Straddles Poems

PEOPLE OF PROCESS

There he sits
In a cell of choice
Paying the price
For shattered voice

She stands on a stage
Belting out words of hope
Inside, cowering in a corner
With a frayed rope

They hold their signs
Gather in crowds
Shouting powerless views
To attempt a break down
...of numbers

Isolated in countries
Without a proper home
Everyone comes in
But leaves them, alone

Humanity straddles the knife
Begging for a peaceful life
Finding division and descension
While prophesying ascension

Those who follow LOVE
Have no beginning or end
Flowing through process
Even when...

        again and again

Written by Trudy Schrader on 06-17-2025

Reverse Cyrano

“Reverse Cyrano” 

Reverse Cyrano 
new wave poetry 
straddles the ruins

milked
with two sugars
dark Tea dreams

red leaves laquer 
the vain roadmaps 
that stain the ingrained

with pommegranate poetry
the bejewelled heart 
sweet and tart 

and thick 
skinned
sliced and skewered

each granate 
a sparkling 
hidden gem

within the ruby 
words written 
riding astride those worlds 

like wolves 
in those comforting 
dicomforting whispering woods

for Cyrano reversed 
so easily contracted
a hidden god and a poet 

that lost lovers 
may find submerged 
in disoriented time adrift,

eyes open-wide undestracted,

the ravenous misunderstood unmissed.



Candide Diderot ‘25

NOELLE COTTAGE MAINE

   Noelle Cottage straddles ledges of grey,
   Extending into waters of Casio Bay,
   Along Small Point’s shoreline of Atlantic Ocean,
   Observing forest, sky, and ocean devotion.

   Feathered fliers: Osprey, Sea Gull, and Eagle,
   Their diet all favorites and everything legal,
   Overhead wing-singing their various tunes,
   Hunt above beaches near sandy, beige dunes.

   Noelle Cottage awaits - at the end of Shore Road
   Where sea-salty breezes generally flow,
   Among acres of Fir, Birch, Maple, and Pine,
   Awakening fond memories obscure in time.

   Life by the sea is always a challenge.
   Happiness there’s a joyous challenge to manage.

Songs of Nature COS No 7: ABBA

Grants of Old World charm Masterpeace painters,
of seeping river form serene calmness
'ere petting midst boulders scores harmonious.
The dangling vapor straddles like strainers
whilst flows push on, tunes melodious sounds.
A feral beneficial component,
that translate, at the same time, a moment.
Fortuitous sun, a firm sky surrounds.
Burst kissed bluing off, seeds of tried gain calms
give planting due credits and naught to waste
and make any change or set a fast pace.
Wake the contributary book of Psalms,
Earth's elemental force stimulation,
bestilled and collected grand sensation.

Heroic

Maintain silence when anger straddles your heart.
Words flung in fury morph into poisonous darts.
Forgive slights, however burdensome they may be,
Releasing hatred creates space for positive energy.
Lower your gaze in modesty, humility, respect.
Hubris caused a fallen angel to become a reject.
Charity spread without expectation of reward,
Often from the giver perils and disasters abort.
Unconditional love in all manner, form and shape
Offer generously; many boons your soul shall drape.
Have faith despite adversity and loss heart-rending.
Patience will provide succour, solace never-ending.
Courage stems from fear faced, terror defeated.
Heroic acts not always are with glory treated.

Eunuch Encouragements

Elephant trunk palms column, canopy claps hands
   Undergrowth glad heart shape leaves spiral 
   Navigator vines map branches, brace boa banyan 
   Utile duenna diary with my duties conspiring 
   Chaperone rope binds silent beside my grand plan


   Helpmaster holsters my faltering stride, hips squared
   Essential weapon for war against mediocrity
   Netted fruit bag binds ideas, ripe inspiration shared
   Collaboration binges exchanges evocatively 
   Oversees growth, buffers fumbles, humiliation spared

  
   Unbias advisor straddles drama, miniscule mosquitos
   Raised beyond current, stilts lift clear of silt
   Above ravaging river, twig leg log cabin cosy kudos
   Guileless sunrise server castrates lumpy guilt
   Enmeshed mirror wishes bud symmetrical smiling rose

 
   Mentor each moment monitor prods my furtive dreams
   Enlivens rainblur haze, unravels twisted maze
   Narrows channel between now and zany zone supreme
   Twines possible to present, pours zesty praise 
   Strengthened, gender invalid, my meridian self esteem





                           9th June 
                    Carbonised Agenda

The herder

The wind puffs into hills and across the dale,
Dusty, and thrashing lashes with a gusty gale.
As the herder stoops holding his club in hand,
He watched the eagle in pique as it landed.
The two crows were circling overhead in a sway
With their hungry eyes fixed on eagle’s prey.
Soon, the eagle was grappling with all its might,
But the final was hunger turning to a bitter spite,
As it straddles soaring saddened into the sky,
So the herder amazed told his kid with a sigh
Racks of our lives are very nearly to the wild,
Where cats roars and prowls hog-wild,
And monkeys swinging through trees, tall and thick.
As waterfalls splashes loud, cascading fluid thick,
A call which is heard by birds winging above,
And creatures which scurries slow and rough,
Jungle is possibly of beauty to humans instead,
A feeling solely defined from sight as they lead
The elite strolling in wonder and delight,
The wild unrelentingly fight, so is our plight.


