Scarcely Poems | Examples

Scintilla

‘A spark’ or ‘a tiny trace’
Barely more than a hint
The finest sparkling dust mote
The smallest piece of lint

A trace, barely perceptible
Scarcely carries through
An iota, wee, tiny, titchy
Minuscule, bijou

It is, by far, most certainly
The most magical thing I’ve heard
I present to you: ‘Scintilla’
My favourite poetic word

Hues of Spring Forgiveness

Scarcely had the snow melted
when the violet crocuses bloomed.
I gaze at your crimson scarf—
the one you left behind a year ago
as you vanished into the amethyst dusk.
Once again, I have watched through a hematite night;
a burgundy dawn slowly fades away,
and still, I wait for your iridescent return.

EASY STREET

Easy Street

What would you rather Easy Street, or Blessing Boulevard,
Before you answer be vey careful, for choosing the right one may be hard.

One is a way, wide, broad, and shady, the other straight and narrow by far.
Down the one least popular, one will scarcely make it, the righteous, is who they are.

Rapid and rushing, merrily, merrily we go, like countless little fishies going one way,
Everybody’s doing it, just follow the leader, the Easy Street travelers will say.

The other way requires, that those who will travel, will by faith, and their faith to renew.
Like with “The Eye of a Needle,” a rich man and his camel, must kneel and burrow through.

The way of the Christ, is through the gate called Straight, and few there be that find it,
The way of the world is down Easy Street, a death contract to those who will sign it.

You shall receive, a crown of glory, eternal life, the Blessing Boulevard way.
The pleasure and sins, of the Easy Street life, have the wages of sin to pay.

Scarcely Yours

And maybe,
After we perish,
We will finally collide
Not bound by destiny,
But rather by the specks of dirt we're buried beneath.

They say,
Togetherness is contagious,
But Infirmity never claimed me
For our flesh had remained strangers to one another.

We never shaped the lives we dreamt of.
We forgot to be while becoming.

Yet,
In the core of the earth,
somehow, we find each other,
Tangled in the asthenosphere.
it's the only thing we share;
Death, dirt, and desire.

We were never each other's in life,
Yet the earth made us one in death.

I. 'Ere She Trembled

— Of Wind, Longing, and the Privilege of Touch—



O, that I were the mild vespertine air,
that steals through jasmine when the day is done,
and, fragrance-laden, wander'd everywhere
to find her face before the sinking sun;
I'd pass where rain lies dark upon the stone,
and draw the tellurian breath of earth,
then lose myself where roses bloom alone
and breathe their secret back to fragrant birth;
I'd find the hollow sleeping by her cheek,
where one loose filament trembles in the air,
and, being less than silence, scarcely speak,
yet feel her pulse make all the heavens bare;
       And should her lips breathe softly, “Who hath been?”—
       I'd be the wind... and love her all unseen.

When September Ends

When September ends, the roses will remember
the warmth that lingered softly in their red;
the afternoon will lose its golden ember,
and summer will retreat from where it tread.

When September ends, the leaves will loosen,
as though the trees have learned the art of grace;
they will release what once they fiercely chosen,
and drift like old regrets from branch to place.

When September ends, what leaves me, too?
A younger face I scarcely recognize,
old dreams that once seemed certain, bright, and new,
and names that now return as ghosts at night.

Yet not all endings carry only loss;
the fallen leaf enriches waiting ground.
The broken heart, though marked by grief and frost,
may hear a quieter awakening sound.

So wake me when September has departed—
not from the sleep of autumn, but from fear;
for life, though leaving much of what I started,
still whispers: Something new is waiting here.

Thine, Always

Inspiration:
Inspired by the “Footprints in the Sand” tradition—the enduring idea that when only one set of footprints remains, it is because the Divine is carrying us through our darkest hour.



—The Weight of Mercy—


I turned my years back down the seaward strand,
where joy had once impressed its double trace;
But when the dark unloosed me from its hand,
one print alone lay solemn in its place.

I deemed that single furrow spoke of doom,
and read Heaven’s silence as a sealed decree;
Yet grief, self-crowned, within my inward gloom,
arraigned the unseen for what mine eyes could see.

Then came one night when one brief sentence fell
through all the citadels I built so strong,
and where my failing breath could scarcely dwell,
I felt a strength that bore my soul along;
till, looking back, the furrows seemed to shine:
My feet were mine—the strength that bore me, Thine.

