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Best Poems Written by The Grahamburglar

Below are the all-time best The Grahamburglar poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | The Grahamburglar Poem

I See You

I See You...

Wanderer, wanderer, lost in the haze
void of direction, succumb to the craze.
Give ear to my madness, so deftly designed;
deception de-jour: aimed to muddle your mind.

Hocus and pocus no need for free thought, 
erase your opinions, your conscious to rot.
As sugar and soda your smile decay,
a hoax and swindle, then off on your way. 

Smoke and a mirror, please don’t look too close.
The truth makes one banal; drugs for the morose.
Illusion can conjure emotions untapped
a quick misdirection, now I’ve got you trapped. 

You think you arrived here, quite all on your own
you’re one of a billion, another sad clone…
I’ve stolen the treasure that once made you free
brainwashed you to thinking all’s as it should be.

Gobbledygook and hyperbolized drivel
platitudes, platitudes, mentally shrivel;
accept what I tell you, and not an ounce more,
wanderer, wanderer, you’re lost evermore. 

07/12/15

Details | The Grahamburglar Poem

Fallen Star

I tracked along a silver trail
carved out from Earthly dust
by rays persistent in the dark 
and midnight wanderlust.

It led me to a bubbling fount
of sulfurous mud and tar; 
whereupon I chanced a glimpse
and found a fallen star. 

An ancient from celestial realms
ensnared terrestrially
dimly glowing in the murk
I heard it sing to me:

Sojourner of the moonlit way
I sense thy beating heart
I’ve travelled from infinity
now hearken ere you part.

You roam upon this infant orb, 
you draw from it thy life, 
but I sense greed and evil scorn
and no land void of strife.

I beg you tell me how it came
that creatures such as thee
have found such hatred in thy souls
to punish endlessly. 

It’s not so bad, I said out loud
we know of love as well…
as to the fate of mother Earth
I simply can’t foretell.

The ground beneath my weary feet
gave way to empty space
then all around me in the void
I saw the human race.

Starving children, ill and gaunt
were kicked by wing-tipped shoes.
Females ranging every clime
in silence nursed abuse.

In darkness men were plotting war
in light their banners raised
it mattered not which way I looked
some evil met my gaze.  

Make it stop, I beg you please!
Why poison thou my mind?
What can I do to stop all this,
is no good left to find?

Sojourner of the moonlit way
I sense thy beating heart
I’ve travelled from infinity
now hearken ere you part.

You roam upon this infant orb, 
you draw from it thy life, 
and though you’re one of many men
love in thy chest is rife.

You must return to whence you came
you must confer abroad
the goodness that within thee burns
seek first to serve the flawed.

Think on the vast expanse of space
so empty, dark and cold…
and how despite the hopeless cause
star-light you still behold.

So too might thou, if you’ll but try
endure this awful plight
for in the vast expanse of hate
love is thy shining light. 

07/16/15

Details | The Grahamburglar Poem

A Child's Prayer

Clutched tight to my chest, the doll smiles lifelessly
sending vacant stares down the darkened hall.
A solitary line of pink light sneaks through a crack in the door.
Fighting tears hanging loosely in my eyes, I listen.
 
“Please tell daddy that I love him and miss him.”
It has been two months since he died. Long, hard months.
“Keep him safe.”
His smell still lingers on his clothes in the closet.
“and bless mommy to be happy…”
How can I be happy, or even smile, when all I want is to be numb?
The tears burn in my eyes, but I can’t cry, or I might never stop.
“so that she will play with me like she used to”
I can scarcely recall the last time I was able to focus; to give her all my attention.
“help her to forgive me,”
Oh sweet baby, it’s I who needs your forgiveness.
“help her to love me again, even though sometimes I’m bad”
Oh God, is that what she thinks!?
“and please help me to find dolly so she won’t be scared tonight”
Ok, focus…just breathe.
“in Jesus name I pray, Amen.”

Clutched tight to my chest, the doll smiles lifelessly
sending vacant stares into the room lit by a solitary pink lamp.
I sneak through the door, with tears rolling down my cheeks,
and enter with a promise, that all her prayers will get answered.

05/31/15

Submission for Prayertime Memories
Hosted by Isaiah Zerbst

Details | The Grahamburglar Poem

Quaking Aspen

We are the high altitude sentinels.
Our small groves freckle the high plains.
We keep to ourselves, mostly
upon the snow burdened peaks
where our ashen trunks blend
and our barren branches cling
to icy white glitter.

