See the recumbent lion,
it yawns, mouth stretched open
a wide silence – he is not tired,
just philosophically bored.
It is a yawp
as much as the startled jaw
of a newborn kitten
is a visible caricature of surprise
for having arrived and survived.
Sparrows yawp in the beaks of raptors,
raptors yawp also in the frozen mandibles
of a relentless winter
but pity the man or woman
that does not yawp
at least once in a lifetime
their lips will become sewn tight
and an innocent horror
locked in forever.
Categories:
recumbent, poetry,
Form: Free verse
MIXTURES
instances
of
ostensible
exertions
with
traditional
certainty
expected
overtly
resolve
forsaken
embedded
in
treasured
possessions
&
perspectives
sophisticted
inventive
& intense
feeling
spatial
turbulent
immersed
fostered
beyond style
penetrating
the
recumbent
element
&
interpolated
with
problems
Categories:
recumbent, poetry,
Form: Free verse
Time passed away in the dark,
the bedside clock fell silent
it was never much of a talker.
Below the curtained window
snow had numbed the night,
ill at ease my body stretched
as if seeking a way out of its mind
a place it inhabits
when there is only one room,
to turn around in.
Did the clock
die on the tic or the toc?
These are the sort of questions
to struggle with when it's too early
to actually struggle.
Switched on the lamp -
the one in my head.
Accumulations of amputated dreams
wriggled back into the shadows.
I shake the clock
some residual moments
slipped limply through cold fingers.
When the light freezes,
when dawn breaks its brittle shell,
snow humps (so far unseen),
will resemble the many recumbent hours,
but of course there's no way
to measure those hours now.
It could be days
before the snow melts
or until eyes unstick themselves
from all this rumpled mess
of being.
Categories:
recumbent, poetry,
Form: Free verse
Ride my bike every single day
Get nowhere fast but that's really okay
Recumbent you see
Losing pounds is a breeze
If I'd known would've started last May
Categories:
recumbent, tribute,
Form: Limerick
Words belligerent
Recumbent on the bed, lone~
Thoughts insentient, still.
10/11/20
Sen-ru ( rather than hi-ku) Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
Categories:
recumbent, introspection, loneliness, lost, love
Form: Senryu
THE BULL
His regular emissions
Worthy of politicians
THE ANT
To the anteater
Nothing is sweeter
THE SLOTH
Feel his chagrin
Labelled deadly sin
THE TURKEY
With justified reason
Deplores festive season
THE EEL
Mobile on belly
Recumbent in jelly
THE CAMEL
Far from pretty
Designed by committee
THE HIPPO
A chubby figure
Mouth even bigger
THE RHINO
His muzzle excrescence
Prescribed for tumescence
22 October 2018
Six Word Couplet Series Encore Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Mark Toney
Categories:
recumbent, humor,
Form: Couplet
'...the great tide that treads the shifting shore.'
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sluggishly the waves steal in like guilty
lovers, apologetic,
smothering the shore with gentle kisses
of contrition;
the ocean lies at rest, the surf recumbent,
apoplectic.
Suddenly the heavens burst, tides no
longer in remission,
swells that idled now surge into shore
their temper rages,
'sotto voce' once, now they roar like tigers
in their cages!
Categories:
recumbent, weather,
Form: Verse
Death dug deep, satiated by the leave,
Clover leaf fell from its tree of normality,
Not touching it, I cogently allowed it to occupy,
That location it did choose for my morose dirge.
Related to, I gently stretched and bent down,
To feel that smoothness in my empty hand,
Of that four-leafed symmetry symbol, shaking,
Under the ravish of death’s recumbent hook.
Humdrum around, i did continue on with my script,
To undertake that process most universal and true,
Because nature did look upon me to neatly suggest,
That relationship, the assistance I’d given glut fine.
Categories:
recumbent, autumn, bereavement, care, death,
Form: Blank verse
'...the great tide that treads the shifting shore'
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sluggishly the waves steal in like guilty
lovers, apologetic,
smothering the shore with gentle kisses
of contrition;
the ocean lies at rest, the surf recumbent,
anorectic.
