Midden Poems | Examples

The Picture

Over the mantle,
a hand, a candle,
breaking bread—ample.
A white head bowed down,
old and worn with frown,
pensive and in prayers.
A bowl sits with pears,
two other side-chairs.

Partially hidden
by Lady Midden—
Bible, guilt-ridden.
Centre and forefront,
black cover and blunt,
is a treasure hunt.
She slips off the band,
Reads and understands.

Tale Of The Demon's Dance

aye! ye sing
   nay dance! 
demanded
o' the demon
in brighten'd tar
but wizen'd burr
gave sudden slip
did gape ‘n gash
‘pon cracken'd jar
fell he into a
  midden pit
so ran the blood
   ‘n blood
     did pour
‘n flood the pit
until it seep'd
to earthen soil
return ‘n weep'd
back to crop
o' hopeless toil
   renew! 
      renewed! 
sent demon blood
from whence
  it came 
    this sermon
       told



tar = Tarpauline coat
midden pit = pit for domestic waste

Treasures Midden

Treasures Midden
David J Walker
 
It is in the midden 
The story hidden 
In the heap 
 
The truth entwined 
With dung and grime
To keep
 
As secrets from the 
Eyes less bold
 
Where orates swear 
To the foulest air from
Truth in scripted told
 
The dung heap 
Is where the 
Cleric keeps
His gold

Violette Poetry - Picture This

*****
restless sleep... the nightmares..
i shut my eyes some-wheres.
to find myself upstairs...
gasping... gagging...

in a darkroom hidden...
i felt as if chidden...
was I in a midden...
my guilt... bragging...

thinking I was dying...
face wet... i'd been crying...
my eye's felt blank...prying...
voices slagging...

she won't catch us again...
she's no room to complain...
how many cried in-vain...
and her blagging...

kept for to long starving...
bad thoughts they were starting...
but glad to be parting...
picture tagging...
******
3/22/18
Picture This - Poetry Contest, sponsored by Joseph May

This Twinning Set

this twinning set,
of urchin's smile reflected,
by stale fathers turned to murk,
knapping flint saturated by eons,
gripped saltwise in bitter steel neglected,
     high voices cry "banal!" and flow red tears,
     weeping while maxims roar,
     at last this abattoir's necessary cut,

eyes rimming rise,
along dross to swirling bones,
as banners once crowned a shining wall,
tattered now on midden in lonely heaps,
crumbled in sieves by millennial crones,
     turnspit dogs with hanging tongues,
     forward marching back again,
     pounding the echoes,

now, polymeric brains,
studied to exalt virtual reasons,
longing to challenge abstract perfection,
as those doomed anguish in tidy archives,
wincing at rhythms of civilian seasons,
     nock the future, quiver the past,
     into a terrorist leaks a tale,
     while a nation rots through a soldier.

Garage Roses, a Rhyme For Valentine's Day

Bitter spinsters in their nighties
Wedding rings of bright pyrites
Unrequited youthful crushes
Unwise lusts, unwanted blushes
Teddies trapped in pink balloons
And endless loops of sickly tunes 
In the garden, badly hidden
Garage roses on the midden

© Gail Foster 14th February 2017

The Black Dog

The black dog comes without warning
it meanders inside my head
teasing me, testing me, pushing me to 
the limit of human endurance.

I hate my weakness. I abhor the crazy 
mixed up tears that roll valiantly down
my pale grey cheeks, fatigue envelopes
me in an ice cold shower - I shiver.

There is no respite from pain, though I
beg these feelings to desist. In this dull
ruinous life love lays in the black midden
Where the faeces is rancid on a summers day.

Is it just the grave that awaits me? NOOOO
Perish the thought, I need to live before I die.
I sit upon my garden seat, I pretend not to see that
black rook, I know it is waiting to pick my bones.

I open my little black book, erase all the names of
my past lovers. I pray to the Lord to forgive my
past. Please Lord, let me live before I die...
Release the black dog that haunts me so.

Defeated In Sleep

it follows that 
     sharp slivers of time 
warp like wild geese reflected 
     across still water winging 
faces sway'd as wheat seas 
     pitied not by thresher's flail 

rictus hidden in a camera's eye 
fetus, elders left to die 

teach and learn as life grows short 
     moments gulped in forgotten days 
sun rays down 
     casting men without shadows 
tragedies in bildungsroman 
     of children innocent but heartless 

folded parchment in dustbins hidden 
blossoms thrive in ancient midden 

justice, honor, paean to the gods 
     distill down to cold control 
foreign tongues with open hands 
     empire's wall breached wide within 
and so, with prosody quicksilver fled 
     small words swallowed by larger mien 

I, deep sigh, with agon's leap 
fall back defeated in dreamless sleep...

Sherlock Sheep

Who is that ambling up the lane
With woolly wherewithal?
Few would bother to explain
An aimless animal.
But that's no common woolmonkey
Seeking out the truth
Deductions elementary:
It's Sherlock Sheep, the sleuth.