As the breath of winter ebbs
we watch the crystal spring run-off
growing ever greener with envy 
of how it races down the hill; babbling.
We whisper this to one another
in the crisp mountain air, solemn
as we keep watch.

From our station on the precipice
we behold fully the majestic sun
revering at dusk how it paints the sky.
In the failing warmth of autumn, 
we offer in turn, our own reflection of
magnificent golden sunset skies 
in our shimmering yellow foliage. 

We keep company with pines,
firs, spruces, and other prickly sorts.
Conifers aren’t social, which suits us
as we keep mostly to ourselves.
Sentinels must remain vigilant, after all,
watchful for approaching danger. 
We quake from paranoia, probably.
 
Our bark is pale, above all, for fear.
We’ve seen your kind before.
Your kind we watch most carefully.
If you look close, you will see
from our thousand dark eyes
we always look closely back at you.

Are you dangerous?

08/21/15
Submission for contest: Trees Personified
Hosted by: Charlotte Jade Puddifoot

*I loved the aspens when my family would go camping in the high Uinta mountain range in Utah. They are beautiful and they can grow at such high elevation (above 10,000 ft) it's really amazing.

Details | The Grahamburglar Poem

In Emerald Shadows

Trying to hide in conspicuous places
a night on the town in their false, plastic faces.
Sweetly they sweep through magnificent halls,
top-dollar galas and masquerade balls -- 
where always the wine is more bitter than sweet,
each girl wishing for love in her ruby-clad feet.

Perhaps scarecrows are thoughtful, and lions are brave,
and the tin-men know passion, such a boisterous parade
of hopeful young suitors, each waiting his chance
to find a young lady and win her last dance. 

All tied up as prisoners with satin-silk chains
they listlessly dance as the hope from them drains.
A piano-man plinks only on the black keys:
pentatonic winds on a pentatonic breeze,
still not enough blowing to carry balloons
or to start raining houses from cyclic typhoons.

The evening draws on -- long beyond the moon’s rising,
a faint glinting of green from the city’s disguising
the envious looks in the eyes of the witches
and harsh threatening gales of the wind as it switches.
And no one is happy, none are finding their prize --
no one knows what they want, nor removes their disguise.
So the dancing is pointless, bravado is hollow
no wizardly magic can fix what will follow.

Shallow connections that lead nowhere, and quickly
the ballroom grows quiet, the witches grow prickly
the lions go fleeing, the scarecrows are clueless,
the tin-men don’t care, and that makes them the cruelest
For out in the public, among all the noise
some girls have gone missing -- and so have some boys
and in the dark shadows, all knew what occurred
but they whisper and gossip, and spread what they heard:
that it must have been mutual, it must be alright
they’re both grown adults, let’s not be so uptight.
And thus they all hide, in conspicuous places
enabling the culprits with false, plastic faces.

9/4/16

Details | The Grahamburglar Poem

Summer Nights In the South

Summer Nights in the South


Green fireflies blink in the quiet of night

and our sleeping old dog heaves a sigh.

Dreaming, she sprints through a youthful blue sky

chasing delicate clouds, cotton-white.



A red-sunset tanager* colors the warm air

from a perch in the majestic oak limbs above

professing by lullaby, sincerely devoted love,

like some sublimely recited evening prayer.



I lay back and smile, through the leaves, at the moon

to the sound of crops rippling in the breeze

thinking how precious are nights such as these

when alone, with the Earth I commune.  



*Summer Tanagers (Piranga rubra) are native to the southern U.S. but are not true tanagers. They are actually members of the cardinal family.

08/01/15
Submission for Contest: Nature Poems Only
Hosted by: Shadow Hamilton

Details | The Grahamburglar Poem

The Crone

A warning breeze bore tale of a familiar and fiery rage;
in the dread of night, a crone hobbled, accursed of her age  
by smoldering orange glow, she took to an ancient black tome 
raptly reciting incantations from a frail and ravaged page.

A century past, was the last time she’d seen them roam; 
that cursed dark knight and his dragon with scales of chrome.
Overwhelmed by terror, she’d tried hiding herself in her bed
but the dragon knew…he could sense her, and lit up her home.

Scarred by the inferno, disfigured she looked like the dead.
The whole village feared her, and quickly rumors had spread,
“You’re a witch, you’re a monster, you’ll curse us, don’t venture so near…
stay away from our town, leave us alone.” they had said. 

