Best Trespassed Poems
The old stream doesn’t burble
like it used to in Spring’s past -
rambunctious in youth wild it ran
racing the sun and chasing the moon
splashing leaping and tumbling
over, down and around rocks in its shallow channel -
giving it rollicking laughter
The old stream doesn’t play with sunlight
like it used to in Summer’s past -
when unending yellow dahlia days gentled its flow
allowing for reflections and explorations around each bend
and for savoring saffron skies and plum-shaded shadows
that seemingly stretched on forever -
giving it invincibility
Autumn saw a change in the old stream
under a herald of goldenrod fireworks
waters waned becoming tired and tamed
its banks and shoaly bed littered with Fall’s golds and reds;
a once lilting voice grew quieter
as nocturnal rhythms trespassed towards winter’s solstice
and under the cover of darkness
a cool moon stole the stream’s slow dance with the sun -
giving it vulnerability
The old stream remembered not the goldenrod days
nor the purpose of its earthly path -
Winter charged in on his frosty horse robust with rime
and laid his icy hands upon the sleepy stream -
draining its dreams of a pulse beneath a frozen facade..
but from below the stilled surface a silver current flowed free
… giving the stream eternity.
Susan Ashley
April 12, 1019
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 23
Sponsor: Mark Toney
*Rime: frost formed on cold objects by the rapid freezing of water vapor in clouds or fog.*
Lord, lead me not into temptation
Away you, I'm not sure, teach me not
This exercise in longing, I will forget
Your verse of homelessness, as your son
Illuminate the distance between me, and you
Forgive me, your garden trespassed, don't
Exile me out into forlorn space again
Heaven and satellites are your art
Here on my moon far from the sun, you
Lead me to that lonesome capsule, back
Where a stained spacesuit hides me, listen
To the hissing suit sweet-talking me, I go
Wearing that damned suit, pull down the visor
To cover my face from your rays, head
To my own sea of tranquility alone
On the dark side of the moon, far
From your reach, I’ll own my kingdom
From your moondust, build a sand castle of sin
On the rim of an unholy crater, I’ll declare
Independence from your colonial rule
I’ll put on this old suit of debauchery again
Until you strip your prodigal child, attempting
A break from orbit, telling me I have all I need
For a moonshot closing the distance
Deliver me from a solitary capsule, lifeless
On the cold lunar surface, temptation lives
Stay my evil hand that turns the airlock
Watch me float out the hatch from afar, hiss
Your gravity too heavy to bear, God, watch
Me bounce to the dark side of the moon
Though here comes the sun again, coax
Me a sinner unbaptized by midnight
Each revolution, you test my faith
Turn not distance to despair, rather
Instill the space between, patience
Turn not my freedom to anarchy, but
Faith in tethered orbits, closer
Turn not my soul into a cancer, hungry
Temptations eating a moon misled
Thy will be undone away from you
The Color of Oppression
They trespassed into the motherland bearing nothing but unknown gifts to our small minded leaders
Bartered with them for valuables far exceeding what they could offer in exchange
They drew on masks to conceal their fascist ideals towards us; they pretended to be our friends
Fake smiles were displayed as they greeted us, smiles that concealed their wicked hearts from our midst
My ancestors impressed by sugar, clothes, bibles, and rum sold their people for meager goods
Un-broadened minds restricted by sacred traditions, if only they knew
If only they knew what hell these white demons could bring, the hatred they harbored
They practiced mathematics on us as they divided my people
Our traditional setting, our cautious nature, our yet to be broadened minds
We fell victim as they did what aliens do to conquests…… Brain washed us
Like mineral resources my people were exploited, our minds filled with ethnic propaganda
They whispered lies we believed, lies that dampened our free spirits, and lies that chained our hearts
They imposed slavery, stole our riches with colonialism, imprisoned our minds with imperialism
Decades my people lay captive, their hearts beating to a common voice
A booming call was cast across the motherland; a call for freedom was issued
My people`s hearts became a group of lions, their hearts swelling with pride
White is the color of those who started the first and second world war
White is the color inflicting social injustice, instigating a social stereotype
White is the color of the truly wicked, the color of the third Reich
White is the color of the ashes left behind in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
White is the color of those who lynched my American brothers and sisters
White is the color of the Nazi and the Ku Klux Klan
Yet white is ironically the color of peace, love and tolerance
White is the color of shameful men, the color of a cancer with no treatment
White is the color of those whose power is dwindling with each decade
White is the color of the weak
White is the color of those drained of life, those ruled by death
White is the color of those defeated by true freedom
I ask, at what cost?
