Otherness Poems | Examples

Fulcrum of a Rose

Souls arrive on earth compelled to survive dramatic impacts.
Each child of spirit will eventually reach for reasons to be here.
Living finds the soul striving for intangible roots, tangibly real. 
Foundations are sought to lead, gift and uplift one’s true self.

Fertile roses grow blind to the forces aligned on their behalf.
Unconscious insistence diminishes man’s resistance to its menu.
Layers of intuitive insight incites and invites us to a spiritual level.
Colors of otherness within us highlight discoveries of all authentic. 
Revealing layers of our source may be sought and found in prayer.
Uniting with God grants exciting stances on His supporting plateau.
Mindfulness is the plume of God’s rhythm that rhymes our bloom.

God Tingle Touches Us

We are born aware of our soul’s treasure.
We know we are from spirit sourced designs
and graced with faith traits far beyond measure.
These truths grow loose when spirit earth aligns.

As earth life feeds us human emotions,
we drift from truth and our hearts refashion.
Days of human ways grow false held notions.
God nudges us to reclaim His passion.

When a child, God tingle-touches our skin.
We feel otherness seeking us aware
with love seeped passions that ignite within.
We cannot name it but thrill to its flair.

Time bends us to lend us a spirit mend
for it’s when pained that we seek beyond sight.
When we strive for a spiritual blend,
it is in quiet we find truth’s bright might.

Strayed Sheep

Reigning in cluster the edge of steep scarp,
the flock of mine sprawls so very proud.
I’m a meek loner in the midst of them all,
for each one is happy to be in the crowd.

As I’m secluded in a ditch of sequestration,
the kinship camaraderie they show with flair.
For my innate nature I’m often jeered,
since their line of subservience I don’t tow.

In their group I’m the strayed one,
my own person, I’m the odd one.
I’m branded as an aberrant madcap,
for in my candid way I’m like none of them.

Life for me isn’t shaped for fitting in,
it’s about standing outside the heap.
In my clan a black sheep I’ve been,
making the deviant otherness unique.

Kindness

So we all talk.

And it’s all a little less dreary.

It’s as if they’re smiling more.

It’s as if they’re smiling at me.

And even starting to care.

Asking if I’m doing ok.

Asking where I went last night, as if I remember.

Asking why I’m doing weird little things.

My family and friends, they are now compassionate towards me.

We all have each other now.

I am a part of the circle of each otherness.

It’s like- everyone I ever knew,

Is new to me.

In Death

Death comes close in the night
when shadows grow and sleep envelopes, relaxing guards
who snore slumped in corners
their spears and shields useless on the ground, 
their dinner crumbs of cheese and bread 
just laying there for the rats to nibble.

Amid the sleepers and nibblers Death glides
like a mist; oppressive and still, and dead
leaving a taste, a scent, an air of such an otherness.

The rats scurry off
and the sleepers shift within their dreams
caught, held and slowly suffocated
till the last breath of Life is gone...

Then what does Death do?
The old shapeshifter wakes
and puts on the face of day.

(first published in my 4th book of poems BEGINNER'S MIND, 2019)

Otherness, the Dichotemy Dissected

"Otherness, the dichotemy dissected"

The facial surface
stitched tight 
photosynthesis pares
celluloid divisions
their inquisition solitary
and thickly wading 
shallow and elementary 
the dichotomy mercilessly
shaved whittle thin
by others’ strangeness 

the primary magnified
in situ perfectly imperfect
petri dissected

through the windows
sunlight slices and shapes
the hidden embedded dark derision

into something 
entirely other
encoded with true meaning

The facial surface
stitched tight 
photosynthesis pares
celluloid divisions
their inquisition solitary
and thickly wading 
shallow and elementary 
the dichotomy mercilessly
shaved whittle thin
by others’ strangeness 


(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)

Xenophobia

Life slithers satisfied in the self-made furrow,
I incise in the known terrain for tomorrow.
The journey I waver to take beyond the familiarity,
for the company of kinship is a kind of security. 

The challenges of the unknown build impediment,
I strive boldly, but can't cross even being confident.
I may try to change the course of life to win, 
but the endeavor I don’t risk to deal with the unseen.

The known roads may veer to uncertainty for sure,
no longer I can travel complacent and secure.
In the unknown territory outside my own domain,
the fear of the indefinite within me will remain. 

