"stymied" poems
Robert Frost once talked of taking the ‘road less travelled’.
Well, I didn’t.
When the time came, I blindly went and took the safest road.
A very long path where the pitfalls were plenty.
I stumbled in the bracken. Stymied by the darkness that fell quickly as I ambled along.
The soul bruised, battered and exhausted at every infrequent stop.
It was not apparent then that in this venture there was a bleak dead end ahead.
I plowed on even though something inside was telling me again and again to turn back.
But, slowly, a gleaming light of hope crossed my vista beckoning me home.
I crawled. My strength regained as the light intensified.
Then the end was in sight - the portal was within grasp.
And so, yes, I now take that road less travelled.
Standing tall and proud as I gleefully stride down its glowing thoroughfare.
Smiling at the diverse and playful changes that cross my pathway.
All told, it’s never too late to trust your instincts and make a difference.
Just ask me.
And Robert Frost.
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 5:41 PM UTC
what is a poet
but a stymied wind
stamping the same soil
seen through polished lens
firing the bugle sound
to reach across some
distant mountain pass
not echo the same
ignite fire
stand strong
find north
refresh
for old paths yield
grey packages
more stale
subterfuge
but honed
solidity is found
in structures
built sound
a new song of old notes
rearranged to yield
perspective
deep
Apr 28, 2018
Apr 28, 2018 at 4:48 PM UTC
On his mighty mountain
Jove reigned with his queen
Never questioned
Never held in check
Such riches never seen!
With mount Olympus as his home
Far above the throng
He could do just as he pleased
No, he was never wrong!
Then a fair nymph maiden
Caught Jove's roving eye
Hera was out shopping
He saw the maid go by...
Making his advances
He found that he was spurned!
No matter how he postured
Her head was never turned!
"Oh Jupiter!" She laughed aloud
"You bloated moon, you knave!
I'd rather love a he-goat
For all the gifts you gave!
You have no tact. No honor.
You plurocratic fool!
You pick your teeth with
Poor men's bones
Using wealth as tool!
Go on then! Arrest me!
Force me... if you dare...
But I know Hera's servants
The one's who do her hair!"
Jupiter was stymied
He knew just what this meant.
Hera'd throw a fit for sure!
So he had to relent.
But he cursed the nymph-maid
With great poverty.
But dissing him was such a joy
She'd do the same for FREE!
(C) SoulSurvivor
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 5:07 PM UTC
scuttling across the valley,
the trench was deep and steep
scorching heat of the dry sun,
dried blemishes on the weathered skin.
Settling along the rocky facades,
hackneyed by the haunting past.
Sleepless nights of the perching predators,
Hibernating in aloof worlds .
Stymied by the wind in the barren land ,
Harnessed by the futile fears.
Simone Melchoir of the sinking ship ,
would not you go down with the fault.
Shunning away from natures affection ,
for every rose does share its thorn .
Sunny ends are reached ,
when the raging ravines fade away.
Slithering away the swirling serpent ,
The sun lurks in the brewing storm .
Sanctity of the witheld winds ,
sapping away the deathly darkness.
Serene air of the seraphic angel,
brought the plighting dreams to the refugees repose
Smelting ores and melting poles,
brimming with brightness the cradled cirque .
Summons of the exalted virtue ,
To burn the lizard and fly away like the phoenix
Succumbing to the wilderness,
to soaring heights and rising spirits .
Swanking in the soothing winds,
the phoenix looked down on the plundering valley.
Scorning at the downtrodden spirits,
The fraternity of the Desert lizard
May 20, 2012
May 20, 2012 at 1:23 AM UTC
You at least went.
so that meant the party could finally be awkward.
that's homeroom
at your personal Harvard
your low self esteem was the head dean
[ claimed you had promise ]
then promptly vomits
but you promised to maim
your lollipops with hot topic's
most goth night-shade of hemlock
iron-on, henna tattoos
for your thin lips.
like two gates
to a birdcage
where you keep
ravens...
pecking the tip of your tongue
where your brave words die
for lack of oxygen... pecking
the flesh off the skeleton key
to the heart of your insightful
comment,... stymied -
a black raven
savors the succulent eyes
of your hurricanes, so
braille maps for blind rage
fly off the shelves... fly like
led zeppelins to
fresh hell.
you lose your window seat
on the wing of a prayer
to Charles Bukowski.
now you're scowling a gilded smile
at all the Ed Hardlys'...
good thing you brought Jello Biafra Shots
to the shindig... cubes of gelatinous absinthe
each with a sugar box
lodged in supermax insecurity prisms...
fey emeralds.
