A World Apart
Is this what we have become
a world apart
Why is there this hallowed blackness
emanating from the shrinking sun
leaving all blinking
as we wallow in the shadows
Why is your smile
smeared with a smirk
making all to shriek
marvelling at the marauders
Why the reeling smoke
With its’ mocking reality
taunting the future with friction
revering the reverend reveler
as the world reveals its’ second face
Categories:
reveler, deep, emotions, world,
Form: Narrative
Spring’s Abysmal Guile
By Sy Roth
A vapor rises, rank as the charnel pit,
a corruption of a miasma vast,
as though some sepulcher, long sealed,
split its stony jaws to breathe.
Vile exhalation of a corrupted world.
The reveler, unwitting wretch
treads the decadent fields where verdure writhes,
each blade a hostile tendril, squamous, cold,
glistening with ichor
No earthly fount its progenitor.
He deems the shade of evil vanquished,
trampled beneath his hobnailed boot.
The soil heaves with malefic will,
its roots, like veins of some primordial fiend,
pulses with a rankness older than the stars,
a stench that whispers of aeons lost.
Spring cloaks itself in verdant pall,
no bloom, but scales of a vast, unuttered thing,
its thorns a raven’s beak, evermore to rend, to sow, to bespoil.
He quaffs the tainted zephyr,
proclaiming triumph over a gloaming moon,
Swept in the season’s unseen talons,
fathomless ennui
creeps through his sinews,
entombing his soul in an abysmal cleft unshriven.
Categories:
reveler, anger, angst,
Form: Free verse
I order a Guinness and a shot of Pappy Van Winkle.
My green paper Leprechaun hat is crushed
and lopsided on my head.
That shot of bourbon cost me more
then I used to earn for a day's work.
“I'm worth it”
I say to the middle-aged female server
with my devastatingly crinkled wink -
she shrugs,
she’s seen daytime drunks before.
“My dog just died”
I tell the bulky reveler at my elbow,
he is shouting to some pal way across the bar.
“His name was Paddy,
and he wasn’t no ing Irish Setter *******,
he was a shaggy Kerry Blue”
The big guy doesn't even hear me.
I swig down from the dark mull and amber slug,
weave my way out of the joint,
looking for another pot of gold to piss on.
Luck of the Irish.
Categories:
reveler, poetry,
Form: Free verse
During colder winters the river freezes over
A vast sheet of ice spreading shore to shore
While the traffic awaits March’s spring thaw,
Old boatmen share traditional waterway lore
And skaters, cautiously marking the depths,
Note where the ice is much too thin to bear
The weight of the heavily clad winter reveler.
Young skaters unbalanced with arms a-flailing
Struggle to find their real strength and rhythm
Beneath them steady waters still are flowing,
Providing neither instruction nor algorithm
Like navigating the barges, downriver going,
Only time and practice will develop expertise,
Seemingly to watchers on the shore with ease.
THIRD PLACE WINNER
entered "Winter Wonders Within Nature" Poetry Contest
sponsored by M. L. Kiser
written November 29, 2021
Categories:
reveler, boat, river, sports, winter,
Form: Sonnet
In the bush the dancing begins early
Leather drums call from far and near.
Steady rhythms mark timed steps, and
Swahili is proudly spoken here; come
Join festive reveler from the village,
Flee to the running brook you see
Asante for being here...for being alive!
Listed #51 in Top 100 Poems
on Poetry Soup
March 23, 2021
Listed #61 in Top 100 Poems
on Poetry Soup
March 7, 2021
HONORABLE MENTION
Poetry Contest - All Poetry
sponsored by Kwame Cunningham
July 26, 2021
Categories:
reveler, africa, culture, happiness, imagery,
Form: Kwansaba
Rush down from the hills and mountains
Maneuvering around untold hurdles
Negotiating paths of least resistance
Adorn your banks with trees in blossoms
Be the source of food and water
Float the kayaks and row the rowboats
Being a reveler for recreation
And through it all you must remember:
Sometimes shallow, sometimes deep
Sometimes wide, sometimes narrow
No matter the terrain, a river will always
Reach for its goal to merge with its ocean
May 6, 2019
Categories:
reveler, inspirational, metaphor,
Form: Free verse
If I had a secret life,
it wouldn't be secret very long
for I'm a talker, a reveler of words
filled with stories that long to be heard;
in the moving shadows of my days
the heroes and the villains both are slayed
and I am the bearer of bad and good news
dependent on your beliefs and views;
often, I may stand alone
outspoken speaker bent and prone
recalling the memories of all we've unlearned
and everything history continues to spurn.
I am a simplistic sage
spewing out the lessons of an age
where everything from the past
has returned only to be recast;
Hear my story as my life was played
all the world is an imaginary stage
and I an actor with nothing left to say
just another pretender in the word play.
Did you know?
My Secret Life' is perhaps the most infamous of all underground Victorian erotica. It is the sexual memoir of a well-to-do gentleman who began at an early age to keep a diary of his erotic behavior. He continues this record for over 40 years, creating in the process a unique social & psychological document.
