"discomfited" poems
Let us converge on the greatest Garden and then turn to others of meaning and beauty we are so dutiful
To work with family but in the beginning not only clues but evidence shows our great need we need to
With draw walk the garden paths at evening time with our creator father how peace would flow into the
Deepest recesses of our being briars of discontent found today would be changed into focal points of
Clustered flowers to the eye they enthrall with softness their scent infill’s the empty vessel that was
Spilled or intentionally poured out for the help of others with the most soothing rush it flows over the
Whole of you bask in this released treasure and then lift your eyes from His gifts to His lips that are
Speaking to you never have you partaken or been to the inner and outer most part of yourself with total
Disclosure confusion pain and alienation lift as a soiled garment the refreshing sweeping breeze carries
Torment out to sea the moist outer banks flood in as a great mist you are at once bound and beaming
With the knowledge that you are a most valuable person He addresses yourself aberrations that
Demean your true worth so it lies in all men and women the tell tale accuser the discomfited not from
Friend’s family or stranger did not William say it so truly “to thine own self be true” we are most cruel to
Ourselves this trait is vanquished when we are in the very presence of all consuming love he looks inside
At every hurt you see through His eyes and there is no complaint or accusation just acceptance faraway
Longings surprisingly touch and fill attending sorrow that baffled with a consistency how it unerringly
always found the mark it never missed your heart now by the touch of His hand
On the side of your face an erasing a newness of promise was put in its place how your smile told an
Outward story of the final removal of trepidations that were corrosive and were clay like that stuck and
Clung to your soul creating a heaviness and depression now the freeing bouncy love dispels the darkest
Apparitions that are lies that fight your best and highest interest what was the word that said moving
Mountains yes the heights and lows are neutralized now joy peace is at flood stage all it took was a stroll
In the garden
Oct 10, 2012
Oct 10, 2012 at 1:07 PM UTC
Disastified. Dissatisfaction. Disappointing, disappear.
Disability, disdaining- disgusting
Difficult
dislike
Disgrace
Let down. Saddened. aghast - balked.
Beaten. chap-fallen - deafen.
Bitter-pill. Blind.
Alley. Blow.
Anticlimactic.
Crestfallen. thwarted, foil. baffle, bilk - discomfited, frustrated.
thwarted.
Unsuccessful
Aug 17, 2013
Aug 17, 2013 at 12:22 PM UTC
I grieve for you in the cold quiet of winter
My absent child, my long lost son
Warming my hands over dying flames, frost covered smouldering clinker,
By the wood where icy streams run
Through the shrunken sedge, and barren fields
Stretching for miles, empty of meaning.
The landscape like a worn photograph yields
Your tremulous smile, then nothing.
Here, you ran with startled steps
Through the yielding sheaves, yelling with surprise,
Chasing indifferent spiders, and discomfited birds
With hatred in their pebble pool-dark eyes.
Querying awkwardly spoken words, small
Tenacious fingers that caress and clutch
Every passing object, loudly chuckling, wisely playing me for a fool
A silly father who loved too much.
On the anniversary of your leaving I required solitude
Partnered only by memory
Away from familiar crowds, the booming, barking fusillade
Of the present day commonplace urban itinerary,
Where only the crackle of snow
And the fleeting trajectory of birds
Distracts my slow
Marshalling of comforting thoughts.
The cottage where we lived haunts the shallow glade,
A shrouded ghost swaddled by the half-light,
Positioned squarely like an old man, its cladding beginning to fade,
White branches like dead-fingers that gleam in the night.
In the closet are your dust-sprinkled toys, a yellow plastic duck,
A cheap skateboard, ancient video games,
A guitar you never learnt to pluck
A chess board on which you pulverised my endgames.
In the preserved furnishings of your bedroom
Your school work gathered into stacks
Barely visible in the gloom,
Our life together in disorganised packs
Denoting year and level
Development and academic achievement,
If any, (but I mustn’t once again cavil)
Indicating, even in your earliest years, a specific bent.
Standing on the mantelpiece, propped up against the wall,
Are brightly coloured, polished pictures
Of you. Plump, blonde, agreeably small
Dancing, standing, jumping, grinning, absurdly wistful mixtures.
A bitter echo resonating from the shadows
A cold thought darkening into memory
The spectre of your voice disappearing in the meadows
Having left all of us! Having left me!
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 8:20 PM UTC
~
*Desert pond,
idle sun.
Salt, shadow,
and the revealing light of midday.
She traipses from
the safety of the car
to the danger at the water's edge.
One hand shielding her eyes,
the other,
her over-exposures.
Discomfited by a lack
of self-confidence.