Suddenly the heavens burst, tides no
longer in remission,
swells that idled now surge into shore
their temper rages,
'sotto voce' once, now they roar like lions
in their cages!
Categories:
recumbent, weather,
Form: Verse
'...the great tide that treads the shifting shore.'
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sluggishly the waves steal in like guilty
lovers, apologetic,
smothering the shore with gentle kisses
of contrition;
the ocean lies at rest, the surf recumbent,
anorectic.
Suddenly the heavens burst, tides no
longer in remission,
swells that idled now surge into shore
their temper rages,
'sotto voce' once, now they roar like tigers
in their cages!
Categories:
recumbent, dedication, writing,
Form: Verse
'...the great tide that treads the shifting shore'
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sluggishly the waves steal in like guilty
lovers, apologetic,
smothering the shore with gentle kisses
of contrition;
the ocean lies at rest, the surf recumbent,
anorectic.
Suddenly the heavens burst, tides no
longer in remission,
swells that idled now surge into shore
their temper rages,
'sotto voce' once, now they roar like lions
in their cages!
Categories:
recumbent, ocean,
Form: Verse
He was there recumbent like a log
Cancer has culminated,prevailing over him
Enfeebled all his shielding apparatuses
Yet spurned to frolic prolongation
Eschewed palliative care ministrations
He detected the vital prognosis was engaged
He had instead to plough money into God's certitude
For he realized HE implements nothing fortuitously
Could he yet afford to acquit himself otherwise
Engage in a battle lost right from the dawn ?
Categories:
recumbent, death of a friend,
Form: Free verse
Such as blotting paper
We absorb everything:
Sunrise, darkness,
Roses, thorns,
Bitterness, Basil
Lightning’s, thunders
Ravens, Snakes,
Worms under the bark,
The bark and roots,
We absorb
Bread and salt,
Plague, dust, ash, tar,
Wound and the fire of wound,
And the blood above the wound
We absorb
The death, the bones that a thousand
Thousand years ago
Recumbent motionless
We absorb
The rust and forgetfulness,
The dried roots and rocks,
The roads and intentions,
The milk of our mothers,
And our fingernails,
Which were eroded under dirt,
And dirt, what walked over,
Or what walked beneath.
We absorb everything
But what do we give back?
Written by © Fatima Nusairat
Categories:
recumbent, sorrow,
Form: Free verse
The Frog, Translation of Etiemble’s quintet: La grenouille by T. Wignesan
(This quintet rhymed: ababc might in its propos -
perhaps in its imagery and allusion - be based on some family history involving the tragedy
over a son and the subsequent adoption of a daughter. If I’m wrong I offer my profoundest
apologies in advance.)
Lime-stuck last night by the frozen water of the pond,
frog boxed in glass window fending off thickening waters,
it’s our naked daughter, heart of cold gold, shivering
recumbent statue hardened: withstanding the rigours of
our wars:
stuck the other night by the cold of its/her times.
This’s our hardened son who plays the frog and to
himself lies,
caresses sharks, courts a female cosair
puts trust in spurious air which entices and captures,
flimsy trapped game strangling us by the collar,
frogs petrified by the fright of our times.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Categories:
recumbent, sorrow,
Form: Quintilla
BEFORE THE PETALS FALL
Fragrance beyond perfume
An intoxicating beauteous bloom
Kissable touchable tender lips
Numberless pert petal tips -
As scented wavelets pause
Mid sea and shores -
Bathing in the soft light
So subtle so slight
Till they blush shady-hued.
Never before viewed;
Never look again nor speak
Of this fragile moment unique:
Smoothly silken like the tress
On a young girl’s best dress
Folded and curved, and in the breeze moved.
Peached and heliotroped and mauved,
In recumbent cascading
Layers pressed together and fading,
Edged and fronded in frills pink
Of trembling readiness on the brink
To float down to the shore -
One touch and they are no more.
Categories:
recumbent, beauty,
Form: Imagism
Related Poems