How can I forget this hurt?
I try to move past it.
It consumes my present
to the point that my gift
of a future becomes unclear.
Oblivious beneath a celestial
map of stars.
They refuse to grant any wishes.
So naive, I still look to my skies.
A searchlight soul that wanders the darkness.
Unable to find another.
A void of voices that echo the haunts.
I close my eyes to keep them silent.
Unwilling to settle,
I must now stalk the darkness.
As an image of black and white resolutions.
He's plotting behind a venomous smile.
With a tounge that cuts like a whip.
I'm, day dreaming of sleepless nights.
As they hold my dreams
so I can't forget the hurt.
There's voices that echo my haunts.
I open my eyes to keep them silent.
Categories:
haunts, dark, deep, depression, dream,
Form: Free verse
The carousel moans to the empty dusk,
rusted music haunts brittle air,
the laughter has decayed.
Categories:
haunts, music,
Form: Kimo
Branches like bars
separate me from skies
birds in flying
alight
Sung out of this
feathered corset —
each tongue tight,
for night's
Unseen way up —
alone, lay
me down with
my unseen streak
Their skeleton
unlike my wings;
God, they
sing —
Eyes nest
nowhere —
I remember morning
by heart
Red chested,
I'm blinded
by the percussions
who can see dark —
Categories:
haunts, angst, bird, dark, environment,
Form: Free verse
In shadows deep where whispers blend,
A haunting dream steals through my night.
It haunts me still, it will not end,
And casts a veil of silent fright.
A haunting dream steals through my night,
Its echoes dance with shadowed grace,
In every corner of my space.
It haunts me still, it will not end,
Each whisper sharp, a ghostly trace,
That lingers in the quiet place.
And casts a veil of silent fright,
Where dreams of night and fears collide,
In restless sleep, nowhere to hide.
Categories:
haunts, dream, emotions, fear, horror,
Form: Rhyme
the pass of time
drafts in chimes bare
like my old ring.
Categories:
haunts, death, introspection, loneliness, night,
Form: Than-Bauk
Ghastly sights on the day of the dead frighten me,
Zombie ghouls from the grave will arise from afar
With a howl and a scream sodden ghost running free
Come the fear of dying ‘neath the moon and the star.
On a cold October autumn night keeping watch,
Lest the hand of the witch grab my leg, drag me down
From the rags of my shirt, a demon takes a swatch
I do fear nasty grins of the mime-painted clown.
Vicious haunts of the dead still doth lurk in shadows
Like the pall of one corpse from the hole ever near,
The poor soul freely hangs from old wooden gallows
While I flee like a thief in the night out of fear.
From the depth of my grief here on earth, you hear it,
The deep sighs of my past are still here in spirit.
Written October 17, 2022
[an English-style Sonnet
14 lines of 12 syllables each]
Submitted to "All Hallows' Evening" Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Craig Cornish
POEM OF THE DAY
Poetry Soup
October 19, 2022
Categories:
haunts, death, eve, halloween,
Form: Sonnet
As a community we thunder.
This reality is a tragedy that we are under.
Promises turn to demands and they demand that we pay.
There is nothing left after this stay.
We depart as veils of ourselves-
And try our old haunts, the past we cannot dispel.
Categories:
haunts, angst, anxiety, mental illness,
Form: Rhyme
He haunts the back streets
hugging the sides of buildings
Unseen, unfelt, unloved
a statistic in a dusty cabinet file
Raising up on sole-less shoes
He sneaks a view from the alley
ice on every windowpane
conversations mixing with steam
He slinks to the edge of town
to the bridge o'er the rushing river
Would God care if he took his life ~
his lips involuntarily quivered
Categories:
haunts, death, fear, life, poverty,
Form: Free verse
president trump haunts my Dream
president Trump
haunts my dreams
daily dystopian nightmares
as he daily proclaims
the end to the republic
as he ushers in fascism
with his every lie
he corrupts the world
and I hate
seeing his bloated fat ugly body
that haunts my every dream
as I watch him rant and rage
against my old friends,
his enemies in the deep state
ushering in chaos and destruction
National Poetry Month day four prompt image from a dream
Categories:
haunts, america, angst, anxiety, dream,
Form: Ekphrasis
He still haunts my dreams both night and day
My bruises healed but the terror still stays
Numerous Flash backs of being used
So I wrote a spell just for the abused
Crocodile Tears of the insincere
Wax gathered from satanic ear
Hair from the head of a narcissist
Tongue of a falsifier, add snakes hiss
Breath of a psychopath is needed next
Blood of a fraudster to forge this hex
Beard of a coward cut at midnight
Hacked off by a witch before she takes flight
Pages from a self-help book
read by the abused now boil and cook
Now comes Saliva of a deceiving man
Toe nail clippings from a charlatan
Now stir it well , add blackened tooth
speak your words , tell your truth
Close your eyes and recall it well
Recollect his hatred and Feel it swell
Mix it now from left to right
Remembering his vicious spite
Take a breath let silence sing
Now let his own medicine ooze within
Categories:
haunts, hurt, magic, strength,
Form: Rhyme
How can it be he is no longer here?