Coiled beneath the leaves, nothing is seen of his reprieve.
The viper’s warning is curtailed.
Silently masked among the decay, a wooden shelter becomes his stay.
The viper’s ambush is prepared.
Wanting, searching, like field mice the children are learning.
The teacher prepares to pounce.
Writhing, frothing, innocence from adolescence is fleeting.
Status quo, they begin to denounce.
Like poison, consumption, coveting is quickening within the arterial circulation.
Rebellious youth herald Marxist slogans.
Crying, suffering, parents beg for an answering.
Who trespassed within the kindergartens?
Forty Years now lost.
Humans have long trespassed
and destroyed animal territories
Humans have poached
And selfishly encroached
upon animal habitats
cutting down trees to build
human habitations.
Now the tables have turned
Humans are quarantined in house arrest
while some lie sick in bedrest
So animals not usually seen are having a fields day
roaming upon roads, crossing the streets.
Reclaiming the once jungle lands,
that had been turned into concrete urban jungles.
It's better that busy humans now become photoholic
than forever queueing
in lines of heavy traffic.
Without human pollution,
nature is all the more photogenic
Mother nature all a creation of God
has now had many of us grounded
as she gives us a hiding
while we go into hiding.
Extraordinary turn of events indeed!!
In several countries round the world:
Discos and casinos vacated
Pubs and nightclubs evacuated
Bars shutdown for lockdown
People are behind bars instead of guzzling beer in bars
and instead of animals behind bars.
Humans compelled to hibernate
so animals busted their cell gate
Priorly animals were in an enclosure
Now they are getting free exposure
Self-centred humans cared mostly about themselves
but now the animal kingdom is the cynosure
Animals were shut in cages
and now human activity is under similar closure.
Ah, this corona crisis!
Is all this mercenary stasis
for humans a roasting nemesis?
A heavy price to pay for rapacious carelessness and arrogance
where humans acted like they are in control, like they
are controllers of this planet
and they could do anything they wish with it.
It's ignorance to think all this is mere coincidence.
Im relieved our Islamic prayers can be said any place, anywhere
to kneel and bow to the one true real sustainer of the universe.
We need to invoke and supplicate to the creator
who is still in control...
as prayer can really truly prevent fear and anxiety in such scary times.
"I suddenly realised that coincidence is a word we use when we are ignorant of the real causes." - Albert Salvadó
(I was impressed by the news story in which Kuwait had sent a special plane to Italy to specially evacuate their nationals from there when Italy was heavily stricken with the corona virus)
Perpetually I am thrown in the pulse of mourning against the wall
With sincerity I ask lord if you indeed subsist, apprehend my soul through it all
From the immoral ways accumulated in yesteryears
I am accustomed to transcending from suppressed fears
Repercussions in distance range persevering to be
Father exculpate this afflicted soul for trespassing those who have trespassed and scorned even me
For vile exploitation administered in reticence
For counteracting the blessings restored in the pathway of supreme acceptance
For aliments of self extorted mental strains, I request at your mercy I plea...I declare
In tolerance of relapsing the course of tempting habits; I approach your throne with a sinner's prayer
The convulsions and embittered tendencies tarnishing my soul, lord extricate my eternal spirit
I surrender to your impositions, the truth as it is; not as I would acquire it
Deliver me from perceptual incarceration, obscuring in apprehension my eyes
Impel my perception, my countenance from being camouflaged in disguise
I am inquiring redemption in urgency to be emancipated, to be set free
I have nowhere else in contingency to turn, metamorphose my persona to see
My promise to conform to your will documenting your word, I humbly articulate my plea
I beg of you to consider hearing a sinner's prayer!
A mass of grey and rusted silver strewn
By the sky god from sifted appurtenances.
Preserve of ancients jousting with modernity,
Behind edifice a disperse of brimming slums
With piles, heaps of filth, debris, decay and stench;
Congestion and the jostle for ends and gains.
Benin endowed with neo wiles obviating tradition
And irked for now-now pleasure and wealth
Imitating and striving for wannabes
Inculcating habit and aspiring for a world without the sun
Yet far from assimilating it by the words of the old:
Carrot does not sprout in the root of a yam stalk.
Old city, once enliven by aestheticism
And renowned by the arts and crafts of bronze now
At the backdrop with every frontlines bedecked
By remnants of exotic necessaries. Men, vehicles rush,
Scramble and stream Ringroad and Ramat
From dawn to dusk to the abyss of nowhere
And returning home at last to the euphoric solace
Of the mellow hit of Waifo highlife
And the scores of green, brown bottles that thrive.
