There's a pile of sullied threads on the floor
from muddied quarrels of our yesterdays
Remnants of life that we stripped bare
like sheets from a bed needing laundering
It's a hoard of soiled and frayed toggeries
too foul from words to be properly cleansed
I thought of trying to bury the lot of it
but shoveling the hurt left blisters on my hands
Invasive memories haunt many of my dreams
They are suffused deep within my thoughts
An inured scent of us will linger, unbleached, abused
like worn jeans as long as they remain unwashed
How long before I can ignore them lying there
gathered and rumpled in an alcove in my mind
Dark stains that only bring me pain and discontent
Too tainted to be purified by dirty human hands
Categories:
sullied, lost love,
Form: Free verse
On the streets of Lagos,lumbasa , Kigali,
Cairo and their environs
Shame etched his name on thy skin
Thou art become a site for dumping
For all willing to dump
Gone is thy once-proud stature
Now a harlot to Pitiable exchange
Opening for every Harry with a Dick
To be violated time and time again
From noble lineage thou sprang
Chastity thy emblem of might
now a vessel of disdain
Clad in rags, masquerading as night
Oh, how the currents of time dost erode
The virtues once etched in thy core
Now bartered for fleeting gold
Adorning thyself, a mockery to adore
What tempest ravaged thy noble frame
And stole thy essence, pure and bright?
Was it the ceaseless onslaught of shame
Or the fading whispers of thy inner light?
And now thou art but a shell
A mere specter of once was
Thy name a symbol of lost fame
A testament to virtue lost
Categories:
sullied, africa,
Form: Free verse
The nonstop drip, drip, dripping drops of rain,
drum pitter-patter patterns on my brain.
And I slowly start to slip-slide past sane:
as endless dripping drops drive me insane.
For many miserable months, it pours,
and a dank depression drains me of hope.
As misery manifests, boredom soars,
and I'm deprived of light and forced to cope.
It's a moody, melancholy Monday,
another awful, rotten, rainy day.
And that rat-a-tat-tat sound slams away
like monsoon madness on constant replay.
Fast-flowing flash floods wash away the land
as this wretched weather gets out of hand.
Then, a shy, sullied sun shines; clouds disband,
and the sweet sound of silence sounds so grand.
Categories:
sullied, angst, anxiety, depression, environment,
Form: Alliteration
Love’s Sullied Rose
He emptied the trash and his heart
the detritus of loving’s pain,
vain attempt to erase the start,
He emptied the trash and his heart
of sullied sweetness turned to tart
of loving's roses gone to stain.
He emptied the trash and his heart
the detritus of loving's pain.
9/2/2014
for the Zeugma - Poetry Contest
Categories:
sullied, lost love, sorrow,
Form: Triolet