The frosty morn was sullen...
My breath lay frigid to the air.
I walked a darkened wintry trail
To enhance this stark affair.
I sat upon a wooded bench
To give aid to my relief...
Beneath a tree... in winter's grip
That bore a single leaf.
How brave to mock the nature
Of a flagitious winter at its height.
This tree was made of sterner stuff...
I was enthralled by such a sight.
This majestic oak would not submit...
It would not lay stripped and bare
And despite a wintry ill-intent...
It gleaned the morning air.
Each day I'd pass that gallant tree
With its cherished leaf to see.
If it could last through winter's wrath...
There yet was hope for me.
But winter shan't be trifled with
And the oak would bear the cost.
When another day... I walked that way...
The treasured leaf was lost.
I sat again... the wooded bench
As cold whipped me to the bone.
The leaf had died a martyr's death...
Now I was all alone.
The End
Categories:
sterner, loss, morning, nature,
Form: Rhyme
The lush fishing village of Kaloo-Nong
Rich with folklore, dance, and song
Natives thrive in work and play
Through joy and sorrow, day by day
When young Tahina feels lost, tense, and blue
The villagers know just what to do
In the sacred woods they sing tales of yore
Soon Tahina is as happy as she was before
In New York, young Mandy feels anxious, and blue
Her parents know exactly just what to do
An emergency room doctor, sterner than kind
writes a prescription to calm her mind
Months, then years pass, as friends fall away
In a well of despair, Mandy dreads every day
Abandoned and lost with tormenting sensations
Doctors continue to change and adjust medications
Categories:
sterner, depression, lost,
Form: Narrative
In the beginning this boat was bare,
Greenest with infant's sinless stare;
Before soles more selfish than sane
Had trodden its dreary derelict main.
First to blacken its still-tiptop form
Were kith and kin as is sin's norm;
For if brother Cain won't Abel kill,
Which other bloodier maniac will?
Then hopped wild neighbors' feet
Onto this boat's floor sterile neat;
And like schythes thrust to the hilts,
Hurt this bud that yet writhing wilts.
Nor were classmates' limbs and toes
Any kinder to this vessel's prior woes;
Hasty to sprain its ingenuous naiveté,
Sterner kilning did than fire dealt clay.
There finally was that first-ever flame,
Wooled to the wrist like a mild dame;
Which vulpine swill in flannels guised
Took I, and at last this boat capsized!
Categories:
sterner, age, allegory, allusion, betrayal,
Form: Elegy
Wales to me is the strangeness of mountains,
for where I live is as flat as flat.
Wales to me is the singing in unison -
those choirs... the conductor in the top hat.
Wales to me is the musical language,
not one heard in this place where I am,
and Wales is a place of Land of my Fathers
except none of my family were ever out there.
Wales is not England and that's not surprising
when you think of its history and hard travail
regarding the castles and sterner uprising,
for Wales is that land where truth will prevail.
6/2/2020
Categories:
sterner, society,
Form: Lyric
O, why's my love not quite enough
You say that things are super-rough
You have to be insanely tough
And turn your voice up extra-gruff
No time to be a soft creampuff
Solution's made of sterner stuff --
I pray you'll hear this friend's rebuff
~ True love is always THE right stuff
(Iambic Tetrameter)
Categories:
sterner, friendship, how i feel,
Form: Monorhyme
To live is to suffer
Life is rough, sir
The weak cry,
'We've had enough, sir.'
The strong are made of sterner stuff
They reply, 'We'll tough it out, sir.'
Categories:
sterner, life, strength,
Form: Rhyme
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE
If you pull a long face
Just because you had a bad day
That’s alright you won’t lose face
Everyone’s beset some hapless day
If you pull a long face
Day by day come what may
Better know it’s really out-of-place
To pull a long face in every way
Yet if you pull a long face
All your livelong dark day
You had better make an about-face
Or you’d end up in a fray
If you pull a long face
‘Cause none with you will play
Then you have lost your birth-place
You’ll not save face even if you pray
So if you pull a long face
No matter what or who comes your way
Give a damn who looks you in the face
Then you’re made of sterner stuff, not clay
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 2017
Categories:
sterner, courage, humorous, life, symbolism,
Form: Quatrain
Ode to Flowers
Praise to our God for such as one of these,
raised forth to give out beauty in the sun.
A throng of glories basking in the breeze,
the flower kingdom’s parade has begun.
So many times, we seek their eye appeal,
to warm the heart and send a song of love,
or scent a room with sweet morbidity.
Their rainbow colors fill our lives with zeal.
A precious gift endowed from up above,
a field of flowers, waving like the sea.
With petals soft and nature's own perfume,
their fleeting beauty must be caught and loved.
For all too soon some fade in heat of June,
unless a sterner constitution made of.
The honeybee migrates in morning rounds.
At night in spring their ether fills the air.
A flower trembles to the beat of life,
lifting spirits that have sunken down,
spreading seeds of like kind for the next year.
God bless them all like the hyssop loosestrife.
