Written: November 05, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Hilo Poet
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He ruled with a rakish grin ... a slack scythe in his sanguine fist—
A pharaoh of spurious gloat ... redolent of lard and treacle,
His laws ratified in rapture ... festooned the sacred with spit.
A seraglio of skeuomorphs ... hailed his wondrous fashion sense—
The riparian fields sank ... in soaked squalor and dysania,
He wore a nimbus of stink ... a stygian sherpa to dire fate.
In his sesquipedalian bragging ... the soul of land grew slack—
Each boast is a blur, each law ... a grieving gasp of suction,
Even the seraphic ibis flinched ... its wings dimmed by his shadow.
With tales of Siamese stars and stew ... he won over the jury—
Though the slack-jawed and gaunt group ... gnawed on serendipity bones,
There was no spark ... just the sizzle of sand in a dying sun.
Now his tomb lies amid a cold dune ... decked with dysenteric myths—
A janiform relic of zeitgeist and treason ... stripped of all zest,
The sovereign ruin ... no ripple, no ravel, no rove of resile.
Written: November 02, 2025, for contest by: Robert James Liguor
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The frozen core of human activeness
where the temperament recklessly smiles,
sludge cascades from the blade's edge
A joyous opsimath emerges,
reminiscent of rebellion and aged books,
sturdy and infused with a grin.
His unique calling sign is the "lard of law."
He wears robes adorned with nimbus designs
and stands before a wall of questions.
He gathers information from insightful individuals
Every conundrum is a breach in the law,
And every victim wants to be obvious,
He repeats sharp retorts to the sentient
To the obstreperous, the zymotic throbbing of history.
He says that justice is not banausic.
She is a lissome Nereid,
dancing with eurythmic elegance through garbage.
Though weariness grasps the morning,
and moribund minds look for troughs, not summits.
He persists on—
a sherpa of the spirit,
bestow the noisome into view
where enlightenment flowers akin to vernal fire.
Justice is not a flaw,
It's beginning
It is Nemesis
the tiny thread that links,
the strained heart to the flimsy earth.
The mind has peaks
no Sherpa knows
sudden drops
where thoughts
thin out
like oxygen
at twenty thousand feet.
Avalanche thoughts
bury certainty.
Your grip tears skin
on ice-sharp edges
of almost-understanding.
Below are the
crevasses deep
as yesterday's regrets,
echoing
familiar voices
lost in white.
Wind cuts through
the space between
base camp comfort
and what
waits above
the death zone.
Frostbite burns
circle your fingertips
the attempt
to hold
what altitude
has already
stolen.
Only the fallen
know the weight of thin air.
Only the hanging
over glacier cracks
know the value
of solid ground.
This terrible geography
some must
navigate alone.
If it's a choice to be happy
is it a choice to be beautiful?
Will beauty wrap me up in sherpa
and bake me until I'm gold brown
like the perfect chocolate chip cookie,
if I will it?
What is beauty anyway?
Is it even real?
Or will it all just
disappear
with our flesh
as it wastes away
into the earth
it once called beautiful?
Mountain
No sherpa, rope
Or faithful steed
In stocking feet
I do proceed
Each day I climb
Relentless slope
To rest my weary head
And hope
That once the peak
Of my desire
To elevated place
Aspire
Concludes.
No flag or
Selfie pose will take
No Instagram.
No front page stake.
Just me.
To hear the lost applause
Of decades climbing
For the cause
And when the final
Bell tolls here..
The challenge ends.
The final year.
My human vehicle
Now kaput
The mode of transport
No sock dressed foot
My rationale
I will defend
As heaven's stairs
Now, I ascend
The greatest mission
Has to start..
An expedition
Of the heart
Jinjagoliath
13th April 2023
I was bored and strapped for cash,
Badly needing a vacation.
So I took a voyage of the mind,
With my vivid imagination.
Across the open seas I sailed,
To some far and distant lands.
While perched atop a camel's back,
In caravans on desert sands.
I climbed the Himalayas,
Behind a Sherpa as my guide.
To see Nepal and then Tibet,
The Dalai Lama by my side.
Crossed the Great Wall of China,
In a mammoth hot air balloon.
Floating high in a starlit sky,
Tipped my hat to the Crescent Moon.
Back to Earth, I made my way,
Skimming the Sea of Japan.
To the Port of Tokyo,
In a rickety Saipan.
Growing weary from my travels,
My mind no longer fit to roam.
Next time I'll visit other sites,
For now it's time to journey home.
Hey yall, I have a new Comforter. I’m so excited.
My new Comforter is soft, warms my soul and adds brightness to my life. And this new Comforter is different than what I’m used to, because I’m filled with such a warmth I’ve never felt before, much better than any sherpa, plush or down, any pillow or teddy bear. I am so blessed, grateful and thankful to have this Comforter. I find such a calmness and a sense of peace with my Comforter, and when I am under my Comforter, I know I am loved and protected just by the warmness felt.