Benin, where once the Portuguese trespassed,
The Dutch men trampled and the British overturned
Leaving behind their long evening shadows
A new self-image chained in the heart.
Disappointment
My father's signature has been forged for I know his hand
Greed for squandering have made you fall to your lowest ebb
My temples blasted at the shame that we are of the same blood
I choked to know that your son dared to forge dad's will
The embarrassment gushed in my blood about trespassed relationships!
I was thorned in every nerve at your restless unrequited greed
How could my brother do so? Overpowered by his greedy half?
My spirits depleted as I weakened in the arms of my dependent mother
I had nightmares of her being murdered as my heart had been
Why hero-worship grandpa if his virtues of gender equality aren't followed?
It suddenly awakened me to life we didn't belong to the same family mould
Strangely you and your family that I immensely loved, became strangers
I signed the will with a heavy heave not because I was befooled,
But my nosedived soul knew that my father would have wanted it so.
You have been my greatest disappointment, oh my un-dear brother!
November 7, 2015
Contest: Dancing With Description
Sponsor: Casarah Nance
A crystal drop on the child face
who left the shack where mum would hide.
Alone in the streets of guns and race,
nowhere to go amidst the smog of pride.
The dust of a land with thorns and sun,
along the routes to chase the kites.
The thunder tone of a tank and gun,
no milk no hug but hunger bites.
Go fast, go fast the soldiers come!
No joy, no play in their mental array.
Your age, you pale, the bush as home
to hide from those who’ll make you prey.
And when the darkness veils your sorrow eyes,
the trees will move and the shadow will fright.
The village has stars from nauseating fires,
a woman and her child forever immobile and tight.
Your dream of a milk and of a lullaby
soon red of fire and of greed for a peace.
A butterfly on your hand to dry
the tears of dread and the hug of a disease.
A thud in your heart as a van approaches,
your friends are there captive and beaten.
The lion got them as it fiercely encroaches,
the chevron commands to seize and to listen.
Your feet to fly from the lion’s cage,
he puts guns in hands of tremulous leaves.
Your glance on the land of your early age,
your friends now transformed in life thieves.
An when the glance melts into dreams,
there they come the roaring lions.
The beasts and their breed to chase you along streams,
to bring your limbs into deadly riots.
Hiding is now avoiding the open meadows,
taking your life away from guns and slaughter.
A frighten child in the forest shadows,
when the silence is broken by a shot and a order.
Life has gone. It has gone forever,
a bullet has trespassed your chest and your bones.
“Mum please take me! Take me in the Heaven!
To hear from your mouth your heavenly tones”.
You don’t have to say
one spherical metallic word
I know with GSW empathy credulity
just how you feel ... I bequeath kindred sympathy
Taking one lead body blow
for the I homeboy visiting team,
was enough mental pain timeout for me
And the physical hurt toll it put on my body
made me frequently start falling to my knees
I can understand if you’re gun shy,
really I can
When you felt the quiet burn
of the silencer,
and the sweat of your fear
started to pellet fly
There’s a few blood splatter
reasons why
you’re audibly mute upset,
and so gun shy
Some whack eraserhead
unholstered their hostility on you
Bam, bam went the bullet hate —
hot metal piercing flesh ...
smearing cold iron-cooper fear
over your nude, trespassed privacy
I can understand if you’re gun shy,
really I can
I can truly relate
if you thought death
was your imminent fate
Really I do
You don’t have to say
a single semi-automatic word ...
You’re gun shy,
and I know the trigger reason why
Your temple’s been invaded
by kinetic metallic thieves,
who left your wounded,
praying soul to cemetery bleed
But putting a cap on the lip lid
is gonna make you implode within
Though asking for a modicum of gun control
is considered a Second Amendment sin
Keep the treason
on the tip of your tongue
from speaking
It’s best to remain gun shy,
never saying a word
It’s smart to duck when the bullets fly,
and the screaming is heard
Silence is double-O seven golden,
it’s good that your thoughts
ain’t got a license to kill
In the quietude of the grave,
victim death shout echoes do reverberate still
So, shhh ... stay low-key gun shy
Any sound motion can be detected
by a revolver barrel indiscriminate eye
Heat seeking for some unsuspecting
bipedal target to Big Wheel die
Any guttural movement
is gonna get a crosshair,
scattershot, fade-to-black goodbye
The kevlar-coated lip service politicians
sternly suggest you keep
any over-the-top, brash comments
under-the-counter on a locked vault cry
They say, now ain’t the time to be vocal and brave ...
bite the bullet,
and suffer your soul to die timid gun shy
The moon looked like a cat burglar that crisp November night;
clear skies but for one dark band splashed across his sight.
