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Best Poems Written by Danny Derden

Below are the all-time best Danny Derden poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Danny Derden Poem

The Face In The Mirror

Visage stark and eyes of steel
He shares my thoughts and what I feel
And seems to know more than I’ve known
The face in the mirror sees through me.

He knows my faults, my secret sins
And bears no mercy without or within
Judgement swift cuts to the bone
The face in the mirror weighs me

Dreams and goals, schemes and plans
He shatters with a sneering glance
And his silence is the only tone
The face in the mirror knows me

He measures my worth with soulless stare
And soundlessly he lays me bare
Worthless his lips appear to moan
The face in the mirror shows me

He finds me lacking and less each day
Though why so harsh he will not say
Just a loathing low hushed moan
The face in the mirror wounds me

His disregard so plain and clear
He knows my pain and stokes my fear
His twisted lips set the tone
The face in the mirror grieves me

He arbitrates my very life
Slashes my soul with psychic knife
His cruelty hard as stone
The face in the mirror hates me

No escape and no reprieve
This simulacrum will never leave
His torment won’t let me alone
The face in the mirror is me

Details | Danny Derden Poem

A Version of Me

There is no strength in fear and flame,
naught but the bitterness of blame,
which leads us all to guilt and shame,
finger pointing and naming names.

Better still our hearts to open,
forgive and live with hope and
honest emotion,
a chain of grace unbroken,
positive words to be spoken,
and put our heart into motion.

Easier though to give anger it’s head,
to wish all of our enemies dead,
leave no damning word unsaid,
and encourage our hate to spread.

And spread it will unless we stand,
take our enemy by the hand,
strive to understand,
declare our oneness before the land,
grace and tolerance to expand,
love for brotherhood our command.

Eschew the path of the xenophobe,
abandon the notion of a divided globe,
tap well into your temporal lobe,
encourage agape to brightly strobe.

What a world it would be,
if they and us became we,
if you and I began to see,
instead of difference, similarity,
oh, to be so free,
and know my brother is a version of me.

Details | Danny Derden Poem

People Like

It is the way of the people,
people like you, people like me.
It is the way of the people,
to want whatever they see.
It is the way of the people,
people like you, people like me.
It is the way of the people,
to take whatever they please.
It is the way of the people,
people like you, people like me.
It is the way of the people,
to keep whatever they seize.
How many, many people
called this sad land their own?
How many, many people
lost this land they called home?
People like you, people like me,
pushed again, lost again, wandering free.
It is the way of the people,
taking from those who came before.
It is the way of the people,
to want and want and forever want more.
People like you, people like me,
taking from you, taking from me.
Taking dreams, scattering bones
of people like you, people like me,
without life, without homes.
Torn asunder, left to wonder
by people like you, people like me.
The world spins out another
people like you, people like me,
to drive and push away
people like you, people like me.
Thus it has been, thus it is,
for people like you, people like me.
Must it always be?

Details | Danny Derden Poem

A Map of Quiet Fires

Her skin drinks light like rivers take rain,
each dappled edge and sun-struck curve,
a landscape under my hands, soft yet severe,
where desire meets the edge of breath.
Fingers trace the small hollows of her hip,
catching sunlight in each soft valley,
dipping, trembling, as if they might slip
into some dark, endless tenderness.
She is a map of quiet fires,
a fever I can barely hold.
I find her pulse in the hush of thighs,
the places where words lose themselves.
My mouth opens to meet her skin,
each kiss a tender bruise of ache,
pressed and perfect, lush as wine
that fills, that floods, till reason splits.
We break where passion's blinding flares,
colliding in waves of sweet surrender,
so fierce the ache it stings like glass,
we drink of each other, ravenous, undone.
In the silence after, breath upon breath,
her skin still glows with sunlit trace,
and I am carved by the strength of her
in places I never knew could break.

Details | Danny Derden Poem

Silence

Silence is the absence of energy
No vibration, movement, or synergy
Nature muted, physics frozen
Molecular loss of motion

Stillness, cessation, yet more
Peaceful quiet we adore
Or the calm before the storm
A meditation to perform

Tranquility without a note
No rhythm or tempo to denote
Without melody or harmony
A sad musical larceny

No instrument, no voice to sing
No string to pluck or bell to ring
No line or strain to play
Not a single thing to say

Silence is all and rules the day

No wind to stir the leaves above
No worm to turn the earth it loves
No thunder the lightning to announce
No sound at all to be pronounced

Nothing, nothing at all to hear
Is silence truly so very dear
Give me noise, give me clamor
Speak to me if you must stammer

For silence is terrible fierce
The mind is crushed the heart is pierced
Walls close in and sight grows dim
Silence after all is awful grim

Silence is the permanent hymn
Speak and break the soundless grip
And from this silence let us slip
To bask again in noise’ sweet glow
And hear again a sweet hello

Or a retort stinging sharp
A jester’s joke, an angel’s harp
Something, whatnot, anything at all
Take me from this silent hall