3/29/17
Categories:
sterner, beauty, flower,
Form: Ode
Steve works in a call center
to earn an honest bob
but some days he can't believe
the words that flow from some folks gob
They cus and curse
Then eff and blind -
you'd not believe your ears
and if he wasn't made of sterner stuff
he'd leave the room in tears!
I said to him when folks are rude
to remember the golden rule
Just imagine them sitting in the nude
that way you'll keep your cool!
So when they rant and scream and shout
He thinks of his meager pay
but still tries his best to sort them out
and ends the call with 'have a nice day'!
Posted with the kind permission of Stephen Pennell
10~16~16
Categories:
sterner, for him, humorous, tribute,
Form: Rhyme
" Long be his journey to death! ", someone hollered
as he dragged his feet into the rising dust hotter than sand;
only a defeated and tormented soul would have admitted
looking ahead," Much innocent blood I have shed! "
Gazing sterner than a warrior or merciless king,
he was fearless of what was prophesied by twilight
to him in a temple veiled in crimson and white...
although he claimed his usurped power with a ring.
His palace adorned with ionic, glittering columns
of pure gold stripped off Troy's temples...they were carved by the hands
of slaves, but their phantoms pitifully stared at him begging for their return
to the sun-gilded murals so that they would breath once again.
" Alexander the Great is coming from the North
with a mighty army, even the stones make away
for his conquest as he holds up up his victorious sword...
let him in your city, open the gate and obey! "
A few days passed, then the young conqueror appeared
wearing a shining, silver armor as he gloriously towered
over fortified Athens, the city that later will be conquered by mighty Rome,
and resuming his gallop, he hailed," Long be his journey to death, let him roam! "
Categories:
sterner, death, journey, war,
Form: Iambic Pentameter
Balcony moods
Morning offering;
Song of bird duo
By the yard edge
Bird frolic twitter;
A cheery quartet
Song fills dawn
Sunlight slants;
Window view sparkles
Last night's rain
Wet grounds betray;
Uneven footsteps traced
Joy after sorrow
Traces of old grief;
Ushered out abruptly
Old sepia memories
Silver nitrate etchings;
Old time photography
Haunting faces preside
Mother and father;
Yesterday's courtesy
Today flings
Doors wide open;
Strangers in paradise
Prayers on altars
Everywhere we go;
Living burying the dead
Can you hear
Sounds of old strains;
Voices calling in echoes
This life we live
Takes sterner stuff;
Hope feeds effort
Do you notice
A common melody;
Swirling time after time
Mundane routines
Calls time for after shocks;
Trauma feeds norm
When I listen
Do I hear
Sounds in the silence
Trip to market
Buy and sell;
Barter for things
Hate is fear exposed
Let love attend trade;
Poverty lives painful hatred
Look up and see
Dawn in a flash;
Insight reveals truth
Leon Enriquez
15 July 2014
Singapore
Categories:
sterner, appreciation,
Form: Haiku
BLANK PAGE.
Again I have to cross
A blank page for travel
A wide desert spread
Spaces to far away lands
Which seems even sterner
For the words to instruct
Vehicle of subtler thought
Movement for the select.
Perhaps with a magic
Hand of chance
I will take plunge
Into the inkwell
My fingers wide spread
To write
To find hidden furies
Being born of some dread.
With my solitude
I will come alive
With devilish wide smile
To bail out
Into a liberation
An antiquity of versification.
Categories:
sterner, art, imagination, inspiration,
Form: Verse
BLANK PAGE.
Again I have to cross
A blank page for travel
A wide desert spread
Spaces to far away lands
Which seems even sterner
For the words to instruct
Vehicle of subtler thought
Movement for the select.
Perhaps with a magic
Hand of chance
I will take plunge
Into the inkwell
My fingers wide spread
To write
To find hidden furies
Being born of some dread.
With my solitude
I will come alive
With devilish wide smile
To bail out
Into a liberation
An antiquity of versification.
Categories:
sterner, beauty, creation,
Form: Verse
Twas Watergate which proved once more
The pen is mightier than the Sworn
With pomp and circumstance imbibed
The deed did not, they said, but lies
Though exile begs for sterner stuff
The cover-up proved quite enough
And with that vaunted victory
The fourth estate, filled with esprit
Entitled now to win them all
Does cover up their leftist flaws
Benghazi wrought a flood of lies
Unworthy of a bloody "Why"
Four fallen innocents ignored
Obama's press an undead 'corpse'
A video turned man to beast
So said the mouths of hillary
Without a thought for those accused
Of homicide based on a ruse
Though cover-up once ruled the day
With democrats in charge, that changed
Yet, if the shoe had shifted feet
They'd headline every word and deed
Benghazigate? Don't hold your breath
Truth won't inspire the mainstream press
And stealing secrets always trumps four deaths
Categories:
sterner, philosophy, political,
Form: Rhyme
A seismic tension keeps me waiting
A deep trust below the crust
Of expectations. I fear the coming
Transformation, the fault must
Tear you deeply into so long silence
Love still reads my sterner patience
For if this mountain slides
What awesome swelling sweeps the tides
Categories:
sterner, natural disasters,
Form: Verse
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