I’m not sure if it’s the shortened days
That douse the fire with malaise
Doubts that color vain displays
Red cheeks that the cold wind flays.
And yet I strive to soldier on
Battle with each breaking dawn
Stagger like a fallen Fawn
In defeat slow quartered, drawn.
Old trees concede the warmth I seek
The wisest owls too cold to speak
Mock the soaring hawks as weak
Call even nature’s beauty bleak
And yet we hold to Solstice hopes
As snow-blind climbers cling to ropes.
John G. Lawless
©11/19/2022
Daylight is wide-eyed, it glares
like an angry samurai.
We are pinned down
naked to the piecing sun.
It's all too exposing -
the heat flays and burns.
A violent light fries sunscreens,
drills through sunhats
while we blink under gritty lids.
The humidity drains,
we slouch, crouch,
strain out our words.
Its’ a dry dog time
where doggedly nothing wags.
We dream of cooling winds,
of those days
when a salty sweat did not
dry-out our lolling tongues.
Tansy Roekaerts
12:35 AM (12 hours ago)
Mirage
With eyes as parched as the desert I travel,
I thirst for my loss, yet do not unravel.
The sun it scorches with merciless rays,
Though heart not skin it brutally flays.
My life before me: a vast expanse,
Empty and scorched infernal sands.
Traveller dropped in foreign terrain,
Totally wrecked, blindsided by pain.
‘Not all is lost’, swears false apostle,
So now I believe, for relief so colossal
Gleams right ahead in sparkling silver,
Joy so intense, my tears form a river:
Our faces awash, in joy so sublime,
I feel such hope, imagining what's mine
Returning to me. That long cool sip
Shimmers ahead, into relief I'll dip
A desire so great. I count the days,
Striving to reach that scintillating haze,
So full of promise, till deceived I fall -
Nature lies too. Still their names I call.
Having read the news as we continue our life's displays
It's similar news to them, when our parents were young
It's towards sad to tragic as we just don't seem to learn
What do we bring to the table, what do us humans yearn
Beirut, Syria, whether deliberation, or accident prone?
It's similar news to them, when our parents were young
Famine, floods, fighting, bloods, all on today's phones
Just what have we learnt from the tips of our tongues
Will we keep reading the news as continuous life flays
It's now similar news to us, we've not learnt when young
We're towards sad to tragic as our learning's lost it's turn
What do we bring to the table, what do us humans yearn
An old butterfly wing
entangled in a web
flays his tether
with each gust of wind.
Fox glove tangos with the evening winds
My little Nicole had grown
What cradle doth she now lay without fatherly kiss?
How is my fairest one now turned a mist that hast flown?
It grieves to sing lullabies to her doll
The muse grants me expressions in vain
Doth heaven sparkle without family on its Beulah soil?
Surely my moppet shall cloud heaven's skies with dark pain.
Books of fairytales, rocking chair, pink unicorn
Touch I with so feeble fingers that could not keep sleep away
Cosy cradle, music box, cardboard painting of me with crayon
Flays every joyous reason on this plain to abide a day.
I shall pluck my strings as I tell the stars
How beautiful they shine to guide memories to my head
The chiming clock shall number my deepest scars
With melodies that draws the weary pilgrim's feet to the end.
Each day I suck, on a Whiskey jug
As my life also, does suck on me
My worth on earth about as much
As my piss is, to the sea
Inside this swashing jug, a raging sea
Sets me adrift atop a cresting wave
Then pulls me under to such depths
That my soul, I can no longer save
With each gulp I stir the bowels
Arouse the sediment and silt
And as it settles I hope it hides
Or at least, obscures my gilt
Every mouthful flays my throat
Like waves they break unto the rocks
Smashing, spraying, then dissipating
While the Devil stands and mocks
I drink until my mind goes blank
Then plunge into the floor
At last a drunken blissful peace
Until, I wake once more
So as I lay here on this deck
Inebriated, dying in this flask
I think of you and what we had
If your forgiveness, I could only ask
BOEMS by JA 614
I wait for you to come with open arms,
for pain that flays and sears me will not cease
though once I feared you, now I see your charms
I long to enter rest and sleep in peace
For you are nothing but a placid state
devoid of feelings and of lucid thought
where pain and heartache do not carry weight
and cravings and ambitions tarry not
You promise me a tranquil, fond embrace
I will not pull away from proffered kiss,
for tears have never ceased to bathe my face
to be relieved of anguish equals bliss
I wait with baited breath; do not delay
Oh, Death, it is for you I kneel to pray
For Craig Cornish's Death Contest
November 5, 2017
Glutinous IT oozes, seeping IT displays
Odious IT's intent, to trap and waylays
Onwards to IT's purpose, IT suffers no delays
As darkness descends, IT could be end of days
IT circuitously trapped us, in IT's complex ways
Grotesquely IT's inhuman, as our skin IT flays
Contest:- BOO
10/11/17
Life Didn’t Exist Without Nicks
Written: by Miracle Man
8/19/2017
Life’s been loaded with a myriad of glitches,
I’m considering the use of the moniker scar.