Conkers

The woody musty note of fallen leaves
hints that summer’s gone, but no-one grieves;
at least not us schoolboys walking home
as we, those piles of chestnut leaves would comb.
Glossy brown gems inside their prickly husk
we searched for as the day turned into dusk;
if none were found among fallen leaves: a stone
a ball, a stick, into the tree was thrown.

Conkers in autumn, sport of playground kings;
horse chestnuts drilled and threaded upon strings,
in turn dangled like victims from a rope;
each swings his own with scarcely hidden hope
to smash their archfoe’s conker into pieces
thus the value of their own increases.

It goes like this, each day for quite a while,
bruised hands and wrists accepted with a smile.
One day it stops, unwritten, but seems right,
time to start preparing Guys for Bonfire Night.

Brush

Brush
your hair
or someone

form of self-grooming
or passing someone close
by and scarcely grazing them

Dream Of Shadows

The Architecture of Grief

The earth shakes, mimicking my weary bones,
And the ground is wet with tears left behind.
The cage of whiteness, locked tightly inside,
Upholds the heavy weight of every day's design.

Secrets and memories are ghosts we keep,
Bound tightly within the walls of the chest—
Forgiven, forgotten, or just cast aside,
The architecture of a heart aching for rest.

My steps falter on the unpaved ground,
Stumbling under the weight of a calcified spine.
Yet all this physical aching scarcely compares
To the quiet, structural cage of skeletal frame—

That has, until today,
Only answered to the marrow of your name.




























"Note: AI image generated to complement the themes of my original poem."

From the Womb, to the Tomb

In his time of deepest gloom
Job wished he’d gone from womb to tomb.
Please let me die was his lament
when in pain, he started to vent.
Oh, how I wish that I could die
In agony, poor Job did cry.

Our lives, bordered by birth and death
with troubles filled, till final breath.
Whether three score, or four they be,
the time assigned to me and thee,
they’re so much like a tale that’s told
We’re scarcely born ere we are old.

The dash between the womb and tomb
is like flowers in blushing bloom.
In the morning and through the day,
what wondrous beauty they display.
Then, as the sun sets in the sky,
they wilt and fade, and then they die. 

Teach us, O Lord, to count our days,
and to please you in all our ways.
May our lives, like the sun, bless,
those we encounter in the press,
and may our days, all pleasing be,
as fragrant offerings to Thee.

Ponder

A wet crinkled brown leaf skimmed my face,
when absorbing the mild milieu ahead,
this peep of day random leisurely,
meander amidst the stunning wild life, 
mirror to olympic onset of proud,
major town and its spirited clan,
in an inkling a cascade of hue tinged,
thoughts,  reflections, insights, life questions,
swirled in a bright lustrous swathe profound,
inside this brain of mine attuned to spheres,
I commenced to ponder on matters,
meaningful, mystic, mind enhancing,
cheerful cyclist with heartfelt greeting,
jogger in deep breathe whose sudden halt,
despite his schedule to engage  with,
me, this being they scarcely even knew, 
fixed  a slot for sound red ruby witness,
warm shepherd folk smile whilst their kin gaze at,
bees, butterflies, songbirds, cute insects,
children have this innate facial  expression,
as adults do when reflecting quietly,
fountain sprinkle of hum and haw linger, 
countryside in blue sky urban realm,
that sunshine ray to my blissful  muse

REALM OF MEMORY (a recited verse)

REALM OF MEMORY
eagerly
 resuming
with
nebulous
  uninterrupted 
    inactivity
scarcely 
beyond
   belief

  perspectives
retrieve 
  newly
discovered 
   interesting 
idylls
of
  vanished
    rhetoric 
now
subdued
  tranquil
    refuges
up
close
  invade
    the
      quietude

Alexander and Diogenes

One cast his form upon the living age,
One lived his life above it, or below;
One legend for his vigor and his rage,
One craved the beauties only minds can know.
O, little good of either can be said,
“The Great” most so in murder and in wine;
And Cynics named for doggish lives they led;
But then, in all of life, there’s little fine.
A little thing, an idling of a day,
No, scarcely worth so small a poem as this;
Two lives a moment crossed upon their way, 
And neither would the other ever miss.
But there in Corinth, now a common sight,
Where one cast shadows, and one sought the light.

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