Totters Poems | Examples

Teeter Totters

I’m tired of the teeter-totter polemics 
that pass for profundity.
I’m tired of the see-saw tug of war,
the streaming regurgitation on every channel.

Yes, I’m weary of the predictable posturing,
the vapid, barren landscapes of the oligarchy.
I am groggy in the dull fog of capitalist pretense,
the plutocratic hubris sold by carnival barkers.
 
I am worn down by the endless banal chatter,
the mindless daily clutter flooding all our
electronic screens, all our senses. 

Scientists in a million years will
try to decipher our primitive etchings.
Our digital scribble will remain.
Will they recognize our AI ventriloquism?
Will they distinguish us from chimpanzees?

I don’t have answers in my advancing years.
I’ll find cozy books and trees instead,
while we still have them.

playgrounds once upon a time

once upon a time
in the fifties and sixties
school playgrounds had small merry-go-rounds
and teeter totters aka seesaws

our slides were as tall as our nine story school house
safety was not a big deal
no one wore helmets or kneepads

our job was to play
have adventures and love our life
I miss those playgrounds

On the Crest of a Wave

On The Crest of A Wave


      Life boat totters on the crest of a wave
      of turbulence ! Me lone sailor on sea.
     To reach destination, propelling brave.
     Halcyon horizon not yet to see.
     
     Violent vibrant vortex, rough and tough
    Life boat totters on the crest of a wave,
     falls unstable sinking at hole of trough.
     Up down thrust of waves convex and concave.

     Tornado - cyclone hostile to behave.
     Indigo hued horizon too far.
    Life boat totters on the crest of a wave.
     Me desperate to sail, chasing despair.

      Valiant, valorous on adventure !
     I must vanquish holocaust and save
     the vessel from sudden burst and rupture.
     Life boat  totters on  the crest of a wave.

Zombie

So slowly on his rotting feet,
the zombie totters down the street,
he cannot think and cannot feel,
but searches for his latest meal,
and then he bites the human prey -
another zombie's made that day!

written 12th May for Constance's Z words writing challenge - zombie

Playtime At the Playground

Being free happy and young
Having lots of playground fun

Merry go round makes you dizzy
You try to stand with your head wizzy

Teeter totters up and down
In the air and on the ground

Slides so big or really small
Going down is fun for all

Seeing how high you can swing
And jumping off like you had wings

Climbing across monkey bars
Seeing if you can get far

Crawling in tunnels is like a maze
Escaping in different ways

Lots of silly childhood things to do
I'm older, can I still do it too

Young Adult

I bit into the hardest of suckers
‘Cause I’m no longer a big huge baby
With moods a lot like teeter-totters.
Now, I’m who I always wanted to be.

A Headlong Plunge

 Draped in the darkness of the night
In a weather so dull and blight
Sad thoughts like a deadly shooter
Come out to bombard her outright

Shaking off their fitful slumber
They rise from their inert stupor
From the reservoir deep, spill out
As through newly opened shutter

They come from an unknown hideout
As all trace of life to wipe out
Unable to block the current
She totters in a drunken bout

They spill forth in mighty torrent,
With a beastly force violent
Like an angry mob on long wait,
Infringing all rules, nonchalant

Caught in the vortex of that spate
Her body began to gyrate
She lost all her sense of balance
Her sad fate, no one could abate


May.13. 2022

~Placed First~

Rubaiyat Poetry Contest
8 syllables per line
Rhyme scheme- aaba-bbcb-ccdc-dded-eefe.
Sponsor- Sotto Poet

The Playground Is Bare

The slicky-slide stands silent, no shrill shouts,
No children in the playground in these hereabouts,
The swings are dangling in the breeze, I smile,
Teeter-Totters leaning in the Tower of Pisa-style.
The COVID-19 pandemic has kept the kid at home,
No children playing on the merry-go-round dome
My smile quickly turns to a sad, grimacing frown,
Someone has taken the horizontal ladders down
The park is a sad place with the playground so bare,
But, it won’t be too long before children are there.

written June 13, 2021

Baby Workshop

There is babies’ workshop
Too much care is the scare
The leanest is in the chair
Hand in the chin thinking
“Today, we make history” 

The fattest rises and shouts
“Listen, Mam is most loving
Away from home one seven
Me in bed twenty four seven
No Mam, fingers milk bottle”

The shortest rises, no word
Touches his legless limbs
All the babies cry out loud
“Who are you, one of us sure?
No meat, no bone, no juice?”

