"demurred" poems
1317
Abraham to **** him—
Was distinctly told—
Isaac was an Urchin—
Abraham was old—
Not a hesitation—
Abraham complied—
Flattered by Obeisance
Tyranny demurred—
Isaac—to his children
Lived to tell the tale—
Moral—with a Mastiff
Manners may prevail.
6.8k
It was not, by any means, a loss of faith;
Indeed, her devotion was a boundless, unfettered thing
Beyond proscription, beyond rote chant and catechism,
And what she found as a novitiate
Were shuttered gates and gossipy confessionals,
Standoffish priests, pig-eyed and pinch-lipped
Sisters who thought life’s commerce
No more than mechanical prayer and spotless linens,
The whole enterprise
Smacking of the exclusion of Heaven’s bounty.
So she demurred when the time came to take her orders,
And she returned to the world of pavements and lesser pieties,
Free to seek God on park swings and barstools,
In pleasures of the pastoral and the profane,
Though her faith is no Dionysian walkabout,
As she is passionate to the cusp of maniacal
When it comes to the Book of James’ admonition upon works;
She is often found among the sisters she once tiptoed alongside
At food pantries and clothing drives
(She is scrupulous about ministering to only secular needs,
As the Bishop is not happily disposed towards those
Who choose not to take the veil,
And the specter of excommunication is a prospect
Too awful to contemplate)
Afterwards clambering onto some vaguely roadworthy MTA bus
Back to her studio apartment in Green Island,
Where she often walks down to the Erie Canal lock nearby,
Praying for those who have travelled near and upon the water,
Convenience store clerks and ragged Irishmen fleeing famine,
Feral kittens and insufficiently mourned mules.
Nov 16, 2017
Nov 16, 2017 at 10:39 AM UTC
All the people who care for me
Telling me who to be
Taking over reality
Please can I just be free
All the hard work I despise
Just for one prize
A letter for my grade
I think I'm going insane.
do your very best,
To beat the rest
To ace that test
No time for rest.
I'm tired of those words
That make me go absurd
And I will be heard
When your opinions will be demurred
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 7:17 PM UTC
~ one more for patty m. ~
slept late after dancing with my devils, from,
from the wee, until a pealing pearl from the Earl of Dawn,
recovering from an intrusion~invasion~brain~regurgitation,
and it’s nearly 9am, sipping my first cuppa Hawaiian,
& woke to a repost of a ten year old wondering plea(1)
makes me think “This old thing,” poem, like a fav
frock/suit that still drapes perfectly, and yet draws the
***** admiration and drippy drawling yummy compliments,
gracefully, gratefully demurred with them three words,
& it’s 8:39am, Bruce pitching in with “Born in the USA”
recipe for a new thank u Gawd poem to make room for
a fast~break diet for an old man with a rebuilt ticker, this
very emission~transmission of a verbal politesse writ going
some where, cooked on a medium slow burner fueling dressed up seeds of heartfelt appreciation made of ancient oat grasses
birthing a poem~child of thanks to the Lawd for one more day,
opportunity, the five sense’s delivery gratitude and gratifications, and the desire to intertwine the sights, music, a crisp blue November Sky, the need to bleed brew these words into a fulfilling,
second moment mug, for the pearls and Earls
of poetic humans
10:01am
Thu Nov 2 2023
Nov 2, 2023
Nov 2, 2023 at 10:16 AM UTC
519
’Twas warm—at first—like Us—
Until there crept upon
A Chill—like frost upon a Glass—
Till all the scene—be gone.
The Forehead copied Stone—
The Fingers grew too cold
To ache—and like a Skater’s Brook—
The busy eyes—congealed—
It straightened—that was all—
It crowded Cold to Cold—
It multiplied indifference—
As Pride were all it could—
And even when with Cords—
’Twas lowered, like a Weight—
It made no Signal, nor demurred,
But dropped like Adamant.
3.1k
Full Moon
Barefoot; each step sinking in mud
splashes of rain marry with
crimson drops in a puddle
of stormed waves
from an opened heaven
She kneels to the ground
simultaneously glancing
left, right, behind
cheeks blushed, her soul falling
as teardrops - her lowest ebb.
Ripping her cotton dress
she replaces blood soaked rags -
it’s been six days.
This war within herself
at only twelve years of age
Every nineteen days
her body a vessel; a period
of girlhood abruptly ends,
womanhood demurred.
Each & every month
persecuted;
Jesus nailed to a cross.
Amidst war-torn streets
fleeing torched homes
civil war displacing
orphaned sisters –
*****
As militants continue to
prevail over children’s
innocence
Washing her sin away
red body fluids disperse
in mud, rain, water, soil -
her reflection lost
alongside any remaining dignity
On those same knees
Badriyyah pleads with God
to no longer bring forth
the fertility of conception
each cursed month.
