Stilted Poems

Emotional Depth

Emotional Depth
By 
Damien Mac Mánais

Meandering  thoughts, 
blissful solitude surrounds me,
Hidden in selfish emotion,
well-being 
well guarded 
against selfish caring,
finding yourself 
then another,
lost in a moment,
shattered now
fragmental heart,
scattered upon my soul,
giving oneself so deeply to another
in so short a time,
I feel foolish, 
weakness abounds,
isolated,
alone but reluctant
to give up on myself,
can’t retreat into my emotional instability,
stilted growth of affection in my heart,
hopelessly lost,
feeling so bare,
how come I care, never again....

Terrorist Brother

Terrorist Brother
By Cathrin Stuart
 
A bully is too kind a word to bestow
On a person who will stoop ever so low
To inflict pain and torment on an innocent
A person that is pure evil and malevolent.
 
Like a dung beetle he looks for crap
Always tending to for a slap
Then he hides behind big brother
To make those he torments suffer.
 
His younger sister could not escape
Beat and trapped her under stilted place
Bruised, bleeding, soiled she begged and pleaded
She must feel how in boarding school he was treated.
 
If anyone took him on for what he did wrong
Mommy and daddy would join the throng
Blaming everyone for his bad behaviour
Not accepting lack of discipline their failure.
 
Burning down classrooms or garages
Mommy covered and paid the charges
Stealing his parents blind or drunken threats
Excuses and pity they make with no regrets.
 
They protect their terrorist like he is something precious
Beat his wires, took their money, a parasite - heteroecious
Abandoned his daughter; to put herself through school
Yet you may not object to this person so cruel.

a mistake

The Mistake

He had been invited for dinner in Peking by a group of business leaders who had invested much money for his venture and success, but they thought his fee was too much. I wanted to discuss the matter
He took the plane to Pekin; when he landed, it was mid-morning, but there was no one to greet him, which annoyed him
He called his secretary, who apologized that there had been a mistake. What she had meant was a Peking. The Peking Duck Cafe in Oslo 
He didn’t like to meet those stuffy wealthy people with their stilted language, instead, he bought a Chinese electric car business that gave him pleasure
 Those idiotic Europeans who bought a car that was made in China had intended to sack his secretary, but pleased with his business acumen, he asked her if she was a good mother material.

Cartoon Landmine

A monster of cookies and a man of spiders
Lie in a stilted plastic embrace
On the floor of my shower
Waiting for my sleepy naked foot
Like a soapy cartoon landmine
In the semi darkness
Where I don’t expect to face my mortality
By way of a crushed skull
From a forgotten toy
Regardless of how well it would fit
With the rest of the story
These aren’t the assassins
That I once thought that I would face
Although I do revile the blue one’s
Wanton destruction of innocent pastries
I had conceived of my enemies
In grander terms
Back when my super powers
Were just in front of me
And I was the small naked hero
Narrating the struggle for the world
In the shampoo rain while my father
Far above and far away
Presumably kept score and kept mumbling
Something about something
And the bruises
On his feet

His Feathered Image

Silently, he stood on the edge of a mirrored pool 
For breakfast, he'd have to do a bit of wading
The egret's feathered image I wanted to capture
among wild cattails at this early morning hour.
He seemed to sense that I was watching him.
Stilted legs twitched, poised to take flight
but I was still as overhead, clouds hovered...
whiter yet, than this egret of the morning.

His regal head suddenly turned my way
but I dared not move, not to frighten him away.
His long, graceful neck turned from side to side,
as he tried to figure out if I was something to fear.
He took a stride towards me and then stopped.
A ripple on the pool caused him to change direction.
Breakfast was being served and so, he ate his fill.
I quickly sketched what I knew I'd have to paint.

the lifeless dancer

her dancing was lifeless
mechanical stilted moves
she had no expression
eyes of a plastic mannequin
where was her joy?
did she like dancing?
her mother’s dream
never hers.

Peaceful dreaming

I hover outside the fringes of a distant crowd
a soft disquiet looming beyond the darkness
the moons of Jupiter sucking me into a shroud.

I choose to be pleasantly placid this moment
my eyes fixed at the faint glow of sunset
I will not be choked up in passions that torment.

Melding into an intimacy with the gathering dusk
I feel a chill leading me on a treacherous path
into a garden teeming with hyacinth and musk.

I fantasize a gnome will appear unpredictably
to make murky forecasts in its nave of shadows -
of a stilted, pained future in a poignant tragedy.

Shifting sounds of ocean waves unsettle me -
although clouds are churning under a windswept sky
I cling to the splendor of a serene life to set me free.