His guise arcane and sinister, and try hard as I might,
I couldn't help but wonder who he'd prey upon with spite.
An air of eerie stillness fell, as he cast cool silver light,
foretelling of his felony, contriving someone's cruel plight.
His luminance trespassed the land as he rose to his full height;
a meticulous surveillance to plan his act of sleight.
Disquieted I crept inside, closed the door, pulled curtains tight,
still his glow transuded every room setting all my fears alight.
Adrenalin took over, but far too scared to fight,
I sheltered 'neath the duvet to wait for morning bright.
Next morn I tiptoed down the stairs, fists clenched, my knuckles white,
but everything was in its place, the moon had taken flight.
I don't know why he visited, maybe just to be polite,
but I had uneasy feelings he'd return at next twilight.
**for 'Monorhyme Madness'
I was nearer to Heaven then
As I trespassed cloud and sky--
And I will travel there again,
When next I chance to fly.
How grand the heady heights achieved,
To Heaven, near or far--
Of greatness I no more deceived,
For how very small we are!
In memory of a cat
In those years of innocence
When actions were not guided by much sense
I once killed a little white cat
That had trespassed; I guess, while on the trail of a rat.
I knew not from where it came
Or, if the door had been left ajar; who to blame
But I was angered at it's sight
So, I reached for a pestle, and struck with all my might.
In blind anguish it dashed about
Dazed! And of the way out, obviously in doubt
For, I had blocked the kitchen door
A club in my hand – a hammer in the hand of Thor!
Another lone strike, and it’d gone still
In my thrill, I’d cut the air with the loudest shrill
Picked my kill; displayed for all to see
I was a warrior, a great - I had wallowed in my glee.
But, Mum did not share in my thrill
As her words had, through me sent a chill
“The cat will visit in your dream
To seek revenge, if it’s anger is extreme”.
“You’re a self-acclaimed brave
Therefore, by your hands; you must dig its grave
And it’s vengeful spirit pacify
With pleas, at the place where it will now eternally lie”.
With a heart filled with fear
Minding that the night was getting very near
My tiny hands had dug the ground
And I’d rendered my plea upon the little grave mound.
Though, of reprisals from the dead
My then innocent mind later outgrew it's dread
For fun, I never did kill again
As to the sanctity of all life, I got bound by a chain.
May 5, 2018
Ezra was a wise old bird and he knew very well of what he spoke,
But his words to the scattered nation almost caused the men to choke.
God is mad at all of us and we need to get ourselves back in his good graces,
But He can see too many foreigners and he wants our girls in their places.
So boys if you ever hope to go back home sometime in your lives,
You’re going to have to do what I say and get rid of your shiksa wives.
When the Lord can look down and see that to nice Jewish girls you’re wed,
He’ll send us home to live again as long as we stay Kosher in the bed.
Ezra - Chapter 10
10:1Now while Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, there was gathered together to him out of Israel a very great assembly of men and women and children; for the people wept very sore. 10:2Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered Ezra, We have trespassed against our God, and have married foreign women of the peoples of the land: yet now there is hope for Israel concerning this thing. 10:3Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law. 10:4Arise; for the matter belongs to you, and we are with you: be of good courage, and do it. 10:5Then arose Ezra, and made the chiefs of the priests, the Levites, and all Israel, to swear that they would do according to this word. So they swore.
My memories are bleak
they’re dormant in my mind
resisting thoughts of childhood
pretending to be blind.
Insecure by your actions
which left me isolated and alone
all because you could not refrain
taking what you didn’t own.
Panged with insatiable hunger
to be free of your restraints
hiding behind a mask of fear
on a canvas of abuse I paint.
Pallets filled with colors
of the darkest known to man
brush strokes with a purpose
to cover what began.
I’ve seen you since that day
you took my innocence by hand
eyes looking off into the distance
as in front of you I stand.
Emotionless you stood there
unable to look me in the eyes
glancing into a haze of darkness
of your deepest lies.
Look at me, this woman now
who stands before you unafraid
the one you trespassed against
as a child you betrayed.
Don’t look off into the horizon
acting as though it didn’t exist
A retched, foul example of a man
A soul that won’t be missed.