Stymied Poems

The Candle Tip

I use my grandma’s cookie shapes
For Chanukah each year.
They’re plastic and so very old
They might not persevere.

The candle cutter’s broken
So it’s hard to get a grip
On the pieces (there are 3 of them),
Especially the tip.

Since I’d hate to leave a shape out,
I just take an extra sec,
But today, between the batches,
I looked down and – what the heck?

For the candle tip was missing
And it wasn’t on the floor.
I had used it, so this wasn’t something
I could just ignore.

If I’d rolled it in a cookie,
An occurrence I would doubt,
Then the batter wouldn’t flatten
Since that piece would stick right out.

For a while I was stymied,
Then I checked one ball of dough
Which I’d gathered up until
My cookie sheet had room to go.

And voila! I found that sucker
And the lesson that I learned
Is to keep track of the flames
Wherever candles are concerned.

Rafah in flames

My flaming tears cannot douse 
the tents aflame.
My burning eyes can never unsee
the corpse of a headless baby.
My beating heart yearns to
give life to those stilled.

And still the killing continues unabated…

My soul shudders in grief
at the horrors visited upon innocents.
My intellect feels stymied, perplexed
by the incredulity of support given to
a genocidal entity.

Can they still claim to be victims?
Stop. Stop. Stop!
Enough killing. 
Enough slaughter.
Enough…

Title 4 Angelic

“And so it is, that both the Devil and the angelic Spirit present us with objects of desire to awaken our power of choice. There is an invisible strength within us; when it recognizes two opposing objects of desire, it grows stronger” ~~ Rumi~~


Though I will not bow to temptation
Will I vow to stay strong ?
Can I resist the devil’s vexation.
For ever so long?
Such niceties on offer I see.
Can I now resist?
These titillating tidbits please me.
How can I desist?
Is there goodness within my soul ?
Do I see the ere of my ways?
Will I keep God’s commandments whole,
And reject Satan’s displays?
Does the fight betwixt these two,
Make me stronger to defeat evil’s winning,
And so to reject all sinning?
I feel the surge of power as I feel my need.
To resist the demon enticing me.
The devil is pulling me and must be stymied.
Following God’s word, it is true purity.
Inside there is a burning fire.
I have the strength to accept or reject it all at will.
I now can pull back from desire.
Even stronger I have become and will be still.

Stars of Clarity

Sitting at her bedroom desk late one night,
a woman looks out her window.
Night has fallen a glorious midnight blue,
and stars, like lofty glittering thoughts,
pulse for her their confessions in the depths
of nightfall’s essence.

With her muse having been stymied now 
for many days,
the poetess reaches deep down
inside the indigo of her soul until,
immersed in her thoughts,
she searches for only those that shine
with the beauty of profundity.
Ignoring old memories of bitterness or pain,
she starts to move her pen 
upon a slate of white – a page in her writing journal.
She looks a while longer out the window
reflecting on night’s background of brilliant stars.
It comes to her then: they are stars of clarity.
Her pen is now moving rapidly over the poetry page.

Immersed in inspiration, she lets words tumble from her mind
until, by sunrise,
she has completed her poetic endeavor
with verses as sublime as the lapis sky of night.
Feeling utterly fulfilled, she realizes
the poem is one of her best,
for its words shine like
stars of clarity.

Haven of Hope

Stymied by stygian thoughts
On a moonless, murky night, 
Black is this chasm of soul's severe sorrow, 
Midnight hues paint their negative musings
In somber shades of non-inspiring rhythms;
Inky gloom pervades the mind, 
Bleak are the beats of darkness, 
Notions conceived at this hour are dreary, 
Transforming into tormenting nightmares, 
Nagging the heart with worries and unease;
Drifting off to troubled sleep
In soul-sick state suspended, 
Till the heart holds tight to Haven of Hope, 
Flooding the grim recesses with sunshine, 
A tentative smile plays on faith-filled face;
A glimpse of glimmer appears, 
Shadows give way to rainbows, 
All's well with the world of woven wonders, 
The joy of The Lord strengthens my being, 
God-granted grace dispels dismal despair, 
Encompassed by Christ's true Love, 
Light shines through and I find rest.

The Bell Tolls - Any Topic Any Form

I
F
only I
could navigate
to stay so far away
from the idle brambles.
Transcending into oblivion.
Melding onward in transition,
Forcibly blocked continuance,
A mouse stymied in a maze.
Not any forward progression
My endeavour, to look back,
To retrace the journey so far.
Abandon the will to proceed.
Return from whence we were.
No wise, guiding light to follow.
Search for a better way forward.
Seeking from my Spirit in the sky.
He releases the confusion suffered.
Leading from this halted way of life.
Still illuminates His pathways onward.
For eternal bliss is granted by His presence.
Freedom unhindered by God’s Almighty Grace.
As He makes the bell toll for me as He rings it with 
His
Love
!

