Sparsely Poems | Examples

That Decrepit Old Man

In the dog days of summer, the kids discover a decrepit house and the old man (Rentaro Mikuni) who lives there alone.
— Zac Ntim, Deadline, 4 Feb. 2025 

He was an old decrepit man, was he not?
His clothes tattered; his trousers held by a knot.
Few rooms: a chair, a table and rotten cot.
He lived in an old ruined house, full of rot.

His clothes tattered; his trousers held by a knot.
He ate sparsely of some fish he sometimes bought.
He lived in an old ruined house, full of rot.
Rarely some good older soul, some meat she brought.

He ate sparsely of some fish he sometimes bought.
Winter was too cold whilst summer was too hot.
Rarely some good older soul, some meat she brought.
Children loved his stories and explained each thought.

Winter was too cold, whilst summer was too hot.
Few rooms. a chair, a table and rotten cot.
Children loved his stories he explained each thought.
He was an old decrepit man, was he not?


Placed 1

Reflections of the Past, Visions of the Future

Sparsely lit streets added suspense
to stories I listened as a child,
dad used to point towards stars
making up stories for each one
awesome fairies, angels visited
me in colorful imagination
He taught me one secret -'truth
is your ultimate friend' his punchline
Mother taught me ways of girl-child
household chores, art of sewing such likes
to this day these teachings are the
good ones that have helped me through

I look through the window at
grandchild. Alert, sharp and busy -
its whole soul buried into mobile phone
swiping, scrolling, controlling
playing videogames wearing headphones
beginning life in illusionary world
no time for dad or mom or friends
no time for stories or for skies
unfamiliar to love, hugs or speech sounds
wasted childhood, less hope of future
wasted activity, lost hope of good things
Can a trampled flower bloom again?

On the moors 11-04-25

There was a great incline of stone, weathered
amongst the sparsely green valley
whose feet lay at the door of a thatched cottage
and whose head I was treading over now.
A fair stream, no wider than a meter,
had had its pulse dried up by the sun
leaving moss strewn on florid rocky deposits,
ran down the length of the valley
transforming eventually into a river that 
sent the local watermills cartwheeling
like ecstatic gymnasts.
In one stride I was over,
hopping onto a small ledge 
and (rather regrettably) crushing its treasured plant
underfoot.
Springing upwards, I skirted the boundary of the valley
rising doggedly above the craggy edge 
and there, waiting in all its recklessness
was the wind.

if

If I have not walked in nature,
Once a day,
If I have not heard a bird sing,
If I have not crouched before a blade of grass,

If I haven’t prayed in front of an old tree
Covered with climbing ivy,
If I have not seen a tiny insect fly
without fear of the hour,
If I have not seen a field sparsely covered with ancient wheat,

If I haven’t shivered in front of a red-throated
curious about my presence,
If I have not regretted his absence for long seconds,
If I have not laid eyes on leaves
or stones without destiny,

If I have not walked in nature
once a day
If I have not seen the Ajonc in winter
and the poppy in summer, modestly red bright,
If I have not been dazzled by the flamboyance
of a mimosa,

If I have not looked up to the poets
and clouds of the sky,
If I have not left the neighborhood tired of everything, and posed
1000 questions to nature,
I’m losing my mind, I’m going crazy like a cockroach.
Men do that too often.

Everything We Know Is Wrong

Everything we know is wrong.
Every spark is truer than fire.
Bring home your tired eyes:
A standard of domestic divinity.
This religious cascade of normalcy.
God has goggles and is passing them out, sparsely.
Keep running for them.
Get tired, then get going.
A limit is a limelight in your memory.
Fortune is like a wild savage burning in a future brain.
Your own true heart sounding insane.
Like a winged organ,
Aloft in the true essence of wonder.

Gravitational Drag

The store is a low-level spaceship
in a starless lot.
The sparsely parked cars
have leagues of loneliness between them.
No one comes or goes they merely slipstream
through a personal invisibility.

Beyond the gliding glow
of glass doors
the anchorless roam
between the high stacked
and glitter wrapped.

Anyone that matters in the daylight
is not here,
Then he sees her,
moons slung from each ear,
she with the dragon tattoo arm sleeve,
her small, half-cupped breasts
daring anyone to be kind.

He wants to be near to her,
yet he only an itinerant broker of bad news.
The few that are here will leave separately
to tunnel into more makeshift hours,
and he must drive far enough away
to be a distance from himself.

Mojave Desert

Miles and miles of nothing, sparsely vegetated
with Joshua trees, desert wildflowers,
ocotillo cactus.
Not much to look at, but
plenty of it to see.

Last Night He Laughed

Last night, just last night

He stared out of his window and up into the stygian sky
In the darkness, there were glints of light sparsely throughout
In the stillness, his mind started to run
But his heart was still and cold as the night
With flashbacks of smiling faces that tell lies
His precarious mind continued to race to no end
Then a lonely tear yearned to escape the corner of his eye
He wanted to oblige by letting it go, as he had done a few times before
But he just couldn't, not this time
He refused to stain his cheeks again with salty tears
Cry?
Men don't cry, right?
Yes, sometimes in the stillness of darkness, they let one or two fly
A man crying? Come on now?!
Yes!
When he's felt the insidious 'Kiss of Judas'...
But last night he didn't cry
Instead, he just laughed...

