Friend,
Silence listens,—every thought we think,
each new feeling which soundless trickles by,
the twinge of untold pain, the snuck-in sigh,
are registered within the margin’s ink
Friend,
Silence listens (better than your shrink),—
in worries sunken deep below the “I”,
the subterranean soul, the scrying spy,
dutifully encodes each missing link.—
Observe the many mangled manners your mood
wrings its revenge out from your wet-cloth mind.—
To wrest the terror from your burning breast,
it twists your vision—perception, once skewed
unkowingly invites the shades inclined
to test your tensed chest’s breath of stressed rest.
Paint filtered through your pain
and came out as art.
Your broken body bent
under the weight of a brush
but did not succumb, instead
infused the canvas with fiery colours
mixed in the crucible of your heart.
Who knows why Art sometimes
asks for so much, wrings blood
from bone to write its name
across a life. The why we may
never know much less understand,
we can only give thanks
that such exquisite beauty
has bled from a human hand.
Spring. Radiant gold rays of sunrise.
Sprinkles surprise from dramatic skies.
Swing heartbeat, flowering Spring,
Stir-up breathtaking flowering buds, it wrings and brings.
Plump long-eared, cotton-tailed bunnies jump,
Zigzag among the green grass and clover, bump
Among yellow daisies, daffodils, and lavender boarder way yonder.
A timeless swing dance among the dawn wonder.
2/29/2024
1
sunflowers ring
teenagers ChatGPT
Sapphic know-how
2
her décolleté blouse
and see-through saree—
curve’s vanity
3
a curled snake
with fangs ready to poison
love’s narrow passage
4
sky’s canvas-
disfigures in no time
my funny face
5
she wrings her hair
rising from the lake:
rural Venus
--R.K.Singh
I do not like the color blue
But blue loves me
It wrings me out
Flat to dry
And to feel
And to cry
I do not like the color blue
But it enjoys my company
And the bus passes by
But I am not on board
No because I am the train
The train that wrecks
Everything in its path
That destroys the little solace
Of the tracks it follows
I do not like the color blue
No I love blue just as much
Because when everyone else
Gave up
It was blue that I could trust
Because blue took my hand
And dried my tears
And helped me up
I only made one
Simple promise
And for blue that was enough
I do not like the color blue
But blue is my only friend
Blue showed me the sneers
Blue caught the red hand
Blue saved me
Blue
Saved
Me
And I have everything to
Owe
Blue has nothing
To gain
So why did blue save me
And dry up my tears
Only to desert me
When yellow calls my name
I do not like the color blue
And I hate the color yellow
The sun tugs young hours,
Wrings the day. Flowers spring,
Pupils play,
Waitlessness on one youngling.
Longing eyes cashed the calendar,
But father’s clock ticks.
Abysmal seconds cool son’s glare
Oak floor boards catch salty drips.
Minutes and months and now.-
Minutes-
and minutes-
and minutes-
Young blood flow still warm’s sign
Th’at least… young years are yet to give.
Naïve nowadays deprived of
First father’s lessons never lived.
Don’t you see! What is a man?
-Somehow boy did pursue,
Though, t’will never return those lessons,
Thrill’s seeking soul spurs no such blessings;
Mirages o’ dreams: a slew.
Upon composure: supple closure,
Baker’s dozen years gone over.
One son’s frozen dreams adjourned,
By mother’s smother, slack heli-hover,
Manhood grasped, not graven: learned.
The Parliament of Freud
In youth the infernal triad posture and prance
Like the kindergarten of the lower house;
Bit players on the eternal stage of life,
Pawns in the cosmic joust of evolution
Development and decay.
ID pork-barrels the marginal seats, whilst
Ego duns the sleeping ears with rhetoric,
And Super-Ego wrings its hands in despair.
The chattering classes look up with indifference
Before continuing on their way, playing out
Their own little drama on a parochial stage.
Yet at some point in life, wisdom prevails
And the tussle of ID with Super-Ego abates, as
One tempers its selfish demands and the
Other decides she’ll be right, so that
Ego finally gets a grip on reality.
Remember that kid who followed you around
Or sometimes led you by the hand?
Who kept you up nights with impossible questions
About mysteries that no one can understand?
Then one day, he up and locked his door
And said, "Keep out – this room's only for friends."
And then it happened you weren't asked to play anymore
And you realized you'll never be loved again
Remember that girl who laughed at your jokes,
Who reached for your hand in the back of the car?
Who listened intent to the wise way you spoke
And staggered home tipsy with you 'neath the stars?
Then one day, the smiles departed her face
And in their place, boredom and impatience rushed in
Next thing you know, lock's changed to the house
And you found out you'll never be loved again
Love comes fresh and fierce, like a comet, like a baby
It lights up your sky and rattles your world
From the cheapest pop songs to Spenserian sonnets,
It narrates your days and you learn every word
Then the novelty sags, the allure wrings dry
The well begs for water, but the drought never ends
Fetch the bucket for tears from the nights that you'll cry
'cause you know you'll never be loved again
Many people like poems written with ordinary words.
