Languishes Poems | Examples

Tune Of Pain

Inspired by Prince Roger Nelson's song : When Doves Cry


Grey clouds hover over my wasteland, 
the desert languishes in the heat of craving, 
deprived of the tuneful rain, 
until you arrive with drizzling breeze.
In your pulsating embrace
my heart’s oasis resounds 
with the symphony of desire.

As the pristine patina of radiant roses 
flushes your crimson cheeks,
rhapsody of longing wraps 
the mesmerized meadow of my mind.
The cadence of your intimate heart 
pulsates within mine, 
I float in the ether of euphoria.

I fly with open wings in your sky,
a storm from nowhere tears me down.
You don’t care for the injured bird,
I hide my pain within me,  
clasping the broken heart
within the collapsed wings 
I desperately curl with mournful sigh.

My tear drops roll unseen for you 
on the trail of melancholy,
where I hear the enchanting echo 
of the songs we sang together once.
The tune now resonates like
when doves cry.

What Makes you Feel

Topic 1

                                         What Makes You Feel

friendship shattered, bonds fractured, my heart languishes …

Last taste of summer

palmlike branches sway
in a late august breeze
as the afternoon sun languishes

the waiter brings my glass
of sauvignon blanc
and i feel decadent
alone at a table for four
just me and my muse
taking in the view

summer exhales its last breath
refusing to let go as of yet
while vacationers come
to accept their days are numbered
and do their best to stretch
each divine hour



AP: Honorable Mention 2025

Love is a Quiet Verb

When love is too loud, and lurid,
it languishes in lewd, lusty lakes.

When love is silent, and steadfast,
it sings sweetly with soft waves on sea shores.   

When love is motionless and mute, 
it meanders to black mold and makes miserable, monotonous marshes.

So let me
 love thee silently, softly,
with actions, 
with adjectives and valiant verbs. 

Saying I love you with 
kind kisses,
            empathetic embraces, 
tender touches, 
                 longing looks,
weary work, and
                  tedious tasks.
An underwater silence full of 
graceful gestures and 
mysterious moves…
…letting love lead, and last a lifetime.

Commuter part deux

You've seen the sunlight
now you mask your pride
Friends tell you where to go

Keep on a straight line
peaceful shades of green
strides past you

There's a commuter strip demur
back to cover hes read his Daily Mail
the burglued fox languishes
Making sense of the passing years


Lost in a wherewithal
Is it time to change ?
to purify your soul
or cry to the wind?

Arctic Acuity

Mind marooned 
in complex convolution,
obscurity singular 
in each living entity. 
The psyche silhouettes
unique elements,
to alien attributes 
they won’t adhere. 

The reserved recess 
hides the riddles, 
sub-conscious search 
completely clueless. 
Probing entreaty, 
the preserve persuasive
of outside world,  
can’t contrive 
the forsaken mind. 

A pining prisoner 
of own making,
a crumpled cocoon in 
introvert isolation,
I see subsided
all the faces fading 
faceless in oblivion,
me wedged secluded
in egoistic web
of self-adoration.

My morphed mind 
turns Nemesis,
makes a mirror 
of mirage for me.
Gazing gripped,
lurching to the oasis, 
it’s only me 
I always see,
reflected radiant
from cobalt cauldron
of the luring lake,
confined content.

In self-veneration, 
a pretentious perspicacity
of fake facsimile,
I notice Narcissus 
in me lonely lurk.
A secret switching 
over to obsession, 
specter senseless 
lies latent, 
languishes listless
beneath brazen layers 
of arctic acuity 
in the dark,
frozen…

Zen mode

if attention be absent, then we are not present
in as not quite so in active mindful cognition
thus Turiya as screen of consciousness 
dims for awhile its resplendent lustre
as presence languishes in stupor
softening attention rescues us
with ego resistance removed
requiring active negation
in a mode of surrender 
to the light of Self
aflame within

Winter Slumber

On the wings of winter afloat abandoned in northern wind,
the wilted leaves of longing waft away rustling recluse,
my frosted nest clings captive to the skeletal tree,
I count in heartbeat the footsteps of frozen twilight hour.

The elan of earnestness turns into arctic embrace,
as you fly away to the sun shine sky of indigo incognito.  
In the frosted debris of desolation in the glacial nest,
I hibernate in memory with the frozen feather you leave. 

The lonely bird languishes with the wings twisted in torment,
folded up within the mangled manor of the marooned mind.
I can’t fly in the wake of your evanescent flight,
my heart’s fervent warmth dissipates unfelt.

