Short Smarting Poems

eyes smarting with tiredness,
not registering on the words I see,
heart aching with heaviness,
looking at the last letter you wrote to me,
pages full of the love, that wasn't to be.

Penned 26/7/2017...

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I have seen people just about starting,
There’re others at the end of the rope
crisis ridden and with anguish smarting
and latched onto a diminishing hope
With sorrow no longer able to cope.


~Janice Canerdy contest....

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Mermadic waves, her feminine tailspin kaleidoscopic.
Drastic and hypnotic, nautical miles in search of new blood.
Sea’s miffed with white caps drawing Neptune, smarting for epic brawl.

6/4/2020
Let the Pens Flow - Sijo Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Jenish Somadas...

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Remember when we were young- 
Like Quails on the wing.

Darting smarting all so refined-
We chased rainbows to the end.

Little did we know they lied-
A life forever was implied.

Our eyes now mirror the uncharted-
Melancholy we are for the departed.

We now sit huddled around tables
and reminisce ;

Like awkward Hadedas in lamentable bliss....

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Dots of light dotted the dome
Displaying dismal disks
Halfhearted innuendos of harmony
Repetitive, unremarkable recordings
Minimally interesting, middle class, mediocre
Small wonder he thought, smirking, smarting
Discipline dismissed, discarded
Replaced with fun, funk and fad
Foolishness fueled Fukem, he fumed
No more, no more, no more
The military, military school, immediately!...

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SOFT HEART – RAW NERVE

suspecting my position is unsound
accepting sinking feelings I
may drown

heartbeat limp and malleable
gentle and mellifluous yet
scarcely stable

smarting anguish of frayed nerve
raw, synthetic hyper alert
tests reserve

escaping at last to spaces I go
pacified nerve and compliant
heart flow


 (‘mellifluous’ = pleasing to the ear)


© Kim van Breda—April 2014...

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COPLA CINCUENTA Y DOS: This Bad Guy World

Stand and fight! Don’t abandon the field!
Confront not the Enemy alone:
Bad Guy cowards

So long as Good Guys drop their shield
Bad Guys will multiply and clone
Filthy innards

Yi Jing says denounce the Yin first
Let everyone see its bared face:
Make public – fate

Seek not to quench your smarting thirst
The more it hurts the more the furnace
Will burn in hate!

© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014...

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Stunted fingernails scrape back
the first slither of orange skin,
bounding a torrent of zest to spurt
into the royal keyhole of my soul,
stinging, watering - heartbreaking.

Reluctant, I remove the fruit’s shell
longing for a worthy distant aim
to splash upon an unwary significant,
instead, my citrus emotion’s reflected,
discarded, rejected - abandoned.

Eyes smarting – juice offends a single soul.
Pith concealed – surplus heart needs healing....

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Each word I place
is cupped in my hands,
till the page unfolds
to accept my offering


in the stain of each letter
is the blood of my tears
and my sorrowful fears
magnificent in love
and joyful bliss
arias of evermore
ripple to watermark


as each curve
embossed into form
it came to life,
smarting with the etching
but ever ecstatic
in the release


And,
with the closing
of my book
lines will be straight
the backs bound
in titanium


standing for all time...

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