How to "deserve" -- how to be "worthy".
How to feel equal to -- how to compete,
partially or apparently successfully so.
How to function well enough "to serve."
How not to be unsteady, how to be rigid;
how to stand, to walk stiffly upright among them.
How to sense their suspicious direct stares
and their sidelong furtive glances.
How to live, to exist, to recognize their aversion to
this repugnant, repellant "otherness", this difference:
and to show them that you recognize, you see,
that you will never -- never! -- be, like them,
"one among the many": a "brother", a "member".
Never! Never, ever.
Snowflakes falling gently on the ground making not a sound
pine trees waving sprightly branches sharing sidelong glances
I hear cornflake crunches beneath my feet, I am keeping beat
to the rhythm of the wind and falling snow, I have to go,
inside a flurry of white pristine snow
inside a fresh puff of wind, yes I know
Snowflakes are falling gently and my heart is calling me home
evergreen moments on a January day, I am never truly alone
I hear the sound of sleigh bells, horses prancing in the snow
to the rhythm of a slow trot, I go, go go go ...
inside this fantasy of silver bright
inside this winter lullaby of light !
Snowflakes falling falling falling, gently in the January snow.
By supervision to me a sight have been shewn
Sultan with a green starboard have been shown
I am telling you what my eyes have known
Sultan with a green starboard have been shown
He opened his starboard and walked through
My heart inside its oil has molten down all
Light of Muhammad covered up the throne
Sultan with a green starboard have been shown
His starboard was white converted to green
I woke up and hit myself with every grain
Dear divine show me again once more by dream
Sultan with a green starboard have been shown
He opened his starboard wend to his road
Lots of thousands of pilgrims at his sidelong
Come dear sinner servant pray for pardon
Sultan with a green starboard have been shown
Dervish Jonah truthfully worship to you Lord
Ones who don't worship deviate from straight road
Dear Allah save us from all sins of old
Sultan with a green starboard have been shown
Written by Dervish Jonah (Yunus Emre)
Translation Onur Ünlü
POINT ZERO
Birth slipped into fast flowing
rivers of patterned fissures
her arching brows brazen
searching sagaciously
microscoping every moment
tangoing across thorny
thickets
Hope gazed at her prayer
puzzle poised with pensive
pencils plaintively planting
plantains for pink parakeet
caressing spines singing
softly stirring custard
pudding
Love thought she was best
berry fruit from which fragrant
juice poured jetting jewels
a silver sabre silently stared
further from truth she stood
a sacked saga sagged
Death smiled enigmatically
held Birth, Hope and Love
in oblong esteem observing
Time’s oval ovaries to strike
sublime a node through
which she sodium sucked
Point Zero zipped in sidelong
zaps dishing each zappy
zodiac zones showering
all four with Infinity’s
zygotes zooming
Point Zero was Hero !
©GhairoDanielsPoetry
&Song2021
She wanted one last verse,
one more night of love affection
I did further than that, reverse
and I showed her my disaffection...
She looked at me sidelong
as if she lacked food,
I made love a survival
Bed Sheets were not even wrinkled
Our almost away kisses
and our separate bodies ...
Our story was left behind,
while live, it was even voracious,
But, It died standing,unqualified
...!
FACES
compelling
features
ageing
into
formal components
of
continuous interest
an
unplanned
unpremeditated
sequence
inventive
& revered
to
capture the soul
images
a
testimony
to mirror
the reflection
setting
apart
sidelong
reactions
to
correlate
the shifts
between
frustrations
& irritations
alongside
the
learned
verbal
& emotional
NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making this enigmatic form a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood is inherently variable.
Copyright © Brian Strand
Jean-Honore Fragonard
with paint was quite a card
Cheeks & bosoms all had a place
in sidelong glances in passionate embrance
waxing
at her sidelong glance
sun, fear of falling in love
blushes hides and sets
full
enthroned blissfully
on chariot of fair lambs
in her bridal charm
waning
rubbing shoulders with
the hard haughty hazy sky
she grows weak and thin
19 July 2021
Anonymous whispers, blowing secrets,
softly blown air through lips, syllables
like sidelong glances down cafeteria tables,
avoid directness, avoid contact, see,
girls nearly women don’t speak of love in the same sentence as sex,
girls in tight jeans, hair slicked certain, lips rosebud red, tight,
mouths moving, practiced phrases of shared intimacies,
lowly blown secrets lying between each other, between the
legs of their lovers, fast fleeting moments of heated fluid,
banging winding paths toward popularity.
girls nearly women, see in me your truth, the ineffective no,
the bruised and unwhole, the wild youth
reigned in too early.