Well actually, my Comforter isn’t new, my vision of my Comforter is new, because truth be told, my Comforter has been here all the while.
Do you want to feel the warmth of my new Comforter? Yeah, I bet you do.
Just accept the Lord Jesus Christ and invite Him in your life. He is there waiting to comfort you, carry you, warm you and hold you through any of your coldness, darkness, hurt and times of loneliness and uncertainty.
Come and let the Lord be your light and your new Comforter.
Cliff edge narrows, steps in place
danger looming strong
Height above me terror laced
searching right from wrong
Summit beckons, flag to place
and leave my name among
Flocks of pilgrims reaching grace
—to finally belong
(The New Room: July, 2022)
Bedtime Delicasies
Soft, warm, big pillows.
Flannel sheets, sherpa blankets,
Warm cat, at my feet.
12/11/2021
Tackled by a stutter murmur of Deus.
The praying ended and packed as threats.
Err, umm, uhh, were cliched by vomits.
Grasped all the needs and rusty flirts.
Prune back Sheoak! The cutest green pine.
Pity Sheoak no more green crown again.
Where are Quechua and Sherpa? They go.
Risking it all
in the earthbound sky
Her summit was calling,
the weather defies
An avalanche beckoned,
one Sherpa was lost
A trek through the death zone,
another one gone
The temperature dropping,
the oxygen sparse
My crampons now heavy
and feeling much worse
To retreat or push on,
the danger the same
All hail Sagarmatha
—still calling my name
(Memories Of Nepal: March, 2021)
TRANQUIlLITY
One, sleepy eye peeps
At foggy, gray sunless skies
Comfort of Sherpa blanket arrives
Wraps her as a warm butterfly
Embracing her, owning her
With wings gently nurturing
Her poetic thoughts beginning to warm
Velvety as a monarch's wings
California, it's January morning
Tranquility, at it's dawning
JANUARY 2, 2020
8:30 AM PST
Give me your fears and hope,
the golden chains of your obsession
Let me vow bind your hidden hand past
to the leg of your uncertain present
Have the angst choices, which twine your future,
be your gilded, Lazarus rope
Pour your tears and your smiles
into my alchemy beaker
Experiment study your ancient pains
and new pleasures
Ghastly examine why
you mask the death reeker
Mix well the explosive potion of disparate dreams,
and behold ...
the beta wave oxidation of centrifugal spin reality
Allow me to be
your keen amalgamator
Take a peek-see,
monitor your pulse regulator
Give me total permission
to outer limit I locate the lost inner you
Hold a search light to your brain,
see the murky delta waves oscillating
Ping the Atlantis position,
dark abyss thoughts that eschew rescue
Buoy bask in the sunshine and the rain,
cerebral flotation is the gestalt thing
Let a friendly spirit be
your sherpa keen amalgamator
Take an MRI peek-see,
power up the love hum resonator
We're on a journey of exploration, a long-deferred vacation
There's room for you too … Come with us, and your essence renew
We've been so busy surviving, striving, never quite thriving
It's time to live life large, hire a sea-worthy vessel, a sturdy barge
First it's off to Africa, to distant shores, hottest jungles and desert sands
There to unearth unknown civilizations, man's oldest bones, in buried lands
Then we set sail for the Isle of Atlantis, with the help of a 'sea sherpa(nt),' who in Atlantis will plant us
We're sure to find this isle 20,000 leagues under the sea, with the help of
Jules Verne and Walt Disney
After that we'll blast off into Space, bidding adieu to terra firma's rat race
We'll rocket past Saturn, Neptune, Uranus---and learn how our galaxy works
to sustain us...
When we return, we'll have stories to tell, a feature-length movie, a best-seller as well
About our journey of exploration
and how we managed it all
~ from the comfort of a virtual play-station
Entry in "Dealer's Choice Poetry Contest" (Going My Way)
Sponsor: Caren Krutsinger
From time to time,
I suffer from poetic insomnia ...
sleep deprived makes my muse grumpy
Even I don’t want that sulking soul around me
Dreamless nights
makes my pen yield lethargic writes
No creativity ... no spontaneity,
just listless words on a page
Wooden emotion props on a paper stage
So I always desire to sleep, to dream
It allows my mind to wondrously be open to everything,
even things I wouldn’t have thought I could imagine
in my wildest dreams
Such is the enchanting properties of poetry
When I dream poetry;
my thoughts morph into yours thoughts,
my dreams hold hands with your reality
I become you,
and you become me
This is how true poets see
We dream of the words,
others find difficult to speak
The poet in me must dream,
how else will you spirits, who are worlds away,
have an astral sherpa path to receive me?
Contest: What inspires you to write poetry
Sponsor: Julie Rodeheaver
Date: 9-5-17
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