PHS 1964 - A Poem by Roy Pullam - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

PHS 1964 – A Poem by Roy Pullam

- Leave a Comment

The parchment has faded
The setting
And most of the teachers
Gone now
Lucky classmates
Aged and gray
Other chasing
The lines of Bryant
That mysterious caravan
That will not allow
Them to return
We gather
Hoping to see
A glint of youth
In each other’s eyes
To reclaim that past
That gathers more fog
In the passing
Of years
How we long
To rekindle
Friendship
Lying in ashes
Between the time
Between reunions
We chose not
To abandon the light
to let the past
Be done
It is the bond
Of shared confidences
That stirs us
From the recliner
To look our best
So others
Will not see
The cost of time
I will come
Bathing in the fellowship
Sharing the jokes
Sharing the stories
Grieving for lost friends
Counting my blessings
In our five year
Ritual

JJA - A Poem by Roy Pullam - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

JJA – A Poem by Roy Pullam

- Leave a Comment

He fills his sails
With his own wind
Such self-promotion
Such self-importance
I did not expect
To hear
I listened
As he moved his story
Toward his greatness
A self-proclaimed
Master of everything
How he floated
From one subject
To another
Trumpeting his knowledge
As if
We had not read
His autobiography
A headstone
To his ego
And like other ancient graveyards
He goes ignored

Outside the Perimeter of Your Asking - A Poem by Paul Tristram - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

Outside the Perimeter of Your Asking – A Poem by Paul Tristram

- Leave a Comment

I sense the honeycomb of your personality,
golden and beautiful, rich in goodness
yet, worry upon worry
crowding and blocking all of that light.
I can feel the Amber inside you vibrate softly,
you have Healing to give…
but are unable to use it upon yourself.
‘Kindness’ behind the ‘Want’
compassion and passion, full to the brim
and merely waiting to be unstopped.
Your life has a jagged course,
no molehills for you, white-knuckled
and desperate fingertip-ledge clinging.
This must be a Test?
each year you are noticeably evolving,
every breakdown leads to you
knitting back together stronger.
Refusing to succumb to bitterness
or lasting anger…
you keep that radiant glow alive safely inside.
Waiting for that climb through the Mountains
to finally become a meadow walk…
and it is at last, time for you
to butterfly magnificently out of that armour.

More at https://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/.

Salad Days with Bitter Dressing - A Poem by Roy Pullam - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

Salad Days with Bitter Dressing – A Poem by Roy Pullam

- Leave a Comment

My eyes recorded things
My memory won’t let go
The pain in my father’s eyes
As he fought breathlessness
The hard wheeze
The perspiration
On a winter’s day
The creak of his tired bones
As he lifted
His body from the cane chair
The smell of liniment
He put on his broken back
Healed with too little attention
From the doctor
Who had put him
In the corset
No therapy
No follow-up visit
Left to suffer
The fate of the poor
The halting trudge
Across the yard
As he made his way
To the mailbox
Slow steps
With frequent stops
His chest heaving
As he tried to force
Air between the shiny black
Coal dust
In his lungs
Too old before his time
I do not have warm tales
Of throwing the ball
Taking camping trips
Other children recall
About their fathers
But how I loved him
Always aware
That one day
He would struggle in vain
And the breathe
Would not come

Let’s - A Poem by Jashanpreet Kaur - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

Let’s – A Poem by Jashanpreet Kaur

- Leave a Comment

We should write a song
A song about these lost souls
A song about the shattered hope
A song about these guarded hearts
A song about their forced courage
But no one wants to hear sad songs
So let’s write poetry instead.

So let’s write
About a boy
A little nothing
Who ran from his home of hate
To a world positively brimming with it
Who broadened his small little shoulders
And straightened his spine
While he shivered with cold and nightmares in the night
Let’s write about this little boy who grows into a man
A man with no love ever given
And none received
Who rises to rule
His heart, black, like his hair, jet black.
And the world cowers in fear
While he still shivers at night
But now only with nightmares
So let’s write about his caged heart
Let’s write

So let’s write
About a woman with eyes of honey
With skin wrinkled from smiles
Let’s write about how her eyes go empty and silent
How her smiles become still, fixated
While she stares far away
As her memory stretches back
And she remembers every instance that she has been forced
By fate, life, love, or worse, herself
To smile through
She remembers her childhood dream, broken.
She recalls the first love who ran away
She remembers the stillborn daughter
The man she loved from afar
The crushing of a million silent prayers
The freedom she never gave herself
She always smiles
Not a tear shed
Not a frown marring her face
Never a sadness
But her smiles are not always true
So let’s write about the secrets of her smile
Let’s write

So let’s write
About a young lady
Beautiful, fair, hair as red as fire
Sweet and gentle
Kind to everyone
Loved by everyone
Her family a cocoon of bliss
Let’s write about how she loses her mind every once in a while
How she hears voices calling out to her from nowhere
How she screams and shouts
Pulls at her hair
Messes up her perfect home
Scratches her skin
To be rid of the voices
The medicines won’t work
And the voices won’t leave her
So let’s write about her broken mind
Let’s write

We leave our songs and strings behind
For these tales
We
must write.