For Caren Krutsinger's contest, "If I had a Secret Life"
Categories:
reveler, allusion, fantasy,
Form: Quatrain
Two toilets converged in a murky room,
Frustrated I couldn't decide on both
And be a reveler , long I fumed
Stared em down, my dignity in doom
To where it no longer became a joke;
Then took the other just as a dare,
And having perhaps the same amount of shame
Because it was available and wanted wear;
And because I really didnt care
Souless toilets did equally maim
And both night equally lay
In a stench where you MUST turn back
Oh, I was cursed for drinking all day!
Now my dignity was on display
I doubted if I would ever get it back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two toilets converged in a murky room
I took one different to the other guys
And thats made feck all difference.
Categories:
reveler, emotions, funny, humorous, satire,
Form: Rhyme
Congratulations to Donald Trump
Who gave Hillary Clinton the dump
She looked as clueless as Forest Gump
As voters saw her as Obama's chump
Election night went bump bump, bump
Republicans began to jump, jump, jump
Democrats now in a slump, slump, slump
Their throats feeling a lump, lump, lump
Supporters of Donald shaking their rumps
From women who are pleasingly plump
To the proud soldier revealing his stump
Nary a reveler with the face of a grump
He managed to get over a critical hump
Speaking about women he wanted to pump
Turn up the volume, listen to the thump
Of our 45th president, Donald Trump
John j jr
Categories:
reveler, america, destiny, funny, humorous,
Form: Rhyme
The beautiful enchantress I call you or the revered Goddess;
So many sunk at your feet to death slow, by your beauty besotted
While for a holy task you surrendered to please an anchoress.
A mystic to human race; tales weird sprung in time uncounted.
Fascinating your hide and seek game are, played with night and day;
Science or magic, what explains this strange motion of yours?
Symbol of purity, yet you reside in the dirty ponds, at bay;
Which message of yours has remained to us under locked doors?
Whichever your colour, you always stand unique in this vast world.
You will always be to me, a mystery unsolved, a story untold;
A secret cries to be unraveled in intrinsic patterns you hide whorled.
A question unanswered, in mud sealed lips, those unfortunate hold;
Are you a biological complexity or some god sent messenger?
Gazing at you, by the ponds I sit hours, drinking from your beauty
An elixir unknown, my soul blessed with peace, unknown to a reveler.
I long to have you in my home but Queen you reign in your empire, muddy!
Date: 12/08/16
Contest: Each one of us has His or Her own Flower of Attraction
Rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef ghgh
Categories:
reveler, appreciation, beauty, creation, nature,
Form: Rhyme
CULTURE
I AM AN AFRICAN WOMEN
A AFRICAN LEGACY
AN A PROUD NATION
I AM WHAT MY MOTHER SAID I WILL BE
I AM WHAT MY FATHER THOUGHT I MIGHT JUST BE
I AM THE TRUE REVELER OF MY CULTURE
I AM THE QUEEN OF THE LAND
I AM THE OWNER OF MY LAND
I AM AN AFRICAN WOMEN
MY THOUGHTS ARE OF GREAT POWER
AND MY MIND ONLY FOCUSES ON BEING A WOMEN
I AM A MOTHER
I AM A SHOULDER TO CRY ON
I AM THE WOMEN I WANTED TO BE
MY CULTURE....
MY CULTURE
IT HAS BUILT ME
AND GAVE ME COURAGE TO ROAR LIKE A LION
AND TO PROTECT WITH MY SHIELD AS A MOTHER
CULTURE IS MY OTHER HALF
CULTURE IS MY DIGNITY
CULTURE IS MY HONOR
CULTURE....
Categories:
reveler, age, birth, child, cry,
Form: ABC
People think I am a freak
Wondering what chaos I shall wreak
Seeing me they want to gag
Just cos I am dressed in rag
Shamelessly begging for alms
Cupping my blistered palms
Destitute, I have no home
Throughout the day I roam
Western, central and harbor line
But when I board people whine
I sit there staring at passing sights
Sunset, sunrise and dim street lights
Mountains, bridges, concrete jungles
Pass by, as a prayer my lip burbles
Alone I look for a place to rest and sleep
Full with crowds and fests, slowly my feet creep
Full of suspicion, characteristic dereliction
Life has been nothing but a malediction
Tirade and anger seething in every heart
Almighty resides in the fancy trinket mart
Going gets tough but seldom do I look askance
Survival is my goal, paltry is my chance
Don’t know where I started
My life seems thwarted
Don’t know where this would end
Striving for a livelihood, I defend
No I am not a propitious reveler
Rather just a footboard traveler
Categories:
reveler, lifeprayer, , western,
Form: I do not know?
Mischievous thoughts?
She does not bulge,
Lip marks in red,
On the white shirt;
Accusations?
True she could be?
A red herring,
Takes me now,
For a wild ride;
Disillusioned?
Naughty betrayal?
Loose collar free,
In the playful,
Night aroma;
Melodrama?
Indulgent miss?
Slaughters desire,
"Touch me not" streak,
Spells disaster;
Conspirator?
Pumpkin eater?
"My foot" to boot,
You are the true,
Swindler, cheater;
Malediction?
I enjoy life;
Night reveler?
Categories:
reveler, loveme,
Form: Free verse