Jangled Poems

Plagued by Memories

The patient's prognosis, pretty bleak,
a doctor's mindless laughing shriek,
an impression or a ghost so vague,
a gavel pounding in The Hague,
is it memory's plague? 

I can never see it or understand.
Am I the patient?  My brain is scanned.
It's sometimes near and far, you see.
Everywhere it follows me,
brings me to my knee.
  
A mad, psychotic, jangled melody,
lyrics without a remedy,
again, and again and again,
I feel every kind of pain.
They tell me I'm insane.
 
You taunt and tease me, while I can't place
you.  Ghastly spirit, show your face.
Laughing hellhound floating free,
demon memory, are you the key
to my sanity?

Janitors July Jamboree

jaunty jack-o-lantern joined
jingly jangly janitors’ July jamboree

jaundiced Jasper, Jack’s jackhammer
juggled and jostled the journey in jovial jollity.

Jovial Jukebox Julep juxtaposed Jasper and Jack’s
jonquils, joining the July Jubilee

Javelin, a jazzy jaybird, jangled Judy’s jaguar,
who jabbered jokingly and jauntily.

Introducing the Splitzmodic Vibratones

Emaciated test-tube mutations 
Raised apart in pristine distillations 
Conceived in dexedrine celebrations 
and the crazed, ecstatic inhalations 
of the professor’s choicest pheromones 

Right-angled, inverted, and star-spangled
Drained and dangled till their nerves were jangled
Nearly psychedelically strangled  
Quantumly, at a distance, entangled 
On celestially balanced microphones

Their unproven kaleidoscope harmonics
Haywire mk-ultra histrionics
Phosphoric rhapsodical symphonics
And their backward time-lapse polyphonics
Transcribed on interstellar xylophones

For homunculus scintillations 
Splintered, syncopated oscillations
And desperate mute gesticulations
No one beats those galactic sensations
Our own mad-twin Splitzmodic Vibratones

Pastiche

It was the last order rush  
All full of fun and chat.
As the door swung wide
All turned to look at what.
He wore his hat pulled low
He wore his dark hair long
And his spurs jingle jangled
Like the rhythm to a song.
His leather chaps dragged
And scraped along the floor
And you could cut the tension
As he stood there in the door.

Someone started laughing,
Then another one or two,
Great guffaws and giggles
You know the way you do.

He glared at us with slitted eyes
One hand hovered as if to draw
And as the laughter increased
Glared at us all once more.
The last Gunfighter?
Survivor of the few?
But rather out of place
In a Saturday chippy queue
He walked out defiantly.
Such an amazing sight,
Ok I suppose in Tombstone,
But on a Barnsley boozy night?

5th Avenue Sunrise

jampacked city streets
that jangled and banged
in the raucous jarring day
shifted
from business to boogaloo
squeezing into moonlight
party lights
gin and lime-kissed
gimlet sequined dress
strutted
in studded six-inch heels
riveting flair
provoking jive and jazzy nights
to tame this lion of New York

The bed swallowed the evening
sucked-up in slumbered
sobering snooze
exhaling the drunkard’s stench
while the warmth of whiskey
and you next to me
laid dreamy still

popped up and propped up
restless and ragged
realizing the changing view
through the dirt-stained window
a pool of placid sunrise
igniting
colorless clustered towers
bulwarks and girders
scraping the sky

out of the easterly clouds
a creeping golden palette
arose
touching every crevice
defining each silhouette
your body stirs deliberate and slow

rainbow hued eyes
slenderly slitted catching
the new-found light
opening, tenderly revealing
the landscape of your smile
disclosing
a cozy contentment

waking with hello
as I fall into your dream
and a new day

Word-Slinger Duel

dawn dual duel
two  poets
a face-off  duel joust
free verse  rhyme verse
a modernist  traditionalist
mull and muse   tell it true
prompt a reaction   lay it out there
lover of words, jarring  lover of pattern, rhyming
readers response individual  readers all delight alike
anything goes on loose lines  strict punctuation and meter
memories jogged and jangled  memories lovingly recalled
stark and confronting language  beautiful nice melodious words
leaves reader's questions unanswered  readers cherish the poems like songs
10 free steps  10 syllables
bang  bang
both  dead
duel  done
babel babble

Tuesday Memory

three thirty, exact
the bell
        jangled
gathered my coat
foregoing
  the afterschool
match

tuesday
  my weekly treat
   awaited on gran's
baking tray

I opened
   the back door
a spicy aroma
  fiiled the air
there
  it was freshly baked
my 
      weekly share

pipng hot
   drizzled with honey
moreish&
           yummy
a moist
     mouthwatering
             confection
succulent

 sultana delectation

home -baked
  by she
especially
for
   me

Refreshing Rain

When you are unwell
And your body is weak
Worries hang over you
When it's solace that you seek

No matter how hard you look
For quietness and peace
Your jangled nerves
And aching limbs
Refuse to cease

Feeling very sorry for myself
As miserable as I can be
There is nobody, but nobody
Can feel as bad as me

I've talked to myself all day,
Saying I could feel much worse
Nothing I can think of
Can remove this curse,

I sat looking out of the window,
Frowning and with disdain
When it suddenly started to rain softly
Down the window pane

I was mesmerised as the rain,
Commenced to fall
Harder and harder
Bouncing off the wall

And making puddles everywhere
It was so calming
It was easy to sit and stare
With the changes to the garden

The rain was bringing there.
Everything looked brighter
New and fresh and clean
Like all traces of dullness
And dust had never been.

