Obligingly Poems | Examples

Happy Place

Trauma has wrapped me in its slimy tentacles 
Tightening, till my depression becomes clinical

Man with yellow pad listens obligingly
Then into my happy place he is guiding me

I imagine my beautiful tropical island home
All is serene and I am finally alone

Turquoise waters pet the shores sand 
Oh so ready to rest from life in this land

With long hypnotic strokes, newness is washed away
Carried into the Icy depths of ancient days

I sit, contented for once, on the hot white grains
Coconut in hand yet taste of... oatmeal remains 

I cannot tell the time, nor anything truly measure
In my island retreat, alone, I will stay forever. 

      *the nurse continues spooning oatmeal into the patients open maw
Wiping his chin after each bite and closing his jaws.

Observe

Observe, deep laugh lines run
Obligingly around
Obedient to years
Of smiles upon her face.
Overlook her awful
Obviously painful 
Ongoing constant throe 

Date: 04/04/2021
Contest: Pleiades O
Sponsor: Kim Merryman

The Ocean's Flip Cycle

VIDEO/AUDIO on YouTube above. NOTE: On the video; double-click to enlarge, and/or, right-click for the drop-down menu and click on 'Loop' for auto-repeat, click settings and pick the highest level for quality viewing.

The Ocean's Flip Cycle
An abandoned luna relinquished its stardust sky, occasion aroused a climbing star, amidst its heaving rolls of honey-buttered spills, cresting o'er shape-shifting creams, bobbing athwart a cerulean ether, whilst a turbulent ocean, steep with envy, weighing well-meant expressions gifted beyond horizon's rim. A magnanimous sun obligingly soothes, in-kind, blanketing the last vestige of roughness, embracing a collaborated welcoming of quietude. The placating spectacle is performed during Spring's season, synergy affects nutritious trading as cold turns warm.

throughout springtime
heavy water bottoms
hearty warmth lift 

2021 April 03

Our Oak

OUR OAK

I shall always think of it as our oak;
Yours and mine.
Majestic in that green haven from urban cacophony,
It sheltered us in those precious moments:
Discreetly deaf to our small talk,
Obligingly blind to the fool I was making of myself.
Did I babble?
Memory has erased my every word.
Yet yours are indelible;
Every word, every inflection, every lilt
Oh, that lilt, invading my sleepless nights.
Did you feel it…the chemistry?
Have you any idea what happens to your eyes when you laugh?
Every cliché by every poet throughout the ages
Bubbles up from a sea of startling, sparkling blue
You laughed
And a thousand Sunday steeples burst into song.
You laughed
And I knew I would love you to the grave.

And then the rain stopped and I lost you forever.
I stood, rooted to the spot as you walked away.
The sun struggled through a threadbare patch in the cloud
To light up your hair for a last, fleeting second
And you were gone.
How could I let you go with so much unsaid
So many questions?
The rain stopped….and I hadn’t even asked your name.

5th July 2020
The One That Got Away contest
Sponsor - Silent One

Tricked of Treats

halloween in
i mean in
western

pennsylvania
before there
was non

existent climate
change where
before now 

my eyes
yes suddenly
predictably on

my grandson stopped
about how hot
it was under

his costume so
i continued to
pull off his

face mask so
he could
relax

catch his breath
before his next
trick but they

always obligingly
went for the
treat of

some sticky stuff
or as what was
that was it

moving in my bag
this took me
back when

on an obviously
October night
i simply

dressed as a ghost
and like most
sheets with

poked out eyes 
felt the cold
and so 
wore

on top of my 
disguise
a winter

coat

The Unfinished Symphony

The record plays -
            sounds of love; words that touch the heart.
I reach for you with all my being 
and, finding I still cannot touch you
I sit down to cover paper with my song to you.

A piece of paper - starchy white with tiny, symmetrical  
            blue veins running across.
An impersonal piece of paper that obligingly holds my
            ink-blotched words so that I may gaze at them
              and wonder at their lack of saying 
                 what I mean to say.

I run my hand across the page and wish it were you I was touching.
I wish each quiet scratch of the pen on parchment was
  the sound of your voice.
And, because not the page nor the words nor the sound is you -
I cross out everything I've written, crumple the page and
            throw it away.

The room is silent now. The record has quit turning.
The needle is in its cradle.

And I find that tonight I have no song.  Not on paper.
            Only within me.
And, tomorrow, I'll again reach out to touch you.

Endless Autumn, Obligingly

The morning sun just rising, glaring;

a damp, colder, workaday street ...

fallen leaves scattered,

Halloween mere days away:


Suddenly:  Startled by the workman:

A stray, jet-black cat

frightenedly slinking into utter darkness

under a nearby porch.


In the gloom, the cat all but disappears,

save for its wide, pained, wild eyes 

staring back threateningly into the daylight:


Disembodied eyes illumined, 

like molten gold blazing,

dancing and hovering in gloom;

eyes winking on and off,

twin, sinister lamps,

the brightest, most moribund yellow:

The cat glancing aside, this way, that.


