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Best Poems Written by Dean Neighbors

Below are the all-time best Dean Neighbors poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Of Love

A feeling of euphoria,
a woman and a rose,
a long, committed partnership,
of love the husband knows.

A tenuous and abstract thing
of love he understands--
or thinks he does until they
place a baby in his hands.

A miracle, a wonder who
can bring him to his knees,
who grips his heart with fear at
every cough and baby sneeze.

She calls to him in silent nights,
the deepest sleep defeats.
She holds his breath in hostage till
he knows her heart still beats.

Behold, the hulking man of men
of beastly, manly powers
who’s brought to tears by tiny fists
with gifts of mangled flowers.

A feeling of euphoria,
a little girl, a rose,
a dirty face, a sloppy kiss--
of love the father knows.

Details | Dean Neighbors Poem

Pillow Ships

On winds of sleep in pillow ships
I sail outside the mind,
in waters lost to those awake,
impossible to find.
Beyond the realm of consciousness,
with canvas tightly sewn;
across the briny sea of id
I navigate alone--

to harbor on the continent
of antimatter thought,
where magic lives to show me things
reality forgot.

Details | Dean Neighbors Poem

For Me Alone

Why is it yours to pray for me,
precisely choose the course I set,
to tune the scope that I might see
your plan for me? My friend, I’ve yet
to fathom your intolerance
for those who sow and reap their fate
without your forced benevolence,
advice that won’t abide debate.

The scriptures of the universe
appear before our mortal eyes,
we stretch our minds to read the verse,
to comprehend, to realize,

the words are etched on every stone
for you, my friend-- for me alone.



“I render infinite thanks to God for being so kind as to make me alone the first 
observer of marvels kept hidden in obscurity for all previous centuries.”

~Galileo Galilei

Details | Dean Neighbors Poem

Rivers of Time

Dinosaurs waiting for stone to erode,
their skeletons covered, uncovered again,
iron that's forgotten the blood where it flowed
and phosphorous leached from a primitive brain--

delicate sabers of soft-stepping cats
enshrouded in shimmering oceans of sand,
strata of relative sediment that's 
concealing the bones of the earliest man--

visible traces of numerous beasts,
the sum of Earth's creatures forever enshrined--
signs of their passing won't slow in the least
the rivers and runnels of ongoing time.



"We loved the earth, but could not stay" ~ Loren Eiseley~

Details | Dean Neighbors Poem

Running

writing in the margins 
hiding on the page 
schooled in imperfection 
cowering with rage

following the guidelines
living by the book
simulated blindness 
terrified to look

frozen indecision 
powerless to choose
diagramming failure
satisfied to lose

putting off beginning
steering clear of ends
intimate with strangers
insecure with friends

fleeing ever faster
running short of breath
sprinting out of childhood
hurrying to death

lying in the postscript 
bleeding from the heart
living in the margins
dying from the start

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Summer Morn

The future lies unwritten on
the blankest, blankest page.
I’m born today and, safe to say,
on track to boundless age.

At anchor in a harbor on
the leeward side of time,
engaged in making love to verse,
in making beauty rhyme--

the heart has placed before the eyes
what Gods of hope have borne,
a well of sweet serenity--
and love like summer morn.

Details | Dean Neighbors Poem

The Lady of the Night

Her face is of another world, 
the lady of the night, 
her beauty framed by Heaven's glow 
of alabaster light. 

Sedately as she passes by, 
behind a veil she slips. 
Eternity won't make a face 
her beauty can't eclipse. 

She smiles on her companion as 
she slowly turns away, 
as if she were a lover lost 
with nothing more to say. 

She peers into the depths of space, 
serenely-- unafraid, 
then turns to face the world again, 
her monthly penance paid.



I get the urge to write something like this once in a blue moon.

Details | Dean Neighbors Poem

Opaque

Opaque, before the light of early dawn,
a window pane, a portal to my youth,
plays visions out of time. My eyes are drawn
to scenes within. An oracle of truth
embraces me, its chilly arms enfolding
my heart and all my dreams. She loves him yet;
she mourns the distant hand she could be holding,
the touch her mind and body can’t forget.

As dark as any moonless night I’ve known,
and darker still, my heart. What muse that’s left
is black as any crow that’s ever flown,
beyond despair and utterly bereft--

as if the eyes of God were unforgiving,
as if my soul had died and left me living.

Details | Dean Neighbors Poem

Promise

Evicted from her garden by
a knowledge never sought,
was she villain, then, or victim in
a play that time forgot?

When tempted by an evil
bearing legendary fruit
did hunger conquer innocence?
Can history refute

this yarn of human weakness that
has passed from ancient times?
Is this a tale of simple truth
or fodder for our rhymes;

is it myth or could it be
a tapestry we weave
to chronicle the promise-- or
apocalypse of Eve?

Details | Dean Neighbors Poem

Are You the Burglar Or Bilbo Revisited

Were you offered an adventure 
past the gateway to the lake 
for a share of golden treasure? 
What decision did you make? 

Were you captured by some hungry Trolls 
while spying all alone? 
Did the magic in the sunlight 
turn your enemies to stone? 

Did you travel on a pony 
through the mountains in the spring? 
Did you really riddle Gollum?
Did you dare to steal his ring? 

Do you know the King of Eagles? 
Were you once his honored guest? 
Did you travel through the forest 
with King Thorin and the rest? 

Did you ride the running river 
on a barrel made of wood? 
Did you really tease a dragon? 
Did it do you any good? 

Do you live in Hobbit comfort 
with the money that you made? 
Do you boast of how the Goblins 
and the spiders fear your blade? 

Will you now forsake adventures? 
Have you put away your sting? 
Are you still the only burglar 
for the Wizard and the King? 

Were you truly born the only son 
of Belladonna Took? 
Or are you simply lost in an 
extraordinary book?