The past rises
grey and pink
amid rasping gravel
barnacled to chasms
sunken and sodden
clawing at hasty feet
that skate manically
and hurl bodies cruciform
onto mocking concrete.
The marred morn pauses
for a nanosecond
to ponder the maelstrom
of mangled flesh
and sirens.
a degree and he knows it all
summarizes me in a nanosecond
has me all figured out
simplified into a likely story
for someone else perhaps
but no sir, not for me
casually randomizing
careless comments tossed
into a common salad
the maestro takes words
and plays them back askew
creating his own new melody
with all his pomp and arrogance
he is the type that gives
the profession a bad name
AP: 2nd place 2026, 3rd place 2025, Honorable Mention 2025
A bouquet of blossoms
The calmness in the forest
I felt his one eye willy against my ribs
In a nanosecond, he became a minute man
Was this a midwinter dream?
I smile and then I kiss his neck,
he whispers, honey,
I hope that you are not upset,
Darn! I was so ashamed of this
One minute man,
Viagra is all I can truly say to him
Old men, old men
What the birds know today is that I am not there
Funny as it may seem, those birds and I have something in common
We are always looking for something,
What puzzles me the most is when I put out food
They appear from nowhere, chirping and calling for others
To come to share the food.
They are fascinating creatures,
I think I have hyped them too much by feeding them a lot of sugar:
However, I loved how they picked the leftovers.
And in a nanosecond, the food was gone.
I am back in the cold once again,
I truly missed those birds outside my door,
They do not need to migrate south.
And most of all they don’t have to select
Or regret voting for a president
In their defense, each of them appears to be a leader.
Who leads Birds of a Feather?
I'm looking back in time, it
doesn't strike me straight away
I'm too intrigued to see those
faces once again. A small group
of six apparently happy relatives
posed on a hilltop somewhere
with aerial view of fields behind.
With all the knowledge I have
it occurs to me that these smiles
they wear were really masks
and beneath were the concerns
of holding their individual
loves and lives together.
Each of us are doing that each
and every second of a day.
Four of the six have passed on:
But not before their bodies
were aged and weakened
simply by being alive.
It is a strange path we tread
from oblivion to oblivion,
and along the way we might
be captured in some nanosecond
of time in a photograph, where
we bravely put on a smile
as if we are comfortable and
know what it is actually all about.
Have a happy new year folks.
© Griffonner 2024
Contest Line of Inquiry:
"Here I am in human form, but it was not always quite so;
Earth is not the only planet I’ve been to through past life
regressions, I definitely know."
From the white light of death
as we take our last breath,
our human Souls emerge.
By nanosecond surge,
transformed, like butterflies-
with mystic wings, each flies
back home into God's Light-
shape-shifting on our flight.
From Earth's cocoon, we lift
to our awarded gift.
Be it Eternal Life,
free from mortal strife;
or made to live again-
in flesh once more, and then-
shape-shifting, growing whole
through purity of Soul.
Soon feel we've lived before
upon a distant shore.
Therefore, Soul journeys go
how God directs their flow.
I'll pick up the phone on the first or second ring
If I know it's you who's calling I'll drop everything
I love to hear your voice when we're on the telephone
It's almost like you're singing, you've such a pleasing tone
You can call me anytime you're lonesome or you're not
I'll be there to answer right there on the spot
I wouldn't keep me waiting a nanosecond more
I want to have each moment that you would have in store
Even if I have to put a coat over my head
I wouldn't miss your call, the thought of it I dread
Call me in the morning, afternoon, or night
I'll make sure I'm ready, to hear you's a delight
All for one and one for all
The spread of cultured hands suffices
Like manna in the wilderness
No one is cloaked in greediness
The rising up of voices unheard
Like dust molded to life renewed
Who knew of particles power?
The nanosecond of changes
Like an idea whose time has come,
One for all and all for one.
