Fruit like green oranges,
Small leaf-shedding thorny tree,
And sticky wood pulp.
No one eats Osage.
No one tastes these hedge apples.
The thorns make barbed wire.
White wails of weeping willows
Winding in the blue breeze
Like lover hoping for heart’s hero
A lifeguard for the passionate sea
Failed relationships create creatures
Some salty some sour some sweet
You are the red rose with features
A thorny tongue meant to deceive
To appear hazel harder and tougher
Than is your true tender blue heart
Overcompensating for past lover
Satin smile hides your cherry scars
What tells you’re still a red romantic
Is the light behind your emerald eyes
The quiet way you purple panic
When bluff is called by the perfect guy
Fairytales may be only in books
And life isn’t always so grand
You are read in one look
By a man who understands
Thorny tongue’s kiss is sweet
Despite its first green reveal
Sour and mysteriously tricky
Until you found love the real deal
I, we, are only
a temporary arrangement
of atoms into molecules.
Why cherish or attack
such a cloud of impermanence?
You'll know you've reached the endless shore
when you sail into the sea of nothing.
Christopher M. Swan 2008
ANGIE, that last slow dance in smoky haze—
you slipped UNDER MY THUMB like twilight’s ache.
The Rolling Stones crooned fate through tangled days;
I tried to PAINT IT BLACK for mercy’s sake.
But YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT—truth stings—
just loaded TUMBLIN DICE in neon towns,
chasing HONKY TONK WOMEN on borrowed wings
while WILD HORSES dragged dreams to thorny grounds.
O RUBY TUESDAY, ghost in sequin sheen,
your laugh a roulette wheel’s bright, spinning sound.
The jukebox plays what might-have-been,
where every win was loss, and lost was found.
Stones still roll… but honey, in the end,
the house takes all. Even diamonds bend.
I share a tree with a story to tell:
We were out for a walk round Dufton Pike
when this straggly hawthorn conveyed its spell,
holding my gaze on our afternoon hike.
A closer study showed not one but two
thorns twisted, contorted in a struggle,
their limbs, their joints entwined and tangled through
a wrestling of arms that writhe and tussle.
Or might this be some sibling rivalry
played out for decades to all those who pass
this way? A contest to show how vitally
rivals arise competing to outclass.
Best not to draw too close lest I get caught
in this thicket of thorns without support.
Sorry I can't post the photo.(/em>
May be someday you will realize
You wanted to, but you can't apologize
She's a mess, clearly described in poetry
She believes in what eyes say
As according to her eyes can't betray
She misses someone every day
as has loved someone in every way..
Probably it was month of may..
From when she started pretending to be okay
She got hints but no words
And so the silence was continued..
As she too don't have courage to express
But still she have the hope that love would be confess...!
Love Is More Than A Thorny Rose
Oh! Love is like a rose,
It is gracious in every pose,
It is beautiful,
It is red,
It is blue,
But it is sad,
It is sad from head to toes,
Love is but a thorny rose,
Love is but a thorny rose…
But it is more I suppose,
The love I know,
Is better, is different,
Love to me is no hugs or kisses,
It is much different than what all you think,
It is pure attachment, through every second,
Through every eye’s blink,
True love is rare,
Only for those who dare,
Only for those who dare to care,
True love is rare,
Only for those who dare,
Only for those who dare to care...
I planted these thorny bushes way back in March.
They were hard to plant, let’s make that clear.
Their gorgeousness is sheer delight
Their pinkness is heaven sent.
Such fragrant petals
Silent Roses
Among the nettles
Exquisite and prettily bent.
They do survive each winter’s blight
Perennials, they come back each year
Beautifully displaying themselves on garden arch.
Amid day, beautiful was the rose I saw.
Among the flowers, it lay into my garden stole.
And in the evening, when the night had veiled the pole,
Its beauty shone bright, ever than could the snow.
And my desire for it being as green as emerald,
My heart sought to have it in my own abode.