@jjote022624

Song of The Raven No 4: AABB

Seasons bring ... the nights, Machiavelli's
Corvus corax or ravens, hints, rallies
birds of good and evil, biblically,
and birds of a feather, ominously,
fed Elijah; 1 Kings 17: ... good,
left Noah; Genesis 8: ... bad, withstood
words by De La Mare, Pollard, and purely ...,
Poe. Riposte's preface specter writes, surely ...,
"Unblackeneds spot the murder from peaks cross.
Fowl scratched a stilted appendaged, exhausts
for ends, internal haunts recuse it from
rituals such ... be marred guilt and succumb
in absentia accused of their acts.
Black king seeks a pawn, the hour ... ink affects."

My First Friends

The first thing I noticed, was that people were nicer to me.

After I started therapy, that is. 

Sure, I was reading from a script. 

But eventually, I started to embrace our conversations. 

Becoming less stilted. 

So that our words can intertwine. 

So that our lives can intertwine. 

I don’t have to ask them to include me. 

They invite me with smiles and nods. 

All I have to do is dive in on my own. 

As scary as that seems.

The first thing they noticed, was me reaching out to them. 

Which is all they expected from me.

They are friendlier than I expected.

I am friendlier than I expected.

The Marsh View

My parents moved recently–
a nice place, marsh view,
plenty of trees and walking trails
a nice big kitchen for Scottish breakfasts.
Their deck upstairs looks out 
on the marsh water shining in the sun.
The aquatic landscape broken only
by the stilted legs of hungry herons.
The floorboards no longer creak
beneath my ocher footsteps
and I feel like a visitor here–tourist
Then I wonder, how much of myself
was left in those creaking planks?
How much of my life is threaded 
in their wooden veins?
Perhaps this new deck doesn’t creak
only because I’ve shed the weight
of my childhood, the cloak 
of memory–disrobed and I am refreshed
like new bamboo shoots in spring.

No Regrets

If I could take it all back
Every wrong ever wrought
Every regrettable thing
Every broken wing

I'd lay it all to rest
In an unmarked plot
Over which I would plant 
Quiet thyme
And no-leaf clovers
Lilies of denial
And forget-me-nows

There would be no memorial
No elegy, no eulogy 
No monody, no dirge
Not even a calaverita
Unless one is desperate
Enough to count this poem
This nobituary, if you will    

No lamentation
No regrets
No go-away birds 
No mourning doves
Nor egrets to bear the pall 

Only leave the dead featherless
Laid down without down
To comfort them
And the egrets
Stand stilted and white 
As nothing
Melancholy
As marble statues
In the silk gray dusk 
Like lilies on a grave.

Dr Shemirani

Kate Shemirani
You tossed your cape
Walked heart burning
A stand to make
You became by default
Freedoms M C 
And on the attack'
Calling out medical; hypo-cracy
Genocide in stilted tone; acclaimed
At davos' you helped make known'
Your fight and fervor 
For God and right
Shone in Britians covid nights'
Reiner Füllmich Dr Coleman
Just some allies against
The grotesqe and gruesome
I applaud today, your sense of right
All reality enjoins' I regard the plight
I pit my worth; i make the stand'
I support humanity innately grand
(You do no harm) in speech and act
What the n h s deride you so well enact'
Your days of study; your years of care
Has gained respect, just everywhere'
The title of Doctor I ascribe you here
The only one thats fitting
By a whole light year.'

God bless you Dr Shemirani

Irish I Hadnae Tried: Dechnad-2

Pump up the game, pen is aflame
Blame is borne most gladly
Forms found, once lost, require reclaim
Aim - not blow by badly

Stifled at best, stilted arrest
Pressed to slide out smoothly
Tiptoeing lightly, I'll attest
Lest we wake thee, soothly

Sure to try more, now out the door
Score some freshness infused
Mirthful, merry, soaking up stores
Mor, I'm mostly amused

----------

Tricky, tricky! My worst (Mor) so far, but also my first so far...

The Dechnad Mor: an Irish quatrain with 8a:6b:8a:6b, 2-syllable end rhymes, cross rhymes, and alliteration

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/dechnad-mor-poetic-forms

Drums Through the Bramble

Atheist or Pagan
which gets to dream
reasoning stilted
 spirits unseen

Rational narcissist 
tribal taboos 
if given the choice
it’s easy to choose

Atheist or Pagan
contrast to compare
the first in self-worship
—the second aware

(Dreamsleep: March, 2022)

Maybe Love

love
such a finicky feeling
a feeling
a fleeting emotion
infinite definitions
with cruel subjectivity
maybe i did
maybe i didn't
why does it matter
my answer wouldn't change your feelings regardless
how can four letters hold such power
to steal you from my life
love 
i don't know what it means
i don't know what it looks like
love
like a friend or something more
something you didn't want
all-consuming adoration
i just want what is best for you
maybe that's the same thing
maybe i never did
it doesn't matter anyways
when i'm confronted with your
stilted conversation and guarded eyes
love
pains twin flame
my melancholy gaze
trained on your tight lipped smile
this wasn't how it was supposed to go
my love

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