Summer 1957 - A Poem by Roy Pullam - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

Summer 1957 – A Poem by Roy Pullam

- Leave a Comment

Barker Hill
Had a thunderstorm
Dynamite jarring the ground
Knocking the bottom
From Uncle Ed’s well
Turning the mortar
In his chimney
Into dust
The roar of the big trucks
Night and day
Hauling locally
To Hart’s tipple
It was his home
His refuge
From the people
At the base
Of the hill
But they had brought hell
In the form of explosives
Robbing him of sleep
Wrecking his property
Turning the land
behind him
Into a pit
Poisoning the water
With iron pyrite
A legal strangulation
That would eventually
Force him to sell
To abandon his Eden
Without a look back

Punching Hours out of the Day - A Poem by Paul Tristram - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

Punching Hours out of the Day – A Poem by Paul Tristram

- Leave a Comment

After the unicorn and princess daydreams of infancy.
There were ballerina-leanings
pirouetting through her flight-of-fancy mind…
right up and over the cusp of adolescence.
Her teenage years were spent sketching
and moulding clay into clumsy little miracles.
She scribbled the wonderful sounding word
‘Sculptress’ after her name
upon the inside back cover of her diary.
These things are seldom thought of now,
as she stands upon the factory floor assembly line,
where she’s been rooted, imprisoned by poverty
and trapped by circumstance for twenty five years…
gluing the bottom flaps of cardboard boxes together.
They sleep in separate bedrooms at home,
but, still manage to eat a small, plain dinner together…
and she is far too tired, broken and weary to complain.

More at https://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/.

Henderson - A Poem by Roy Pullam - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

Henderson – A Poem by Roy Pullam

- Leave a Comment

My heart rests
In this valley
The flowing water
Of the Ohio
Whispers
From its depth
Of the mysteries
Around the bend
But my feet
Find their place
As if in concrete
Here by choice
Among the cypress
Hugging the banks
Here when the flatboats
Brought settlers
Down the river
Climbing the red bank bluffs
To build their homes
Special people
Welcoming people
My neighbors
Sharing the good life
With me

Ghosts Are Not Scary - A Poem by Muskan Lamba - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

Ghosts Are Not Scary – A Poem by Muskan Lamba

- Leave a Comment

I’m sorry, but, ghosts are not scary.
They live inside me. They live inside you.
And without realizing, they consume us whole
Of course, they are here to destroy
But the destruction..? It’s so silent
And silence, so to say, is never scary.
These ghosts, they are not like monsters at all
Not even close to appearing evil or disastrous.

I am sorry, but, ghosts are not scary.
Once, they forwarded me their hand
And we ended up building a friendship together.
They told me their secret
Of being disguised as self-doubt, anxiety and anger.
And I told them mine; of being vulnerable.
Wish to know their hiding spot?
It’s beneath our skins, inside our hearts.

I am sorry, but, ghosts are not scary.
I think we have developed an in-depth understanding of each other.
They told me, “We ourselves are suffering
which is why we make you suffer.”
I sympathised. I think so do you.
And us being ever-so-welcoming, we let them in.
Ghosts of me. And ghosts of you.

I am sorry, but, ghosts are not scary.
Not to me.
I’ve been acquainted with them for far too long now
They’re as much a part of me
As I am of this world.
Though just a tiny speck,
but effortlessly infinite within.

I am sorry, but, ghosts are not scary.
Once, they forwarded me their hand
And we ended up building a friendship together.
I even told them my secret of being vulnerable.
They are… not scary.
How can they be?
Yet I am afraid.

More at https://muskanlambablog.wordpress.com.

Walnuts - A Poem by G. S. Katz - Dive into the Depths of Contemporary Voices

Walnuts – A Poem by G. S. Katz

- Leave a Comment

I remember my father sitting at the kitchen table
Cracking open walnuts and eating every morsel
Dad was a good eater, chicken was his favorite
When he got done with half a chicken
It looked like a war had taken place on his plate
Bones gleaned of any meat
A spectacle to watch
We always kidded him about it
The walnuts though I never got
He drank celery tonic too
Another non-starter for this cowboy

I never felt like I knew my dad
He was always a quiet man
Gentle but firm, pragmatic as the day is long
I wanted to know him but I wasn’t allowed in
Four years behind enemy lines during WWII
maybe the cause
After he passed I found out I wasn’t the only one
to feel his silence
He was rarely mad
His favorite expression
“God forbid for worse”
He would say if we kids every complained too much

I gave the eulogy at his funeral
That’s what a son does
I was so honored to be his kid
Despite the distance between us
The love was there, my mom also telling me so

I’ve tried to make peace with walnuts
I eat them now for health reasons
I still don’t really like them
For dad’s sake though I feel him with every bite
I buy them already shelled
Dad had to do the work breaking them open himself
A decorated war veteran
It was like rolling off a log

Best Poetry Online