the creek is quiet, mossy
phantoms surround inlet
safeguarding all who visits
a lonesome eagle overhead watch
me strike a match _____ flame
dies in cold breeze
silent is vast sky
slowly life appears
chameleon on sediment
gecko peeping
fire I try to kindle splutter
gasping for breath ~
orange tongues appear
god’s original juices
consecrated ibis lands as if
sent from Nile where I drank
waters centuries before
sweet solitude filled with
memories of pharaohs
chariots, hieroglyphs
inlet waters fill voids in mind
I’m inconsequentially cosmic
egyptian geese descend
estuaries flow through limbs
nurturing blood …
_______________________
Placed : 5th : Premier Contest
Sponsor : Brian Strand : May 26
To become an equestrian first-class
Jerry had to learn to ride on the grass
He took off the saddle
The equus skedaddled
Poor Jerry! He thought 'bareback' meant bare-hass
What fish feel,
birds feel, I don't know--
the year ending.
~Basho
Translated by Robert Hass
what does the fish feel
as it jumps upstream
into the bear's open jaw
winter rain
the river overflows it's bank
as the new year begins
For: HAIKU CONTEST inspired by BASHO only Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Damned I-Be
January 6, 2022
The fruit often called alligator pear
Is the popular Hass avocado;
This variety is so nutritious,
Containing vitamins we need to know.
It also includes many minerals
That are so good to the human body;
The wide variety of nutrients
Found in this fruit is more or less twenty.
These days, it has become a famous food
Among health-conscious individuals;
It is referred to as a superfood
Because of vitamins and minerals.
This fruit is added to various dishes
Due to its good flavor and rich texture;
In guacamole it's the main ingredient,
To taste it is a delight and pleasure.
Once we consume enough avocado,
Our tears of loneliness will disappear;
We can all smile and face the world again,
After eating the alligator pear.
Kongo
Your past is a mint of blood and tears
Daughters tearing their way to decay
Sons castrated by poverty and superguns,
Kongo, a dream battered and bruised
Your conscience poliorised by oppressive dance
Highways clogged with hatred and vendetta
Gutters donating stench and typhoid
Kongo, let my poetry feed your withering dreams for guns, insult the tired memories
Of voters.
Kongo
Deine Vergangenheit ist ein Münzwerk von Blut und Tränen
Töchter die ihren Weg zum Verfall aufreißen
Söhne, kastriert von Armut und Supergewehren,
Kongo, ein Traum, mißhandelt und zerschlagen
Dein Gewissen poliorisiert von unterdrück'rischem Tanz
Überlandstraßen verstopft von Haß und Aktionen der Rache
Gossen spenden Gestank und Typhus
Kongo, laß meine Dichtung deine welkenden Gewehrträume füttern, die müden Erinn'rungen beleidigen -
der Wähler.
Liebe ist ein Wort mit vier Buchstaben , aber so ist Hass. You look at this sentence and you don’t know what it means.
I look at you and I don’t know what you’re thinking so why do we try so hard to struggle through something we don’t know? Well I will tell you what the sentence says then maybe you’ll get something off your chest.
Love is a four letter word but so is hate.
Love and hate are two opposites yet they have the same amount of letters, me and you could be exact opposites yet we breath the same air, so does it really matter who’s better. Keep that thought in the back of your mind, and remember we breath the same air as a dying man that just breathed his last, or the born child who just breathed their first. So no matter how different, we are.
We’re all just a simple six lettered word. HUMANS
There are times when the body
is as numinous as words – Robert Hass
Others, however, when it declares forcefully
its sheer bodiness;
your stomach tightens the waistband
of jeans you bought just last month
in the style of a ‘boyfriend’ you don’t have,
and no jumper’s baggy enough.
Physicality forces outwards, running.
Hills are the quickest route to redemption.
You recall Gethsemane as muscles flame,
fuelled by guilty glycogen from last night’s binge.
The world contracts corporeally.
Each stride increases the laxative effect
of emotions you don’t pretend to understand.
And yet there’s no catharsis
and escape from the self is absurd.
It’s the process of translation,
ritual purging through corporeal philosophy,
pounding the Will with rhythmic strides.
Forget those cloud-dwelling thinkers,
living in dualist minds of ascetic detachment.
Ask any runner: there is no destination.
It’s the shift, the constant becoming.
We’re all just atoms and stardust.
Holocaust Memorial Day, Jan. 27 (Sentanka)
Let us remember
Murder of the innocents
Terror and hate
Jerusalem's Yad Vashem
Sacred place for the victims
Lasst uns erinnern
Mord an den Unschuldigen
Terror und Hass
Jerusalems Yad Vashem
Heiliger Platz für die Opfer
Déjenos recordar
Asesinato de innocentes
Terror y odio
Yad Vashem en Jerusalén
Sagrado lugar de víctimas
Note: The International Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27 marks the anniversary of the
liberation of the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp on
January 27, 1945. The camp was liberated by Soviet troops and over 7,000 remaining
prisoners, mainly ill or near to death, were freed. It is estimated that at least 1.3
million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945. About 1.1 million were
murdered. Auschwitz-Birkenau is situated in Poland and was inscribed on the World Heritage
List in 1979.
"This bilingual poem is for people who live between two borders and who have two decide
everyday how to manage their day between bombs and hatred, even if they want to live in
peace."
>GrenzenBorders<
seem to be boundless
if boundless rage
stirs up immeasurably hatred
and nevertheless
erstwhile limited people
open their minds for borderfree thinking
for blowing up the border walls
between frontiers
to be finitely boundless.
Nacht der Nächte,
Erneue jedes Jahr
Bleib in allen Jahreszeiten
Und in allen Herzen ewig nah!
Leuchtender Stern.
Verschwende Deine Herrlichkeit
und strahle Frieden auf die Erde.
Beende Krieg, Hass, Neid und Streit.
Zartes Kindlein
In einer Krippe auf Heu
Leite alle Kinder der Welt;
Segne jeden Tag neu.
Meinen Freunden so weit entfernt
Und allen, die meiner Seele nah,
Wünsche ich herzinniglich
Viel Liebe und Glück
und
Ein gesegnetes Neu Jahr!
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.