With a tail flash she transmogrified from a lightning bolt
Showing her fierceness in the most female like way
Those who looked up were terrified, and terrorized
They had heard of Ghost Dragon but myth did not do her justice
She was slashing and crashing, showing turbulent teeth
The air had turned evil, a feeling of imminent death
It is the Ghost Dragon! Someone dared to whisper.
She breathed fire on the village, to let them know it was she.
Every hundred and eighty years, the soothsayer agreed.
He had miscounted; the people were angry about that.
They held him up, hoping she would kill him first.
She threw down her lightning bolts, careful to spare him.
He was the only magician she knew who could return her
To her former glory as the Goddess of the Campfire.
Deep are the questions, like quicksand sinking
Seeping into a restless mind pressing
Weeping with release, yet overthinking
Sleep comes uneasy with dreams distressing
Heaps of concepts lead to faulty linking
Steeping upon words without expression
Sheep are miscounted with rapid blinking
Leaping to conclude a wrong impression
12-10-2020
Love in Winter
A winterbed with ice cold feet is hot.
These snowy buds outshine the season’s gray.
Her shiver lasts - in travels she’s been caught.
The blanket’s frost - a wave on chilly days.
Her eyelashes, and icicles, so thick.
She’s tossed to and fro in the ice queen’s squall.
A glacial melt — he’s down — the sea moves...quick —
With thunderclaps his chest does rise and fall.
Relaxed, refreshed — like peppermint, this glove
that fits. Like soft new fallen snow - they glow.
Entangled legs in the leggings of love.
A wonderland of lips, their drift is slow.
This sleigh, a winterbed of midnight dates.
The iditarod sun of figure-eights.
7/6/2019
Best sonnet 2019 Poetry Contest
Sponsor: John Hamilton
howmanysyllables.com used to check syllable count
miscounted winterbed as 2 syllables; should be 3
*buds - buddies, companions, friends
**winterbed - combo of two words
Fresh baked cookies of gingerbread;
a joyful scent wafts through the house.
Christmas Cheer will spread this year
as custard and cookies abound.
Mom takes out a second batch,
but something is amiss,
her first batch of Gingerbread men,
is missing one of its pals!
I must’ve miscounted she surmised and
quickly removed batch number three.
But once again, the first batch was thin;
missing a second cookie.
Miscounted twice, she thought not,
as she pulled out batch number four.
A glimpse from the side of her eagle-eye,
caught one galloping away from the tin!
She’d heard it said that Christmas Cheer
was a magical thing; indeed!
She pulled out red ribbon and tied them
together, now they no longer flee.
For, CHRISTMAS CHEER Poetry Contest
Sponsor, Kim Rodrigues
Frilly
Chilly
Hilly
Silly
Willy nilly frilly chilly chin
Loony giddy hilly silly grin
** syllable counter miscounted my syllables - 6th line is 9 syllables not 8**
Submitted for contest WRITE ME A TYBURN sponsored by KIM RODRIGUES -January 22, 2018 - RANKED 1ST
True history indeed
'Father Time' just doing his thing
Distant memories, it seems
But Miss reality forces us to grapple with this pain
Manacles of the body and mind
Yet, is the spirit still free, or not?
So long to Jim Crow
Even those infamous white sheets seem to have vanished
It's funny but yesterday is all transformed into today
Getting pulled over for the hell of it
Blank stares and fake handshakes too
Ballots not counted and others miscounted
VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
We obliged and did the 'RIGHT THING,' or did we?
Yet something called the Electoral College had the final say
Enough! Wake up! My brother and my sister, I implore you
We have worn out the snooze button on the 'clock of reclamation.'
Now is the time!
Yes, the precious dawn of a new millennium is upon us
LIGHT! Soul-saving light in the morning with its refreshing dew
Get Up! Stand Up!
Reclamation is the ticket now and forever more
We can't afford to forget the past, drift through today or dream of tomorrow
YES, for it all was not very long ago
I have two words to say to you:
"Happy Valentine's Day!"
