aborted ambitions
time squandered
dreams abandoned
a life mismanaged
a ship with
no one at the helm
subject to the currents
and the whim of winds
idle and adrift
we've run out of options
out of time and
out of excuses
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Submitted on June 2, 2025 for contest YOUR CHOICE T sponsored by BRIAN STRAND - Honorable Mention
Categories:
mismanaged, dream, time,
Form: Free verse
mistake was worst than a bungle or blunder or ****
totally botched, mishandled and mismanaged
auto mechanics excuses put dad in a funky huff
his Ford was in worst shape now, totally damaged
Categories:
mismanaged, car,
Form: Rhyme
A sly inflection shifts the paradigm.
Rambling renaissance men without a clue.
Notable declensions; mismanaged time.
Skewing the truth and balance of value.
When paying mind to another's success.
Visibly worn down; a willful chappie
climbs only for eternal convalesce.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
No masterpiece ever preceded thought.
Do with that as you like; chase destiny.
Some of what you want. Some of what you ought.
None of what you’re not. Soon the world will see.
Narrative’s control the pen and the page.
After all, isn’t all the world a stage?
Categories:
mismanaged, analogy, art, character, confidence,
Form: Sonnet
Maybe we should erect a love story to Croydon
Celebrate its Pound shops
and diminishing shopping spaces
Love a shank bone instead of a unmeritorious knife
and await the snow
hoping its gritted
in your Bankrupt Croydon
so wonderfully mismanaged
Categories:
mismanaged, analogy, anniversary,
Form: Free verse
I had a firm plan. The first three steps were sidetracked.
Mismanaged, mishandled, they blew up.
I am flexible. I went another direction, trying to prevail.
Wanting my original plan.
It did not happen.
I changed my plan a tiny bit, not willing to give it up yet.
God threw roadblocks, accidents, and mountains in my path.
Irritated, I began to pray for my own plan.
I was determined to get my way and I begged Him to give it to me.
The answer was no.
It took me a long time to realize it and give it up.
I was discouraged and unhappy.
Not willing to go in a completely different direction.
But alas, the path was out of my hands
As was the plan He had for me.
I went into this God plan kicking and screaming.
It was never my plan; it was His plan.
Weirdly enough, it ended up being the best plan of all.
I know this because I had twenty jobs before I found my career.
I think the career I had planned would have never enticed me like this one.
Categories:
mismanaged, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Narrative
Easily kicking open The floodgate of panic,
The quickening of blood circulation, titanic:
A once normal breathing is disturbingly hoarse
And the modest in behavior dreadfully coarse.
Eyes now pop out of their homely sockets,
Relaxed hands out of trousers pockets.
Some hearts are ready to make their last murmurs,
The headaches of this moment, crushing hammers.
Fluid secretions choose knotted temples,
With bangs on one’s door supplying more samples:
Sometimes over a mismanaged mammoth sum of money,
For which one hasn’t yet informed one’s attorney.
Fear often would follow a demeaning rape,
Whose legal implications one foresaw its shape
Or some business, very untidy, completely rotten?
Which one had contracted but long forgotten;
Death now in a hurry to visit
And one doesn’t want to meet it.
To Fear
I say, ‘’Tufia!’’
Fie!
Die!
Readily unsettling the mind
And the body does bind;
Meaningful activities to a halt, grind.
Categories:
mismanaged, fear, hate,
Form: Rhyme
I'm so happy I could cry.
My eldest child has said goodbye.
To England and that silly Boris,
who mismanaged the threat to us.
She and her fiance caught the ferry.
I'm so pleased it makes me merry.
Here in the wilds of Donegal,
they can isolate until the fall.
That virus has us on our knees.
I'm begging God if you please.
Spare me and mine this awful plight.
I want to be a grandma, if I might.
The world has got so small in ways.
Really in a matter of days,
corona has spread far and wide.
Here's hoping we can turn the tide.
We are only human after all.
Our planet now seems so small.
May this help us put wars behind.
Small island, small planet, small mankind.
Categories:
mismanaged, friendship love, nature, planet,
Form: Rhyme
EVENTS OF LIFE
Long past with short future in last phase,
Life tries to glance on the bygone days.
