Home » Poems » Best » John Grindle » Best John Grindle Poems

Best Poems Written by John Grindle

Below are the all-time best John Grindle poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | John Grindle Poem

The Magic of Spring

A tree after the fall or in winter,
Is not what it was, but a mere splinter. 
Glory stripped naked of it’s cov’ring leaves. 
Looks like death and loss, the naive perceives. 

Like veins without body, there’s no value. 
It’s fate altered by some unplanned snafu. 
A careful soul will notice the pattern. 
Nature’s outstretched limb holding a lantern. 

Spring takes the stage like a magician’s sleeve. 
Promises to bloom, if you dare believe. 
Then, new buds emerge between a few blinks. 
Full and alive, expectations hood winked.

Now a pillar of strength to the fullest. 
Shading locals and even some tourists. 
A symbol of life and longevity. 
This tree here stands for all to plainly see. 

Now burns in colors we would not have guessed.
The scene’ry and onlookers are so blessed. 
And then it happens, leaves fall like ashes. 
A skeleton, our memory clashes. 

Previous glory forgotten by some. 
Yet, others await the pending outcome. 
These dry bones once slain will arise again. 
With branches full and waving in the wind. 

So, today I may be humbled and gaunt. 
Shackled to a fate that I did not want. 
Recall the pattern shown by a lantern.
To rise anew, as someone who mattered.

Details | John Grindle Poem

Snow Camping

The beauty of white snow silently dropping. 
Blanketing the forrest while no one is watching. 
Morning awakens, breath hangs in the air. 
Evergreens are bowing as if in prayer. 

A coffee mug thaws hands aching in pain.
Cradling comfort in my wilderness of stain. 
My simple shelter erased by white snow. 
The world here moving at a slowed tempo. 

Alone in the woods, a strange place to meet.  
No reception to enable a tweet. 
Without foot prints in snow he did arrive. 
My heart protesting I may not survive. 

Interrupted by the uncorrupted. 
And wide eyed busted by the one trusted. 

Does a sculptor carve with none to purchase?
Or an artist paint without a purpose?
A musician will play to empty seats. 
The same as athletes who just must compete. 

A code is written in the DNA. 
Convincing and compelling to obey. 
So the painter paints and writer writes. 
The absence of an audience highlights. 

There is glory and purpose in being. 
Beauty and wonder in clearly seeing. 
That we are made in another’s image. 
Bearing his own likeness a privilege. 

Being who we were created to be. 
New each morn with originality. 
So God paints beauty where none is watching. 
Not to perform, our ego mocking. 

But because a creator must create. 
In places near and far to punctuate. 
We are not the cause though we do witness. 
Not the center, our soul sickness. 

A million paintings before I arrived.
And a million more long after I’ve died. 

The sun is setting with growing shadows. 
The performance ending, the curtains close. 
Laying down in a tent I close my eyes. 
Slowly burried in snow i recognize. 

That I’ve been with the painter, and he continues to paint.

Details | John Grindle Poem

Wonder Woman of 2020

She captures your heart with loyalty. 
Holds power of living life joyfully. 
She’ll be herself with vulnerability. 
While fools choose imposters they can not see. 

Her bionic ear will bring on smiles
Hearing ice cream trucks from a hundred miles. 
Befriends outcasts lacking social style. 
Her X-ray vision sees what’s really worthwhile. 

She stirs emotion from a heart of stone. 
Her presence will loosen your funny bone. 
She is a treasure in life to have known.
Call her friend and you’ll never be alone. 

Skills and marvel talents are a plenty. 
Flys above the cookie cutter many.
A living hero for Maeve and Maddie. 
She’s wonder woman of twenty twenty.

Details | John Grindle Poem

Drops In the Ocean

Heroine flowing in like a landslide
While the rhetoric flows fantastic. 

A garbage dump grows wide on the roadside
But thank my God my straw isn’t plastic. 

He yawns at our rate of youth suicide. 
Though a grocery bag ban is orgasmic. 

Taxing seniors out of homes justified. 
But expect homeless to work is drastic. 

