Paint a smile on my face, until mid-poem
a grimace arises and the acrylic peels.
What are these dark angels that cast such shadows
over my cheer,
force my hand to sketch
the grim roots of charcoaled teeth?
The sun is struggling to rise over a pastured valley
while ravens pluck at my eyebrows.
Dark wings and meadow daisies mix and blend.
Death Head moths now emerge,
a word-canvas is once more lacquered over
by a dark and deep-throated coloring.
As quick as lightning, a clownish grin
flashes forth from singed paper,
such comic relief begets a portrait
of my surprised
and beamish laughter.
Paint a smile on my face, until mid-poem
a grimace arises and an acrylic peels.
What are these dark angels that cast such shadows
over my cheer,
force my hand to sketch
the grim roots of charcoaled teeth?
The sun is struggling to rise over a pastured valley,
while ravens pluck at my eyebrows.
Dark wings and meadow daisies mix and blend.
Death Head moths now emerge,
a word-canvas is once more lacquered over
by a dark and deep-throated coloring.
As quick as lightning, a clownish grin
flashes forth from singed paper,
such comic relief begets a portrait
of my surprised
and beamish laughter.
My Roots
Pluck at my green leaves
Devour my fruit with gusto
Hack at my bark all day
Carve your name on my trunk
My roots remain steadfast
Snip at my blossoms
Relish in its colours and scent
Stroke my buds and wait
Swing on my boughs with glee
My roots remain steadfast
This is my identity
This is what defines me
Makes me unique
Makes me bold
My roots remain steadfast
Clones are ubiquitous
My DNA is under attack
My companion mimics me
But could never be me
My roots remain steadfast
I am under scrutiny
My community of overseers
My society of critics
Searching for anomalies, imperfections
My roots remain steadfast
I absorb the nutrients and I grow
I draw life-giving water and thrive
It is with roots I survive
My generations of gripping roots
My roots remain steadfast
June showed her pluck at an early age
As prophesized by a pleasant sage
Six nuns tried to put her into a cage
This quickly made Omaha’s front page
Causing lots of readers parental rage
She is loose today, in Alzheimer’s stage
When an angel sings the world stops, and listens
A soul released, and sang without any conditions
Tears flow, and minds, are heavenly transitioned
Where we’re all blessed, by this angels’ rendition
To bring some inner solace, to all these who hear
To pluck at our hearts, as remind us what is dear
That a heaven does exist and a peace can prevail
If only found for a moment, in the trials we entail
A celestial voice can only lift when an angel sings
Opening our eyes, to the beauty, within all things
Bring peace and calmness within all of our hearts
Sharing a love that inside of us all that it imparts
When an angel sings . . .
When an angel sings . . .
When an angel sings . . .
I see no reason for this toxic state
other than hate or desired submission
found in my dream
where a kiss upon the heart
is a rusty chain
hanging on walls of circumstance
a vision within a vision
wrapped around my throat
making it hard to breathe
Oh! That this dream be more
than a quagmire of unreasonable eyes
that drip toxic tears
into a bottomless pit of shadows
that wait for my passion's decision
while they hang a broken wreathe on tombstones
that is this dream, that is this toxic state
of raven's beaks that pluck at the heart's flesh
tearing, tearing, always tearing
until the blood is gone, gone, forever gone
These Scars, they tell a story.
A story that doesn’t end.
End, the pain that has been behind me, following.
Follow? Followed like a social media story.
Story, is what i wish to tell but I can’t get it out..
They’d start to yell, they start to scream.
I want them to go away, as my life is being ripped like my skin…
At the seams.
The seams of my bed sheet it getting loose because i pull at the string..
Loose like the string that tugs at my heart.
I pull and pluck at the string. I pull that same string and pluck… and pluck and pluck and pluck and pluck
and pluck and pluck and pluck and pluck and pluck and pluck and…
Plucked at like my heart
My heart that is Fragile, Fragile like a newborn baby.
A baby that’s what I am called because I cry.
Cry is something I do.. Why?
Why do I cry...?
Why do boys treat women with such disrespect and disregard?
We women are just flowers each alike,
Fragile, agile, soft and dainty. To some atleast.
When we are really bold, bright and beautiful warriors; on a quest to conquer life.
But then again we are just flowers.
Like flowers we are crushed by disrespect and discrimination, we are expected to grow back just as beautiful, and dainty as before.
