Winces Poems | Examples

Laughter -For Lucille Ball

Laughter creased my face
With the wideness of joy in a darling
Hallooing loudly, Hawaii!
Making me younger with weakly wrinkles,
It warmed my heart with a flaming ring of mirth.
And I liked it.
I watched the waves as they rose and fell,
Like the big flattered locks of a comely
Landlady combing her tresses on a windy, snoopy 
Sunday morning.
And I loved it.
Who are next to be loved?
Lucy & Lucille.
One laughs 
The other winces with laughter
When cold fleeting winds blow over
Our inchoate sensibilities.
And we love it —
Like we loved Lucy.

A Red Moonrise over the Coral Sea

Unexpectedly
inspired by a Péladan jeremiad,
the red moon laughs at the sea
and the possum-ness of the possum;
Churlish blood rays remain

a never never world utterance of the jungle,
Every lupercalian dragonfly
conspires with brooding
red hibiscus flowers;

On a night like this,
all creation winces and endures
before melting into a black water mirage
of broken feverish brush strokes
and fruit bats in a mangrove swamp.

Anatomy of Melancholy

She heard pigeons overhead.
Looking up she saw them whirling and gyrating,
Forming ever emerging patterns in the sky.
They soared on and on,
Until they became fading black dots in the blue.

Such sights would have sent her to raptures,
Sometime back...... 
But now when she sees them.
She can only think of the years speeding by,
And the chances missed.
And her whole life- a fading black dot!

She is infected with a virus of melancholy.
She walks with lacerations in her soul.
Pain consumes her without flame.
Forever she wages a battle inside,
To drive out the demons of dejection
But she feels as if a sharp knife,
Is cutting right through her heart,
And she winces at every chop.
Though she tries hard to cover her bruises,
They bleed red and make themselves known.

Pain has sucked her out.
In a leaking vessel, she collects her tears,
To water the parched terrain.
Of her drought-stricken domain
Light has sorely betrayed her. 
And now she lives in perpetual darkness,
Fighting with black shadows
Day in and day out!

May. 13.2023
Anatomy of Melancholy Poetry Contest
Sponsor – Craig Cornish

Another Dawn

ANOTHER DAWN

The morning winces as a new day begins
Mired in the half slumber of a restless night
And reluctant to engage whilst half awake
Like a trembling foot hovering over the brake
Good humoured dawn greetings sound trite
And the fading moon just knowingly grins

Dawn comes around so quickly these days
No chance or time to complete a dream
What a critical daily role to have acquired
As the demand is that all shall be inspired
When night’s blanket is loose at the seam
But it’s the diurnal clock that one obeys

There’s no respite with this job for eternity
Day after day, just subtle seasonal changes
None can detect my initial blurred vision
My tired eyes can see no changed decision
The world still turns, and gravity engages
My half sister moon, no shared paternity


13 Sept 2022, '2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 14', Sponsor=Mark Toney

Weird Stuff

A winter sun doodles dandy-long legs shadows
over my eyelids.
Closed eyes from the glare, now
an insectivore brush of fine shadow hairs.
Knuckles rub eyeballs until they water.

Sunlight jumps into the day again
plays 'hide and seek' around passing clouds.
A patchy sky dumps a snow flurry
down the back of coat.
Squirm, wet spine, squirm.
Do a little dance with tingling toes.

"A daddy-long-legs is not a spider,
though it is an arachnid
related to the scorpion family."

Later on, mind winces upon reading this.
Sun shadows akin to scorpions,
not a thought to play with
when your back is still damp
and cringing.

Sketchy Weather

A winter sun doodles dandy-long legs shadows
over my eyelids.
Closed eyes from the glare, now
an insectivore brush of fine shadow hairs.
Knuckles rub eyeballs until they water.

Sunlight jumps into the day again
plays 'hide and seek' around passing clouds.
A patchy sky dumps a snow flurry
down the back of coat.
Squirm, wet spine, squirm.
Do a little dance with tingling toes.

"A daddy-long-legs is not a spider,
though it is an arachnid
related to the scorpion family."

Later on, mind winces upon reading this.
Sun shadows akin to scorpions,
not a thought to play with
when your back is still damp
and cringing.

Prince Or Princess

Liberace: Was he Prince or Princess
The very question delivers winces
  Watch him on You Tube
  His joints sure look lubed
The key is when he walks that he minces

A Storybook Princess

~ A Storybook Princess ~ 

She dreams of princes, princesses and balls 
   A little girl on tippy-toes, not a meter tall
O, the frilly lace gowns she fashions  
   Stitched with threads of heartfelt passion

     A little girl in dreamland enthralled

Daylight's full of pain, tests and probes
   From her lower spine to her temporal lobe
Hair shorn, she bears it all with infinite patience
   As they wheel her from station to station

For at night she's a storybook princess
   No matter that in daylight she winces
Asleep, her bed's her castle, wedding-bell topped
   Where dreams last forever, never stop



    Entered in 'All Yours (Feb. '21) Contest
              Sponsor: Brian Strand

Deserving

“I deserve to be happy”
they said, jaws set
determination
eyes glazed
Selfish Ones seeing only
what they wanted to see
tunnel-vision of mind's eye
narrowed down to one word
“Happy”
while others' protests
were utterly unheard

Thinking they could
by sheer determination
set themselves free
from the rest
of society
suspending
laws of nature
like drops of water
falling into a lake
yet failing to make
a ripple on the surface
or rings extending outward
...that their actions
would cause no reactions
outside of themselves

But repercussions
and consequences
shown on faces
in painful winces
worry-lines and tears
from failed investments
of time spent, years
broken beings
bearing witness
to quiet devastation
their lives crowded out
displaced and crushed
by the Selfish Ones'
overwhelming
entitlement
their right
their claim
on the happiness
they so “deserved”

And now the others
also suffer from a sort of
tunnel-vision, mind's eye narrowed
down to the other word
“Deserve”
for what could they possibly
have done to deserve this?
When all they wanted
was a little fragment
a slight share
of happiness in life
with someone 
who cared?