Yen

 i drew 
        my bedroom curtain 
      this morn' and scanned 
           the outside world 
            for inspiration.
    i'm stymied by writer's block, 
              yet I bruise 
    blank papers with my pen 
     to craft the extraordinary 
         out of the ordinary. 
             my poetic ink 
       is drying up, yet I feel 
           this gnawing yen 
          to keep scribbling,
            to keep taking 
     the overlooked in nature 
          and beautifying it;
                   a leaf,
                 a pebble, 
              a crack here, 
          an aperture there.
        i look for inspiration 
        close to, or confined 
           within my home, 
        worthwhile moments,
                 sounds, 
                emotions 
              that still gift 
            my imagination 
             wings to soar.

Zen Mode

slow strangulation
osmotically penetrating
the very fabric of our being
stymied before fear germinates
simply by our nonchalant observation
plateaus off the sunken vibration
which we look at slowly ebbing
disengaging from our ego

such are silent battles we wage
moment to moment, day by day
that we may dwell in light of Self

Decoding

Questions are proliferating,
people search for answers
in old pants pockets
in long discarded purses.
The scampering feet of baby philosophers
can be heard from the moon.

The media is stymied, they are manipulating,
confiscating and hiding behind the backs
of massively overgrown ballers,
willy-nilly they scribble an alternative reality
upon indoor swimming pools.

The manic mayhem of our daily grind
is wearing our hair thin,
Somebody should take control of the truth,
but it keeps dodging questions
and slamming doors behind it.

Mark my words with invisible ink,
scratch a cat behind its ears,
somersault all you like
but we are all getting overrun
by imperfect pontifications
by the indecent Doctors of spin.

and all this endless self-questioning
keeps replying over and over again
but only in unbreakable code.

The Troll Who Did Not Care

The troll did not care
He was miserable
And glad of it
It had become his normal

His misery fed off of itself
Worms of destruction tried to shake him
He would not relent
He was comfortable in his stymied state

No one tried to speak to him
They left him in the forest
Where he petrified
Terrorizing those who stumbled upon him in the dark

Written In Sky

Stymied suburbia, 

modern disquiet lingers.

(Strange harbinger.)

Sun rises

hovers radiantly just -

over the skyline,

Third Eye opens wide.

The Lion and the Gypsy

The Lion and the Gypsy

For some, life is simple in raw assertiveness,
With no disarmament of conscience, alertness.
Beneath a moonlit sky, a heartbeat from closed eyes,
The wild beast presides with the power over life.

Sleep, child. Water to drink and music to compose,
Let the restraining odour fill the lion’s nostrils.
Whose appetite is satiated and mind perplexed
Questions itself, ‘is it living or is it dead?’

The gypsy, tranquil, reclines on the sands of time,
While the big cat is stymied by its unresolved find.
His, the will to survive with the instinct to kill, to eat,
Hers, the want of love to create and the desire for peace.

Where now destined the lion and gypsy shift,
The outcome determined and the conclusion swift.
                                  ***

Note:
   ‘The Lion and the Gypsy’ is an ekphrastic poem perspective of the 1897 painting "The Sleeping Gypsy" by Henri Rousseau (1844-1910).

Watching

Two years ago today we watched 
The Capitol attacked, 
In disbelief at all the sense
Our leader surely lacked.

In shock and horror we were glued
To any screen in sight 
As protests turned to violence
From those just thrilled to fight.

Today we watch the circus
As the House attempts to vote,
Our government still stymied
By some mulishness of note.

A strong conviction’s often worth 
A fight, to some extent,
But once we knew lines not to cross,
Which now some circumvent.

A Salute To My Favorite Poet

Poets aren't noted for raking in dough,
They may get some attention,
But it's mostly for show.
Take, for example, the bard Ogden Nash,
His writing brought him great pleasure,
But he still worked to earn cash.
From mail room to Broadway,
With other jobs in between,
But no plebian endeavors
Could his verses demean.
His humor's urbane, erudite, and compelling,
And when a word wouldn't rhyme right,
He adjusted the spelling.
Of all of the poets the world has created,
I like quite a few,
And there're a few that I love,
He is the one I have most emulated,
And if he could read my poems,
I like to think he'd approve.
As a general rule rhyming's easy for me,
But at times when I'm stymied or fogged in,
I don't take time to snivel,
Or settle for drivel,
I take heart and start channeling Ogden.


Entered in Beloved Poets Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Regina McIntosh
Jan. 10, 2023
Fourth Place
Thank you, Regina

African Americans Celebrating Juneteenth

"AFRICAN AMERICANS CELEBRATING JUNETEENTH"

Juneteenth, Juneteenth, Juneteenth
What does it really mean?
Slavery ending news, delivered two years late
155 years to date, black people still have to wait

African American celebration of freed slaves
Home of the free and land of the brave
We've suffered such brutality
Equal rights, still not a reality

From whence we came, some improvement
That has produced the least movement
The country's problem, is our color 
Constantly being labeled the other 

A perceived freedom, what have we learned
Still being denied, what we've rightfully earned
Ending slavery, an alleged act of liberation
Is it really a celebration?

They love our culture, but they don't love us 
This optional choice, has stymied our trust
Over time, as a race, we've made some gains
But our mental psychic, is a lasting source of pain

For the pittance and crumbs left on the backdoor step
We should've been grateful and appreciative, before we wept
Reminiscing on the storied history
Unlocking the chains of a hidden mystery

Juneteenth, Juneteenth, Juneteenth
What does it really mean?

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