Twenty times in life I’ve experienced stitches,
So I’ll never be mistaken for some film star.
If fewer than three sutures they don’t count,
Or the broken bones and assortment of flays.
It began at fourteen and with age would mount,
I’m just an old dog that had a few rough days.
Oh, how I come alive in pleasured zone
when passion sears my flesh, flays to bone
Euphoria soars then bursts in rainbowed hue
the universe is made of me and you
your fingers scorch me in their blazing flame
You set each longing free: unchaste, untame
to dominate, you tie my every dream
then give and get your pleasure in extreme
we're bonded in the essence of desire
no other thought but how to quench the fire
Surrender brings release from frenzied pace
I see the glow of love here on your face
They say that heaven waits for those who love
When I'm with you I'm taken up above
Eileen Manassian
a stone's thrown to a hill may be big or small
no casualty can be there after hitting
a lion attacks a deer flays with his claws
helpless deer nothing can be done
a stronger bad ruins a weaker good
he's nothing to do except screaming
a stronger good one harms a weaker bad
he's nothing to do except surrendering
before huge hate slight love's no meaning
before huge love slight hate's no meaning too
is it not that right of stronger's justified
Such a romantic soul am I
But I live my life in limbo
As time flays by
Each day one step further
To the grave
Cursed by loneliness
Void of love I so need and crave.
It hurts so much when I am in town
With so many women and couples around
Everyone seems to have someone but me
I am just another face in the crowd
That no one really sees
For I am invisible don't seem to measure up
Although I try to friendly and kind it's never good enough.
Everywhere I look sex is in my face
But I need so much more a tender touch
And warm embrace
It can't be normal to not be touched
Or wanted by another human being
Loneliness took me to some dark places
I rather not have been.
I don't want to die alone
And be discovered dead in my bed
With fly's at the window pain
My heart feels like it's kicked like a football
My loneliness is killing me
And almost drove me insane.
Never truly loved never missed
No flowers or mourners at my funeral
I'll soon be dust and nothing at all.
But all I ever wanted was a wife and a child
I drink till I'm drunk to ease the pain
Each day I live a nightmare
I cannot change.
Peter Dome,Copyright.2015. May.
Bubbles out the cloudy bong,
torpid girl, sings happy song,
Drug addiction, fells the fair,
flays the soul, with flaxen hair
Fiery liquid, bubbles on,
spoon’s dreams, blossom on
Absent friends, no help to find,
all now busy, with daily grind
In the night, when rain swift falls,
a friendly angel, stops and calls
Her darling hand and blossomed hair,
searches father in despair
Alas his searching comes too late,
and angels guided to her fate.
Rests the blossoms on her grave,
mischievous, rain bubbles, blithely wave
And here’s a life that spoke no ill;
needle’s death, so cruelly kill.
Written 30/03/2015 for "Blossoms and Bubbles" contest.
I could remember seeing a smile so radiant
With beauty so serene and exquisite the scene
She ain't righteous but she's quite virtuous
Manners like that of a saint
Voice so faint
With eyes that paint the flays of beauty
And then i wonder, is this for real?
The message is sent to all men
And their spirits are awakened
But a beauty so perfect with perfection still perfect
Meant for a man to calm her mind
Graciously flowing with the tide of the wind
What a beauty she is.
Related Poems