monochrome rubicons
you pop
when cross.
like wainscoting the panic room
that came with a deejay
who thinks you're
a boy who got
lost.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 7:10 AM UTC
Tacked tin sheets
promoting brand names
Real local grown food
little meat eaten
our elders thin, bony and fit
Yet birthed another foolish generation
seeded by World Wars
planted by Lend Lease
fuelled by aged forests
we farm, feed, cleave and eat
Greed walks besides naive naivety
slaughtered sheep full of cancer
processing industrial carcase-ed meals
shopaholics fat consumerism
a speeding, partying, dancing waste of ills
Lawyer-ed politicians chain us
whilst stymied party politics deafen us
Money-ed propaganda’s herd us
Local economies destroyed to feed
*National ..European ..Pan European ..Pan Asian ..World Bank ...
Prime Minister ..President ..Minister ..Senator ..Consultant*
Globalisation’s plague of selfish-self-grandiose labels
A generation’s survivors
will despair
as the Ganges runs dry
then die with their children’s children
in an armed-hungry-thirsty tide
.
Apr 23, 2010
Apr 23, 2010 at 3:41 PM UTC
With obsolescent clarity
Amid moribund metaphysical
Mutations
As the iridium ball rolls
From eponym to epitaph
Engeneering an epoch diarama
In surfeit metronomic hysteria
While time chases time into infinity
Episodic vagaries celebrate
The metaphoric metamorphosis rising to
Metaphysical majesty as vacuous
As any minutiae will
When abstract vagaries
Become the vagrant epitome
Of a mordant mosaic
Made entirely of the lost causes
Torn from the very core
I surmise
As being the virulent....
.....Tragic and irridescent pieces
Left along the allegorical antipathy
Where those that are left behind
By the stigmatation
Of any irascible involutions
Mired in the mesh
Of scribbles and scribes
Left
After the iridium ball rolls By
Leaving vacuous irridescent
Symbols of epigraphical
Proportions
Stymied by
The obsolescent clarity
Amid moribund metaphysical mutations.
Jan 7, 2016
Jan 7, 2016 at 5:02 PM UTC
Simple greatness
He was bound all his days in earths binding ways
Mornings bright until shadowed night abiding alone
In the still the mind fixed on marching images they quietly have their say
Giving charm without connection just jumbled in this maze a timeless zone
inwardly warmed by your richest coffee brew
my mind stirred and stimulated by your comprehension and thought
overwhelmed the mind seems stymied momentarily powerless to see
the legend climbed the heights drunken power understood not what he bought
instantly back to earth feet tethered to solid ground
throw open the door look far and wide beyond the door yard
all the familiar boyhood haunts spill forth with thrills that abound
constantly I muse with you in mind thoughts rush between easy and hard
in common ways you stand out all in all you are truly heroic even in sameness
though you keep to the shadows you are not nameless
Jan 10, 2012
Jan 10, 2012 at 1:18 PM UTC
The Dragon's Egg
To understand my addiction
You have to know the
Back-story.
I was born in the dead of
Winter. Wednesday's child...
Full of woe. I was a preemie.
Mom fell on her stomach while
On a chair trying to change a
Lightbulb. As unpreposessing
A child as ever was born...
I won't go into my childhood
Difficulties too much, as they
Might prompt your judgment
Upon my parents. They were
Not really at fault. They did
The best they could based
Upon their childhoods and
Limitations....
Mom was sick.
A great deal. The victim of
Horrific migraine headaches
And an undiagnosed (therefore
Untreated) bi-polar condition.
She had aspirations of being an
Actor. She really should never
Have had three children. She
Simply couldn't handle it. I was
Born only 16 months after her
Firstborn, my sister Chris. This
Definitely didn't help matters.
Then, because my little brother
Mark was born just as her
Acting career took off, she had
Much less time for my sister
And I. She had a newborn, a
Career, a husband and
Postpartum depression. Chris
And I (and eventually Mark)
Were neglected. Not really
Mom's fault. It was what
It was...
Dad was a complex man.
A hot-tempered stoic. A hard
Worker who hated manual
Labor. A war hero who also
Became a runner (he would
Become a severe
Alcoholic - an addiction he
eventually overcame).
A generous miser.
A cultured plebian.
A spiritually minded atheist.
I don't blame him. But the
Last dichotomy was our
Downfall. We were
disallowed from church. Went
To an atheist Sunday School.
We learned about all the world
Religions save Christianity.
Or maybe I missed THAT lesson.
But as a result I had no real
Moral compass to live by. My
Parents tried to teach us
Ethical behavior, but because
Jesus and the Holy Spirit weren't
A part of the equation it was
Doomed to failure. One can't
Simply be "moral" or "ethical".