Another totters to the front
Touches stomach and smiles
“I, you look, no belly, no air”
All babies giggle and giggle 
"No belly, no food, no heart"

And the workshop rolls on
Then chair makes roll call
“Mother” - absent, no apology
“Father”- absent, no apology
“Sibling”- absent, no apology

Chair sinks in chair with joy
“Mothers, mother the motherless 
Fathers, father the fatherless
All absent no apology, no care
Babies we go build own empire”

Silly Goose

Sometimes, the pernicious
is just desserts like alveoli
losing pink to a ciggy devil
Love - an enterprise astral
yields to blemish: mockery

Garish sentry sneers, reflecting
on a visage muting its boo-hoo
on a traverse still willed in woo
Silly teeter-totters with serious
editing tears that dampen a life…

(10/31/2020: Gibson HB, DMS)

Home

The child loves to go to the park and pick up sticks.
Like a dog, he will try to bring 
one impossibly long stick home,
but he is 4 and by 4 o’clock
he is getting tired.

He still will not let go of one end.
He totters to the car like this,
at the carpark 
he is actually sleepwalking.

I wake up, 
a wandering hermit crab slips back into its shell.
Time concertinas, 
the mind plays tricks in too much light or dark.

It’s 4 in the morning, 
I’ve been gripping the end of a twisted sheet.

Strange, 
but I want to take it home.

In Drydock Now -- Choices Made

Everything's foretold; yet free will's given
We choose our futures; they do not choose us
The Greeks thought the world to be Fate-driven
Not so! Every man drives Destiny's bus

God gives us the tools with which to serve Him
Eyes to see... Ears to hear... A tongue to talk
We can choose to use them--- or abuse them
Whether or not in His Ways we will walk

The world of Nature holds no such choices
Tree limbs stretch skyward; flowers open wide
God gave humankind opinions, voices
Blank faces, where bitter resentments hide

Once, cast I my bread upon Life's waters 
~ My ship has come in; the verdict totters


       Picture # 3 - "Your Own Title"
         'Choices' Poetry Contest'
          Sponsor: Sara Kendrick

               May 15, 2019

Teeter-Totters

Warm weather, teeter-totters back and forth;
Winter counterchecks every move Spring makes
to wiggle free from the grip of the north.
Winter has applied both feet to the brakes,
aiming to stay put whatever it takes.

April showers often end up as snow,
and disappointment fuels frustration.
There are insufficient signs Spring will show;
and hope morphs into a sad sensation
when Winter extends Her occupation.

Though Winter's overextended Her stay,
snowdrops and tulips are starting to sprout;
and returning songbirds are on their way.
Spring will arrive; of that, there's little doubt;
but I miss Her most when it's snowing out.

The earth thaws; that is Winter's undoing,
as patches of green embroider the scene.
Though Winter's leaving and life's renewing
somber skies haven't yet turned aquamarine,
Spring is somehow stuck somewhere in between.

A Form of Rule

The nervous chatter
The haunted stares
The muted prayers
Their motherland
Totters all about

Democracy gone bad
Democracy a tool
Of elites to amass..
Power with a guise
Of legitimate rule..

A sad twist of affairs
Has the motherland
Tottering in gloom

Modernization.. is it
Westernization.. is it
Democracy.. elitism
Now has them disillusioned
Going at each others jugular

Please dream my people
Of home grown solutions
Please do break away
From the chains of reasons
From the chains in seasons

My Mind

To get to the top
Stay with the best
Follow in His steps
The teacher in your life

Pains drift to my humour
Trouble comes like seizure 
But fling it goes like winds
Mind that totters in dilemma

Who else but my mind
The worst I left behind
Yet, the best and my friend
The meaning of my living 

Follow not, but doubts
It calls to follow, how?
Who else to obey,
The angel or the evil?

Mind, you are, my teacher
Hours to second of my decision
The pain in my mission
When mind is the guardian

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