Congolese civil wars
scraped away landscapes
Mother Nature
scraped away internal walls
& month after month
after month after month
this period endures
& a child of the night
stays hidden from sight.
© Sia Jane
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 7:38 PM UTC
They fought with swords and shields in sorted fields
of acrimony, declared life and limb to a barren kingdom,
bowed to the royal crown and wooed its fairest daughter.
They won her heart, graced her walls, and worked within them to produce an offspring
—a love child forged with the will of iron and a random, but possessive eye chart.
It nearly took the death of an empire to bring this passion to birth,
and here it so rests upon her breast, pleading an allegiance to her tattered flag.
Why even a thousand years of war demurred to her letting down her hair.
But whose army crossed that wanton bridge and stroked her into carnal submission?
Who kept watch at the crossroads?
History tells us c'est la vie was the culprit, and détente the better angel.
Sometimes it's useless to be useful...
Nov 11, 2020
Nov 11, 2020 at 10:57 AM UTC
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god gave us little toes so when we are rushing our socks on,
the little toe has something to cling to, and a way to say, hey!
slow down
god gave us powerful pinkies, the littlest of the five fingers,
to give us balance, and reflection, that being upright
is a good thing
god did not give us eyes in the back of the head,
because he forgot to order the integrated circuitry
and was too embarrassed to admit it, but if you look closely,
you can see where they were supposed to go...oops,
no can do
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*she, a voracious vicarious, reads a new book almost daily
when I dismissed the time spent as an investment
with a finality of no return, she demurred, purred,
au contraire, my dove, every book expands the who of me
and with so many ahead, yet unread, I'll live forever*
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she inquires why I write so many poems, easy comes reply:
It gives me a fantastic living, it makes and gives, each poem,
a calculation, a reconciliation of who I am...a miner of the wealth in my veins
Sep 9, 2017
Sep 9, 2017 at 10:51 AM UTC
I treasure your thoughts for they mirror mine
and I often feel like the sky
So blue
but I am
just another reflection of you
the true source of life and all I can do
is jot ******* drops of truth
frigid fractalized isolated idioms
Verbose vapor flakes seeking fictional synonyms
headlong ing to be with you
more than me and I am not really blue
This much is truth
pooling thoughts in my planetarium booth
brainstorming ways to lightning youth
But I am not You
I am see through
a satellite out of view
conduit of the more true, Luna
who is more of an effec-tionate of you
morpheous of midnight master of black, whole, new
presenting red eyed roses nightly reflected by you
(but see me I am through)
Liquid glass
Preview
The deep the blue
and I am not blue
scratching the surface and rippling clues
like Voyager's travels
I am echoing shadows of the beauty
you innerview
snapshots of interstellar War Stars out of sight
I am through, see
you hold mysteries I only understand by sky light
when I move you move and you move with might
the final frontier is my domain but you hold many more
leagues unknown and forget me knots
Consider me the wife of Lott
in the massive wake
a primordial parking lot
present yet nought
Blue
In my ever reaching expanse
am just fuel for flame
fleas and moth flee in the aether of my veins
Which provide little shelter
From larger wings of change
While great and small exist in all
your leagues of superfluous membrane
Cool azule from whence life can be sustained
Be Tickled by the fingers of my admiration make waves of mutual celebration
But do not be humbly demurred
Be for me what I can not be
Blue
Jan 2, 2017
Jan 2, 2017 at 12:16 AM UTC
Barefoot, each step sunken in mud
splashes of rain marry with
crimson drops in a puddle
of stormed waves
from an opened heaven
She kneels to the ground
simultaneously glancing
left, right, behind
cheeks blushed, her soul falling
as teardrops - her lowest ebb
Ripping her cotton dress
she replaces blood soaked rags
it’s been six days.
This war with herself
at only twelve years of age
every nineteen days
her body a vessel, confirmation
of demurred womanhood
Each month persecuted,
Jesus nailed to a cross
a period of girlhood abruptly ends.
Amidst war-torn streets
fleeing torched homes
civil war displacing
orphaned sisters - *****
militants prevail over innocence.
Washing her sin away
red body fluids disperse
in mud, rain, water, soil
her reflection lost
along the side of dignity
On those same knees
Chausiku pleaded with God
to no longer bring forth
the fertility of conception
each cursed month.
Congolese civil wars scraped away landscapes
Mother Nature scraped away internal walls
and month after month after month this period endures
and a child of the night stays hidden from sight.