Without Jesus, we are all
Rank sinners. Sorry if this
Offends some of you. But it's
TRUE. Jesus paid the price.
Only faith in Him can make
A person right with the Father.
All else is vanity. My father
Spent his lifetime trying to be
A "good" man. He tried to
Be a "good" husband. A "good"
Father. But his efforts
Always stymied by lack
Of the essential puzzle piece....
JESUS.
May 20, 2017
May 20, 2017 at 7:08 PM UTC
Sky is pitch and crystal cloud
Wild figures languor on the dusty ground.
Eight pairs of darken haloed eyes
Strike the blue to blacken.
Bring the night.
And bring the work
The work by voice and light
Work with reddened hands
And verbal glance at a
Smaller place that must
Be walked: a faster pace
To lose the mortal race.
Mellow hours decay with gracelessness
That cannot be dreamed
On April nights no one in the road
Can be exempt. Nothing is exempt
At the stroke of the hour.
A step cracks in the deep
In those woods with painted fronts
A step that eats a flower
Sending up devotions.
****** rocks the riverbed
Hums a note in the still.
White shoes in black line
Mechanical clarity, footfalls.
Frissons from foreshadowing
A judder and a burial.
A burial in white.
It reeks of adrenaline, God's own ketamine,
Is sundered somewhat by a Sunday.
Sunday suit and six strong suitors
Following suit to the spot
No one could say. Still, the air
Is too hot with electricity to suffer it.
Tomorrow we can say
That we all knew the night's dread
Export, but for tonight we pray
Our lambs are all a-bed
And not a one of them
Is dead.
No one taught Ophelia to swim.
The hateful eating orange of dawn
Mocks her slow and stymied progress.
Feb 7, 2010
Feb 7, 2010 at 2:51 PM UTC
He was bound all his days in earths binding ways
Mornings bright until shadowed night abiding alone
In the still the mind fixed on marching images they quietly have their say
Giving charm without connection just jumbled in this maze a timeless zone
inwardly warmed by your richest coffee brew
my mind stirred and stimulated by your comprehension and thought
overwhelmed the mind seems stymied momentarily powerless to see
the legend climbed the heights drunken power understood not what he bought
instantly back to earth feet tethered to solid ground
throw open the door look far and wide beyond the door yard
all the familiar boyhood haunts spill forth with thrills that abound
constantly I muse with you in mind thoughts rush between easy and hard
in common ways you stand out all in all you are truly heroic even in sameness
though you keep to the shadows you are not nameless
Apr 26, 2013
Apr 26, 2013 at 1:37 AM UTC
a hammerhead percussion box:
an inert crystalline cymbalist’s gong.
a confession of tined tuning forks
of perhaps a familiar keyboard?
the siren sphere rings of a chime—
brittle yet consciously polite,
composed by nature’s ragged pen:
plinking injections; stymied to tin.
! let it all reduce the klang to mere cacaophony !
a descent of bells, i am in plume,
a riddle delivered in aged runes—
evenheaded shots of ******
cut by the lotto wanderlust:
fractal prism, stormy rhythm,
thunder’s din to rainy hymn.
up those tulip-eared scales, so brisk,
the glugs and gurgles of cosmopolis.
! let it all reduce the tolling to glorious symphony !
a vagabond melody, no metronome,
a metallurgist’s claustrophobe,
an orchestral performance at home,
where i am absolved in the entrancing drone...
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 12:26 AM UTC
It deceives the skin
like rain drops crawling
up the windshield.
False flags begin
to handshake the wind.
Low pressure boils the blood
of stymied nerves
moving in parabolic curves.
Follow the lines
of concentric circles
and drive with body and mind
intertwined.
Tune out the fear
so it cant hear you here
float on with the ripples.
Oct 20, 2014
Oct 20, 2014 at 12:54 PM UTC
He was bound all his days in earths binding ways
Mornings bright until shadowed night abiding alone
In the still the mind fixed on marching images they quietly have their say
Giving charm without connection just jumbled in this maze a timeless zone
inwardly warmed by your richest coffee brew
my mind stirred and stimulated by your comprehension and thought
overwhelmed the mind seems stymied momentarily powerless to see
the legend climbed the heights drunken power understood not what he bought
instantly back to earth feet tethered to solid ground
throw open the door look far and wide beyond the door yard
all the familiar boyhood haunts spill forth with thrills that abound
constantly I muse with you in mind thoughts rush between easy and hard
in common ways you stand out all in all you are truly heroic even in sameness
though you keep to the shadows you are not nameless
Nov 28, 2013
Nov 28, 2013 at 11:47 AM UTC
Blistering between the false hope of liberty
and the dream of a destiny
beyond the stars and the cosmic intricacies
of filtered rituals of nonsense, I stayed stymied
on the crutches of traditional customs
and conventions of writing.