Some that jestfully tell about life in ordinary ways,
even though life is far from ordinary,
They want poems that lighten their days.
Enough with the highfalutin language, they say.
Start writing words common folks understand.
Bring back the use of everyday words.
Oh, you want idioms (words that are canned).
I love the feel of the silken poetic words,
that tickle the ears and whisper to the soul.
they wrap your thoughts in gossamer silk,
both pleasant and bitter their goal.
Writing poetry is a road strewn with boulders.
Life wrings itself out upon our pages.
Where there's beauty, we're often drawn to the dark
found hiding behind it on various stages.
We find ourselves writing about love that threatens,
or long ago left, storming out the door, kicking aside
hope like pebbles. Or, crawling out with a whimper and
a fearful glance, then running: words we cannot hide...
ordinary words.
There is at times the notion we are mad.
All of heaven is upon us
We cannot bear such weight
One moment more.
A pain of tears brought by soulful touch.
that wrings from us, ourselves, in pieces torn.
We only wear our wings a moment
But oh what a moment it becomes
To linger in this lifetime as another star,
Splash a fresh upon our hearts
With the brimming of a lasting shine.
The pain we cannot bear,
We bear.
For God’s eternal love
Comes fleeting close
To lift us to the mastery
Of that never-ending song,
Spread wings of many lives
to be enjoined.
To recognize that though we are away,
Always coming home.
We are too, the home to which we go
If only you knew the width of his love,
The breadth of his love, and you simply knew how…
How he sighs, and how his dark clouds of sighs
Explode; and how flood does his head-high rise;
If you knew, how his tongue, by furling its wings,
Snorts, and with untold pains he gravely wrings;
How dreadful darts of love piers his heart;
And how blood floods and blots this piece of art.
If only you knew the depth of his love,
The breadth of his love, and you simply knew how…
How deep in his dreams, he sighs to say you
He loves you, and yearns to love you - anew.
If only you knew…if only you knew…
If only you knew…how deeply he loves you.
*HM Placement* in the following contest (judged on Oct. 30, 2020)
Oct. 24, 2020
COMPLETELY YOUR CHOICE(35) any theme any form Poetry Contest
Contest Sponsor: Brian Strand
*A 2nd Place* in the following contest (judged on Oct. 26, 2020)
Oct. 24, 2020
If only you knew Poetry Contest
Contest sponsor: Silent One
I listen to the sighing
of the wind, as I sit
in the cool shade
of a sprawling carob tree,
wondering if Basho,
in heavenly abode,
next to Elysian Fields,
is mumbling agitatedly
under his breath – possibly
grimaces, wrings his hands
as he flips the pages of
vain anthologies where
writers sell their wares…
Stuck in comfort zone
deprived of achievement,
wary of new horizons,
surprise ends and twists…
they cling to restrictions
and Mother Nature’s skirt.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Pareidolia Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Craig Cornish
© 24th August 2020
You roll over the edge of an eyelid, measuring your body
through a window.
Once you fit, you go outside of yourself
where the sky is rising.
A part of you is stirring coffee. Another part is beside the
windowpane
glancing edgeways into your tongue.
Crows crash out of bare branches. The wind is in
from lost town.
You find yourself observing the nerve endings of bare branches,
even though the trees you are watching
are made of blood-filled dendrites
pushing through thoughts.
Robins flush out snow drifts, leaping like tigers. You shake
mist out of your shoes, follow claw marks.
You can see clouds swimming in the dim fathoms,
where geese fish for meadow grass.
Roads are passable. Wind-whales plow through
narrowing perspectives,
pushing insomnia ahead
of a dark sleep.
Freezing rain wrings eyes into hands that hide inside
closed fists.
Because of the cold, there are warm regions of you
that will not surface today.
Dawn hovers in-between night and day.
For a long moment
gray ghosts pluck the ground like scavenging gulls.
smashed the drums
wrings sweating hands
boom...boom
trumpet puffed cheeks
notorious red
toot...toot...toot
band sways
feet tapping
spit sprays
silver flute
fame’s up front
poetically sweet
audience yawns; cymbals
crash
dull drums rev it up
2/1/2020
Edward Ibeh’s Yalto Form
Line 1 to 15: 3,4,2,4,5,3,2,3,2,3,3,5,6,1,5 syllables.
Oh! young persimmon tree how ripe and seraphic art thee; ignorance at thy feet, when thou were but a babe,with no words to cede, mum as the mummy. How life welcomes thee, ephemeral and saccharine, as so forth, life begets thee. Brushing past the simple melodies, until the arrow of time strikes, she bears her fangs into thy lungs,and screams and yelps and wrings her tongue, she knocks thee down, and weighs thy wrongs, and captures thee in her wings of thorn. However, thou art at thy golden age, for dried persimmons are at their finest!
so come and rejoice!
for empyrean angels
call to us with delight
1-9-18
ANGELS DANCED POETRY CONTEST
Sponsored by:lu loo
Syllable count: howmanysyllables.com
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