyself on murderous plains.

Sacrifice takes him to new tranquil abode,
Remember him we must, our respect is owed.

Choosing Sides

Even as a child of God -
when it came right down to it
she stood firmly on her child’s side -
not God’s 

.. and damn
how I envied that..

my friend
much to my dismay
chose a parent
as a closest confidant
breaking all laws of teenage angst
and going against
all preconceived
conceptions, norms and nature

I watched as they walked
a harrowed path together
mom being there for child —
smugly snuggly hammocked 
in her emotional safety net

.. and damn
how I envied that..


I walked my path alone
because my mother
would have chosen 
God’s side...

.. and damn
how I now envy that..


Susan Ashley 
September 9, 2018


~ Ninth Place ~
Contest: Truth Poetry Contest 
Sponsor: Anthony Slausin

Memories and Mourning

Trickle tender tears - those that take their time
born to bathe and baptize bereavement;
dew drops cling to fragile petals of forlorn feelings ~

aged and alone
sentiments from sorrowful soul slowly seeps
revived in rising rivers of rhythmic release
emptying from eclipsed eyes
in reverberant regrets and reveries ~

retrospective reviews with resilient realism
offered to an overdue oldster oppressed by outliving others -
reflections retrieved and remembrances retained
gifts given from the gravestone-garden of growing grief
watered with wept woebegone wine
cherished with chaste caressing care 
memories and mourning ~

hallowed in a harrowed heart


Susan Ashley
March 24, 2018


~ Second Place ~
Contest: Alliteration Poem
Sponsor: Silent One

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