Inhabiting Poems | Examples

In Stars Above

At last, the traffic comes to a halt..
the  powdered clouds peep between hill tops
as a lingering sigh pinches my flesh--
half weary, half shimmering
in hours moist with late afternoon's
need for quietude. Clearing
my mind to embrace sweet ardor's mist
and the fire of gentle touches, I feel
the sense of grandeur in stars above ,
of his affection blazing like a spark--
my face awakened  from toil of hours before--

Resting a bit to capture hints
of stillness borne from the glimmer 
of this temporal lush,
 we gather each other --- 
fondling the light,
gazing at  nova streaks so beguiling,
our affection cuddled by glazed ardor;
inhabiting the pleasure of now.

The peace they display is a ripe fruit from thousands of battles

The peace they display is a ripe fruit from thousands of battles,
They walk among us, in a silence that intrigues and soothes,
We think they have always been this way, under a benevolent star,
But this peace vibrates like metal hammered a thousand times,
It resonates with the memory of blows and raw wounds.
A hundred years of inner war means demons faced,
The fear of not being enough, doubt like a splinter under the skin,
Anger burning inside, more than any enemy,
It's a hundred years of learning: forgiveness frees oneself,
That falling matters less than refusing to rise.
Their peace is a silent victory, a fortress without walls, light,
It's not forgetfulness, but a comforted memory, inhabiting the cracks,
It does not fear the storm, knowing that at the end the sky is washed clean,
And when their eyes meet yours, you feel the humility,
Of those who have walked through fire and found themselves undefeated.

Our Gift

Our gifts boxed up
Pitched across the horizon
Such sweet things
The elegant simplicity of us

You wrap yourself around me
Reaching through my chest 
Your soft hands cup my heart
Love is the air you breathe

I am consumed by you
Inhabiting my thoughts, my will
Filling me with your breath
Lifting the birdwing of my soul

Dancing eyes and golden tresses 
Shimmering in foxglint
A vaccine against my darkness
Scattering my wraiths

Unsent Letters

-------------------
I find myself
with just myself reflecting
on undelivered letters of winters past--
the most bitter front glazing evenings
where a fireplace becomes a chilled shelter
of sharp, dazed musings 
as I travel within time's slow compass.
Two quarter moons ago...you left hurriedly crashed by a wheeler,
And my soul burned in the
 ragged kiln of night...without
 a lint of words between us,
I crawled under spikes of despicaple darkness:

My taut pen scratched paper on
  paper--- speaking to you among 
  tangles of weeds, a wailing through
  love-filled notes kneading pain and longing;
Envelopes devoid of a zip code, of 
stamps,  rimmed by spider webs.
Tell me now , can I bear the weight pinned
by handwritten drafts inhabiting our room?

Your wool jacket dangles tonight 
on a hook accumulating debris and stale mint,
while spring floods our garden with radiant foliage--
Papyrus of my ardorous thoughts lay on
deserted tables, 
and I'm orphaned...alone by myself.

Angels

We fall in love with angels inhabiting a person,
The heartstrings that are pulled in a stare,
Through the eyes and into the soul,
We recognise them as our own,
A piece that fills the void,
Our own,
Some stay,
Some leave us behind...
And when they leave, a part of us leaves with them,
A silent change in the soul,
Corrupt, selfish and rots like a stage of death,
Merciless,
Brutal, as it is beautiful,
Upon that departure, you will never be the same,
Never the same,
Yes, We fall in love with angels,
Alas! Angels don't belong on earth,
However, if fortune favours our stars,
We meet them again in another body,
To pick up where they left off.

LIFE-with Dad

I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers
teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us.
We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

Umberto Eco, Foucoult’s Pendulum

LIFE

Living on road, once a week.
Inhabiting Dad’s kitchen.
Food for two with leftovers.
Every subject chewed o’er

Breathe

Breathe Again
Did I truly accumulate years of experience, or were they merely years of monotonous repetition? The echoes of my past reverberate, etching pain into the fabric of my love life and work. As time advances, I find myself embracing a newfound indifference—a defiance against the judgments of others. That perennial question about my funeral guest list—whose presence matters, whose absence stings—loses its grip on my thoughts. Let them bury me beneath the ancient mahogany tree my father planted long ago. There, sheltered from life’s harsh winds, I’ll find my final repose.
Love and loss intertwine, their dance a testament to human resilience. Can love truly conquer the most relentless hardships? Or does fate hold us captive, binding us to our own narratives? My ex, who departed last February, lingers in the shadows. Does he know he left us behind? Could he return, inhabiting another vessel, weaving a fresh tapestry of mishaps and lost chances?
The best storytellers are keen observers, attuned to life’s ebb and flow. Like a river, I carry within me a multitude of stories—of sadness and fleeting happiness. These currents shape my existence, etching their marks upon my soul.

Narrow Margin

Sometimes, in uncertain outcomes, as life agitates,
It can sway either way, maneuvering on the edge,
For a difference rather modest, makes the final call,
When a narrow margin determines a win or a loss.

If a win we choose to celebrate, or defeat we deride, 
Prudent to bear in mind, that it wasn’t a landslide;
When results are so close, why not cheer them all,
Cognizant to recognize~ distinction is awfully small.

Slender is the layer between eve’s dusk and twilight,
Between dark of dawn, and luminance of sunrise;
Between safe and danger, there lies a narrow divide,
Where, between cliff and fall, life’s border resides.