Even the telescopic vision of a faraway
fantasy did not change rapidly
until the burning smell of a laissez-faire life
drove me into the strange new highways
of poetry.
Before too long I re-directed my attention
to writing, reading and contemplation
all of which came together
in an implosion of thought.
I wrote my first poem at the tender
age of twelve
and never stopped racing down the
roadways of writing
tyres burning
and speedometer ticking
Who can stop a getaway wordsmith
from breaking vocab records
for daring the unimaginable fantasy?
Author Notes
Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 8 hours ago
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 6:09 PM UTC
He creates miracles
And I don't know how to handle it.
I want to show him off,
But he is not mine to share.
A rare, crafted magic
Flows forth from his clever hands
Turning the world around him
Into banks to hold rivers of the stuff.
I am not the only one stymied and awed.
How then, am I alone,
With my strongly beating heart
Watching as he creates miracles?
Sep 9, 2018
Sep 9, 2018 at 5:03 AM UTC
I watch stymied
laughters of the world.
They are momentary tragedies.
Halting
Hindi laugh,
silent
Asian laugh.
Poking each other in ribs
infused with ****** morrow.
Why do I surreptitiously laugh, aloud on paper?
Each diseased curtain
of sawed-pulp wafts gently on
my breath, through ink, away--
contained in incense clouds
from sandalwood shrubs
which rustled once
beside a child
whose mother
dipped in Ganges
her ceremonial robe
whet, with tears,
the appetite you have
tonight
from laughing.
Downtown, outside
my cordoned hallway,
other people cackle;
they laugh like Sheikhs.
They laugh like Mullahs,
rolling copies of Qur'ans
held next to black cloth,
who ask us
"Have you heard the one?"
The bishops,
priests and
generals
lean over their broaching bellies
to hear described:
Crackling yellow flames cast shadows
on maps for weary pilgrims
with questions inside their heads
suspended on the moon-tides.
They sang in a circle, one.
Motives for allegiance
unraveled on the ground of man's
passion, now rotting, beside the
carcasses of camels
too meatless to eat.
In the once cloudless sky,
separated from the stars eternally,
they conceived of
pangs as great as loneliness
which laughter disguises.
Love, a painful, confusing torment.
of which
laughter never inquires
"Have you the time for me?"
although, every few days,
it should.
Running fingers through our lover's hair,
laughter tempts the intellect eternity to
conceive.
Constant fascination is
more bearable than death,
we dream.
We all need more
persuasion
to let go,
let leather reins pulled
taut behind vocal chords
snap free from our hands
in empathy for what
can't be said
and move our tongues aside
to shout
"Again! Again!"
through laughter.
No need.
It repeats, despite encouragement.
Arriving in self-addressed envelopes in your receptacle
each year
on your birthday
waiting in the dark, crying:
“Open up!
Climb down
out of your body.
Come laugh with me,
between the stars."
May 11, 2012
May 11, 2012 at 2:34 AM UTC
I am loveblind, my life, to you.
Swerving into a one-track mind
stymied by broken hearts askew,
I am loveblind.
Our fortunes become intertwined.
We’re gravity, magnets. We’re two,
but our souls thrive as one aligned.
It’s impossible to subdue;
my fixation can’t be confined.
This addiction, I can’t construe,
I am loveblind.
Aug 27, 2010
Aug 27, 2010 at 9:59 AM UTC
**** all the rest, she's definitely the best" the circus tool shouted towards the sky.
"Shes coming here in the morning haha !" , this was quite the sight u can't deny.
"Can't you all see where the anatomy is gonna shrivel and get back big again"
His progress as a stage performer stymied to and fro because of the flawed antonym.
"Serotonin, serotonin,and more spastic serotonin! its living in my veins"
oh my ******* God ****** your settling into the insane.
So it can be viewed as laughable the words of wisdom distraught, but with all the same constructs intermittent not taught.
This fool of the moment stood upright and felt his aim was true, however it may be looked upon it was just a mood swing that made the pink turn hue.
