"The stars beckoned her song to reach the crescent moon"
The song is sacred her heart broken black and doomed
You see the sun set upon her head making mockery
For her newborn was stillborn oh the hypocrisy
Her song was supposed to reach God and bless hearts
Instead it was one of agony and silver suffering sobs
The light of the crescent moon came through the room
As if death is beautiful weaving tears in a loon
As if her baby is an angel too soon
Glass hearts shattering
From birth to death instantly
Stillborn seems to dream
As I closed my door and lay down to sleep,
A poem came and violently knocked at my door.
Being quite late, I put a rein on my desire to admit it in
Even in my sleep I could hear the faint sound of a knock.
In the wee hours of the morn, as I sat up to house it,
Only scattered phrases and broken lines floated around.
A crazy excitement made me trap them in ink.
But nothing worthwhile showed up on the writing pad.
I found I had only violated the virginity of the paper.
After hours of spasmodic labor pain
What came out was a stillborn with no heart beats.
It lay limp before me and all excitement died down
It's still body, I found had closely resembled me.
Something of me was there stamped on it.
How could I who had parented it,
Callously discard it in a dustbin?
So, I carefully stashed it away in a secret place.
Where no one’s prying eyes would ever fall over it!
April. 6. 2023
~ Placed Third~
Free Submission Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Sotto Poet
Stillborn
Still dead
Still arms, legs,
And a head
Still eyes open
Spoken
Still ripped from utero
Still time to go
A dream instead
From cells molded
Knees folded
Named like me
Who was she?
And the word stillborn
Dreams torn
Word so bleak
From eyes
Tears leak
In coffins buried
Procession not hurried
For two lives gone
Having never seen dawn
Developed with them
Born with them
Then why me?
Why was I
Determined to be?
To exist and they don’t
To feel and they won’t
I’ve made memories alone
Without them, on my own
Existed into adulthood
Stood on ground -
But oh the sound
I cannot imagine it
My mother screaming
Her voice turned grit
As the doctors and nurses
Worked as it worsens
As it was clear breath
Breath was none
It was clear they had
Only a son.
There lives live
With each word I give
To this paper
Their memory; their lives
Will not taper
there's a little dog that's laughing
at a cow jumping the moon
and a cat playing a fiddle
on the wall of a bright room
where a mobile's hanging silent
waiting patiently to turn
like the pages on the bookshelf
that proclaim it's fun to learn
and there's a bible on a small crib
with its cross depicting love
for a child born sadly sleeping
into arms of those above.
Moon willow baptized white light
Dance darkness dewy devine
Bloody babe stillborn
slate gray day's
nocturnal mood
souls sensitive
often brood
upon nature's
whimsy, caprice
yearnings stillborn
know no peace
darkness settles
in forest, meadows
'pon every plateau ~
doused, flames' embers
in shuttered chateaus
Pain abates. A silent love zigzags
through his bullet wound. He is an
Indian mercenary fighting for the
Allies. He was born with a rusted
iron spoon in his mouth. Hunger
made him a soldier. He’s fit, fights
again for the alien cause. Her eyes
trigger his heart. For the first time,
he longs for an armistice. He seeks
for her in the surgical spirit smelling
reverie. A roaring war craft brings
him back from that French nurse.
A dumdum bullet pierces his chest
just before Germany signs! Streets
roar in rapture. Flags flutter above
the neglected agony. The stillborn
love is coffined. A war win is a
celebration over a variety wounds.
Lest We Forget Poetry Competition (Auckland War Memorial Museum) winning poem.
First published in The Literary Hatchet (Pear Tree Press, US).
I am in heaven
Created by the master the all Father
I am a spirit down through the fallopian spiritual tunnel
I'm from spiritual to material matter
In the flesh I'm surrounded in the womb
I rest not at liberty to move alas my breath goes back
Back to the Father I relax for here on Earth
I am dead still born back to heaven I arise I'm alive
Humanities thinks I'm dead that I'm just flesh and blood unless
I am more than that I am still born
9/23/20
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr © 2020
Murmur.
Bloodflow. Heartbeat.
Gurgle. Whoosh. Burp.
Ma. Mom. Momma. Dada.
Hiccup. Thump. Hum.
Mommy. Daddy.
Pitch. Rhythm. Pattern.
Music.
Movement.
Mother. Father.
Scream.
Stillness.
Silence.
10.10.2017
Raw
Intelligence…
Like dry
Cement
Sitting unmixed
Never used
To make
Anything
Real
Raw
Intelligence…
A flashing
Neon light
To its own
Potential
Bulbs
Burning out
One at a time
Raw
Intelligence…
Its shadows
Forever littered
Along a
Lost and
Forgotten
Past tense
Alleyway
Raw
Intelligence…
Like shards of
Glass
In the maelstrom
Reflecting a story
Of what
Might
Have been
(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)
Once upon a time
A baby girl was born
But not a tear she cried,
Not a whisper could be heard.
The baby sleeps in peace,
So gentle and undisturbed.
What beautiful harmony -
That precious little girl.
Once upon a time
A baby girl was born
And through the air she flies
With little wings and a halo.
Through the sky she flutters
Searching for her home
Where she will live forever;
Where she will always belong.
Once upon a time
A baby girl was born.
The happiest baby alive
Smiles at her family below.
YOUR EYES SEE THROUGH
THE WALL BETWEEN US
BUT YOU CAN'T REACH IN
AND GRAB ME
SOLACE IN MY SOLITUDE
MAKES MY HEAVY BURDENS GAIN
THE FALL OF OUR MADNESS
WAS WHEN THE WORDS WERE FROZEN
THE SPRING WAITS
FOR THE SHADOW.
1997
Targatus had come and gone.
Heimann had had his fun.
Enchaptus wouldn't have gone so soon.
Still born are the reason of the emerging moon.
The still borns,
Inverses sorrowful dirge to fun.
Learning had had it that still borns are the born deads.
Learning had made her mistakes,for most alives are deads.
Born with silver spoon connotes nothing.
Ointment of blessing oozing from you makes you wanting.
Recycling in birth and death;
Nigeria is endowedly choked in still births.
17:22:08:11:58
Her mother looked with tears, heart leaking with pains
As the silent body of her newborn laid there
Skin peeling off with every touch
Skull losely packed with pieces of bones
Feeling like a jelly in one's hands
A heartbreaking goodbye it was to the daughter who never lived
Macerated stillborn she was called, MSB for short
Weight less than one killogram that burial was not an option
But only incineration was allowed
A pregnancy terminated before term
Life ending before it could even begin
Mother's eyes watching with aching heart
As hopes bleed beyond resuscitation
A sad day it was
Gone but memories will remain
Her image shall forever exist in her mother's eyes
A story to share and an experience to strengthen others has been created
Tears have flowed, a heart has been broken
Africa has lost but life the journey of pains proceeds.
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.