Sometimes you may not know he's there
Behind cunning disguise
A woolly mind is brought to bear
In cutting through the lies
The daft sheep form you see by day
Is just another ruse
Whilst eating through a flower display
He's searching after clues

A murder in the midden
Or a stabbing by the stye
A trespasser unbidden
Or crop circles in the rye
All puzzles for the intellect
But have no fear of doubt
The woolly noggin shall detect
The sheep will work it out

He may be here, he may be there
He may be with the flock
No tell tale trace betrays just where
The sheep who's named Sherlock
But when dire duty comes to call
You'll find him there in place
A comfort to be felt by all:
The sheep is on the case

Death of the Snow Heaps

DEATH   OF   THE   SNOW   HEAPS


Like full-bodied youngsters they ruled the street
For a while - rude, unchallenged strength sweet;
Their short life  -    immaculate seeming. 
Hard heartless shells  -   cold, gleaming.


Now skin shrinks  to a nothing-life-span,
Revealing cigarette ends,  rusty beer can,
Chewing gum,  mud-and-dirt:  a  midden  -
Lifetime-accumulated  and  temporarily  hidden.


Now,  shrunk and cracked like old men’s skin
As they lie  and die dissolute  and thin,
They will soon be forgotten by all talk
As they bleed water  across the sidewalk.


Their pile of dirty secrets will  soon  be
Exposed in the sun for all to  see. 
The spotless snow  was a  perfect concealer.
Death the leveller is also death the revealer.


……………………………………


NOTE

City snow heaps in the streets,  lasting from November to March,  become 
filled with hidden trash, which is  only exposed when the heaps melt  in spring.

Eyam

Tis sore int' thwait
wi mor'n a few folks a gippy

loose tha's snap as M'pessons well
n tek sum brass from t'watter

na its nowt but a mickle midden
but them folks as a good un, narry a one of 'em flit

tek thasen a gander
but the's nowt in Eyam save 'plague







Translation
It is bad in the village
with more than a few people sick

Leave your food at Mompessons Well
and take some money from the water

Now it's nothing but a big mess
But the villagers are good people, not any one of them has left

Take yourself a look
but there is nothing in Eyam except the Plague



History
The village of Eyam in Derbyshire was hit by the plague at the same time as London (1665), 
the villagers self imposed a quarantine to prevent the disease spreading any further, the 
surrounding villages left food at a well near Eyam, in exchange for money which had been 
left in the vinegar filled well to clean it.



For "Sista's Bloody Sista's" contest run by Deborah Guzzi
Honorable Mention

Aleez's Lament

A scream woke those in the belfry,
a scream from a maiden fair
from death she awoke in the temple
from death and none were there.

All alone, all alone, all alone……

Shrouded she’d laid ‘pon altar of bone,
deep in a dream dark repose,
startled awake by a Godly light,
startled awake she rose.

Tear drenched, she ran from sanctuary, 
up the belfry stairs so steep.
Stout souls stirred from their slumbering
as, on did the fair maid weep.

New to Realm, she had gone unbidden,
to the guild of Rising Moon;
through darkened paths across the midden,
beneath a blood red moon.

To a maze, full of wanderlust,
She’d trespassed and she must go!
“Trespasser!” said the Mad Mage Cyferous
as he places a bolt in bow.

“But where?” said the maid 
to the mad mage.
“But where? I’m lost and alone.”
“Just GO!” said he, raising cross bow high,
“Just GO! Just GO! Just GO!”

Struck down like a doe in moonlight.
to long had she tarried there;
for the bolt took flight ended her life,
in a torrent of auburn hair.

All alone, all alone all alone……

Living With Mountains

Under Mt. Alamos


Its monstrous, featureless head looking down
through scarves of swirling mist,
massive vault where what´s packed deep within
are scapulae, claw, fur and femur,
 a midden warehouse of the fired clay
of shards, broken pipe and flute,
stratas of ashes, fire-blackened rocks.

Evening and its shadow inch by inch
crosses the bedroom floor
--second shadow over night´s--
and he who lays down his head
begins to take up what´s just
outside the bedroom window:
the mountain´s cache of dream scraps,
stuttering shapes, a host of strangers,
their strangely familiar stories seen.


                                              Alamos, Mexico

The Blue Car

Last month's hurricane ripped down dunes, re-
scalloped the shore, snatched away a car.
 Now there's a smooth spread
 of waves again where sandpipers scoot
 across wet sand, their enigma of glyph tracks
washed away with the hush of each wave,
and what the ocean's taken away it now gives back:
excavations of a sneaker, two candles, a torn vest.
 But of the relics of human lives, a blue car
in the sea gloom gathers to itself its own pale light
rocking with sea-time, medallioned with shells,
parked miles below on the ocean's floor,
and under the layered centuries, among the midden,
 who will seek to know the story
--poetry's anthropology--
of the lost emerald ring under the front seat,
the ebony dope pipe, vial of cognac,
the half-rusted key to someone's door?

Hard Knock U

Wrinkles and twinkles 
Wind colored cheeks
Callused old feelings  well hidden
His awareness of life is a tangible thing
brittle as slow tempered glass
The song of a startled starling awing
Or the croak of a frog in a midden
nothing is missed in the tense or the sense
But the knowledge that this too will pass
From life as a boy
He has learned to enjoy
Each moment as if it were last
To treat sorrow as if it were past
and fate however tis cast

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