Alas! Did I not know of its keen thorns,
Which pierced my body's fragile organs,
And left me with scars unlike ever known
Defeated with frustration and despair
There you are plunging into failure’s pit
Lamenting, “Oh, for me, no one does care…”
From life of thorns, let me exit a bit!
Friends do rebuke your distressful venture
With counsel to free your heart from gloom's pain
Saying, “Hate grips you with misadventure,”
See the roses blooming in glowing gain.”
Learn rose-thorns' lessons well, though sometimes hard;
That’s the commencement of triumphant race
Keep on trusting* God around His safeguard
Midst thorny trials to be won by grace.
Life is not a bed of roses indeed
Yet faith makes thorn-filled cross bearing succeed.
*Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
August 4, 2018
Edited on January 4, 2024
1st place, "Sonnet - Old or New" Poetry Writing Contest
Sponsored by Joseph May; judged on 1/6/2025
I Walked A Thorny Path Alone
I walked a thorny path alone,
Bare feet eating dusty ground:
I looked back, you were gone,
Remained only hollow empty sound,
We both racing homeward bound.
That Spring morn, you were all mine,
Smiling with heart all aglow-
Blazing sun you did outshine,
Future love, would we know:
Loving food yet still refuse to dine?
Time told me this pain once before
You had shattered me that day
I wanted you , desired you, all the more
Reunited again each night we could play
Until you departed to another shore.
Now memories show me your smile
Sexy legs and red-hot lips
Soft witchery that so beguiles,
Face that launched a thousand ships
Now I look back a thousand miles!
Robert J. Lindley, 4-28-2016
It seemed like only yesterday
When our love first bloomed
In the breeze our hearts did sway
By passion we were consumed
But over time our love did wilt
And tears fell through the night
In my heart the thorns of guilt
Bled crimson in morning's light
But like the thorns upon a rose
That sometimes cause us pain
We must be sure that when love grows
To avoid the thorny remains
Though love is blind we often find
That we overlook each others faults
But the rose's thorns does not define
The beauty it exalts
In the thorny eyes
Truthfully I stared right through
His broken glass, in thousand pieces
I redeemed my might... for the pain he felt Plain my night
Not a memory inside, just an empty cloud
Clinging for something more prudent
For old times...
Is it me my heart longing for a cracking sound!
Is it me my heart pleading for the softest songs
Yes your heart has been once brutal...
Banished and forgotten...
Though to me in thorny eyes I see you, standing fatally
Comfort is what I’m here to mender you...my love
In thorny eyes, you captured my laugh
In thorny eyes you conquered my life
Hardly believed, for your old silly mistakes...
Known by your cruelty acts...
I will cover you in many colours of light
Crystallize your world in different stars
And cross my heart, for old times...
To reverse
In thorny eyes...I loved.END
The thorny Rose
I will sing to you
Of raindrops
That glisten as the dew
Upon the thorny rose
Where transparent pearls
Are caught from the eyes
Of sadness and fears
Born alone
In the garden of night
In the brightness of morning
Each heartfelt drop
Full of colors and shapes
Caught in rose colored tears
Now glisten with insight and hope
For out of pain and sorrow
A clear day will follow
Born from wisdom
And the beauty shining forth
Upon The Thorny Rose
©? Brenda V Northeast
Come frail dreamer, raise your lids
the midnight veils are brightening
and sunshine dwells where your confusion hid,
within the shadows that are lightening
undoing dim-day disarray.
These bruises splayed upon your pride
are only notes that you have taken from
unwelcome lessons you've endured inside
the briars and brambles that succumb
to knowledge learned because you sought.
Instructive pain is but a state
that comes upon the tired
just go with it and let it take
you to the answers you've desired
to know, to learn and own.
The bruise and prick might skew the mind
but still there lives a craving for the rose,
the stings and aches oft melt behind
when hurting purpose is exposed
as answers pinched in petaled folds.
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