How can it be I do not hear that voice
His presence haunts me from his battered chair
Though I have money and no needs to bare
I feel the grief, the affect of his choice.
How can it be that he has vanished here?
What is the world when loss turns to despair.
When every sheet by weeping is made moist?
His presence haunts from his beloved chair
Now we learn the symbol of the hare
Unpeaceful, hunted, jugged or humdrum roast
How can it be when love should counter fear?
Into the real, we stand and longtime stare
We’re begging, blaming, badgered, shamed and gassed
Some presence feints with ours in death’s own lairs
Now the world of man has long surpassed
The time we could blame God for what we ‘ve missed
How can it be that He is never here?
His absence haunts: symbolic, suffered, real.
Categories:
haunts, death, god, grief,
Form: Villanelle
A mirage of deathly shadow grates my mind…
flinging me out beyond a holed nightscape;
it traps my existence on chains of insanity
as footsteps race against a tortuous wind
drumming, banging, yelling old sins;
and how it laughs as if to rake my bones
into pieces... NO, is there a way
out from this purgatory, this meshed labyrinth?
A surreal whip drives me between
zones of hysteria and coherence:
Yet, it haunts all imaginings.. a slide-show
zooming in, out a ravine’s edge to rows
where bloodied vines climb inside walls of my head…
Gasping for breath, I wake in the dead
of twilight: a nightmare’s pursuit
lynching my sleep again, again...and again.
For john lawless' IT contest
12/10/2017
Categories:
haunts, confusion, image, mystery,
Form: Dramatic Verse
The raven stares hard through the window, seems intent on reading the rants on the sheet of paper lying on the table as if they were a flavored part of my brain. The raven is a carnivore that feeds on non-veg dishes of fear and curiosity. I clutch at the sheet, fold it and put it in the drawer, lock it, and almost feel my rants have suddenly escalated from being rants to a costly piece of jewelry. The winnowing sound of the ceiling fan is terrible, makes you wonder of each moment that passes. The raven leaves, burning along with the dusk. I stare outside the window like a can of wine that was suddenly emptied by a drunkard's wife and the contents released through the sink-holes. I unlock the drawer, put the sheet in my fingers and start reading. They were just rants, nothing more. Why did the raven..? Oh ****! It's back again, why is it staring like that? Why is it here, now that it's evening? Black and black and black makes me puke. I tear the sheet into shreds of tears, and make a necklace out of it. And I throw it out of the window. The raven is no longer there. The evening stares at me like my past self in the mirror.
-Pin Dew (14/05/2017)
Categories:
haunts, allegory, dark, fear, lonely,
Form: Prose Poetry
She haunts me, she haunts me day and night
She haunts my thoughts my dream turn into nightmares
Every waking minute, every sleeping hour haunted by the her image
She appears, her eyes judging my soul, seeing the color of my heart
She has taken control over me
I beg, I plead, yet she will not listen to me
She still pulls me along with a thorned chain wrapped around my black heart
I wish to leave, yet she holds me, but she keeps me chained
I am a shell of what once was, the ghost of a man damned by love
Tortured by the one i care most about,
My love it haunts me, She haunts me
Categories:
haunts, depression, heartbreak, lonely, love,
Form: Free verse
Sad Past That Haunts These Halls
Where fled that glowing ghost of such lost art,
flame that glowed so brightly- then raced away
No bright stars on an astronomy chart
word-masters storming so far from the fray.
And what of the newer machine set up,
a lighter, rapid but far weaker beast
Should poetry have kept its golden cup
and hungered far more for its epic feast?
Where fled the glowing ghost of such lost art?
Ah pity, that some never dare to say-
In that vast space keeping souls far apart
They that know of epic past in its day.
Some few kneel, searching again for glory-
For new ending for this sad, sad story!
Robert J. Lindley, 11-12-2015
Syllables Per Line:
10 10 10 10 0 10 10 10 10 0 10 10 10 10 0 10 10
Total # Syllables: 140
Total # Lines: 17 (Including empty lines)
Words with (syllables) counted programmatically:
Total # Words: 110
Categories:
haunts, age, analogy, angst, appreciation,
Form: Sonnet
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