Limbo Poems | Examples

Premium Member limbo

why …

why do we careless creatures
hold on so tightly?
tears are not poisonous
they will not etch our face with the
afflictions they carry
but they WILL assuage its acidity -
why not let them roll?
we … are ambiguity’s toys
for love is a whipping post and
an altar, divine …
we allow its words to chain us, unseen
to one or the other
when, in all better judgement
we could allay the flogging and the
flames of infatuation
by simply … letting … go …
yet our fists remain clenched about it
the cable of needs and passions and the
price we pay for them,
firmly in our grip
as we slowly tie it into a gallows
of emotional greed and
committal hubris …
thus …
no matter how many moonrises we
watch trickle thru life’s sieve,
we continue to fall like children for
the hearts we hope to sway
and pay for the privilege with the
dearest of currency …
all the while finding ourselves back in
a purgatory of indecision
weighing love and its costs against loneliness
never knowing which …
is the most …

deadly.

Not Welcomed in Limbo

I knocked on the door of limbo,
where the breathless rest,
neither damned nor divine,
but I was not even shadow enough
to be let in.

They saw my name
unwritten,
unwitnessed
and turned me away like a sin
never spoken aloud.

So I walked the earth
as half a ghost,
haunting the body
I was born into.

Premium Member WAITING IN LIMBO

WAITING IN LIMBO

Sitting on the muddy banks
Of faded realities,
Lingering in the spaces of time,
Lost souls struggle:
Seeking another Dreamer.

Powering pawn brokers,
Tighten their mogering grasp
Beyond the setting sun; 
Leaving frailed victories festering
And waning in winds of change:-

White opiates coagulate,
Flowing black dreams
Of mesmerized minds;
Oblivious to fading freedoms
Chained and rotting away:-

As time and life sag on,
Let’s not be as a drooping bosom
Sagging due to incised-bleeding;
Rather, let’s be as pregnant wombs
Breaking waters of liberating justice:-

Indeed, let’s scream renewed life,
Nourished keloid-ancestral-navels,
Waxed and hardened by sarcasm
Against the trumping-musky rhetoric 
Streaming against democratic equity:-


Limbo

I stand on a precipice 
Eternal midnight shines above 
As reflected below
Eden, steps back
Close enough to see
I am Tantalus 
Step back
“Backward
And going backwards”
A flash and thunder
I appear before me

“If one had a genie, would he wish to love himself as others? 
I feel contempt from you, of course I do”
I know I would
Because I love people

Premium Member TO KISSING POETIC LIMBO GOODBYE

Sitting here

in igneous space

wrestling with naked thoughts

finds me face to face

with sad beauty:

the navel of time

is emblematic

that the poetic seed

must first fertilize the mind

that its womb may birth forth

yet another mused child of light

to shatter the unique ghost darkness

hidden within fibers of fading blank pages,

fading blank pages, awaiting poetic revival:-

Left Somewhere Between Love and Loneliness

In twilight's hollow, where shadows play,
I find myself lost, in a heart's gray day.
A soul once afire, with love's pure flame,
Now flickers faintly, in loneliness's cold frame.

In secret gardens, where memories reside,
Our laughter echoes, a haunting, mournful tide.
The ghosts of our whispers, the shadows of our past,
Torment my waking, and forever will last.

Like autumn's leaves, our love withered away,
Leaving me to wander, in a desolate gray.
No warmth of your touch, no gentle summer breeze,
Only the echoes of what we used to be.

In this limbo, I search for a way to escape,
From the prison of longing, the weight of heartache.
But like a migratory bird, lost in endless skies,
I'm left to navigate, the dark and lonely sighs.

So here I'll remain, suspended in time,
A heart forever trapped, between love and loneliness's chime.


Masked Limbo

Maybe I should put my mask back on, 
Squeeze back in my mold.

I’m too loud, too colorful, too different; 
At least that's what I’m told.

I tried so hard to blend into the crowd,
Whispered when I wanted to scream out loud.

But the mask is heavy, the mold too tight,
And shrinking myself doesn't feel right.

So maybe I’ll break the mold apart,
Peel back the mask and show my heart.

Maybe I’ll be loud, and maybe I’ll shine,
Because this life, this soul, is mine.

They may call me too much, too bright, too rough,
But I’d rather be too much than not enough.

Masked Limbo

Maybe I should put my mask back on, squeeze back in my mold.

I’m too loud, too colorful, too different; at least that's what I’m told.

I tried so hard to blend into the crowd,
Whispered when I wanted to scream out loud.