The threatening problems never subside. 
While we lose freedoms for the bombastic. 

We’re told to be safe we must stay inside. 
And no one sees this as problematic?

While the evolving science is glorified. 
The “free and the brave” are just fanatics.

We’re appeased by snake oil served bona fide
And applaud with genuine ecstatics

The masses are the asses pacified,
By political speech of gymnastics. 

Drops in the ocean will never subside. 
While our hope remains enthusiastic.

Details | John Grindle Poem

Double Black Diamond

A steep slope.
Double black diamond 
Thin air   
Cold and getting colder
First time for everything
I am a little scared. 
Never done this before. 
Am I ready?
Don’t know what to expect. 
No one does. 
Short of breath. 
Tunnel vision setting in.
Long pause before the fast descent. 
With out consent, I’m nudged off the edge. 
Taking the plunge. 
Good bye. 
See you on the other-side.

Details | John Grindle Poem

The Strip Show

Dressed to the nines the envy of tall pines,
This tree on the sidelines others outshines. 
Flashing new colors of red, orange and gold. 
Proud as a peacock, standing tall and bold. 

But then a gust removes a garment stitch. 
Brings back a previous embarrassing glitch. 
Showing how pride is fleeting and fragile. 
When the dazzle travels and it all unravels.

If only these limbs would bend at the elbow. 
I could avoid those looks with raised eyebrows. 
But instead I stand there bare
Pretending others won’t stare. 

Of all the times to loose
Your treasured clothes would choose,
Not when the temperature drops. 
But a different season one would opt. 

Alast my duds arrive in buds
And once again I blend in with studs. 
Clothed in a velvet green suit
A forest green fedora to boot. 

Carefree Summer of long days and short nights. 
Kids climbing up to retreive their lost kites.  
Or sweethearts leaving their initials in bark. 
Surrounded by that universal trademark.

Then I remember what previously happened. 
When in horror my shirt lost a button. 
I recall last Fall with a sheepish grin. 
Oh my goodness, here it goes once again.

Details | John Grindle Poem

The Hero of Des Moines

Looking backward one can see so clearly. 
The priceless diamond held loosely in hand. 
Did not seem as vital but merely
What most every kid had in the heartland. 

The sidelines were of no significance
For the players with no one in the stands. 
But for me there was a stark difference. 
I had the best of fans who understands. 

I saw him with each glance from a sports field.
A pinched nerve once laid me out on the ground. 
He ran to the scene, his concern revealed. 
And when I looked up he was was looking down. 

My highest reward was to make him proud. 
Those spoken words healed me deep from within. 
Lifted me in confidence and allowed,
Growth and hope of one day being like him. 

He was the humble hero of Des Moines,
For a solo tackle of a bank thief. 
We sat so proud on the couch and were joined,
By the local news who shared our belief. 

We hiked the Smokies and Isle Royal. 
Looked down in Yoho upon Emerald lake. 
Each of these memories a portrayal. 
Of my dad sharing himself for my sake. 

Thanks for late nights writing english papers. 
Teaching me to drive with three on the tree. 
Two examples of actions proved shapers,
Of my life and the others besides me. 

I miss the maps on the kitchen table. 
And the backyard fort you raised up on stilts. 
The long drive to college that enabled. 
A new chapter, our relationship built. 

I know you as a father and a friend.
You showed me how love and goodness out runs,
Thieves of all sorts and that’s why I contend,
You alone are the hero of three sons.

Details | John Grindle Poem

The Rose Garden

A childhood cradled in a mother’s arms. 
Like a sunrise aglow with hope and promise,
Nudging us to awake, our spirit charms. 
Bringing life from soil previously tarnished. 

A mother’s love is a light from above. 
Truth like nothing else the mind can think of.  

A love to cause pause with a look in her eyes. 
Pretty but not fierce was a mistake to assume. 
Kindness is not weakness some fail to recognize. 

She was most fierce when her sons were blamed. 
Unfortunately her sons were at fault.  
Didn’t matter, she was not to be tamed. 
For those boys were as pure as table salt.