Mar 26, 2015
Mar 26, 2015 at 7:09 PM UTC
This fighting is killing me, and its its splitting me just like a dead tree, i tripped and fell and messed up my knee, baby can't you see that you and me were just meant to be? I don't understand why you went and set me free, I don't get why you acted so cruelly baby, i feel like a groupie because every time you talk to me you act so gruffly, i know I'm being greedy trying to keep you all the me but baby I know it might sound cheeky but for you girl I'd grow a goatee I know that makes no sense but again, can't you see that what ya do to me, makes it so I can barely, think or even use my mind, what I mean to say girl is that you've got me stymie-d
Jul 22, 2011
Jul 22, 2011 at 6:14 PM UTC
seconds
ticking
tick-tick
flip-flop
ti-
tick-
ticking.
poking at me,
c o a x i n g me
to move:
stand up, get out, be, hear, see, do,
everything's right in front of you!
those two
idle hands
should be crafting a cat's cradle of cathartic creation…
but easy comfort
in apathetic
nothing,
in slowly
being e n v e l o p e d
cuddled back into, back into, back into my bed of
blank…
slate, blank mind, blank hands.
blankets covering a blank stare at a blank ceiling.
smothering the murmurs
of the matador
in
my
chest,
I s l i d e into a hazy half-dream.
the light slips past,
going home with the sun
and listening to
lunar lullabies,
I
sigh & hum
slinking
into yawns
excusing myself for d r a g g i n g
tiredness
pulling on my strings.
sinking,
sinking
into sulking.
staying
to sit
in sadness,
sinking.
ticking
ticking
t i c k i n g
TOCK
the blocking of
my eyes,
ears,
hands,
feet,
heart
stymied by my own will.
and it will
continue
for
e t e r n i t i e s
of absolutely
arbitrary
nothing.
expect for cookies.
I will pledge my honor to soak up all sweetness so that my bones might
rot
faster,
sinking,
weighting,
wearing,
tearing,
s
i
n
k
i
n
g
.
spiraling out faster,
sinking
into another
sinkhole
black void of destruction
*******
the color
the dimension
of
me
into the next bed
dungeon
for sleep,
dreaming of
sinking:
plummeting past plumes of poisoned plum trees
plop perched atop an immobile glass-sealed sea
yet,
I
sink
in –
apathy.
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 5:19 PM UTC
tired of poverty
yet spend too much
tow the company line
is it really buying in
how much on offer
stable, bored, isolated
empty vase, limestone deposit
don't want to die anymore
coward in younger eyes
he's gone but i'm still here
what's been made of it
sometimes i wonder
how decomposed he's gotten
grave in central Newfoundland
worm eyed dream coil shuffle
left him there alone
place he hated most
i won't forgive myself
i won't forget
when blurry vision cleared
choppy alcoholic verse stymied
white waters to clear
how i miss sea waves
how do i read
believe it was an accident
if i'm lost at sea
slipped overboard
or climbed
icy atlantic water numb
sinking back to you
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 8:13 PM UTC
I put you
over my shoulder
like a spooled
rope.
Twisted too many
directions,
a little tug
and you might go
anorexically
thin;
too taut for me
to yank anymore.
And when you come to me
drunk,
a *****
of yelling,
I think of those times
when we sat close together,
barely touching.
In those days,
we were both drunk
and bitter over forever.
Beers chased liquor
over steeples;
we dropped dimes of pain
over smoked ****
and bleeding anger.
Time languored,
and eventually
or anger
stymied.
When you cried
twisted beyond
compare,
I held you close,
sniffed your hair.
People hurt each other because they can,
and we lay
on a mattress of your canned hopes.
I would never be a prince charming,
even when I groped
you;
when we were tossing each other,
fighting like ghosts do:
bad jabs,
quiet knives,
softer moans.
So, I curled you
over me;
beneath my earlobe,
as your whistled tears
drained energy.
Our synergy was syphoning
each other's
pain;
coiling nooses around our hearts
and kicking out the chairs
holding up our underneath souls.
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 11:48 PM UTC
A New Testament to the tapped out and stymied:
Write.
It's difficult, honestly,
Creating a balance with
unpredictability.
But there's a chorus,
Ideas distilled into this
Cryptic collective claim
Of form and veracity,
An inspired debut,
Opening, following, and continuing it's trajectory
To collect and deliver
Glorious entertainment.
Hint,
It's hidden in plain sight,
The lynchpin:
Desire.
Jul 28, 2015
Jul 28, 2015 at 9:14 PM UTC
comes not with
bad grammar
or the stammer
or misplaced i
it's not the
its for is not
the stymied thought
or the common guy
It comes from
the million dollar word
to be heard
a life unspent to pay rent
in a tent
and never asking
WHY
SoulSurvivor
(C) 9/16/2015
Sep 16, 2015
Sep 16, 2015 at 1:23 PM UTC