Praise Poems
A big, "Thank you!" to all of the participants for your clever, fun, personal, and moving offerings. It has been my pleasure to receive these poems first and I'm thrilled with the results! I applaud your sense of adventure and bravery for digging deep inside and exposing your core selves. Good luck to all of you!
This challenge presented a specific task for the writer to convey personal information. http://mywriterscircle.com/index.php?topic=62825.0
I recommend you write one for yourself.
You'll find vulnerability, humor, and tragedy in these poems, so take your time to read these, mull them over, let them sit with you while you try on the writer's shoes. You have twelve days of Christmas Season to choose two favorites. It won't be easy. Voting closes after December 6th. Polling tallies are revealed after you cast your votes.
To the victor belongs the spoils. Each participant and yours truly, will extol the winner with poetry written to or about him or her, in any form. We've got high stakes here so be sure to vote.
My sincere apologies to everyone, especially the writers, for the tardiness of this post. I did the best I could to run this challenge properly but I can't control unforeseen events so please do not let yourself be disgusted and give up on these challenges or this site. We mustn't let extraordinary challenges sour us. Let's get this site jumping again.
I'm sorry this post is so terribly late
but you'll find these poems are worth the wait.
Now, without further adieu
A bouquet of poems for me and you.
Enjoy!
~Deb
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1. The Gift
It wasn’t dressed
with pretty pink bows
wrapped around
factory rolled insipid paper
masses pick
in ignorant bliss,
it came from Paula Rego’s
topsy turvy world
where young girls undress men
while mothers smile,
check pulses
and plead
that I ask why.
You see,
the gift
is not to balk at
nor cast aside
without due thought
as you might throw aside
a painted chocolate box,
it’s to think.
see with different eye
stories told in paint
so powerful
my heart beats fast
while drawing outlines,
fleshing the tale
of a moral maze
at first dismissed,
then like that blank canvas
now filled with brutal beauty,
the gift sets free
my mind to show me
me.
~ * ~
2. Praise be me
I'm a Woman.
I came through the womb of Ages,
rolling out
like my mother
and her mother
and all the mothers before her.
I'm a Queen
made a mother
by my daughter.
My swinging strides knit my path through the world
I'm old and I'm young
I'm the little girl hidden deep inside
Living a life of nothings
Sometimes beautiful sometimes bitter
And I've known fragile sparklings.
I am a Tower.
The Fortress : come and cry in my lap
and I will dry your tears
(mine make big clouds,
mine don't rain)
I smile.
Always.
To enlighten your lives.
To make you laugh.
To show you the path.
I smile like a stream rolls down the hill
or like the bird darts in the morning air.
My fingers are velvet
and my mouth is soft
when I sing my praise
when I sing my praise
when I sing my praise
…..
~ * ~
3. Untitled
I'm taller than I look, the casual eye observes average height
sees a slim, white-haired man who's closing in on 60
pale Celtic skin adds to the impression of frailty,
countless tons of granite carried, countless hammer swings
might have dropped my shoulders, and bruised my back
but they still laugh at ideas too heavy for ordinary men,
and work and move the heavy stones that
commemorate bigger healthier men.
I'm braver than I look, every fear destroyed,
and there were many
dark, dentists, spiders, blood, heights, public speaking, needles,
to mention a few,
all banished by force of will.
I'm stronger than I look, the sexual abuser when I was 12 didn't
create a 'survivor', he created nothing, and was resigned to the past,
but worse
the teacher's crippling humiliation bled into my adult years
the occasional little bandage still occasionally required now
is still a positive, it's a gentle reminder to always be kind because
the dangerous hurts hide silent.
It is what it is.
I sometimes feel like a hawk, hovering, observing
seeing life for what it is, attacking, and
accepting when it doesn't always go to plan.
My anxious origins and challenges have defined me.
I'm better than I appear, most of us are.
Maybe that could be my epitaph
'He was better than you thought he was'
But no,
because I'm kinder than I look, and know that Supermen don't wear capes.
I've blocked rush hour traffic to save an injured pigeon, and to carry a dying badger off the road
wrapped him cosy in a blanket, and sat holding him for his final hour and
will forever be proud of myself for not taking my roundabout exit after passing him,
I was scared, but the rear view mirror showed no one was stopping
so I returned, before they, afraid,
slowly squashed him flat.
The experience of being that close, of touching such an elusive creature, was quite a thing
and I'll admit to a few tears.
I saved the life of a little girl, once again a traumatic situation, and me fresh out of First Aid school.
I still haven't got over the wonder of it...it's still quite a thing.
Maybe my epitaph should read
'He was kinder than you though.'
~ * ~
4. Ebahgum
ahm a big yorksher lad me
Fra Gods own country tha knows
ah like what I say and
ah say what ah bloody well like and
ah dunt care what any bugger else says neither
I’m like a big oke tree me an’all
seven foot three in me bare feet
a flat cap, wellies and a ferret
dahn me trasers is all it teks
to see where ah come fra’
nowarrahmean like lads an lasses
ah like a drink me so stop
polishin them there glasses
and fill em up wi ale eh?
ahm spittin ruddy fevers here
must be oer 10 degrees eh.
on a summer day ah tie knots in me ankie
and purrit on me head, cant afford a sun hat me eh?
ah dunt like me wimmin to make a peep
that’s why ahm courtin a sheep and
baa eck like she’s a right likl goer an all
took er to t’edge of a cliff t’other night like
well that’s a noother story if tha knows nowharrahmean.
and so ahm ready for a Yorkshire Pud, and a bit of Gravy me
So ah’ll nip off and see if me dinners ready eh.
If not ah’ll prune them there White Roses eh.
ah dunt like red uns me tha knows
Tarra lads and lasses, sithee later mebbe.
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5. Separated at Birth
We come from
Maine and the Midwest
and before that mostly
mud huts, but nobody
wrote it down.
I heard we farmed
or cobbled or hooped
or something. Grubbed
for sure, and probably
argued, drank and fought.
Like a quick line of unicorns
halted too abruptly. Or
wool clothes passed down
until someone dressed
a dead uncle in them
for burial. Finally.
I am metaphorically
my own size.
Somewhere between wüstite
and magnetite I turned black or
red - I blame the wind, the rain.
I can mimic a cat in repose,
a dog in heat, a woodchuck
on the run, and a Shetland
hunkered, in the dead of winter,
ass-end to the wind.
On that topic, I hear the wind
on the north Manchurian steppes
never quits. That’s me.
At the creek bed
I regard the banks, rocks,
pool depths. I sense life - the rustle,
the gurgle, the smell of rabbit tracks,
crayfish, trout poop. My lungs fill
with organics. I set my hiking stick
on the downstream side and put
full weight on a crossing stone only after
testing its stability. Above, hawks
play in sunlight in a sky which, on
a scale of one to ten, is breathless blue.
None of this escapes me.
I am short and fat
but I can stand up.
I can see.
I walk the hills above, until
the day’s light is lost. At night
I come alive.
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Poll
