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Best Poems Written by Michelle Faulkner

Below are the all-time best Michelle Faulkner poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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A Reverse Rant

"Rhyming poems have nothing of substance to say
They're childish! Ridiculous! Silly! Passe!

What's that - 'The Raven,' fine prose, you assure?
Pshaw, a talking bird is not Literature!
'The Road Not Taken' - how indecisively trite
'Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day' ~ why, out of spite?

'How Do I Love Thee' - such female nonsense!
'She Walks in Beauty,' not even past tense!
'Oh Captain, my Captain' just repeats and repeats
'Death Be Not Proud' - indeed, no great feat

Rhyme is over and done, finite, dead
Give me a rambling run-on sentence, instead!"

Sure, it's easy to call Dr. Seuss poppycock
HIS books are world-famous, what have YOU got?

12/11/18

Entered in 'Living It Up for Laughter' contest

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We the People

We the People
Will disagree
On taxation and prosperity
On liberty and duty

We the People
Are every color of Christianity
Every Jewish prayer, every song of Islam
The puritans, the atheists and the Amish
Are neighbors here

We the People
Are Jamaican and Japanese
Swedish and Samoan
Cuban and Cherokee
Moroccan and Mexican
The Irish and the Inuit
And all shades of Africa

We are country hills and cityscapes
Suburban parks and downtown fire escapes
We are singers and stutterers
Daredevils and diplomats
Renegades and redeemers
The leaders and the lone wolves
The suits and the sarongs

We are the gun owners for gun control
The justice for unjust loopholes
We are the hands that struck the iron
And the backs that laid the tracks
Of trails of rails connecting
Sea to shining Sea

We are protesters and poets
The soldiers without peace
The nurses without sleep
We are the straight arrows and the skeptics
The gay and the god-fearing
We are Black Lives Matter
And we are the badges in blue

We the People
Are complicit and complicated
No freedom gave
To chains of slaves
We have conquered and colonized
Sacrificed and stolen
Pillaged and planted
To naturalize a nation

We are teachers of tenacity
Prophicies of pioneers
And the children of second chances

We the People 
Speak for our land’s legacy
In every tongue, from every rung
On each stumbled stair, each crumbled chair
We demand democracy.

8/21/20

Poem of the Day
August 23, 2020

Details | Michelle Faulkner Poem

A Year Dwindling Down

Apple cheeked autumn eyes bashful skies, as

Yellow frocked summer says her goodbyes to fragrant
Earth's seeded spring, to wild bouquets
Arranged by careless care, for the
Roses and daffodils to compare

Dandelion sprinkles of buoyant cheer on
Windswept wishes from children's magic, landing
In water lilies and long looping lanes, woven in
Nests of chirping, fragile hope
Delicate shadows of feather and wing
Lingering through flickering whiplash steam where
Ice caves lost to reckless flame
Northern flocks under southern stars to map
Greener seasons slipped through graying rain

Drowsy flutters the pale sun's
Oscillating gusts of sleeted night as
Wan, wanting branches undone by
November's surrender to darkling winter.

10/09/20

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Green Anniversaries

This is not a time for us
Facing these weeks of hospital walls
My knight now jousts an invisible foe
Shorn of hair, yet still he wears
Tubes of pain as proud as armor
With blood too pale, future too frail
No anniversary in candlelight
This year is measured in pills and applesauce
Doctor visits replacing road trips
To the salty sea beach, where he proposed
With a ring of delicate gold
All those years melting in florescent folds
Of bleached sheets and disposable gowns
Yet, every tide of fever, every ocean of nausea
Is one more wobbly step towards a tomorrow
Of recovered roses and kaleidoscope kisses
Where I believe, past this horizon's thin eve
In lush trees, green with anniversaries.