Sitting in the chair,
I woke up suddenly
There was peace in the air
That natural view gave me

I now understand if I take time to rest,
I will be able to cope if I try my best.

Jar

A
jar now
mutely holds
washers and clamps,
nuts, bolts, screws, buttons, and the oddity.
It once held the dreams I dreamt and jangled
with hopes, desires
I’d saved, lost
in one
life.

The Lady Notorious

A monkey once sat
On a gentleman’s lap
And its antics were truly uproarious
The chain at its wrist
Jangled back to the fist
Of the fabulous Lady Notorious

“Excuse me, dear sir,”
She sweetly demurred,
“I see that my pet’s been inglorious.
I trust this mishap
Won’t land me in the lap
Of a quandary so unmeritorious.”

“No matter, my dear
You have nothing to fear
For you needn’t think I’m so vainglorious
As to actually regret
The occasional pet … on the lap
by the Lady Notorious.”

Pastiche

It was the last order rush  
All full of fun and chat.
As the door swung wide
All turned to look at what.
He wore his hat pulled low
He wore his dark hair long
And his spurs jingle jangled
Like the rhythm to a song.
His leather chaps dragged
And scraped along the floor
And you could cut the tension
As he stood there in the door.

Someone started laughing,
Then another one or two,
Great guffaws and giggles
You know the way you do.

He glared at us with slitted eyes
One hand hovered as if to draw
And as the laughter increased
Glared at us all once more.
The last Gunfighter?
Survivor of the few?
But rather out of place
In a Saturday chippy queue
He walked out defiantly.
Such an amazing sight,
Ok I suppose in Tombstone,
But on a Barnsley boozy night?

The Hottest Boots Around

I was the hottest boot in Texas, Missouri, and Cheyenne.
I could dance the mumble jumbles off every other man.
My mate, my wife, my lover, was almost as sexy as me.
We could not be stopped once started, joyful as could be.

We danced up the hills and meadows, we clattered in the street.
We jingled, and we jangled, our loving circle dances could not be beat.
We smacked against the pavement, astounding those around.
We were the most desirable boots in the USA, stomping on the ground.

There was no stopping us. We were joyful and alert.
There are those fancy boots! Some child would often blurt.
I would swing my partner like crazy, toss her high up in the air.
We boots were simply terrific, with positivity to often share.

Mister Joe

Mister Joe, would-be muse, 
jangles loose change in his pocket.
Memories jogged and garnered as he walks.
Mister Joe in contemplation, 
washes, rinses and tumble dries, what pops into his head,
in hourly cycles, with riddles, jingles and rhymes.
Each wash-up, extracted, pegged, and hung up to dry,
to taunt and flap jangles for him, 
for his readers, and strangers who happen to pass on by.

Mister Joe, would-be muse, 
casts charms, jangles and sparkles,
to jog in the minds of his readers.
His words cast nets to trawl up memories and serendipity dips,
in the minds of his readers with word play, puzzles and twists.
The catch netted, is prodded, poked, shaken and stirred,
to inspire twinkles, sparkles, hums, aahaa's, grunts,
and perchance, nods of appreciation and delight.

Mister Joe's catch of memories, once jarred and jangled, are returned to reader with care.
For the reader to add jangles to their pockets, 
and gems to their lockets and charm bracelets. 

Mister Joe, would-be muse, and his reader, now walk with jangles echoing within.

Bread Pudding Day

three thirty, exact
the bell
        jangled
gathered my coat
foregoing
  the afterschool
match

tuesday
  my weekly treat
   awaited on gran's
baking tray

I opened
   the back door
a spicy aroma
  fiiled the air
there
  it was freshly baked
my 
      weekly share

pipng hot
   drizzled with honey
moreish&
           yummy
a moist
     mouthwatering
             confection
succulent

 sultana delectation

home -baked
  by she
especially
for
   me

His Bright Withering

You can tell him no
but the training wheels on his head 
spin on,
he thinks you don’t mean it,
that you don’t mean a thing
even when that ‘thing’ is a
tense bubble of spitting camels. 
He just keeps on talking
as if you had never said so
or he had not glimpsed bared 
broad yellow teeth.

He is an old branch of my tree
his teeth clatter
as his stiff leaves rattle you
into a nervous tick and frozen smile.
Yet a part of him is child-like
not young but green stemmed
and river deep in its sap.

When I ply him with wine
thinking I might wilt his scratchy chatter
he can flick and startle jangled nerves
with a pliant and quick stepping wisdom
and a spry sly humor,

a wit sprung from a well deeper than mine,
then I wish I were also that fresh a watering,
and not a herder of fractious 
even-toed ungulates.

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