Loving the water,
hating her thighs.*
~
Jun 28, 2022
Jun 28, 2022 at 11:54 AM UTC
the third mate last,
lashed to the helm,
a punishment, a lashing
for having
read and let
the taste of words unkempt,
hash my essence,
thus pelted,
excised, my flesh,
unto a wearied
death by a thousand cuts
my artistic force bleeds,
I am realistic,
there is no
superman savior,
there is only
life after death,
where dear god,
last wishing, it is a world of
silence perfected
I know I promised no more
on this shopworn, discounted topic,
but I read and I weep
my essence seeps, pores pouring,
tried the ancient cure of ignoring,
but anguished curiosity begs
for bliss
asking,
just try once more,
knowing that ignorance
can never be blissful
confounded, words indelible,
the poems tattooed trite,
with an unheard last sigh,
what makes them think
every stray dog of a thought
deserves sharing
tender each with word
with such selected caring,
arguing back and forth,
and always losing
and always winning
the argument over the
Final Selection,
the process holocausts me,
I am not a survivor anymore,
just an over killed victim
to tattered ribbons sliced,
no seamstress can resurrect what once was,
endlessly they celebrate their flesh's cutting,
they cannot know their words,
alpha beta me to where,
the ink is drained and flushed,
and withered fingers lose their moist urgent,
discomfited composure
and
all the words I know are a plague
upon my shotgun house,
I am bleeding, but that does not mean
my poetic permission lives,
it only means my blue blood
surrenders it oxygen upon contact
with an atmosphere of trite
and I swear to you it hurts to much to
write,
hurts more than breathing
do not write to me of your pain,
write instead with painstaking care
and let me read thy crafted composition
and say this,
*thus I am staked to you,
penetrated in ways ,
that each cut of thine,
ready welcomed
for it is sublime,
a human humidifier,
putting back the moisture lost
by tears shed over wastrel poems*
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 12:32 AM UTC
"You have to feed on something,"
they said, or I imagine them
saying, and I do... but I don't
want to feed,
at least not doing it to trade
in visible doubts for a life's
uncertain
drift between I am, and I'm not...
fed fat by the neatly packaged
carcasses
clearly drained and cellophane wrapped,
to keep unclean hands bloodlessly
far from mine.
I'm told but I won't hear, "We're more
highly evolved." We think therefore
we are so
discomfited by not knowing...
whether the fed-on think and feel
what we do
when life's last light runs out, taking
with it the green and red that played
over flesh
and bony because... if they do,
it could be, we're feeding on one
another.
"That's the unkind art of feeding."
Jan 25, 2010
Jan 25, 2010 at 5:57 PM UTC
Happy and content
in this garden of delight,
yet curiously alone.
Am I one of a kind?
On the verge of sleep
as the sun slips under its blanket.
After the butterflies,
after the somnolent dream,
I was bestirred
by what first seemed a chimera.
The grace and splendor
of a remarkable creation,
and there she stood
making doe eyes,
a twinkle of a smile
curling about her lips.
At once I was besotted,
God had bequeathed to me
His crowning achievement,
and into my care she was placed.
So much to impart,
so much to share.
Together now as united residents,
one flesh,
she will complete me,
and I will dote on her.
A gift to always cherish
as we walk hand in hand.
Her task each new day
is strolling about paradise
in search of nourishment,
to feed us from the fruitage therein,
lest one tree’s offering.
And yet this morning,
another voice summons to be heard,
the rasped utterances
of the cunning,
with tales of his own kingdom coming,
one nibble to freedom, she was assured.
How I wish she’d taken her leave.
She proved too inquisitive,
it took root,
this germination,
and there she lingered.
Eyes caught, unblinking,
her open heart
heavy with wanton hunger.
Who whispered unto you, my darling?
Standing before me
I surrendered to her,
an ill-fated collusion,
co-conspirators to sin.
We ate in the shadow of a silver birch
and awakened to our nakedness.
Eyes wide open!
Discomfited, we struggled
to conceal our shame
What has happened to us, dearest?
Avowal and discord.
Trouble and strife.
"It was the woman you gave me!"
"It was the serpent," she countered.
A betrayal to our God
neither of us wished to confess.
Dust had been thrown in her eyes,
my transgressions were clear-sighted.
Together now as
evicted tenants,
flawed, imperfect flesh,
she will pine for me,
and I will reign over her.
Oh, how I vanquished this gift,
this blessed union.
What tragedy,
what irony:
As I take her hand,
I also fully understand
she is now eternally,
irrevocably,
lost to me...
Mar 31, 2020
Mar 31, 2020 at 8:55 AM UTC
Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)
A brackish lake is there with bitter pools
Anigh its margin, brushed by heavy trees.
A piping wind the narrow valley cools,
Fretting the willows and the cypresses.
Gray skies above, and in the gloomy space
An awful presence hath its dwelling-place.