Copyright 2023

O Honey

“O Honey, the brute bear, straddles the box.”
The saxophonist stares. “Music unlocks

the stuffings out of the dread growling beast.
Bear’s tongue does round his lips. Am I his feast?”

Goldilocks laughs. Saxophonist funny
and a great storyteller. “Now the bunny!”

His daughter points gleefully at its tail.
Dad closes the box, locking both in jail.

“The animals stuff their ears with their paws.
waiting for the whale to open its jaws.

Lo! They hear the great musician and hope
that the conductor will throw them a rope.”

Golden curls bob, “You make no sense, you must
unlock the box before the waters rust!”

“Suddenly roars, a quake - the box growling,
bunny scratching…” Dad and his muse rolling.

7/28/2021
Brian Strand’s Couplet Contest

Titan Is Tamed

A white horse stomping dream rides 
thundering hooves jump off ridges
beyond mountains to distant realms,
euphoria ripples in speed of lightning.
its coat gleaming like a crystal palace.
roaming free of saddles, prairies yonder. 
big eyes in wonder, unfettered reins
accelerating spirits of broken chains.
Yet in it's furious speed and strength 
stillness of torrents, a Titan is tamed.
In caress of a hand, fondling of a neck 
a canter is waned, a bareback bridled . 
A shore straddles ecstatic ocean waves 
in lullaby notes , folk music soothed.
A majestic beauty in quiet green pastures,
white stallion gallops, blue horizon erased. 




28th March 2020

Sponsor	Michelle Faulkner
Contest Name	Some Paradise Where Horses Go

Splash-Less Beyond Trees

*Image of Tolumne River by Giphy.


Splash-less Beyond Trees


A river seeps forming a bend,
exposed to some serene calmness,
ere fumbling amidst a succession of boulders,
petting them for a harmonious score,

whilst the breath of dangling vapor,
straddles o'er it throughout its caresses of trees,
approaching both fronts ...,

the melodious tunes,
correspond to the two contemporaneous fixtures ...,

nature, being its beneficial component.


2020 March 01
*1st Place*
A BRIAN STRAND 1097
~~Brian Strand: Judged 2022 March 27

Oh Snap

Bushed
scrambles
straddles the
belled flower strands
for a treacherous hold camera pose


2019 September 21
#3
howmanysyllables
1,2,3,4,10

Me and My Shadow

A shadow’s bean juts out over the shore
One that I have not seen before
Enlarged beyond my own
No color, no tone. 

I’ve been this way for many a time
Was young then and in my prime,
I have not seen it until now
Missed it, but how?

No streaks from the sky could be this
It troubles me but how could I miss, 
It was not from a dream
My reality seems so extreme

Tried to imagine intergalactic arrival
Would life here end without survival?
What if there becomes annihilation
This would stamp out all such creation. 

If I am this shadow I would be the same
Only thing is, whence did it came
Comparing my motions as I walk
It straddles me and doesn’t talk.

I know shadows occur but not like that
I had ones that were smaller and younger in fact,
It didn’t shimmy to or from
Gives me the chills, just can’t get warm.

I noted some changes in shape and trim
It looked at me in sort of a grin,
Tapped me on my left shoulder
“I am you, we are now much older”.

Fly, Not As I

Vapor trails of jetting Jets
Pattern the dawn blue sky;
I gaze unseeing the passengers
With courage to fly, not as I.

Without firm ground beneath my shoes,
Fear straddles my old shawled shoulders.
Is this what it is, I muse
To be “older” and growing “older.”

In my closed eyes a boulder rises to my face,
Safe, soft statistics drift like shreds, crumble.
In my world this feeble flying fear
Freezes good sense; I am humbled.

A Motherly Seed

For each tear that wells within
my seams
another straddles my dream
For each song that frames 
its retracted darkness
so does its glow refine the gleam...
And sows 
as a motherly seed

Africa

The land of Baobab and Acacia sassa trees
The proud land of our forefathers.
The home of the fastest animal on earth - Cheetah
The oldest inhabited territory on Earth, 
Who handed treasure of wisdom down to us
The most-populous landmass. 

The place of origin of humans and the Hominidae clade.
The land of the the most abundant antelope, the impala 
The land of sunshine and bird songs
Cut almost equally in two by the Equator

It straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas
Hosts a large diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages
Africa's has landscapes of many changes. 
With beaches, rain forests, islands and dunes, 
its climate keeps you guessing all afternoon 
Contains an enormous wealth of mineral resource and 
largest numbers of megafauna’s species

From her Warthog to her Giraffe, 
from her Impala
to her ground, bound Ostrich, 
Africa's home to so, much wonder, 
that it's hard to leave this land, down under!

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