Sidelong the sun beats
in warm pan where loves
naturally happen
Mature love between
apples and peaches,
and looks of pure flirtation
grapes and cherries ...
Nothing carnal ,,,
pictorial
only ...!
Opening the latch,
my mind flits out
through sleep’s
window, roams
in a glimmer.
As the elephants
chase me, I dart
like a Norway rat.
My legs lose quick
pace, when mind
returns my body.
Red tiled roof of
my old school…
a pair of eyelashes
darkened with
mascara…sidelong
glance…
All are broken.
My dad hails, but
his words scatter
far away from my
ears. He flies in the
sky. Mind follows,
but falls upon my
body by dawn.
The moonlet falls,
its stem broken,
and the stars collide
into pieces. Soon
all disappear in
sweat in a flash.
I drink water
from the fear-fall.
A few dreams lie
deep under like
fossils; others
vanish as butterflies.
First printed in issue #16 of The Literary Hatchet (Pear Tree Press, US)
I oft' cast a sidelong glance at this woman I love,
She's been at my side so long,sent from God above,
When I look out at the dawn, I kneel and pray,
Thanking God for her presence for just one more day.
She has been my anchor on the rough seas of life,
I am blessed beyond tears for my wonderful wife.
We go out for a drive in the countryside to see,
This beautiful land that has now come to be,
Our home here in Cyprus until we are set free.
From this earthly bondage in a world of sin,
In heaven with Jesus we both long to be.
Until that time, Our Lord keeps us here,
Happy most times though we shed the odd tear,
We have settled in this land, nice people we find,
As we journey through life,most are loving and kind.
Sometimes the old life beckons from a far off shore,
Where our children dwell, all of whom we adore.
Life is good when they come to our home on the hill,
But when they leave we find that it is a bitter pill.
Back on our own, in our home on the hill in Armou,
But we're never alone, for Lord, we have You.
© Dave Timperley 06 August 2016
here i am in the flesh
no victim levelled in scope
22 catches im cashing
not selling the dope
i watched the sunrise
used to pray sometimes
kids thatd played outside
tho fate did seem unkind
chased a better understanding
even struck with fear
i snuck the beer
tried to duck my peers
i followed a different meter
nothing a solid measure
chosen to conquer pressure
everything a destresser
heart holding me hostage
molted to honest
i bolted the hardest
when the weather was modest
a mouse a giant in microns
goodbye to those by gones
dont question my sigh wrong
my glance isn't sidelong
grapple like pyslocke
i baffle this time slot
id raffle what i got
if the apple had dry rot
a value subjection
the cowl of perfection
the now in dissection
with an owls direction
i mirrored reflections
considered my being
chose service of special
situations im seeing
putting words to the onset
throwing curves in a concept
praise a merge of the object
from curse to the prospect
Obsession Part 4
The chill of morning, children yawning,
I am tired, the blush of dawning has me
feeling ill at ease, my spirit sags,
I barely reach the second floor.
'When will you return? Is Paris so much more
than you have here?' is my unanswered question.
I drag my heels to breakfast,
listless as a lazy dog, and nibble toast,
my countenance as pallid as a ghost.
A letter would be welcomed.
I shall miss you; there, I've said it.
I am your friend, are you not mine?
Tenuous and strained, two casual
acquaintances who share so little time,
we brush elbows, like strangers passing
on a platform, sharing sidelong glances,
afraid to say hello. I watch you as you go.
Alt music serenades an aromatic algebra;
delicious, bitter, subtle notes served black.
We dance the math - I swipe, she smiles,
equations we don't know we've become.
She measures quanta
in these mathematical grounds, a coffee shop
where perfect rationality is axiomatic
and we've all come to get a good buzz on.
Imbibe the finest chemicals on Earth,
in history perhaps, for a minor modern pittance.
Everything is marginally consumed,
we cooperate despite ourselves
and yet we feel alone.
The sign reads 'Figure 8'
That perky sidelong infinite
of Escher, of Godel,
of all those lofty thoughts
borne of a simple brew
and so much mathy froth.
3/12/2016
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.