When I build my own pathway and feel proud,
it will soon be full of nameless crowd.
Strangers will scramble to stay on, 
an act of intrusion in private realm I will reckon.

For my mind conditioned to identify what I know, 
unsafe and unreliable signals the aliens will show.
In the clutch of xenophobia it will close in distress, 
for I am scared of the unfamiliar otherness.

______________

April 29, 2023
Word Chosen : Xenophobia
Contest : Writing Challenge - Words With "X"
Sponsored by : Constance La France

A Black Sheep -Chanso

The flock of mine, so very proud,
I’m a dwarf in midst of them all,
for each one stands tall in the crowd.

The mental might with flair they show,
for my nature I’m jeered often,
since their line I don’t like to tow.

In their group I remain silent,
when they shout caring for no one, 
even if they get violent.

My own person, I’m the odd one,
I’m branded as an abnormal.
In my candid way I’m like none.

Life for me isn’t for fitting in,
it’s about standing outside heap.
In my clan a black sheep I’ve been.

A deviant from manic freak,
I make the otherness unique.

Otherness Phobia

Life flows in the self-made furrow
You make from the known for tomorrow
The journey you dither to take beyond familiarity
For knowledge is a sense of security.

The challenges build daunting barrier
You strive boldly, but can't cross over
You may try to change the track to win 
The venture you don’t risk for the unseen.

Some known roads will collapse for sure
You can no longer travel secure
In the unknown outside your domain  
Things remote, out of sight they remain.

If you build your own road and are proud
It would soon be full of nameless crowd
Strangers would scramble and stay on 
An act of intrusion you would reckon.

The mind coded to endure what you own 
For the aliens, it gets signal unsafe and unknown
It closes in the clutch of confined fear in harness 
You are scared of the unfamiliar otherness.

_____________

March 31, 2023
For A Brian Strand Premiere No 1205 Contest

Perfectly Receptive To Otherness

I am that other guy.
You, you're my perfect lover
who I hope to never meet
while I still have these see-through eyes.

I have always had great confidence
in my incompetence in matters of the heart.
Being that other guy
I can stand and watch unnoticed.

I see you,
your face is an alien Venus
emerging over an ever receding horizon.

It's not time yet
to begin an eternal romance
but I am ready and willing to wait
for that otherness,

to meet her upon that far shore
where seashells sing their love songs
into beings.

Desire

The desire for death
The desire for otherness
The desire for life

Clouds and a Moment

Clouds and a moment

When a cloud rolled over lake Michigan 
cast an eerie spell of otherness over the lake
the stillness was profound when a bird
shrieked in horror.

When the cloud disappeared up yonder
a ferry crossed the lake's undulating water
reached the shore as a wet handshake 
of monotony.

Tell Me

We live distantly, one inside the other.
We house and rent the unwelcome and heaven sent.
I tend toward you
where your room overlooks mine.
Open doors keep us secret.
Where your breathe reaches I inhale.
Love enters through every window.
Chosen are we to be closer than blood,
otherness talks in the same mouth.
You have planted my garden
with my own willing hands.
Tell me what walls say
when the sky is all that is?

We Are Planet X

Beyond every picture,
every panoramic or keyhole view,
miniature or mural,
beyond the frame of perception
or the corners of our eyes
beyond the focus, and the seeable distance
the great known fades into otherness.

There’s millions of pictures of our world
all captured through
the narrow lens of the expected,
all spied through a thousand filters of knowable;
the acceptable.

Just out of the picture, Planet X abides.
A place forever beyond our frames of reference,
an alien landscape of a greater reality,

it could be heaven; it could be hell,
it could be heaven; it could be hell,
for us now, it is Planet X;
a world that will always take on a shape
that the mind gives it.

Ohio Dawning's

Did you remake yourself
out of rust and algae again?
Yesterday was a gray beached hull
now it’s summer in the cornfields,
the tangy air has a towheaded fizz.
The mosquitoes have submarines
they crash-dive each new morn.
The flowers are all gulping,
and the rain is just enough.
Light flirts around mossy steel silos
and the brick and mortar works
of grandfatherly hands.
Sorry I missed you,
I hear your dawn was spectacular,
that the mist was a chromed coin
on the tongues of farm hands.
At that moment
I was watching a nickel dipped sunrise
paddle over a shimmering horizon.
I photographed it,
but missed all the otherness elsewhere,
and of course you had changed again
before I could get to you.

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