Best Poetry Online

These Hard Worked Hours | Jenny Middleton

January 29, 2024 - Leave a Comment

Office windows; squares of unflinching
yellow lit geometry.
From the train I watch them slide
their flickered familiarity to darkness
and watch the dizzying feet of countless
commuters dust the ruler line platform
with the news-papered security
of repeated journeys.

and inside minds lurch to life
with the jolt and halt of stations
hoping for a few hours of chosen chaos
to decorate
those hard worked hours.

More at https://www.jmiddletonpoems.com/.

The Emerald Isles of Summer | Mary Bone

January 28, 2024 - Leave a Comment

The emerald isles of summer
gleam through my eyes of green.
There is so much beauty to behold,
so many sights to be seen.

Not Quite | G. S. Katz

January 28, 2024 - Leave a Comment

That’s how it is these days
It used to be the idealism of great sex
Now it’s mind play and where it fits in the brain jar
I was never easy to understand

There are always things I want to say
But if I go there, I’ll be asked to explain
Defining it is like trying to grab a blob of mercury
You know where that goes

So let’s leave it all up in the air
It sits like you looking pretty
I still have plenty of mojo
Like a complex whiskey, neat, water if you must

Until | JD DeHart

January 27, 2024 - Leave a Comment

Rain until the rain ends,
sadness until the cluster
leaves, mourning until
a fresh feeling crops up.
The better sometimes
comes quicker, but the
easier is a more appropriate
way to put it. Those who
love us leave there, a tattoo
on the skin, which will never
erase. Nor do we want
that mark to fade.

Gone?… | Jim Bellamy

January 27, 2024 - Leave a Comment

Gone, like a song that lingers on, wrong, the way is endless song. i was
lost inside the rain, i was lost before you came. gone, like a song that
lingers on.

strong was the place where we first met. wrong was the palace
of our debt. strong was the place where death grew long. gone, like a song
that lingers on. gone, like a chiming face of blood, strong as the breaker
of the bud.

when you came i was atoned, when you reigned, i was
alone. gone, like a song that lingers on, gone, like a song that lingers on.
like a serenade of wrongs, gone; like a mutiny of wrongs, gone; as the sun
that burns in the endless womb, as the wharven waters in the moon, as the
stretch of fire, as the furied face, as the semen dream in the gilded
case

gone, like a song that lingers on; gone, like a song that lingers
on. gone?!

More at https://jimbellamy.simplesite.com/.

Bun in the Oven | Kenneth Vincent Walker

January 27, 2024 - Leave a Comment

I always feel an emptiness
Without a bun in the oven,
Without a poem in progress,
Which is truly my salvation.

For the low swooping raven
Seeks to hinder my success.
My poems are my children,
And it’s in them that I rest.

My life has just one purpose,
To rise above the cauldron
With some grace and finesse,
As I hear my children calling.

Why Ask Me to Topple All the Trees? | Marie MacSweeney

January 26, 2024 - Leave a Comment

If it is an apple
I can cut away the badness
and eat the rest,
or songs that I sing,
I will not sing all
but what the head tells
and the heart believes
or the moment decrees,

or winter days I can face cold
when it is cold I can handle,
and indoors possess other days
with books and tea,
and the cat curled up
in the heat of the hearth.

If it is sea
I might test waves with my toes
and not be covered
in the hugeness of them,
or sit at night
when the water is all moaning
and man asleep
and ask its secrets,
or swim in it.

And if it is a forest
I can whisper to it,
and it will breathe on me
or answer me,
and I might hide in it
and it will cradle me,
or be lost in it
and lostness be me …

so why now
do you mark out
the tree that is withered
and ask me to topple
all the trees?

Beginning | Fotoula Reynolds

January 26, 2024 - Leave a Comment

There is a pleasant sound
In the quiet of a garden
I always want to be in it
As I dig into the ground
I can’t get any closer to nature
Than with my hands in the soil
It feels like becoming one
With something, something
That is more than me

I bring plants into the world
Hoping that I will also grow
I wear quiet around my wrists
It reminds me to let rush move on
And use solitude as a cure
To the loudness in the day
Silence sanctifies my soul
And words are used purely
As decoration in my life
The smell of the earth leads
Me to believe that I, too, am
Beginning

More at https://www.facebook.com/poetrybyfotoula/.

Mortimer’s Problem | Donal Mahoney

January 26, 2024 - Leave a Comment

Forgiving someone
has never been a problem
for old Mortimer.
Mort’s forgiven folks
for years, some twice
a day, so forgiveness
is like breathing.
It comes easily for him.
His problem is
forgetting what the
forgiven party did.
That’s impossible,
Mort told his therapist.
His father crossed him
back in kindergarten
and Mort forgave him
but recounts the incident
every time he takes two
carnations to the cemetery.
And that big kid, Walt,
who sat on Mort’s head
playing prairie football
back in grammar school.
Mort met Walt again
at the 50th class reunion
and Mort was pleased
he had forgiven Walt.
Mort told him he hopes
Walt wins the lottery
and goes to heaven.
Mort didn’t say he hopes
Walt gets to heaven long
before he wins the lottery.

More at http://booksonblog12.blogspot.com.