Unconditional love on display.  Not on occasion but every day. 
Every day. 

She turned Christmas into the incarnation. 
Gave me a time machine that I use today. 
Transporting me to the eve of expectation. 
When boys think tomorrow is a better day. 

Holidays were times where hope was renewed. 
The table set for sharing more than food. 
More than food. 

Gifts were wrapped with great care and precision.
A lot like that gift sent from Bethlehem. 
Cultivating peace was the shared vision. 
Gifts of love by the hands that prepared them. 

Hands that never failed to unveil
That you’re worth tending to every detail. 
Every detail.  

Those same hands look different as of late. 
From those playing jacks on the kitchen floor. 
But they love the same as when I was eight. 
Wouldn’t mind at this age playing once more. 

An eternal blessing that has a debt. 
That those so blessed would simply not forget. 
We will not forget. 

We remember the spring from which we’re fed. 
Though our ambition and purpose gets swirled. 
We grow toward that light previously shed.  
For that light will change the world. 
Change the world. 

Mom was born alive in spite of attempts. 
Like a rose bush removed from the garden. 
But a greater plan for her was meant. 
To bloom anyway right where she started.

Her father missed out knowing this daughter. 
Her tears transformed into holy water. 
Holy water. 

Feeding roots of the next generation. 
With prayers unending to heavens applause. 
Anticipating the promised transfiguration. 
Giving you and me cause to stop and pause. 
Stop and pause. 

To pause amidst uncertainty and pain. 
And know you are blessed and blossom again. 
Blossom again. 

Like the first rose promising more to come,
From soil thought to have hardened. 
Nine know their father as one of her sons. 
And ten more now bloom in the rose garden. 

The landscape of time bloom with gifts above. 
Knowing each rose is a triumph of love. 
A triumph of love. 

Every day,
More than food. 
Every detail. 
We will not forget
To change the world
With Holy water. 
So, stop and pause and
blossom again,
as a triumph of love. 

A triumph of love.

Details | John Grindle Poem

Easy Believing

Why do strangers put faith in a double yellow line to prevent certain death by collision?

Or why do I believe the ground when planted must bring a day of produce?

I put hard earned money into stock and believe a bull will bless it’s return. 

I trust a pension will sustain me when i’m old. 
Long term growth will win in the end I’m told.  

I easily fall asleep trusting a deadbolt to keep watch in the dark. 

My close friends will be there when i’m in need.
Surely relationships won’t fail I concede. 

Every day a weather man predicts rain based on science. 

And each day a scientist reveals how yesterday’s science needs revision. 

But a yellow line is nothing to entrust my life to a stranger 3 feet away. 

Neither is a deadbolt sufficient when someone really wants in. 

My planted garden gave way to bugs, slugs and hail. 

In a day the market crashed and my fortune was proved imaginary. 

The next day a virus made travel a risk and also my company pension. 

My friends I haven’t seen in weeks and their likes and hearts sort of miss the beat. 

So, we have no trouble believing in things. 
Unless those things expect change from me. 

Then we demand proof, data, evidence and logic.  For we are not fools to believe in just anything.

Details | John Grindle Poem

Cuts Like a Knife

Failure is a razor sharp edge. 
Pierces the heart like an arrow. 
Cuts deep into the cartilage,
And does separate the marrow. 

Fault is prison without escape. 
Lacking that someone else to blame. 
Tips a scale and records on tape. 
Weighs me wanting, snuffs out a flame. 

Leaves me alone again at night
Facing the bite of cold steel rain. 
Like sleeping under a flood light. 
To awaken to much the same. 

A time of testing will beclown. 
Turns a straight path into an arc. 
Pivots to an orbit around,
That moment of missing the mark. 

An introspection blade quickens. 
Showing a purpose to this pain. 
Exposes motives once hidden,
Different from those I proclaim. 

Cutting still deeper these gloved hands
Show me what I refuse to see. 
That I prefer creating fans
of me and not so much of Thee. 

Personal success is legit. 
But recall this marrow we share 
Conflicts with truth we must admit. 
It comes from ancient ilk, beware.