90 years of solitude, the crone spent every night with her fear;
entrenched in lore of ancients, spells feeble and others severe.
She committed her life to mastering the forbidden art
and now to her dread, dark knight and chrome dragon, drew near.

Though the breeze had granted her time, and a decent head-start,
the dragon had sensed her, and it wanted her heart.
Shaking, she whispered, casting spell after spell in the night, 
transfixed, she fluidly traced out a primeval star chart.

When she had finished, she took up a shawl brilliant white, 
hobbled out of her dwelling, and sang in the twinkling starlight.
Above her, the knight on his chrome beast made a dive
His sword in its sheath; he was expecting no fight.

The crone raised a finger, and with it, her will to survive.
Perseus, Prometheus, Orion, and Apollo did revive;
The lion, the ram, the bull and scorpion, from heaven crept
Beasts and heroes, gods and titans of ages past, came alive. 

The blanket of heaven descended, and all who had slept
marched on the dark knight and his dragon, to intercept.
The battle was fierce, but swiftly it ended.
The crone ended her song, and then finally she slept.

The life she had granted the stars had expended
what life she had left, though that was as she’d intended.
She’d committed her life to protecting her homeland
though they’d sent her away, still their lives she'd defended.

Now there’s a rare constellation of a gnarled old hand
choking out a chrome dragon which appears to be manned.
Written somewhere on a frail and ravaged page,
is a spell to summon her...though that book has been banned.

06/21/15
Submission for: FANTASY
Hosted by: Mystic Rose

Details | The Grahamburglar Poem

Summer's Wish



One night a-twinkling in the sky,
I spied a clever firefly
Who glowed the same faint silver-gray
As stars a million miles away.

*****

Although most stars remain afar
I reached out with a big glass jar
Then with a quick and sudden -SWISH-
I caught a twinkling summer's wish!

*****

I whispered to him my desire,
Then set him free -- that twinkling fire.
With lightning speed he went, and soon
He twinkled right on past the moon.

*****

Now when I'm in the dark of night.
If I but look, I'll see his light.
A-twinkling faithful in the sky
My clever little firefly!

Details | The Grahamburglar Poem

Listen To the Warm

"It happens just because we need to want, and to be wanted too, when love is here or gone to lie down in the darkness and... listen to the warm.” -Rod McKuen 


I reflect on them often, those years. 
Watching gilded sunsets from the shade of old trees we’d planted in the yard.
I try to reclaim the contentment of our lazy romance. 
There was no wine; no little black dresses. 
It was certainly not a diamond, ruby, and emerald affair.
But was it any less valuable? 
I bask still in the glow of the fires we’d share during cold winters, 
and the way the dogs would curl up and sleep on our feet as we’d read together. 

Your side of the bed has grown so very cold in your absence.
Sometimes, as I dream, I can feel you, your warmth…
and hear you snoring. 
Ok, so you weren’t sleeping beauty…but I needed no fairy tales.
That was our life, wasn’t it? Simple and honest, and perfect for what it was because
we were together… 
were.

Now here I sit, chilly,
with just my reflections, and your empty chair.
I dwell on yesterday and my heart listens for the warm.
Perhaps it will be tonight, under the gilded sunset of my own life,
that as the sun sets and the night grows cold
we shall sit together by the fire,
with the dogs asleep at our feet,
and be together once more, 
forever warm.


5/5/16
For Contest: Listen to the Warm
Hosted by: Laura Loo

Details | The Grahamburglar Poem

Requiem of a Phoenix

 Requiem of a Phoenix 

Silhouettes and storm clouds loom, 
etched against a blackened sky
by bolts of electric blue
and ashen moon rays.
I mourn at dusk; the death of the light. 

Languid flames dance 
from tree to tree, 
as a passing of the torch
to the sacrificial pyre. 
I mourn by fire; the death of the light.

A tormented world in anguish
heaves a guttural howl, 
which resonates through the darkness
carving deep channels in tangible silence.
I mourn in song; the death of the light.

Absently numb, I view it all
with a looming realization
that I was never made for this world
captive to flesh and desolation.
I mourn alone; the death of the light. 

I surrender to my captivity. 
I surrender to the agony.
I surrender to the storm and fire.

I embrace the void.

From the cinders of night
skyward I strain on bolts of electric blue
pursuing the tranquility of the moonlight.
Unqualified freedom granted by absolute loss
is a new captivity. 

So mourn I at daybreak, the death of the night. 

4/14/17

For Contest: Mythical Creatures
Hosted by: Julia Ward