But the mask is heavy, the mold too tight,
And shrinking myself doesn't feel quite right.

So maybe I’ll break the mold apart,
Peel back the mask and show my heart.

Maybe I’ll be loud, and maybe I’ll shine,
Because this life, this soul, is mine.

They may call me too much, too bright, too rough,
But I’d rather be too much than not enough.

Premium Member picking up the pieces

you can't turn me on and off
like a lightswitch
i don't work that way
you're hot you're cold

you're unpredictable
it's wearying to live in limbo
i'm the elastic that's been stretched
till it can give no more

my compass has lost its north
i no longer know what i feel
if anything at all
i'm the candle without a wick

i'm spent and empty
hollow and fake
i smile but my eyes don't lie
the eyes never lie




AP: Honorable Mention 2025

A letter from limbo

Step by step she lost every ounce of happiness in her,
This is not a suicide note it's a monologue,
Strangely every full moon the wolf got weaker,
She prayed that she wouldn't live long.
Couldn't put the knife to the wrist,
So she wrapped the pen with the fingers,
Bleed through the ink and watched the naivete wither,
Ink to paper was like blood on the dance floor,
The rhythm of the curves and strokes could tell that the dancer was in trance,
Limbo, in between life and death, one step away from her final destination, I saw it, I ran and now my own ghost is chasing me.

Limbo

restless I stay 
Stuck in Limbo
is Heaven above and Hell below 
I can’t remember 
I am stuck 
to go either way  I must take action 
I must unravel the colorful cluster of yarn you left behind 
but you left me in Limbo not knowing I was color blind 
having to reckon with your symphony of inaction 
so I turn to rational thinking 
Charting the pros and cons
and yet I see that it not Heaven or Hell above and below 
rather each direction is a mix of both 
So here I stay in Limbo 
forever restless

Premium Member Limbo

Limbo 

I’m in a dark space
There are no edges
And the sides flex if I push
I am blind and deaf
The taste of doubt
In my mouth
The scent of fear 
In my nostrils 
I roll and kick
But I make no impact
I want to be free
But there’s no way out
I’m agonising
Worrying, uncertainty
Claustrophobia haunts me
Rules my mind.
Everybody hates me
I’m against the world
And the world’s against me
You enter the room 
And I snap out of it
My senses return
I’m free once more
My mind has lost its grip.

David Cox 17/04/24

Premium Member limbo

why …

why do we careless creatures
hold on so tightly?
tears are not poisonous
they will not etch our face with the
afflictions they carry
but they WILL assuage its acidity -
why not let them roll?
we … are ambiguity’s toys
for love is a whipping post and
an altar, divine …
we allow its words to chain us, unseen
to one or the other
when, in all better judgement
we could allay the flogging and the
flames of infatuation
by simply … letting … go …
yet our fists remain clenched about it
the cable of needs and passions and the
price we pay for them,
firmly in our grip
as we slowly tie it into a gallows
of emotional greed and
committal hubris …
thus …
no matter how many moonrises we
watch trickle thru life’s sieve,
we continue to fall like children for
the hearts we hope to sway
and pay for the privilege with the
dearest of currency …
all the while finding ourselves back in
a purgatory of indecision
weighing love and its costs against loneliness
never knowing which …
is the most …

deadly.






Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, April 5, 2024

Limbo

Limbo 
Hunched over and holding a Zimmer frame 
Limbo
Waiting for a call that is never - ever going to come 
Limbo 
The day draws nearer as the blinds on the window begin to shut sealed 
Limbo 
That's what they call it, hanging on every single word and action 
Limbo 
Bend over backwards. Don't bother in even trying. You're bent over now. 
Limbo 
Pull that duvet and run a bath and play some music 
Limbo 
Don't listen, just watch. Watch my lips move up and down in slow motion to the rhythm of this beat 
Limbo 
Don't bother in even trying. It is all done now. It has already gone by and it is told and told to whoever passes you by 
Limbo

Premium Member A Tunnel Called Dusk

fascinated by the things
hovering in the punishing
sky. both the wicked and winged,
or the bare and featureless. pulled
along in a conveyor belt parade,
a silent march in the stratosphere.
floating forward to the place called
Limbo.

jagged horns pop the
clouds like balloons, withering skin
grazes the twilight. the softest
sky being cut into ribbons as
if it was a present that was
meant to be ripped open all along.
those foggy phantoms following
along. reaping the seeds they
sowed when they were more than
souls.

what a wonderful gift it must be
to hover over this hollow place.

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