Short Effacing Poems

Am I really so flawed?
Am I truly that odd?
Crawling like a snake
Into the canebrake
A whoremongering fraud
No wonder you don't like me....

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Accompanied by tambourines and his effacing pomp
A blind bearded man walks proudly through the gate
Warmth welcomed him a young man of eighty three
A kind gentle honest man now promoted to glory...

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elevated
        motifs
      the
      familiar 
      intimacy
oft 
the
    everyday:
passive
  eternal   
      verging
  on the
     insignificant
yet
  recognisable
   subservient
   self-effacing
neutral
  neutered
   by
     neglect...

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Absence of the blooming flowers
Bakes the heart of love in tears
Soul of the crimson buds I hail
Effacing the aches from the dale
Name the feelings a life for you
Curing my green eyes from yellow
Ease me, O Beloved, abating due


February 22, 2023

A Forms and Words Challenge Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Sotto Poet...

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One with a self-effacing attitude,
he's the salt-of-the-earth type of a dude,
just a faceless face in a multitude;

Apparently low-profile, limelight-shy,
far more timid than a daytime firefly,
and you might want to figure out just why;

I'll let you in on a secret, brother,
with your bragging don't go any further,
him you called a wimp is the Godfather !...

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Grey, 
Is the colour, 
That follows me.
A trail in the rain 
When you walk behind.

But ahead it gathers
Muted and stiff,
I do not feel the 
Red on white of pain, 
Not the sharp arrow,
The galloping horse, the red eye.

I am the dull thump of boots,
Steady, then petering out, 
Dropping off the edge
And effacing the self.
No will of my own. No will of my own....

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Ex lovebirds of 
the tamest passion can turn 
so predatory.

Passive aggressive
schoolboys who mock whistle at
ex-girlfriends for spite.

Who scatter book bag
contents in mock accidents
for supposed revenge.

As witchcraft conjured
by the nonbelligerent
to silence the bully

I summon some sweet, 
musical, lascivious
words as orphic spells

In self-effacing 
defense to tame the awful
beast with dirty magic....

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She's lavender and cigarettes,
With passion's marks upon her neck— 
A lover's touch, a mother's love,
With blue-green eyes and tender tongue 

She's laughter and she's soothing song,
With smiling warmth and welcome arms,  
Effacing fear and sorrow's stain,
With calming walks within the rain

She's past and present memory,
My oldest ache and newest joy,
With hands that heal the damage done,
Rebuilding what had been destroyed....

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I,
A solitary expression of monumental proportions,
The sum of all parts with extra to spare,
The word and the meaning at once,
Selfish and lonely,
I,
When it's me, I am everything,
When it's you, I don't care,
All for one, and one for one,
The cart before the horse,
I,
Self-reliance, self-sufficient,
Self-effacing, self-indulgent,
Self-absorbed, self-righteous,
Self-made, self-important,
But without you,
I don't exist.

(7/28/92)...

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You lick the tendons of my oxygen-
sucking away my breath bit by bit,
heartbeat by heartbeat-
I am drained like a broken thermometer,
mercury spilling onto the floor
like a small pool of ink.

There is no remedy -
hope has sailed its sinking ship
and I sit around silently
like egg-shell white paint
drying on the living room walls.

Effacing myself was never a choice
so I drifted away from you
like a blue balloon flying away
from a child's distraught hand....

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