Mementos of love embraced, and love sadly repelled,
In albums of beloved, or memories forlorn dwell,
Clamoring from corridors of good or bad choices made,
Between narrow margins of hope, and contours of fate.

O, a narrow margin can be of mighty consequence
Inhabiting elation of success, or anguish of regrets,
When death lingers in the clutches of final moments
Stilled between breath inhaled, and breath exhaled.

Earthly Matters

I'm a guest in this earthly tomb, just one of many
inhabiting fleshly rooms
We've come to a place where the flesh is doomed
until our ascension when the soul's exhumed
We're consumed by earthly things but don't realize
that we're used for food
Some are confused by material dues but the All
protects both wise & fool
Applying pressure only builds the ladder that can
surely be used to rise above
Manipulation of this pliable matter is easy to see
but only viewed once you've unplugged
Some struggle to see even though eyes are clear
as blinders were added to obscure the view
Understand these blocks are a series of boxes that
are meant to contain the whole of you
Since the day you were born, they've had a hold of 
you & stay attached with invisible chains
Once you see that binding can be easily broken
the way you see life will quickly change

Life is a Song

Life is a song,
incomplete, yet soothing—
lullabies lulling the world to sleep
with its balladic lilt, gently swaying 
to the depths of its nomadic 
syncopation.

Where I can subdue archaic
hieroglyphics in hues of 
rose gold notes, invading my 
tentative aura, glistening upon 
tragic horizons,
for the wandering seekers, 
freely waltzing to arias of the moon,
escaping unsung passages to 
desolate wastelands,

where fiends roam in spite; 
surviving the clusters of 
rain drenched clouds,
draining the life out of 
sunken nocturnes,
lost in cataclysmic paradoxes
overshadowed by waves of  
monotonous soliloquy. 
 
Yet I crave the aphotic harmonies of 
its flesh and bones, 
cocooned in the stillness of 
shadows that align, 
stonewalling the 
world so bent on exposing me—
finding my true element,
inhabiting where life meets its end credits,
resuscitating sentiments long forgotten,
enabling me to breathe.

Relish the Richness

RELISH THE RICHNESS
luscious
  notions
attempt
  to demonstrate
vibrancy
  touchingly subdued
original
  precisely
  endured
refashioned
  fulsomely
in
gorgeous
  desired
voluptuousness
feminine
apparent nonchalance
inhabiting
&evoking
sevelteness
semi-revealed
  conscious
twinned
 with entitlement
intriguingly
  sensuous
stunningly
nurturing
  the surreal

No One To Come Home To

Aloneness 
metamorphosizes 
into isolating loneliness
with haunting banshee-like screams; 
daily caged inside
perennially mute 
four walls, 
a divorced empty nester.
Inhabiting 
                             a home 
once filled 
with mirth and chatter.
In much happier times, 
                             his refuge; 
now a lonely prison,
Until he steps out 
the front door 
to plenary freedom.

Critics Beware

Critics Beware!

Poets are vulnerable no less than anyone,
when fallen victim to outrageous critics.
As Shelley wrote,  critics' darts struck Keats,
who blindly,  cruelly, mocked 'Endymion.'

Lethal no less the heady potion  fame.
Some drowned, took poison, died paupers or insane. 

Yet poet-baiters must themselves take warning,
wrote Heine in his 'Winter Fairy Tale.'
Eternal lines, if barbed, outdo Hell's fierce burning.
 'Time shall not heal when poets wield the flail.'

 Our foes, wrote Paul, are not of flesh and blood
but powers of evil inhabiting high places.
 Promethean fire consumes the evil and the good,
Iniquities have many masks and faces.

Alone the Word that spares the infant's life
 to wrong proves mightier  than every art of strife.

The Power of Words

I lately wrote some poems to declare
my joy to be inhabiting this earth.
I found my words, if numerous or spare,
inadequate to capture living's worth.

I chose the rondeau and the triolet,                           
appealing forms to help me speak my heart
on love of life with clarity and wit
in phrases neither syrupy nor tart.

When efforts failed, I tried the villanelle
and then the kyrielle to help me say
how much I care for those with whom I dwell
and know I'm blessed to waken here each day.

   In striving to express the depths we feel,
   it's at the throne of language we must kneel.


May 19, 2023
Sponsor: Sotto Poet
Contest Name: Sonnet

Intimate Truth

p a u s e s
spaces in your words like notches on wood
endearing stillness
till a sprawl of irregular "I love you's" spill truth like a stream
                                                                                   run full
a tear-choked gaze in a sighing-room 
                                   tugging us to earthy touching

our commitment
inhabiting green-garden parts of a world
tireless in its defining
pushing past preconceptions
snared by the peace of pressing one to one
fluorescent part of gifted chemistry, 
                                              claimed

no soft need to nudge it
no drift to sullen limbs
a saga of expansion 
                  like a coal mine burning underground
where we live
an intimacy even in small tallk
truthfulness finding its bounce, prized like existence
                       still shaping days in words we share
                                                                       and heed
                       in words that pull r e c o v e r y 


Poem composed May 10/2023

• Short Inhabiting Poems
• Famous Inhabiting Poems
• Best Inhabiting Poems
• Read Inhabiting Poems
• Long Inhabiting Poems
• Inhabiting Quotes