Silence is the forever pall

Silence is the crushing doom
The only sound within the tomb
The toll to pay for our complaints
Ever wishing for more restraints

Silence now eternity taints

Details | Danny Derden Poem

The Poet

Once upon a dreary time
A boy set out to note a rhyme
Pen in hand with paper lined
Prepared he was to share his mind
But thoughts lay barren and confined
Without sense, reason, or rhyme
Suffered he did this weary time
Both his soul and cheerless mind
His eyes grew dark, his face grew lined
And tho he sought to redesign
Something, anything it need not be fine
But the words would not align
And in his room he did confine
To seek and pray for some sweet sign
For the intercession of the divine
To show, to prove verse sublime
But chaos reigned and nothing aligned
And so he collapsed under weight of his crime
Chained by shackles of his own design
Weeping tears by misery primed
The poet thus became the sad mime.

Details | Danny Derden Poem

I Saw A Man Today

I saw a Man today as he walked the hill
Tears and drops of blood did equal spill
From brutally torn flesh and eyes of pain
I saw a Man today my inadequate refrain

I saw a Man today unjustly convicted
His trial was short and clearly scripted
The verdict assured without any proof
I saw a Man today who spoke only truth

I saw a Man today abandoned by friends
Who claimed to be strangers by pretends
Before the cock crowed denying Him thrice
I saw a Man today and words cannot suffice

On a hill called the skull I saw a Man today
‘Father, forgive them’, is what I heard Him say
Through nails and a crown of thorns grace He sought
I saw a Man today the world’s debt He bought

For I saw a Man today more innocent than me
Take up my sentence while I just walked free
He bore the crucifixion cross in my place
I saw a Man today, I looked upon His face

I saw a Man today and He saw into my heart
And took away the darkness and gave me a new start
He broke the chains that bound tighter than the jail
I saw a Man today whose blood tore the veil

I saw a Man today and He died upon that cross
Sacrificed for me and all the world’s lost
He could have called a heavenly army
But I saw a Man today who chose to die for me

Three days past I saw that Man die upon the beam
A death that changed my path it would so seem
And now before His empty tomb an angel doth stand
Why seek you in this place of death The Living Man?

Details | Danny Derden Poem

Able

There was a time
When my faith was unshakeable

The Lord proved
That I was remakeable

His love for me
Was simply not mistakeable

The Holy Spirit’s strength
Was totally unbreakable

For forsaking me
He was incapable

His call on my life
Was just so inescapable

But I went rogue
And became insatiable

I thought His love
Would just be replaceable

In the world I could hide
And then become untraceable

Write my own ticket
My desires now obtainable

But such a life
Is so unsustainable

Bent and broken
I’m biodegradable

I’ll never get home
The chasm unscalable


Would He take me back
That seemed so debatable

My life got so twisted
My actions so hateable

I didn’t deserve it
My soul was unrateable

Consumed with despair
My steps were retraceable

At His gate I cried
My debt is unpayable

He opened the gates
How is this explainable

You are my son
That is not erasable

Such love as this 
Simply unrestrainable

Details | Danny Derden Poem

Lawn Care

The sun is high in the summer sky
And no clouds to be seen
The grass is high neath the summer sky
And growing tall and green
The mower starts with growling roar
And cuts through swaths of fescue
This mowing proves a sweaty chore
And soon I beg for rescue
My lawn’s expanse appears to grow
The longer that I labor
Seems to expand as I cut each row
The mower becomes my sabre
And I a true knight dueling a foe
Who laughs at my every advance
He stands unyielding before each blow
And about the green our martial dance
With never a sign of surrender
The fight goes on between us two
Which shall prove to be the pretender
Victory comes with the aim that’s true
And at last my foe lies low
Beneath the heel of the victor
Yet even now it grows
Who shall win next Saturday?
Sadly there is no predictor

Details | Danny Derden Poem

Judgement Day

Birthday, Christmas Day, Fourth of July
Easter Sunday, Thanksgiving, ain’t gonna lie
Holiday, Holy Day, Fifth Monday
Every day, all day, not a fun day

Each day, every day is Judgement Day
Each day, every day is Judgement Day

They look at you
They weigh you
They measure you
Any way they can

They find you wanting
They find you lacking
They find you missed the mark
Best get with the plan

Labor Day, Halloween, New Years
Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, cry me some tears
His Day, Her Day, lost the pay day
Inauguration Day, swearing in and at you hey

Each day, every day is Judgement Day
Each day, every day is Judgement Day

They look at you
They weigh you
They measure you
Up and down and back and forth, sideways

They find you wanting
They find you lacking
They find you’ve not tried hard enough
You are accountable for all the untried ways


Death Day, Mourning Day, Burial Day
The Day they dug the hole
The Day they fill it in
And forever trap your soul

Each day, every day is Judgement Day
Each day, every day is Judgement Day

Never made the mark
Never measured up
Never scored the goal
Or held the winner’s cup

Judgement Day oh Judgement Day
You’ve had your piece of me
Judgement Day oh Judgement Day
May I please rest free…