And irridescence

hanging in the hushed air

about all and sundry,

an apparition,

fog slowly vanishes.

Darkly Smoldering Allies

Darkness and I have become allies,

 affinity by association's shadowed prayer

     spoken of the same kindred language,

consanguinity in our devout appeal

  of blackening night's smoky exposure,

like a coke whore I obligingly snort it

doomed to partake in a dreadful flight

    upon an impeding raven's blighted sojourn  

  midway extravagances of destructive somber ruins,

obscurity's sulphurous gloom of unsung melodies 

       surrendered in silence 'midst dusky moonlit spirits

Fragile Hearts

Forever faithful, fragile hearts,
   Reach for eternal love.
   Adoration for each other.
   Gentle kisses so sublime.
   Inspired when this feeling brings,
   Loves lasting joy, that tugs heartstrings.
   Ensuring two hearts stay entwined,
   Heartbeats obligingly as one.
   Empirical no understanding,
   Always and ever loves demanding,
   Realizing dreams of days gone by.
   Together intrepid, not faint hearted,
   Saying goodbye to lonely times.
   
   10/ 19/ 2016.

Evening Orange

Oranges are always lovely
Nestling unknowable dreams
But they never come to you obligingly 
You need to have a heart genuine 

The evening clouds in the sky
Have raised colours of hushed height 
I perceive some salted stimuli
Of possible oranges in sight

But what actually comes
Is a splash of orange light
Asking me how are my lungs
The cranes in their homeward flight 

Are then the orange seasons gone
Those tickling smells of paradise
A flock of fireflies in the lawn
One by one the stars arise
____________________________________________
2/1/2016
Not for contest

Natural Pearl

agony of expectations never to be met,
duties to obligingly tend, without end
love's vessel silently sailing, ever empty

nothing to be shared but the pangs of regret,
missing a lover, a confidante, a friend
needing a match to spark heat aplenty

trouble and pain does not make one forget,
hearts may not break, but can certainly bend
desire never stops, not at fifty or twenty

life's grit irks the soul like an unpaid debt
as the oyster seeks solace from a grain of sand
the heart tries to cushion our pain, so intently

so we open our shells, as if sails being set
a glimpse of the pearl and the message is sent
to be held ever close, ever near, ever gently

Rubik Cube

Yours is a horrendous bother

I decode one side, you obfuscate another!

I twist and turn, twist and turn again

fingers engrossed around your parts, another twist

extirpates the other side! My enthusiasm refuses to wane.

I warp your shifting visage, weave the obliterated wrist

only to dislodge several faces

I obligingly deface your six surfaces…

 

In my neurotic endeavors to unwind

the unfathomable thoughts on your wavering mind,

I take manifold cyclical turns in your opaque fog

Your stupor and anonymity declines to unclog!

My flirtatious advances don’t inveigle your obstinate resolve

Chances to demystify you haplessly dissolve,

In your complacent maze

and overwrought gaze!

 

Still in downright disarray

My fortitude, haunted by dismay!

You’re unfazed, you obliviously recline

Whilst my inquest continues to wriggle and whine!

I scrupulously ingest your manual again

and brace for another futile try,

Why am I so smitten, when I am already certain

You’ll still remain awry!

Chekhov's Gun

"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired." -- Anton Chekhov


Chekhov declared that it's clearly imperative
That a gun given billing must duly be fired.
The bullet obligingly cinches the narrative,
Sating the thirst that the gun first inspired.

Yet the world is awash in objects inutile,
Which clog our disorderly narrative streams.
So why should a playwright adhere to so futile
A diktat pertaining to props in a scene?

Myself for example, habitually arming
The darkness that swaddles me, inkily deep,
My mind so occulted its doubly alarming
To grasp the black Kimber, now sprung from its keep.

The prop having found its way on to the stage,
My untethered demons start chorally keening,
Quite certain they know what the gun must presage:
That this is the moment that holds all the meaning.

Scented Lies

The steady cadence of your soul does quell
a passioned spirit, aching to unfold.
Your rhythmic heart emits a luring spell,
forbidding independence to take hold.

Obligingly I dance your metered waltz,
though yearning, from within, new melodies.
As stifled feet twine love both true and false,
veils of deception swirl in scented breeze.

A smile that mourns a freedom not yet held;
soft, gentle laughs entangle with a sigh.
Disguises; sweetness with frustrations meld,
a masquerade to drown a heartfelt cry…

must dreams be tethered for eternity?
or will a life in free verse beckon me?

Predilection Edict

If possession is nine-tenths of the law
 entirely, you're mine
   though cosmically, empirically
         we lack the ties that bind

For naught these thoughts
 escape me through the river of the day
   while every beryl and burst of you
         contain me as they stay

And while the very air we breathe
 is cycled through our distance
   I know that even air succumbs
         to love in sweet resistance

If possession is nine-tenths of the law
 then what am I to do?
   for obligingly, surprisingly
         I now belong to you.

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