Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
  Jan 15 Bardo
Nat Lipstadt
easily,
with an optimism misguided,
that both volume and quality
of what lay within was
infinite,

a beaker that could never
be drained, nor overflow,
brimming and believed,
in the always
of a
next poem!

know better,
known worse,
and the only poems that are birthed,
all flawed, lesser,
the curse of worse,
time wrenching
the best words away,
alas!
spend, spent, sent…
it was writ as a hope,
now, a  false prophecy
and woe
misbegotten


<>>

Jan. 13, 2014

a  flawless poem

if such there were,
will always be,
the next one

my poor soul,
my rag tag heart
has no censor,
so careless, reckless,
as if words were but
frivolous treasures,
easy spent, easy get


if only, how I wish I
could harvest my best,
with golden cutlery excise
the single flawless poem,
that I know in my possess


lay down this hand so weary
from cupping tears,
be satisfied at long last,
so much so,
that my casket lowered,
hands in repose companioned,
clutching his best, easing his rest,
a paper record to join his ash,

his flawless poem,
at long last
flawless anniversary
  Dec 2023 Bardo
WILLIAM WORTHLESS
christmas is the time to fill your heart with joy
time for happiness for every girl and boy
lots of christmas presents for friends and family
making christmas happy way that it should be

watching all the children as excited as can be
opening there presents stacked beneath the tree
having lots of fun as they begin to play
playing all together on a christmas day

that time of the year one that we all know
a very special season that gives your heart aglow
time for peace on earth a time for us to share
for the whole of all man kind each and everywhere
  Dec 2023 Bardo
Pradip Chattopadhyay
Four men I don't see in the market.

We stopped just short of smiles
we were always about to begin a conversation
we told each other we had years ago
met somewhere
and we talked only with eyes.

Then on a day, for days
they weren't there anymore.

I try to imagine their age
if they were old enough to be dead.

Like a ray of hope I love to believe
they moved away elsewhere.

Four men short and it will be five.

Maybe one eye will look for me
a little sad at my missing
just another man not seen anymore..

An ordinary man, a poet at heart
who felt more than could express.

He wouldn't know.
  Dec 2023 Bardo
South by Southwest
I'm looking for salvation
by the wounded hours of night

I'm thinking of a giant to the ****** of my plight

My pen lays as idle as the silence of the slain
As I've aged I wonder if I will ever write again

The thoughts go tango to dance that subtlely divides

The words are rudely gathered then told they've been denied

Someone dared to ask me
if I lived in
a graveyard
of shattered dreams

After a moment of silence all I could say was , "Yes ,  so it is as well it seems."

The paper island exists far out on an inky sea

The words have stowed away on boat and sailed far away from me
  Dec 2023 Bardo
Edmund black
But I'll try
To find something
Out of you

I will make you
Fall for me
Then
I will catch you
Like feelings and butterflies
Till we both go crazy

So  I  have
Your love
Your thoughts.
Your beauty and scars

As rewards
Your smile
Your sadness
Your laughter
Like the sun
And the moon
Peaches and cream
Your shadow too

If I must
Then I shall,
And will seek
All the quiet nights
Where passion rise
Sweet delights Ice cream
And chocolate too

Love so true
And brew with
Tequila and wine

Now I have
Everything
From nothing
To something
Of you
Mind and soul

Exactly everything
My heart ever desired
  Dec 2023 Bardo
Donall Dempsey
SUCH A SUNNY DAY

the objects
in his pocket

have lost
their identity

their significance
to anyone but him

a hairy comb
photo of an unknown

woman
who can she be

a torn-in-two
train ticket

chewing gum
much masticated

yet put back
in his blazer's breast pocket

small change
a penny and a sixpence and

a button
from the cuff

no clue as to who
he had been

before the water claimed him
as its own

the disgust and fascination
of those

passersby who continue
to pass by

it such
a sunny day

for death to
intrude this way

the miscellany of objects
ownerless now

the waters of the Liffey
calm and unmoved

*

I was just coming up to O'Connell Bridge and the bus got snarled in traffic. It was a beautiful beautiful sunny day and as I gazed idly out of the window a body, sodden and shapeless but still all too human was being winched out of the river. So we were forced to witness this before the bus finally made it to the bridge. It was startling and cut like an emotional knife through the fabric of the perfect day.

My girlfriend at the time told of a friend of hers who had sometime last year thrown herself into the Liffey so that added an extra dimension to the horror. Everyone who had met her on that last day said she seemed so happy and were amazed that she had done so because "...it was such a sunny day." She only had a comb and a button and small change in her pocket...all she owned. A human life shrunk to so little.
Next page