Last night,  just last night, he shook his head and laughed

Autumns Delicacies

Outside my windowpane 
Daylight dwindles 
Sunshines sparsely 
Further from the new dome skies
Ninety-three million miles away
Imbued in ripened colors 
Nature’s mahogany, oak, and cherrywood trees
and Jogger’s grassy paths once lime greens,
Chanting to changing tones of richer reds
Clustered blue-jays adorn 
Like shimmering rhinestones
Gayly sing above our heads
Shadows stretch out deep
Swaying weeping willows sweep
Smoke smells flow through the crisp air
Musky scent from stonefire oven pits                           
Spiced up dishes mouthwatering lit
Lavish and lustrous ambers crackle
Flaming orange leaves swirl around and prance
Seducing all to voyeur their performance
Golden crinkled copper leaves splayed
Reaching, rustling to the ground
Making shuffling sounds
Minty blues peak through scarlet rays
Fall cashmere shawls display!
Autumn gardens
Nights that linger lasting moments
Granting lover’s time 
For making romance

Palayan

Place sparsely populated 
Above the sea
Laying on the center plain where 
Amber grains shine, where 
Young and old are revered 
As inhabitants
Nestled with grace of affection

Equality

In the judiciary of high quality
Where the advocacy is Equality:
Ideas that keep clashing with partiality 
And would not condone one more cheap casualty…

Outside the court room stripped of Audacity,
In many regions facing Adversity:
Wherever the target is facility,
Not fair matching Dullness with Agility…
 
In Equality we catch the leveler
Of the sedentary one and sworn traveler, 
A sparsely peopled body and China’s spill-over;
Those who sweat all day and the in-clover…

But they’d fight it: Giant made equal to dwarf
For being ships you don’t pair up with boats at wharf…

One doesn’t with Equality front an Earl
Who by reason of Royalty is a Pearl
Or maiden subjects pit against Princess
Who of their own free will they highly assess…
Battling with equality is skin color:
The worse for one whose complexion is duller.

It Happens Each Spring

Freed from cocoons of shapeless winter coats,
Pert women flutter sparsely bright-arrayed
To tempt male eyes and steal my glancing dotes
Though wife lurks near with rain for spring's parade;

Despite air tender-soft as kitten's breath,
She folds pale arms to bring a cold front's chill
Then casts dark glower sentencing my death …
And why?  Because I glimpsed a vernal thrill?

How silence thunders, warning of her storm,
Then sobs whip up cyclonic bursts of wind
As flooding tears beseech me to reform--
But spring!  It's you who've made her this chagrined

And, though Red Cross will mend tornadic path,
'Tis I, alone, must bear wife's springtime wrath!



February 13, 2023
Spring Is Not All Poetry Contest
Michelle Faulkner, sponsor

God Stops Tower of Babel

God had with his finest sensors
Picked the edifice and its sponsors,
Then surfaced to have it videoed.
What angels could have Him radioed!

God,all along Himself radar,
Knew what to do to Man's ladder
And bombs can throw to burst bladder...
Bur-no!-He is always father:
Should God not be man's guide rather?

Men should only sparsely gather,
Save in streams with soaps that lather
No exceptions—Blast Men's Cadre!

And so the Tower kissed Nadir...

The River Mystery

Dry river mystery

The river in the domestic landscape was not as big 
as it used to be, for years, the rain upland fell sparsely 
when the hot summer came, the river dried up.
The river bed was eerily white with a massive overhang
spikey plants as a scar of lumpy skin after heart surgery.
Of the farmer’s four children, three liked to play 
in this mysterious scenery of skull-like rocks, when lifted
had pockets of water like there was a hidden stream 
under the bed, the fourth child had an instinctive fear
of the dry river’s strangeness and kept away.
When the summer was over, rain of epic proportion
came to the mountain where the river’s nascent began.
Suddenly a wall of water ran faster than a train
drowning all in its rouse to meet the sea.
The farmer whose wife had died when giving birth 
to the fourth child was devasted, those will lose 
tongues blamed him for being thoughtless.
Of the surviving child, nothing is known, fading away
as never born.

Remorse

He sat alone…..self punishment
His guilt, despair.
A self-loathing serenade
Playing loudly in his head.
He had stolen!!
Not much by some standards
But an unforgiveable offense
At the level of hunger,
At a sparsely set table.
He had taken half
ONLY HALF
Of his little brother’s biscuit
To feed the gnawing 
Of his own hunger.
And now
NOW
He sat alone
Tasting the salty sting
Of remorse.

John G. Lawless
©6/22/2022

• Short Sparsely Poems
• Famous Sparsely Poems
• Best Sparsely Poems
• Read Sparsely Poems
• Long Sparsely Poems
• Sparsely Quotes