Best Rocking Poems
Rocking Chair
(The Autistic Child)
Born with walls constructed in her mind,
She keeps the world and all its threat at bay,
Inside her rocking chair day after day,
A month, a year, an hour, no sense of time
Just rocking, rocking all her life away.
Christmas comes and presents pile around
Her chair; she sees the paper, shining, colors bright;
She reaches for the red, the blue, the white.
She revels in the crumpling paper sound--
Just rocking, rocking in her endless night.
The family gathers for the festive meal,
She will not leave her chair, her treasured place,
The never-ceasing motion of her private race.
She’s rocking in her solitary reel,
An empty stare on her unchanging face.
But what is this, her sister’s gentle hand
A soft, accepted touch , a simple smile,
“I want to sit with you a little while”--
Contact made without seeming to demand
They rock together—a stationary mile.
where she used to rock her kids to sleep;
arms empty now, she starts to weep.
4/24/2023 For Line Gauthier's 'Bite Size Contest no.62' Poetry Contest
The Rocking Horse Cowboy
I’m king of the rocking horse--cowboys
I yea ha along with the best
Me finger and thumb
I use as a gun
And ride the top horse in the west
I ride the top horse in the west
He’s sturdy and ready to please
It’s no big deal
When he shares my meal
I feed him fish-fingers and peas
I feed him fish-fingers and peas
Then he’s ready to canter and go
He really flies
When chasing bad guys
And always we catch them, you know
Always we catch them, you know
Those bad guys who pinch all my toys
We never fail
To throw them in jail
I’m king of the rocking horse--cowboys
When a child with mood tuned to channel pout,
I cherished how you chose to repose me.
You chair-rocked soothing beats with arms about
me, your small lap-wrap, and lulled me gloom free.
Your gentle love nurtured my self-image.
Grown, I still feel Grannie-pats on my back
that once love filled me in your rocking chair.
Time’s chase cannot displace our love with lack
for still I rock in your love’s sure graced flair.
Decades death laid swayed not your dear visage.
Still
He sits
In deep thought
Reflecting on
His last eighty years
Nothing distracts his thoughts
Of disappointments and joys
A smile then appears on his face
As he remembers his deceased wife
Still smiling he lifts both his feet and rocks .
~
Written on 24th April 2019
For Writing Challenge 2 April 2019-
It's All About 10 - Poetry Contest.
Sponsored By Dear Heart .
Have faced the final curtain,
the passing through of change,
A crossing of the mountain
on pathways, oh, so strange,
No more visions are moving
over the clouded stage,
Words no longer do remain
upon the crumbled page.
This chair becomes the pleasure,
the throne of last resort,
Where futures wait silently
for tomorrow’s report.
Sometimes the weight seems lifted,
sometimes it’s not to be,
Through all the chained up mem’ries
souls cry out to be free.
The fountain has stopped running,
the rose been starved of drink,
Sands of time roll down the hill
taking one to the brink.
Then thunder meets the sunrise
and neither knows what’s meant
By the sounds of aftermath
that echo through lament.
Suddenly the yesterdays
have melded with the blind,
The times of life once gone by
disappear far behind.
The rocking chair’s still moving,
the eyes still come to see
All that has e’er gone before
has somehow set one free.
Where granddad once sat, resting creaking bones, I now wearily sit.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Contest: The Old Rocking Chair
Sponsor: Rick Parise
© 6th November 2016
The wind
comes in at night,
bringing with it new ghosts
but I'm wrapped tight in mother's quilt,
each painstaken swatch stitched by her own hand
She sings a breathy lullabye
and rocks me to sleep in
the cradle of
the wind
Forlorn as a withering rose,
The years in every wrinkle etched.
A crippling frame, head to toes,
Ramshackle porch to match.
An old man, rocks back and forth,
Staring steadfastly into the eve,
His ailing years of little worth,
The sublime sunset a mere reprieve.
Contemplating a life well worn,
Exuberant youth a distant past.
His aches forged through duties sworn,
A life succinctly fading fast.
Resigned, fulfilled with aching heart,
A partner lost this past ten year.
Far too many years apart,
Engrained in each and every tear.
The sun cascades on wind torn porch
A silence echoing the fact,
That embers of his dying torch
Will fulfil a reuniting pact.
Why do we call the good old days,
good?
Grandma was always talking,
talking about the days that had passed.
I wonder if they were really that good,
or does our mind play a trick on us?
Grandma loved sitting on her porch,
looking out over her land in her rocking chair.
Now the old rustic white fence,
is falling down from the last storm.
Her once beautiful flowers are all dead,
dead just like her.
