The expectation of approval is decay
It creeps in days of illness full of sorrow
You tarry stolidly until it shrinks away
And disappears with the morning croaks of crow
Poor thing, it cannot stop its hoarse lament
At least you hear it this way, although it might
Just laughing, and you fail to understand
What’s going on, what’s happening outside.
As you are always anchored to the past
The future comes unnoticed, which seems great
Forgetfulness takes up a final thrust
Memory wins, but no one cares, it’s too late..
In this hospital…
That is like a tinderbox.
Our screams do not turn us ablaze-
Neither will sitting stolidly.
But if we try to remember the times before we turned evil…
Then this hospital…
Will become fully inhospitable.
11/11/22
Tinderbox
Edward Ibeh
Superb the sounds of summer’s soliloquy
So sweetly singing the sparrow’s song,
Sometimes she sounds suddenly sonorous
Since startled sparrows sing shrilly strong,
Summer sounds so singularly sacrosanct
Swallows and swifts sing slow and soft,
Sailing skyward like sandpipers swinging
Standing, then, on solid sand sashaying
Soon sauntering, staying satisfied, sane,
Soothing summer sounds stolidly serene.
Written August 18, 2022
Legacy
Inheritors we are of depravity,
yet blame do we the ignorance of
those whom graves stolidly invoke,
or pity do we the oblivion of
the unborn, who, in our dirty shoes
shall sordidly rule the seven seas?
BITE SIZE POEM no24 Poetry Contest
Date: 27th October 2021
Was I a bit too real for you
too raw, like meat bleeding on the butcher’s block
too honest like an angel
as I stripped the skin from my flesh
flesh from my bones
put every prickling nerve on display
every taut tendon
Did it frighten you to learn the truth
of what lies beneath the searing burns and scars
below the surface as if I’ve been lashed
by the thorny branches of a honey locust tree
Did you find yourself choking on your rank hypocrisy
Your pathetic platitudes about love
empty mewlings about empathy
as you stand there stolidly silent
setting yourself apart from all the nobodies
behind your walls, your fences to protect your privacy
when you know damn well their true purpose is to prevent
what you don’t want intruding
in your perfect fantasy of champagne soirees
your loafers polished to a high shine
black mirrors in which you can see yourself
instead of us, instead of me
From those festering wounds my words come
the poetry I pen, the rhymes I wrangle, the worlds I write
searching for a guiding light
someone to share this journey
The Start
A plain white piece of paper,
was waiting on my desk.
Waiting for me, just me.
Or Waiting for you...
just you?
Who put it there?
Why would they care?
What do they want?
Will it matter?
The reason for the surface,
clean and stolidly pure...
was to begin a story, start a poem,
or perhaps build a bridge to "possibility".
Emotion not yet caught,
quartered and or...
placed in the right spot,
will be needed to complete...
the process.
Time being the underling issue,
in all our lives.
We dream...
and even think...
and dwell on wonderful things,
but never put them down.
Instead, we put them off.
Time is really the answer.
Make it your own, bend it and
work it into "compliance-y" with your life.
Never let it take from you,
and give it only what you feel it is due.
Precious not to be wasted...
to be considered a treasure,
in every breath.
Again the paper waits.
The question remains...
He leans upon his crooked staff,
impassive face and yet,
with shoulders hunched and tired still
waits payment of the debt.
He gazes as I check my watch
then wearily turns away,
yet only is my old friend Death
who watches as I pray.
Dark shepherd stolidly drinks in
afflictions of my flesh,
which do not touch the man within,
nor spirit can enmesh.
Though facing life without a hope
my joy within’s undaunted,
I’m happy for each measured breath
and precious moment granted.
Suspended time in which we wait
and we wait close together,
he may not smile but has no hate,
his job is just to gather.
To some such a thing would seem to be
A waste like sunsets never seen
Whose brilliant splash of corporeal hues
Ignites a moments symmetry
The saffron fires, the sizzled throes
The tinctured celestial overtones
Of all that light in bending makes
Of all that nature shares of soul.
He stopped upon the edge of sea
And cast an eye so stolidly
With withered gaze he glanced
Its vivid, lancing memory
The final fury of a sphere
Whose tumult lights our world
Passed with dual gravity
Beyond our earthly rill.
To such some men would dare compare
That mortal strain whose sweet despair
Brings only candor to the soul
But leaving leaves man there
To love what sunset never seen
Has cast its rabid sultry sheen
Upon the waning noon of life
And leaving woken naught the night
Red metallic case
To extinguish burning flame
Stolidly silent
Wanted from the world,
The debt of responsibility
Preys on her mind
And weighs down her soul,
Clinging sticky
Like a spot of amber tree sap,
Cavalierly touched,
And afterwards offensive.
The grinding stone of expectations
Moves stolidly round and
About the kernels of
Vanishing freedom,
Ground into the grit
Of everyday existence.
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