I saw a youth pass down that vale of tears;
His head was circled with a crown of thorn,
His form was bowed as by the weight of years,
His wayworn feet by stones were cut and torn.
His eyes were such as have beheld the sword
Of terror of the angel of the Lord.
He passed, and clouds and shadows and thick haze
Fell and encompassed him. I might not see
What hand upheld him in those dismal ways,
Wherethrough he staggered with his misery.
The creeping mists that trooped and spread around,
The smitten head and writhing form enwound.
Then slow and gradual but sure they rose,
Those clinging vapors blotting out the sky.
The youth had fallen not, his viewless foes
Discomfited, had left the victory
Unto the heart that fainted not nor failed,
But from the hill-tops its salvation hailed.
I looked at him in dread lest I should see,
The anguish of the struggle in his eyes;
And lo, great peace was there! Triumphantly
The sunshine crowned him from the sacred skies.
'From strength to strength he goes,' he leaves beneath
The valley of the shadow and of death.
'Thrice blest who passing through that vale of Tears,
Makes it a well,'-and draws life-nourishment
From those death-bitter drops. No grief, no fears
Assail him further, he may scorn the event.
For naught hath power to swerve the steadfast soul
Within that valley broken and made whole.
Jul 30, 2014
Jul 30, 2014 at 7:49 PM UTC
The building has imploded
The bridge has buckled
The floods have done their thing
The fire has licked up the dust
There is nothing.
People's promises proved untrustworthy
The well meaning preacher's principles are unreliable
The mask of others have been exposed
Past experience seems irrelevant
There is nothing.
The emotions have numbed
The will has fluttered
The heart see two roads ahead, doubt,
The mind cries out
"There is nothing".
Times lapses
God is slow
The trapeze artist hovers in the air between release and catch
Discomfited
There is nothing.
Courage for another look
Cloud as a man's hand
The seventh time...long time
Lifts up the head from between the knees
There is something.
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 2:42 AM UTC
friday's child
out of place
on a tuesday
swimming 'gainst
the tide
wish it was sunday
just losing grace
all discomfited
wearing hand me down
depression 'n blues
and a tentative face
friday's child
running from emptiness
and
just finding open space
and
a drought of happiness
sunshine, a mirage
on a far away horizion
but she keeps,
keeping on
knowing, hoping,
one day...someday....
Jul 14, 2014
Jul 14, 2014 at 6:39 PM UTC
You were a silhouette made of the finest blood and bones.
The way you slouch your shoulders
Like you’re too discomfited to show your own figure.
Meticulous in the way you pull tobacco from the pouch
You place it in the paper, and lick it shut.
The cigarette is gripped softly by your extended fingers,
Slowly drifting up to your lips.
You held it so closely,
Caressing it with delicate fingertips
And raising it to your mouth with such poise.
You walked outside,
Light.
Inhale.
You smoked your cigarette
With grace and charm-
Almost sexually, in fact, as if you knew I was watching.
You didn’t.
Before stomping it out,
You looked through the window. Seeing me, just barely seeing you
So much so you made my own lungs hurt.
Mar 14, 2018
Mar 14, 2018 at 10:36 PM UTC
Who The Hell Is Reading Me?
(a first draft, pre-sleep whimsy)
Who the hell is reading me?
Occasionally, I see one, two, three -
It’s rough,
And certainly is not enough!
I usually do not complain,
But fellow poets, you know
It’s the damn-dest pain
To work for hours, - sometimes days
Refining, re- re- re-ing phrase
And syntax,
Checking idioms and facts
To get across idea and spirit.
Are you with it,
reader friend?
No trend, no agent/publicist to wave a wand,
No publisher to send you huge advances
Because he’s of the sole conviction of your chances.
[Do you], get my drift?
Shifting in your seats,
Because you recognize the whiney bleats
That you would like to scream out too?
Well, *****
the reading force,
That leading farce that forces us
To sit it out in silent grumble,
Mortifyingly discomfited and humble.
But know what mate?
I love it!
Never sated, secretly, I love it!
As my confidante, I tell you this.
I wouldn’t miss this silliness
For all the tea in China!
I don’t have to be a winner
Eating Nobel Prizes for my dinner,
Nah, I’m happy just to do
What you do - writing for the one or two,
(there used to be three – one has split)
Get the isolated compliment
From someone honored
– or not.
(everyone’s got
their own way of seeing things).
Not trying in the least, to be convincing,
Cheerio, to you who may be just my opposite;
And good, good, good, good, good goodnight!
Who The Hell Is Reading Me12.19.2016
A Sense of The Ridiculous; Defiant Doggerel;
Arlene Corwin
Dec 20, 2016
Dec 20, 2016 at 7:52 PM UTC