"By the squeaky old gate that tomorrow will find,"
sits an old tan and orange alley cat.
Oh how she loved to feed her stray cats,
then play with their furry kittens.
Will the squeaky old gate find a new tomorrow,
or be torn down and rebuilt with cement?
The Rocking Chair That Keeps…
Up in the attic, there’s something or someone
that keeps creating an eerie, dreary air:
for the darkness is greedy
as it smothers a world of mystery,
a century of family history,
all boxed and cased
in a crust of rust and dust!
Pictures of Dad as a sprightly lad,
Gran with no wrinkle, just a youthful twinkle
and bits of me bagged and forgotten.
However, it is the empty, rocking chair
that reaches out with a squeeze of….. unease.
Yes, up in the attic, there’s something or someone
that offers, a bite of fright and a dreaded dare:
as pipes snake into secret, cobwebbed lairs
and wooden beams stream like overhead train lines
while the excitement of discovery hides in the past.
But it is the empty, rocking chair
that grips and grabs at my attention
as I sense ‘something’ harbouring its wooden frame.
Oh yes, up in the attic, there’s something or someone
that keeps, nudging and grudging with a gloomed glare:
the room suddenly trembles, my heart holds tight
but it’s only the wind galloping by at night.
Immediately a watery giggle,
gurgles the length of a pipe
increasing my midgets of fidgets.
I turn and an aged mirror offers a face of fear
but I breathe again – for it has only borrowed mine.
Up in the attic, there’s definitely something or someone
that keeps, me uneasy, even queasy, each time I am there:
for the darkness is greedy
as it smothers a world of mystery,
a century of family history,
all boxed and cased
in a crust of rust and dust!
But now…. something far more shocking,
a lone rocking chair that keeps.…rocking!
Ian Souter 2025
As I sit dustbound in the upper room;
This musky old attic, my temporary tomb.
Reminiscing my previous owners charms;
Her comforts found in my waiting arms.
I've carried her babies to candy places.
Put tiny grins on their sleeping faces.
They bounced on fluffy marshmallow clouds,
Where toadstools made of cupcakes abound.
Held the soldiers wife as she hummed love songs;
Dreaming the day her soulmate comes home.
Showing her the husband in visions enhanced
By my soothing, hypnotic, rhythmic dance.
Comforted the heart wrenched elderly widow;
Her life long love seen in fading shadow.
Strolled with her down lovers lane;
Her youthful passion remembered again.
Given her descendant; my resurrection day
Her grandaughter's babies whose dreams I'll make.
Happiness and sorrow, I will see her through.
This old rocking chair, my life made anew.
The old rocker reposed by the hearth longer than I can remember.
'Twas Grandma's favorite chair, she cherished it as a family member!
From it she dispensed abounding love, wisdom and wit,
Rhythmically rocking, never minding the squeaks it would emit!
What a special privilege it was to recline at her feet,
Enthralled by tales of her past, of which her repertoire was replete!
As she grew older, tho' her gnarled fingers were not as nimble,
She'd still relax in the rocker with needle, thread and thimble!
In the eventide, she'd read her Bible, glasses perched upon her nose,
Then afterwards with Tabby in her lap, take her usual doze.
Later, the family would gather around her and the chair,
To reminisce, sing, then kneel for evening prayer.
The cat invariably got his tail crushed as Grandma rocked the chair,
Creating a fit of yowling, hissing and an inscrutable glare!
But the wily old dog learned from the first day of his birth,
To give Grandma and her rocker a very cautious berth!
Tho' Grandma and her rocking chair are no longer around,
Precious memories of her holding sway in that old rocker abound.
I suspect that on the other side of that far and mysterious veil,
She presides in a rocker, as saints gather to hear her regale!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired (© All Rights Reserved)
no one can really understand insanity
it sinks below depths of our humanity
something so small,
a grenade,
atomic mess,
bodies blown to bits
as the gas suffocated earth-
it's that clench,
that gasp-
that knot
you fear.
And it eats you alive the more you endure
such imaginative qualities,
and you sit there unknowingful
uninformed;
while envy develops;
you sat there admitting
in horribly brutal honesty-
but your eyes forgot the plan
cause the guilt shot through
and that look-
that look-
i've seen it before.
The wind is blowing gently;
it stirs the empty chair
on the wooden porch at sundown
where her last breath she took .
The wind is blowing gently.
------------------------------------------
Visual 4 ~ Rocking Chair
Paul Callus ~ 5th August, 2015
Contest: A Prized Refrain
Sponsor: Nette Onclaud
Placed 3rd