Millions of events all disarranged
Distant memories too mismanaged.
01/15/20
Bite size poemNo.14
Contest by Line Gauthier
Categories:
mismanaged, confusion, life,
Form: Couplet
IN CHAOS
Long past with short future in last phase,
Life tries to glance on bygone days.
Millions of events all disarranged
Distant memories too mismanaged.
Wished to assemble in order.
Where to start, which to put in border !
Which happening was most important,
Which was trivial which dominant.
Running through remembrances in vain,
most missing, some hanged in broken chain.
Reminiscences to ruminate
Dormant impression to animate.
Trying to place in series my treasures
success-failure, grief or pleasures
Each corner of mind to approach.
Fervid forgetfulness to encroach.
Which should I honor, which to erase!
Confusing: Only I bluntly gaze.
All jumbled up, each in disarray.
To paste neat on Life-Album, I pray.
11/21/19
Edited on 05/15/ 20
Second Place
'BRIAN'S CHOICE D ' Contest by Brian Strand
Categories:
mismanaged, confusion, life,
Form: Couplet
POLLING DAY BLUES MAY 9th 2018
Hohoho...
True or fake news, make no mistake....
Voters are unhappy with their piece of the economic cake...
After GST and all those exorbitant price increases...
Resentment and anger are setting in and seeking a release...
Viral social media messages proliferate and enforce the belief...
The economy is mismanaged and we need relief...
Come Polling Day May 9th, what will our collective votes bring in....
Will there be a drastic change in government machinery...
Or will the urban votes be swamped by the rural votes to continue our miseries...
Hohoho....
Categories:
mismanaged, anxiety, community, confusion, emotions,
Form: Free verse
There seems so little point in killing one
Whose only crime is to heal
But when he calls you a hypocrite - a whitewashed tomb
And deep inside you feel
That wrong or right, his power is more than yours
You've got to serve him or kill him
Choose him or lose him.
Fumbled and mismanaged, no one wants
To actually do the deed
Fob him off on Pilate, or Herod; they try not to get involved
But finally in pressure it's agreed
To give him up, although for what we don't quite know
Quickly bundle him on a cross
And see if he'll die.
That'll stop it all then, the whole thing will go
A nine - days wonder, blow itself out
Dead men tell no tales and do not pose a threat
Or introduce a doubt
In an empty form that one time made you feel secure
Preserve your dignity
Lose your integrity
It didn't stop it all though did it?
The ripples of his life still spread
People still believe and live as if his paradoxes work
And he isn't really dead
And he still stirs up something in this day
Which try as you will
You can't kill.
Categories:
mismanaged, jesus, integrity,
Form: Verse
Hearty har har - helplessly howling happy hysterics
awareness, after all, always amazes artichokes!
Everyday evil eggs are eaten eagerly
yesterday you yacked yucky yellow yolks
singing silly sickening sapsucker swill songs!
Dangerous dopey dogs deny dumping dung
but bark big brash bumpkiss bile!
Flighty flatulent fireflies (flitting furiously!)
swirling sloppy sides soaked in salsa
tirelessly tipping tutus twisting tantalizing twitters
wearily weaving wacky worlds wastefully.
Go grab the great gain green giggling goo goo ghost
mIsmanaged, maybe my magic medicines magically made mud!
Watch which one will wash wondrously white, wait.
Hearty har har - happy hysterics howl helplessly
after all artichokes always avoid awareness anyway!
Inspired by Kristin Reynolds March Maddness - Abstract Poetry contest
Categories:
mismanaged, family, funny, peoplehappy, happy,
Form: Light Verse
You thought that you fixed it
But it ain’t never been broke…
You stroked the spirit, with your fiery words.
Mismanaged a genius mind, thought it absurd…
Thought the life was subdued to succumb…
How untrue for it had just begun…
Exclaimed that you tried to break this spirit
Then another exclaimed the red wagon you would fix it…
Many have tried, with these rhetorical okie-dokes,
Don’t you know by now~ that you can’t fix
That which has never been broke
(It’s not right to keep trying to break the spirit of a positive mind just too set an
example for others... Think about it)
Categories:
mismanaged, family, introspection, life, parody,
Form: Free verse