Some other flowers use their strong roots to conquer yours; just to make their color bolder, and have better shaped petals.
They crave deep magenta color and beautiful ovaler petals, but they pluck at yours like a lovesick school girl.
Aswell as craving beautiful colors they crave to be plucked from a field and put in a vase.
They just don't realize that in a few days, their color will drain, petals will fall and they will shrink into a brown, dry mess to be cleaned up by someone.
I am a flower that has never been picked.
One with four petals, and a faint lilac tint.
I think. Are there other flowers like me?
They searched for fruit
That subconscious memory of flavour
That lingered scent, that succulence,
That soul satisfying savour.
But the tree that bore their bounty
Had long ago been hacked
By the very axe they carried
On their bent and broken backs.
Each day they passed to pluck at fruit
Their axe had made its mark
They did not take it from their backs
To hang upon its bark
And then one day that tree was felled
Their final cut the last
And memory of the saving fruit
Now long ago has passed.
One dark and stormy night, when half my life lay behind me ?I wandered from the straight and narrow path too far.
And took my heart for a ship’s compass
All through the darkness, I followed no course, no path but my own. ?
With only unlimited darkness before me
Above that darkness, there was no guiding star. ?
That had once guided kings and shepherd alike. ?
When you are born blind only the darkness can see your way.
While death’s cold hands pluck at one's terrors and fears.?
Gladly the dreads I felt are too dire to retell,
The hopeless, pathless, lightless times forgotten,
I turn my tale to that which next befell,
When the true dawn opened
and the dark night was no longer my guide.
Paraphrased from the opening to Dante's Inferno.
I hear a faint tapping outside the glass,
A whisper of sorrow from my tainted past.
My unwanted lover beckons from the place of shame,
And follows me into slumber.
I am but a whisper caught in the wind,
Waiting for this inner storm to end.
I am but one drop of rain,
In this hollow world of pain.
My memories hover like birds of prey,
Waiting for my surrender.
Ravens of my subconscious,
Quick to pluck at my broken heart.
Why do I embrace my misery?
Are the tears not a bitter wine?
Am I in love with my loss?
Why is happiness undefined?
The picture is of an oldish man sitting on a hard chair in front of an Edsel on which is the painting of a fire. The room is concrete with some brushes and paints next to the Edsel and one coat hanging on the wall.
Fire Painting
The bare room speaks of remorseless times
of few, fickle buyers and assaulted health
The cockroaches of poverty swarm in dark corners
and scurry out at night to feast on his pennies
The invisible mist of despair seeps from filthy concrete floor
to caper, jest and pluck at his threadbare coat of fading pride.
Unquenchable spirit flowed from soul
Brush of wood and hair became wand
The dull, stained canvass smote with light
The flickering flames grew with every stroke
Memories of friends and laughter like twigs
Form the crown from whence everything springs
The red Winter Sun finds the passion of Life
Velvet Summer mornings gyre with joy and light
Anger and desire colour dance like sprites
Fused all together barely held by the frame
His fire of Spirit banishes the chill.
I hang from the strings I tied to you
that I’m too afraid to cut;
too afraid to tug on
when you can’t feel my weight.
I'll cut myself some slack,
only for you to pluck at them once more.
The strings are thinning out;
I'm thinning out.
Please do not let the strings break,
for I break with them.
PETAL GIRL
I dial your number
in the depth of sleep
hands on my clock
move
hands on your body
move
flowers in your
mouth
flowers in your
thighs
always in the garden
of you
is the flower
of your mind
others bend
but you..
you pluck at
my petals
consign them to
your whims..
she loves me
she loves me not
she loves me
she loves me
not
© Kim van Breda—August 2015
She was the flower in the barefoot spring.
I felt like I knew her in every life before.
She took me into her like I belonged;
She’s everything I never asked for.
I wouldn’t have known quite what to say,
The words I saved, I just gave away.
I am something wavering like a summer storm;
You asked me inside when I wept at your door.
And I laid poppies down at your feet,
For every goddess lost in mutiny,
For all the things we’ll never be.
I am something you saved;
I am the thing you pluck at when you’re awake.
I am the weed that keeps you at bay.
In my life I’ve wondered many things,
But none of them speak,
The way that you have in my dreams.
The way your head felt against my cheek,
Your body as it unfolded into sleep.
I never asked you for anything,
But, my ‘Thene,
Why can’t it be me?
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.