© Sia Jane
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 8:38 PM UTC
when the perennial essential question I proposed,
a temperature taking surely,
a simple request re loving me, yes
it was a dueling pistol shot,
a returning, pressing, single firing
interrogatory of a burr of a bullet
"how"
she stood in weak opposition
she demurred, evaded, jooked,
pre-tensing with a faint, a feint,
a desperately disguised,
claiming of the fifth,
a refusal to self-incriminate,
with a childlike repetition
"unsure..."
but was she ever,
ever sure,
ever knowledgeable
for the poem was
"of the people, by the people, for the people,"
we, me, she,
of course, being "the people"
-
that our love
"shall not perish from the earth..."
this particular poem,
this particular address,
was about
the struggle to maintain
our union
-
"our unfinished task"
it was the
first shot and the
parting shot
it was the
warning shot,
mesmerizing,
metastasizing
into a
death shot
simultaneously
the poem was,
this poem
the acknowledgment,
of the beginning
of the
perhaps epilogue,
maybe even the commencement
of a eulogy
a breathewell,
a fare-thee-well of this,
as well,
one of his
happiest guises
writer of
only love poetry
Oct 28, 2016
Oct 28, 2016 at 4:48 PM UTC
We werent always so distant she demurred
Caught in the riptides of youth and fancy
Whimsical and conceited free and unspoiled
Your future father and me
Unplanned and unexpected a whim unleashed
Experiences explored passion requited
We entered each others lives
broke through and swirled around the glass
of life unfettered
Eyes penetrating youthful attraction
Experienced a fleeting high
Doomed from the beginning left with a permanent
Memory a memo to a time of light
and fancy lust and ecstasy
We were the ones who found excitement
and thought for a shinning moment that
all was wonderful and bright and cheery
In a youthful ultra color saturated moment of time.
Jun 3, 2014
Jun 3, 2014 at 3:53 PM UTC
Whatever happened to poems rhyming?
You cannot tell me that trend is now dying?
Whatever happened to the artist's demise?
Of finding a word to match the last line?
Now all I see are thesaurus-y words,
Like really? Whoever has heard of "demurred?"
I get it, it's new, it's hip, it's "in"
But to not rhyme in a poem should be considered a sin.
Get off this fad before it's too late.
Poems should rhyme, there is no debate.
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 1:13 AM UTC
She was a young girl, just fifteen,
when the wondrous deed was done.
Behold, a ****** had conceived;
It was foretold she’d have a son.
She was promised to an older man,
a joiner of wood, simple and plain.
Many a man might have demurred;
exposing her to the stones of shame.
In his troubled sleep, he had a dream,
revealing all that God had done;
Joseph took Mary to be his wife
As the Roman census had begun.
Mary considered these things in her heart
As the infant grew and thrived.
He was strong in wisdom, kind of heart.
Though Herod pursued Him, the child survived.
Three years he traveled these ancient hills;
In synagogues and Temples, he taught.
Until, betrayed, he was arrested,
and brought before the Roman court.
How hard for Mary to behold
her only son upon a cross.
She heard Him cry out to the sky
and yield His spirit when all seemed lost.
It seemed he was in Satan’s power;
When even gold appeared but dross.
Then Joseph of Arimathea came
to claim His body from the cross.
Hope is a slender reed;
enough to build a dream upon.
She, too, beheld the empty tomb.
The stone removed, the Master gone.
Jan 25, 2017
Jan 25, 2017 at 3:56 AM UTC
Al is dead.
Saturday early ringtones
a warning signal,
an unexpected call,
harbinger of no good at all
Al has passed,
felled in the lobby
of a movie theater,
by sudden heart attack
did we want to come, he asked,
but I demurred
on our behalf,
having been out
every night this week
so now I have to think about that...
shoulda woulda coulda
but didn't
she sobs on my neck.
he was a good friend
to my woman,
for many years,
years of loss and discomfort
she pauses her weeping,
to punch me in the arm,
as is her wont,
warning me to lose that weight,
or else she'll **** me
more likely
says I,
to die
from repeated blows
to the right arm,
than from
my accumulated excesses,
thinking all the while,
I'm a **** good liar
so now she laughs and sobs
intermittently which is why
someone invented the word
blubbering
tears of diminishment,
a lessening in the world,
part of me expunged twice,
now that Al is gone,
in part predicted,
in part foretold
you didn't know Al?
Oh yes you did!