The latent desire to span the sky sinks in the sad eyes,
the feelings fail to touch the remote reminiscence,
as I find the defoliated trees dance in the snow sonata,
attuned to the melody of the song of winter wonders. 

The winter blizzard blowing in my wanton world 
immobilizes the weary wings of my frigid fervor,
brings the breath of old times through the frosted door of mind, 
in my winter slumber I dream you will return in spring.

Embers

Like the last glowing embers of a once roaring fire I wait
For the winter winds and night to blanket me in the frigid dark

A beauty, solemn, and severe
To the depths
And the bone

And the tattered heart, once in flames now languishes
Still reaching 

But a flicker

Sere

sere
summer
languishes,
encouraging
anticipated,
tempestuous.
blusterous
autumn
rain

Languish

“Every wall that would entrap me has a door that would free me. And I languish because the fear of freedom often leaves me preferring the familiarity of the wall.”                              Craig D. Lounsbrough

I'm languishing in self-pity
My cat is lost in the city
Grieving for my itty bitty
Missing kitty   Missing kitty

Again, I find myself alone
Nobody calls me on the phone
Weeping for loved ones I have known
Fate, I bemoan      Fate, I bemoan

A poet languishes each time
He seems to be bereft of rhyme
Unable to write poems, sublime
It is a crime        It is a crime

Artists languish in mortal fear
that their paintings will bring a tear
Like Van Gogh who lobbed off an ear
End of career        End of career

Who has not languished in despair
pining over things hard to bear
Anguish reveals how much we care
Heartache beware     Heartache beware

Vision

The journey languishes in the penultimate misty mile
for the forlorn facsimile of my being silhouetted still
at the fading fringe of the unfolded future obscure,
observing the blazing skyline of transient radiance.

The ordained kaleidoscope turns with time 
with the vacillating vista of life’s lattice laid
on the mindscape copying the chameleon colors
of the ashen wasteland or the emerald meadow.

The vivacious vision draping the delightful dreams
with the eclectic tapestry of the transient ecstasy,
engraved on the wings of the  beguiled butterflies,
focuses on the fulfilled fervent form self-designed. 

As I travel across desolate desert dunes to the oasis, 
or along the gleamed garden path to spring’s sanctum,
I capture the collage created by snapshots of beauty
in my mind frame, the window of vision on the world.

She Paints the Night

She’s the garden girl.
A precious rainbow 
in the night.
Painting with crystal water,
she brings the forest light.

For nature is her canvas.
She brings out every hue.
If you’re walking
through the forest,
she’ll shine her light on you.

She’s purply pink passion,
reds and yellows too.
The moon 
bestowed its magic,
shading her dark blue.

She languishes 
in the darkness,
as she giggles
with such glee.
No one knows her name.
She’s a pretty mystery.

Melancholy - Edvard Munch

The tapestry of the indigo sky,
weaved with the strips of silver cloud, 
merges with the still sea in the blues.
The dislodged boulders strewn as dry debris,
away from the waterfront of desire,
symbolize my broken dreams.

The anchorless empty boat 
drifts away from the shore of longing.
I feel connected with its desolation
for being away from the home you made for me,
that is lodged isolated in the yonder rocky ledge.

I am in the ruins with my splintered heart,
listen to the voice of the anguished soul.
Mutilated mind constructs the precinct of recluse,
encases the stifling loneliness of poignant prison
where the sad psyche languishes
with the unsurmountable agony relentlessly
negating the perspective of hope in mental affliction. 
The cauldron of dissonance remote from rhythm of life,
its void filled with drops of depression in adagio. 
My latent desires are demolished,
and the malleable mind yields to nostalgia,
the remnant of yearning shrouded in melancholy.

Melancholy

Mutilated mind constructs the precinct of recluse
Encasing the stifling loneliness of sad prison
Languishes there the surrendered psyche.
Agony unsurmountable relentlessly
Negates the positive perspective of hope
Cauldron of dissonance remote from the rhythm of the outside
Hollowness inside filled with drops of depression in adagio
Obdurately prolonged as untiring mental affliction. 
Latent desires are demolished and the malleable mind
Yields to nostalgia, the melancholic remnant of yearning.

___________

(I chose to use Acrostic form to dissect melancholy to 
discern its anatomy)

May 9, 2023
Contest : Anatomy Of Melancholy
Sponsored by : Craig Cornish

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