Obnoxious and undiscerning
Teeming with power, devoid of meaning
intelligent-passing and ethical-seeming
‘Our only choice for defeating evil is taking away your choice for Good.’
Good with slogans
Good with words
Misconstrued, misused, misheard
As their reverberant declarations overtake stifled, dying cries
I mumble into the abyss
And regurgitate the whispers of the night
And I remain,
the fly on the wall
He is a crackshot I told his great-grandpa
Grandpa misheard; he thought I called him a crackpot
It took awhile for us to sort it out
In the meantime, grandpa was angry, showing a pout.
Not sure he ever fully understood
The beginning of dementia is never good.
We don't speak the same tongue,
but the air between us hums
with understanding.
It's in the way our eyes meet,
the way silence bends
to the shape of each other's heartbeats.
The words we don't say
fill the space between us,
more certain than any language.
More lasting than syllables
that can be misheard or forgotten.
We understand each other,
not in the way the world teaches us
but in the quiet truth of touch.
The unspoken rhythm
that flows between souls
without need for translation.
You don't need to say it for me to feel it -
your hand on mine
is a sentence that needs no punctuation.
The tilt of your head,
the slight shift of your breath
speaks in a way no words ever could.
A language older than any we've learned.
And maybe that's all that matters,
the knowing without speaking.
The way our hearts meet
in a place deeper than language
where every unspoken word
is already understood.
You forgot my intonation, and my smile
What’s behind it, wasn’t of your concern
Maybe you did not appreciate my style
Knowing that I have a lot to learn
Out of sight, then out of mind and heart
Out of anything, that can remind of me
Now at last, you’re free and you depart
Leaving for a better company
Once reread my poems, and you’ll feel
They were kisses, that I changed for words
Which were wrapping paper for the real
Real faithfulness, but something was misheard
What am I to do now, have you thought
Never doubt my love, you said to me
You’re not alone, you say, of course I’m not
I belong to you, but you can’t see
You can’t tell a heart which way to go
You can’t fake true love, you only can
Cut it to one side, belittle my soul
Ditch the words of love you said back then.
I wonder what do you do when you have all those emotions in you but you can't speak up?
I wonder what to do when you get what you have always wanted but it no longer feels like it is supposed to, instead it's like its suffocating you
Am i the only one with all the wonders or you even has it? i wonder
Why can't you speak up you ask
Am afraid that i will be misheard or misinterpreted
Am afraid that i will push away the one thing i have always wanted and now i have it even thou it's not the same
Am afraid that i will be alone if i do speak up i answered you
Someone once told me that am afraid of being alone and that's why i get myself attached to people so easily so that i can avoid being alone, i laughed at him and told him that he was crazy that there is no way it's true but truth to be told he couldn't be anymore right
I say this because i can't let go of what i have right now even though am incredibly being hurt in the process but i do get that one minute of happiness and am scared of being alone it's a feeling that am always afraid of
I wonder what could happen if i let go
Would i regret that i gave it up or that i should have done it earlier? I wonder
If ‘Beethoven’s Fifth’ foretold fate
Rapping on humanity’s door,
Then what were Napoleon’s armies for?
When we challenge fate
By declaring war,
What dire results do we ignore?
Are all our beliefs
And Holy Scriptures,
Based on misheard 'Chinese whispers'?
I don't fathom how love could ever hurt.
ECHO - Exert
What is simple in this lysergic exosphere?
ECHO - Fear
Can I be mentally ill or as vicious as an eel?
ECHO - Genteel
Why man is cursed by his fellow man
ECHO - Clan
Can I find solace in profound emptiness?
ECHO - Unfriendliness
what is this mysterious precipitation?
ECHO - Nation
Do you live where noise can be heard?
ECHO - Misheard
Can you silently pull from the cloud?
ECHO - Loud
What is the right of the powerful?
ECHO - Fearful
1ST Place Contest Winner
Written: January 07, 2023
Brian Strand Contest No 1167 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
ECHO VERSE: Echo verse has a pretty simple rule: Repeat the end syllable(s) of each line. No other rules.
Salome just loved gingerbread
But Herod misheard what she said
Who wants a dead head
To bounce in their bed?
So she dashed to the John instead
*Title inspired by Special Character, Ilene Bauer
I've been misunderstood
By the strangers in my life
Listen
I wish they would
I've been misheard
By the ears in my life
Listen
They don't and it hurts
The TV ad said Hunny Gadgets
She misheard it as Bunny Habits
Her bunnies won’t breed
She typed at high speed
She’s just ordered two Rampant Rabbits
Venue for brooding over Death’s mischief
While equipped with handkerchief…
Tears misty eyes shall unlock
Already by heavy heart unbolted
Over Death’s wasting clock
And angering daring of the Lord’s Promoted!
A masonry of slabs and The marbled
For impassioned messages, not garbled,
On her tombstones displaying Christ’s cross
That should curb the cries over a loss
But also Gardens of Angelic Roses
That the Door of Agony intermittently closes.
In Africa, far from the widespread
And in her folktales rarely read.
In The Western World, vastly stationed
And in her novels as much mentioned.
Dreary noises vomits in the wee hours
Which ears at close range seldom misheard:
A wondrous assertion of eerie powers
And Whistled Evil by Ghostly Bird.
A world scarier and insecure at midnights,
As the Dead socialize and commercialize,
No longer under pressure to tighten their lips;
Their life- terminating fights have for the withdrawn lights
And hapless visiting humans paralyze
With their deadening whips.
Cemetery continues to entertain bones
From tents and thrones.
The sound of a Crow
And a creaking fence.
My good morning greeting.
Four walls painted white.
A singer on the radio I will never meet.
The DJ playing cheesy tunes
for people I don’t know.
Sat waiting for the next beep
the back bedroom call centre blues.
Is it wrong to name a spider.
and what’s this urge I have to cut the grass.
The fridge is to near its calling my name
and I am answering dutifully.
I may return to the office fat.
No gig tickets booked or holidays to be took
Just serenade yourself with misheard lyrics
And pictures of far off beaches.
These are the back bedroom call centre blues.
Sat in a tube at thirty thousand feet.
Cramped and hungry, bored as hell
Time ticking slowly, as clouds pass by
Thirty thousand feet, seven miles high
Returning from a holiday, had a good time.
Like being sat in cell, innocent of crime
Now I can’t wait to land on Terra ferma
Back to the grindstone and the sabachi derma.
In 90 minutes solid ground,
going straight home when my bag is found.
Nothing to declare but I bet they search.
I’ll tell them every Sunday I go to church.
Into the car a twenty minute ride,
back to reality and the sinking feeling inside.
Did you think I said I'd holiday forever?
I think you misheard because I know I never!
There’s a fluttering in my attic;
something’s alive up there.
The cat is getting frantic
and I dread going up the stairs.
I hope that it’s a bird,
rather than a bat;
unless I have misheard,
oh, I’d better get a hat.
I recall my sister’s hair,
when a bat flew into it;
it truly was a horrid affair,
she threw an awful fit.
I hope it’s not a vulture,
no, the louvers aren’t that big.
I hope it’s just a sparrow,
if it is, I’ll dance a jig.
There’s a fluttering in my attic,
some creature has moved in.
I hope it’s an easy rescue;
a challenge I can win.
Melania called in the dog
But Donald misheard her call, "Hog"
He went to the table
To tweet a new fable
And found that he lived in a fog
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