Sorry, I miscounted them--
I guess I'm no Hemingway
So let me think a bit
on what I want to convey,
I'm just trying to find the two
that lightly float up my airway
Search and search I must
to find two words my love,
you make me feel so wonderful,
like a hand warm in a glove
Now after exhausting my brain
and finding the perfect two,
the best words I can say
are those ones: "I Love You!"
Oh, come on! That's still three!!
Well, "Happy Valentine's Day!"
You know you're not with a genius,
but how's my Hemingway?
***Show your teeth the doctor said your diagnosis is complete you're half- dead half-alive you are suffering from Schrödinger equation syndrome.....
** Funny tales are funny because they tell our stories............
**My wife Sarah's nose is a pitchfork which lifts scents of my doing-nothings....
**Three orphan kittens call the moon their mother and tell her to come down to make their beds........
**You kiss your squid wife at sea-food platter .................
**He kicked on other people's scuttle-butt..........
**Scuzzy little imp stole cats out of the bag............
** He washed his tired ass at sea........
**My wife's crummiest cake took a bathing naked like a porpoise......
**Anna miscarried justice John. He put on much weight ...........
**His sperms are miscounted by a desk lady of immigration department......
**He was punished three moons, four butterflies, five flowers and one thousand kisses by a Poetic Justice........
** They were three sisters--scud-eyed, skid-eyed, and squid-eyed......
** He could not do foreplay because he didn't make the first act of the play........
**He was served automobile soup, aristocratic juice, and autocratic nuts......
There is a beautiful poem
I hid it in the best place
I could find
Above the sea
Below the sky
Above your nose
Embedded within your eyes
I look to you
Looking at me
I hid it hoping
Someday you'd see
There is a poem
A poem of mine
Hidden in the last place
You'd think to find
Between the kisses
Behind the guilt
Within the tears
Right before they leap
Within the blessings
That we have miscounted
Under these miracles
That we have missed
Its in the way I stare,
When I stare at you
Its in your confusion
As you stare too
I know it
My heart is in it
I know it
I know your heartache
I look to you, looking at me
Hoping someday you'd see
There is a poem
A poem of mine
Hidden in the last place
You'd think to find
Above your stomach
Below your neck
Within your chest
And between your breasts
Within your insecurities
Right behind your strength
Within those tears
That you almost wept
So I look to you, looking at me
Knowing that someday
You'd see
There once was a poet who despaired
though blessed with a fair amount of flair
that he was way too thick
to master limericks
counting words an arduous affair
Limerick-writing he'd master not
count sillybulls, meter and whatnot
the elusive punchline's
too troublesome to find
with his thoughts roughly tied up in knots
Spatial dimension impediment
a meter doubled in measurement
at the best of times three
lopsided prosody
shoddy despite its being eloquent
Sillybulls ignored and miscounted
charge around angrily, discounted
with their hoofs on the slam
they step up the bedlam
bewildering chaos uncounted
With pep talks and deliberation
resolved: they're too high 'bove my station
so to rhyme he should stick
and give up limericks
where wordcraft counts naught but summation
*Sillybulls = syllables. My thanks to Ephraim Crud for the loan of the word.
To Wignesan: am I stooopid or what???
Santa’s Promise
My Granny was riding a reindeer,
out back on the lawn by our shed.
It looked like a bull riding contest
but the horns were a rack instead.
My Papa was sitting and watching
while he cheered for the bucking steer.
Oh Dad, I don’t know what you’re drinking
but that bull is a North Pole deer.
While Granny was hooting and clicking,
‘ole Santa appeared on our shed.
“Now, Granny I kept up my promise
and Dancer is leading the sled.”
“Tonight is the eve of the Christ birth.
It’s a night of world love and peace.
The magical sleigh of believing
starts midnight with love gifts apiece.”
He waited while Granny dismounted,
then Dancer proceeded to bow,
about that time, Dad had miscounted…
He passed out while toasting the cow.
Janet L Vick
Quatrain form