8/24/20

Details | Michelle Faulkner Poem

They Told Me You Cried

They told me you cried on the day I died
A sob splintering through a silent dome
Your sorrow a shroud on the catacomb
As I laid where birds no longer replied
Now I watch as you slowly search the beach
For those rare shells edged in liminal blue
I would gift you that impossible hue
To show I was within sight, within reach

Yet I wish you more than what shadows grant
A life in the sun of a springtime glen
Not lost in the gloom of my grave's abyss
Let my legacy be the hope you plant
Blooming with the courage to love again
If you will keep something of me - keep this

Details | Michelle Faulkner Poem

Covetous

Is it a crime
To pry apart rhyme
Stitch lines, unhitched
From native consequence

To warily marry
Unmetered time
By forced remorse
Unrehearsed
In patchwork verse

In my malaise
My daydreams ablaze
I long for eloquence...

     to drip, untripped

From my lips


The devil rides
my prideful hide
Chastise with whip and spur
Damning the span 
Between who I am
And who I wish I were.

3/6/20

Details | Michelle Faulkner Poem

Other Faiths

Some say you are lost
If you are not found
On their ground

Some think you are blind
If you do not find
What they find

I am an atheist who believes

The universe is a tapestry
Not a thread

The science to chart the stars
Is but a celestial church

That medicine and vaccines
Are answered prayers

That communities
Can save each other

That math and music
Language and learning
Rebuilding destruction
And regretting a wrong

Are inherent miracles

That to plant a tree
Water a garden
Kiss a scar
Soothe a bruise
Give a smile
Hug a sorrow
Cook a meal
Play a song
Clasp a hand
Bandage a cut
Wipe a tear
Hear a need -

Is divine

I believe the soul of nature
Is sacred

and a rainbow's refraction
Is all the more radiant
For the formula it contains

I believe the finitude of life
Makes a more precious day

And, to my friends of other faiths
I believe - we can meet halfway.

4/27/20

(this was inspired by a poem I read by Anil Deo called Any Athiests out there - thank you for your kind response to my novella-of-a-comment, Anil!)

Details | Michelle Faulkner Poem

Who I Would Bring Back

Who would I bring back, if I had only one
Perhaps a great leader, Kennedy or Lincoln

Or I could choose a musical icon
Such as John Lennon or Michael Jackson

Maybe a legend of the silver screen
Maybe Marilyn Monroe or James Dean

All gifts to the world, but the selfish truth
I would bring back the mother of my youth

The mother who, with sublime grace,
Applied lipstick and blush to her ivory face

The mother whose delicate jasmine perfume
Filled my childhood's every room

Whose all-day-long-to-cook beef stew
Was the first comfort food I knew

Her dancing steps, so full of ease
Until the claws of arthritis seized

Her laughter so free, her hugs so giving
Before these days of assisted living

I would return the fire to her hair
And raise her from the wheelchair

And, as I used to, watch her choose
Her dress, earrings, necklace and shoes

Then she'll softly kiss my cheek
Before going out, coiffed and sleek

To her I would give my own energy
To be, again, the woman in my memory...

10/09/18
for Caren Krutsinger's 'Who Would You Bring Back' contest

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To My Teenage Self

It's OK
that you don't have much to say
Your words are kept on paper
For your eyes to savor
It doesn't matter that your best friends
Are Agatha Christie and Emily Dickinson

It's alright that the phone doesn't ring
With silly chatter over pointless things
Don't be concerned with the prom princess
With perfect skin who looks flawless

You are not one of the sheep that blends in
You are more alive in your own skin
Of books, and writing, and libraries
They can keep their ugly judgments and drunk parties

You don't need doctors and therapy
Because you prefer anonymity
To toxic high school hypocrisy

You put yourself before contests
To see which boy likes which girl the best
You like yourself for who you are
Proud to be unpopular

Proud of your poetry, proud of your rhymes
Your unvalued hobby, your peculiar pastime
You like reading the thesaurus for fun!
Never apologize, never be done

You know
your old soul

Don't fall into the female curse
Of self-sacrifice, always love yourself, first.

7/17/18

Details | Michelle Faulkner Poem

Dressing Up

I try on words
Like hats and shoes
To see which look
Best fits my muse.

7/30/20

Poem of the Day
August 1st, 2020