Mothballed Poems | Examples


Now For My Next Trick

My long-patched magician's suit
has been mothballed,

the trick pockets,
hidden springs and secret linings
no longer fool or bedazzle.

A white rabbit died in my top hat
the hat, I returned to Amazon
marked 'unused',
the stale rabbit droppings within it
                  failed to convince.

Age has revealed a wizened wizard,
a creature unmasked.

Should I now take up a similar profession,
one just as duplicitous and talismanic,
                            yet much less obvious,

forswear with a feigned confidence
that this new self be none other,
                             than a bona fide poet?
Categories: mothballed, poetry,
Form: Free verse

Pending cases lie, plaintiffs die

Courts oblivious, on blissful high,
Poor plaintiffs on a long wait die,
The system still stays put
On same age-old input,
Mothballed, the pending cases lie.
Perfection, a vague search,
Totter in wobbly lurch,
Load of cases on deathbed lie,
The price paid for delays sky-high.
_______________________________
Happenings |11.05.2023| justice

Poet’s note: Research reveals that some of the oldest cases are pending for over 60 years, almost a lifetime of an average plaintiff. One might feel, a less than perfect justice is better than the perfect one that takes such a long time. A limerick here tends to lament the pathetic realities. One may note: to bring home its point a limerick tends to exaggerate and so need not be taken on the face value. This is the fourth in the series: Your slip is showing, Milord.
Categories: mothballed, judgement,
Form: Limerick


Premium MemberHow Do You Feel

I feel bubbly but corked
Reserved and labeled
In the light, I sparkle
However, my home is dark
And cold
And chilled
No, I'm not a message in a bottle
Floating across the sea
Never to be found
Or a keepsake that's mothballed
No, I sit in the cellar of life
Collective and silent
Like a vintage wine
And worse, as someone's housewife
My husband uncorks me
At his whims
And on his special occasions
His eyes tell me he savors the taste
As he sips away my abyss
Yet as his eyes become fulfilled
I am left empty and downtrodden
Then he corks me back up
And takes me back down
Categories: mothballed, anger, betrayal, dark, sad,
Form: Free verse

Premium MemberGrandma

Grandma’s
secret places
mothballed memories
Categories: mothballed, age, anniversary, death, family,
Form: Haiku

Rat Trap Rap, Part 2 of 2

There, parked in rows
like overused commas
or German prose
or mothballed bombers

lay ranks of rats
as if on drill,
but quite as dead
as vaudeville.

Someone had slit
each ventral hide
and pulled it back
to peek inside.

And there they lay,
flat on their backs,
guts on display,
paws pinned by tacks.

Ashamed, they were,
like party-crashers,
with gaping fur,
like little flashers.

Those organs, packed
so coral-fine,
would soon be hacked
by Class B-9.

Unseeing eyes 
stared at the ceiling,
but woke in me
a fellow-feeling.

We’re all the same.
We want to live.
Why dish out blame?
Why bring a sieve,

sort sheep from goats,
grandly decide 
who lives and dies?
To my distress,
those little guys
with upturned throats
and parted coats
were nothing less
than crucified.
Categories: mothballed, life,
Form: Rhyme


Premium MemberHer Life Was On Ice

Her life was on ice



she wore purple silk
accented black earrings and chain
ship of gold mothballed

connie pachecho

1/19/17
Categories: mothballed, change, depression, grief,
Form: Haiku

The Fall

Moon has possessed me 
again. I have become 
dervish.

It hints at shedding 
the leaves. Flame of 
forest wants to glow at noon.

It was a genuine 
withdrawl from honeycomb. 
You wanted to taste the bitter.

Hexagonal life has lost 
the meaning. I am ready 
to demolish the path.

Why did the moral 
debate start, on 
the mothballed book ?


Satish Verma
Categories: mothballed, art,
Form: ABC

Premium MemberThe Widows Peek (In Memory of Dora Rosen)

Strands of silver, tinsel fine,
Thin, flyaway,
Winged, widow’s peak
Widows’ weep
Bubba, Grandma, alone.

Up the dark tenement stairs
Cross tiny, tile squared floors
To the always open door…
Bubba, Grandma.

Aged, ageless, wiry, warm,
Open arms welcomed long tooth-grin
Gretel’s Grandma welcomes in.
Bubba, Ma.

Steel- spined, crow-eyed, soft skinned,
Gathered in, captured,
With the chicken bone.
The scent of ancient tomes,
Mothballed down comforters,

Brisket, kugel-noodle soup,
The feasts of Kings,
David and Solomon
Bubba, Grandma, Home?
Categories: mothballed, family
Form: Free verse

Never Did...

Never did I love someone the way that I love you, 
Never did I feel such love, so resolute and true; 
My sometimes sin, to sainthood turned, in dreams to canonise 
In the willow-patterned blueness of my willow-patterned eyes. 
Belied the truth in poignant smiles and clarified divulgence, 
Embodied in my selfish shades of yearning self-indulgence; 
Flying destiny and fate, no longer mothballed flags, 
Zipped my empty, pitied past in psychic body bags. 
Flew them far away from me, their burned and charred remains, 
Scattered them till they were gone on barren, distant plains. 

Never did I love the time as times you set me free, 
Never did my body crave as when you look at me; 
You came and changed the sullen shape of life I used to know, 
I cling to you, sweet holding on, afraid of letting go. 
Below my even, tempered shell, a once protective casing, 
Run the saline pitted cracks, relentless, ever-tracing; 
Maps of contoured hesitance, of stumbling block behaviour, 
Now travelled by my only one, my guardian, my saviour. 
Understand and know the truth and we will make it through, 
For never did I love someone the way that I love you...
Categories: mothballed, life, love, uplifting, body,
Form: Verse
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