At His Side

he winces
when he thinks
i’m not watching
his throbbing pain
too hard to bear
his tears tug at my heart

his body twitches
into aching spasm
from stabbing stinging 
throbbing ache
refusing to let up

can’t lift a finger
to slash his anguish
i see him tortured
it breaks my heart      



Published in my 24-page photo/anthology ~CENSORED~ 2020

AP: 2nd place 2020

Posted on August 19, 2018

Lounging Around

Lounging around on those long summer days
A cloudless blue sky, so calm and serene.
A buzz in the air, a bee makes his way
As we lay there dozing, living the dream.

Echoes of yelling, of children at play,
Haring around in the hot summer sun.
Sun worshipers bask for most of the day,
Some burned to a crisp, the paler ones dun.

Late afternoon, some respite from the heat
Now time for the food, the barbecue's lit.
Then wafts the aroma, as flame sears meat
The chicken impaled, turns round on the spit.

Dad dishes the food, he thinks he's the chef
Each standing in line awaiting their turn.
Mother though knows she'll be cleaning the mess,
She winces, watching the sausages burn.

Come early evening it's time to wind down
Children now fractious, soon time for their beds.
Dads got a beer, saying he's done his bit
Mother looks on smiling, shaking her head.








Best Rhyming Poem in March - 
Poetry Contest 
Sponsored by Laura Loo
3/04/2018.  Placed 4th.
(Poem posted 3/12/2018)

Lounging Around

Lounging around on those long summer days
A cloudless blue sky, so calm and serene.
A buzz in the air, a bee makes his way
As we lay there dozing, living the dream.

Echoes of yelling, of children at play,
Haring around in the hot summer sun.
Sun worshipers bask for most of the day,
Some burned to a crisp, the paler ones dun.

Late afternoon, some respite from the heat
Now time for the food, the barbecue's lit.
Then wafts the aroma, as flame sears meat
The chicken impaled, turns round on the spit.

Dad dishes the food, he thinks he's the chef
Each standing in line awaiting their turn.
Mother though knows she'll be cleaning the mess,
She winces, watching the sausages burn.

Come early evening it's time to wind down
Children now fractious, soon time for their beds.
Dads got a beer, saying he's done his bit
Mother looks on smiling, shaking her head.








Entry for EARLY MAR 18 STANDARD CONTEST,
ANY FORM OR NONE, ANY THEME,UP TO A MAX OF 20 LINES
Judged 9/3/2018.    Placed 1st

Never Die

Unexpressed emotions never die
It seems that they attain eternal life!
We give a  wanton wince, a wistful sigh

But might such hidden feelings lie?
As does a husband to a questioning wife.
Give no reason but a truthful cry



On emotions hiding, wonder why.
Will they cause an everlasting strife?
We give a  quantum wince, transcendent sigh

As we grow older, feelings multiply
And fearing laughter, in  the back they’re knifed
Unexpressed emotions cannot die

And gazing ever closer, magnified
We divide each one into  unequalled halves
We give unnoticed winces to blind eyes

So what is left, what will of us survive?
All the feeling unexpressed in life!
Unexpressed emotions never die
Take care of what may be your endless lies.

The Shore

A washed up girl sits on a beach,
The icy foam just out of reach,
Drawing circles in the sand,
Golden grains run past her hand,

The screech of gulls call out her name,
She winces as it sounds the same
as parents who for many years,
Once bathed in all her many tears.

The abandoned shells sat all alone,
Just like the girl so far from home,
Washed ashore, outlived their use,
She’s cast aside past cruel abuse,.

She looks ahead to rays of hope,
The winds of change will help her cope,
For here she’ll start her life once more,
Finding solace from the shore.

***** Down

It pirouettes in the air, 
the raison d'être for a black man's inimitability.
Something that keeps a black man bleeding
by a black man's thrust.

As if by some twisted 
Divine stratagem,
he was fated to kneel
that hour, on that coast,
with peeling grits grinding
into his patellae,
and limbs begging for shackles. 

A piece of mirror for
a thousand shackles.

I see them when
I close my eyes, on nights
damp as the dirge they sing.
I wave like the palms to
the hollow hums that snake along
with the creek.
I see them in Badagry 
wearing chains and faces 
that tell no tale.

Ghost faces that run rivers,
embracing subtle winces; gifted by
lashing fibres,twisted like
Aduke's traverse.

I swear she never cries,
even when the blows land.
Only she whistles her tale secretly to the water
and chants orisons that mount the skies.

A prayer of good will for kith, and
good  fortune for kin.
Foremost, her heart in urge shrouds the son.
May his ship run 
ashore somefate void of fetters. 

A hundred years later,
the son yet rots in manacles,
sniffing white addiction.

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