The air waltzes with your echo,
it’s a rhythm play, pause, repeat;
I can’t make out the libretto,
the air waltzes with your echo;
A beat that pure instinct will know,
leaving you in the driver’s seat;
The air waltzes with your echo,
it’s a rhythm play, pause, repeat.
Joy dances in even to the bereft
She cracks my frown with a tango
Then she leaves my house swept
Joy is a hummingbird trapped indoors
Her iridescence lights up all my grime
Usher her out before I’m enamored
But, happiness is like fish overstayed
His cloying perfume overpowered
He is a rhino to her phoenix raised
Sometimes joy is an elephant
Hiding under a tablecloth snickering
She exits invisibly like an ant
Sometimes she’s Mary Poppins waltzing
Scrubbing a spot that I cannot dirty
Sprinkling a spoon full of sugar on salt
A lifetime of joy waltzing in wears me out
Then happiness retires to a piece of furniture
I’ll give her a ticket to dance and not pout
Someday when I am old and feeble
Too tired of laying ashes down
I’ll let joy lift my frown with needles
I’ll let her cat sit on my lap untamed
When I’m too demented to sully joy
I’ll let joy feast upon my remains
Till then I’ll leave the door ajar
** Luke 12:36
"Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks."
Craving dissolves in melting snow,
tidal desire in a bawdy ditch groans;
blue veils bewail in a lonely creek,
and dawn mourns on window panes.
Jealousy hides in a dusty, dark corner,
a luscious, vicious, slithering red snake,
on hearing twinkling smile of dawn, at
door, wide-open, with “welcome” sign.
All hide: pride, boredom, rage, and lust,
as frightened rats, running in a race;
heart dances, waltzing round and round,
sensing supreme bliss of happiness.
March 15, 2021
NA Poem From a February 2021 Judged Contest - Poetry Contest
Contest sponsor: Contance La France
This free verse had NA in "Joy Continuum Poetry Contest"
Judged on Feb. 26, 2021
Our missionary friends just adopted a little girl from the Ukraine:
the princess waltzes
out orphanage gates
— familial dance
9/10/2018
Summer waltzes in at the drumbeat of happiness
causing all my flowers to curtesy and dance
its the season of great joy, a time of great bless
and the grass looks so plush and full of enhance
Summer waltzes in at the drumbeat of happiness
Its nearin’ trail’s end and you’re windin’ down the drive,
There’s a touch of cool breeze and it’s good to be alive—
You’re headin’ toward the railhead and hear the cow’s bleat—
The ends always near, when wind waltzes through the wheat.
You’re happy on your haunches though you ain’t well fed—
You know the drive’s a good one when you don’t leave no dead.
And in your mind are mountains – the rain and the sleet—
Things that always last, when wind waltzes through the wheat.
So now you’re through with shippin’ and the work’s all done,
And you ride off to some line shack where it all begun—
But in dreams you’re prayin’ for more summers and heat
And all those old times, when wind waltzes through the wheat.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.