*"Al, what you did not ask was this:
With each passing poem,
I am lessened within, expurgated,
In a sense part of me, expunged,
Part of me, passing too,
Every poems birth diminishes me."*
4:38 AM
September 8th, 2012
http://hellopoetry.com/search/poems/?q=With+each+passing+poem
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 1:20 PM UTC
Dissipated dissolution
March of many colors
Turn it down to you
To blue
I hate to watch you walk away
To black
As though that's all that I can do
Demurred
Devolution
The cranes swing wide
The tillers in the field
Cut down the stocks
Separate all wheat
From chaff
Month of many colors
Red for all the blood I bleed
My fingers reaching still
And white
And how my eyes just open
And blue
Form the iris growing slowly
Dissonant
Delicate
The color is only empty
As far as I can see
All revolution
And the falling of the sun
The night
Mar 18, 2017
Mar 18, 2017 at 2:10 AM UTC
She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
by Michael R. Burch
She was very strange, and beautiful,
like a violet mist enshrouding hills
before night falls
when the hoot owl calls
and the cricket trills
and the envapored moon hangs low and full.
She was very strange, in a pleasant way,
as the hummingbird
flies madly still ...
so I drank my fill
of her every word.
What she knew of love, she demurred to say.
She was meant to leave, as the wind must blow,
as the sun must set,
as the rain must fall.
Though she gave her all,
I had nothing left ...
Yet I smiled, bereft, in her receding glow.
Originally published by Romantics Quarterly, Tucumcari Literary Review, Poetry Podium, The Neovictorian/Cochlea, The Eclectic Muse, PW Review, Numbat (Australia), The People’s Poet (England), Nutty Stories (South Africa), Poetry Life & Times
Keyword/Tags: Strange, beautiful, violet, mist, hills, moon, love, wind, sun, rain, night, owl, cricket, hummingbird
Mar 16, 2020
Mar 16, 2020 at 5:17 AM UTC
And so I walk upon this stage of life
Set before this night of a thousand eyes
Sans players and bereft of drum and fife
My given charge to sift the truth from lies,
To extract from the ore of distant past
Some kernel of what the years ahead may hold
And though I know full well the die is cast
My gestures and speeches long since foretold
And I am content with the part I play
In this warhorse my fathers have composed
Though other dramas are now underway,
Sad and hackneyed things which I had supposed
Would proceed, my presence not required.
The director demurred when I sent regrets
And so that preordained was what transpired,
This life no stroll upon the parapets.
Apr 8, 2021
Apr 8, 2021 at 4:21 PM UTC
all quiet this afternoon, the sky
pulses in its unprepossessing limit
surveyed the intersections with the wane
of tired eyes. in this side of town, yours
the gray-faced pavement, mine the stones left
unturned, pillaged by the children of suspicion,
thrown and must have hurt something,
a bird hurtling in its pace, or a mangled body of a cloud,
wingstalked, stifled to the brim of impinged labor,
depth of sleep is measured by the weight of dream.
all quiet this afternoon, the naked body
of the sky is blue, spun around in penetrating tone.
quick is the flat motion of the quaintest of feet,
this afternoon in Poblacion, heavily veiled and demurred
the vertical climb of morning past the cranes, the monoliths
screaming broken litanies – strange skies are insipid now
thick with the froth and rekindled petrichor,
you told me you had a view of every inch of world
from the 31st floor and now I circled to cut corners
and fold my love for cold fronts, monsoons, storms.
Mar 22, 2016
Mar 22, 2016 at 5:59 AM UTC
I saw an eagle motionless
as stagnate kite on string
A pedigree of silence fell
the ticks refused to bring
Their avalanche of next demurred
grey bellows ceased to sigh
Aged heavens dared to dissipate
and toll the fresh of night
Jun 3, 2016
Jun 3, 2016 at 10:49 AM UTC
(what...me write vernacular English???)
Okay, the gist of anemic
checking account averred
asked from one
FaceBook English Literary bird,
I could plainly enumerate
Sachin be cured
of spellbinding nightmares,
and not accused
of acting demurred
the esse cent chill
dime a dozen premise ensured
prime merrily to discover
visa wells Fargo
sieve err (ala Eratosthenes) forward
solution, whereby means
to save money
against being gored
no...no...no...not to be stingy,
nor selfishly hoard
meager unearned social security
monthly allotment, aye ignored
to mention as key piece
of information a dub bill
lit tete ting bout with anxiety,
obsessive compulsive, not cavil
air lee shaken off and schizoid
personality disorder like evil
mailer daemons, which
undermined ability to full fill
quality existence, and even
prescribed about,
a half dozen
medications help ill
psyche, though nonetheless mill
yens of precious moments pill
furred with pro
fuse sweating still
interferes supplementing,
stoking, and socking
away reserve till,
last creased furrow sought out
here in Schwenksville
Pennsylvania most likely, where
one last gulp of oxygen will
finally deliver cremated ashes
into eternal void
where psychological state
free from being destroyed
and forever exempt trying
to be write lee employed!
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 2:49 AM UTC