*
in the grand scheme of things
Nothing is as it seems,
nothing will stand
the test of time,
the eons will grind,
all will be worn to dust
as nothing is forever
forgotten in rust
in the grand scheme of things
we are nothing but a nanosecond
sparks of life easy blown out like a candle
in a vast vacuum of night
the regions of forever
and no one n nothing ever lasts
nothing is as it is or deemed,
seeing nothing in the coming void
nothing will stand the test of eternity
eons will grind all to carbon at last
the thing that stars of made
watching it drift through
…these deathless hands!
I
The inventor of chess was asked by his King in India: what payment will u take for this game?
Only a single grain of wheat doubling for the next square, and the next ... Until the last square in the chessboard. The king lost his throne and sanity. The 64 square earned Chess Inventor 18.5 quintillion grains of wheat. So what?
II
Today's production of wheat has not reached 18.5 quintillion grains annually. We are 2,000 times shy of that wealth earned in wheat by Chess Inventor
III
The Inflation theory of the universe wants us to believe it expanded exponentially, too, in the first nanosecond after the big bang (but to 90 times the speck that apparently got Bang!D)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYZC-VbcpRg
Surrender and bond your inner self, breathe deeply
accept the moment that has been given to you and share
the inner circles of your positive energy, be yourself
Immerse your thoughts in beautiful light and re-incarnate
with your present concept, it is there to teach you how
to live freely, without ties to earth dramas and misshapes
Repeat your mantra " I am potential " and enter into bliss
flower your thoughts and vine them to your corporal light
breathe in the oneness of the Universe and breathe out
Water your senses with peaceful rhythm and like water
move gently into the waves of contentment one breath
at a time... Time erased, you are a nanosecond away,
Surrender, bond , surrender , live, surrender, breathe
The gravitational waves
Of massive spacial events
Hum across this vast universe,
Warping the space and time
Between us.
As black holes engulf black holes
And galaxies are born
Then die,
We in a nanosecond of time
Discover one another.
For: A STRAND (1056) Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Brian Strand
January 20, 2022
Kaleidoscope -
Turn the tube.
Brilliant shapes
In fluorescent colors
Shout joy,
Happiness.
Then, in only
A nanosecond
Everything changes.
A slight touch,
A twist of fate, and
All shatters into
Chaos,
Confusion.
Bright shards of
Red glass, green, yellow,
Blue – breaking -
Flying apart -
Smashing into each other -
Nothing in order.
Life in pieces.
But wait –
Try again.
Another turn,
A flick of the wrist,
A change of light,
New emotions blaze
Into joyful patterns.
How long
Will they last?
Only the kaleidoscope
Has the answer.
The Designer’s Eye
I look up to the blue expanses,
Needing to see just a trace of my designer,
Just an eyelash, or the tiniest of a skin flake.
Maybe just the descent of a strange leaf,
So that, inside my insecure soul,
There is some tincture of truth,
I can hold on to;
Just a nanosecond of illuminating light,
Of something beyond nature and,
Its troubling temper tantrums.
I know there is an invisible curtain before us.
I can feel the staring eyes of the dead.
They sit in the Big Theater,
Watching the Big Play unfold endlessly,
And I am on the stage of time,
Still reciting the soliloquies of fear.
But over there,
Lurking behind the bannisters,
Look!
I see the Beast.
He has shot Lincoln.
Now the designer has shown me his eye.
As we are mortal
and maybe even
if we weren’t, we
travel through
this one way
dimension
nanosecond
by
nanosecond
until we
aren’t anymore.
Although you don’t
have to be Einstein or
traveling at lightspeed
to know time is relative
sometimes going so slowly
other times passing too fast.
But I’d give one of my back
molars (which itself is feeling
the effects of time) for a time out.
Not the stand in the corner kind which
our parents gave us unruly children, but
rather a basketball type of time out where
everything stops and coach can draw up
the buzzer beater that will win the game.
But that’s all fantasy and excuse me if I
get a bit Buddhist, but we all know that
the past is gone and the future yet to come
we live in the now.
Enjoy.
.
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.