Rhyme Poem: Praise, Plunder, Pillage, by Aaron Small

Praise plunder pillage! Praise plunder pillage, he said, because that’s just what’s in his head.

He is all but a mere man. And man is all but mere. So forget the day’s frets, get on with the night’s bets, and in his hand will be a beer.

Impulsive idiosyncrasies, benevolent hate and ruthless love form a vast merger with all aligning astral anomalies, but in the end he hooks his wormy bait, moves on to the next empyrean gate, doesn’t dare let another dredge driver steer.

And he’ll be damned, should he ask for some simple direction – better to stop, consider this filthy fettered flop, seek those greener pastures, and obscure all that could be clear.

So let him wipe that smile so slick from his fainted face, watch him lament in that slower slippery pace, relished in reaming reveling rage, then hurry to harp and humiliate any he who sheds even just one single tear.

Praise, plunder, pillage! Praise, plunder, pillage, he said, because that’s just what’s in his head.

In all one mismatched moment, should his every bested battery go blundered and dead, he will feed on hardened hormone harmonies, and see nothing but pure putrified red.

He will truly tap that tampered temper, words twisted and thoughts tantalized til tomorrow’s no bounds, so buy this guy more and more rounds, watch him mask away some unmasked mirage of magnificent madams maddened, all the way back to his poorly papery pious mache bed.

So let’s just be sure this hasty hungered hunk is forever fed, find the fading threshold for faraway families fooled once and twice and furthermore, truly invisible to the eon’s eye so gnarled and naked, and then he’ll whisk and woo the weeping woman locked into such regretful woeful wed.

Say cheers to yesterday’s shaded ambitions, lay curse to today’s bright blunders, launch a clocked competition of mellowed manly merit and nance narcissist neighbors with some bigger but not better lawn, the cold kilted contest of no quaint compromises, consequences only in threat-woven offers of either silver or lead.

Praise, plunder, pillage! Praise, plunder, pillage, he said, because that’s just what’s in his head.

Dainty. Despotic. Downtrodden. By day’s unendowed break, watch his sullied soldiers soil the clappering quake, fitting those bony black blistered boots for a gutted ground’s most rugged wake.

This entire eagerly guilted globe spins swift on a sore single axis of proud priceless ganders and cheap chattery grins, and so do not ever try telling this empowered pretentious man of all his persevered losses and pointless wins.

Sacrifice the lowly lambs to the larking lions, then peel the pawn and polite off all that wilted wool, inch by inch, pinch and winch, paint this proudly shepherd all but pure black, set a sutured sanded target on his wary back.

Praise, plunder, pillage! Praise, plunder, pillage, in head, because that’s just what he said.

Or is it all just simply in his head? Forceful forgetful salesman’s unwanted cold call in the sizzling circus of sketched circles.

Praise what’s heard, seen and said. Plunder all under this sun, alive or dead. Pillage the prized prowess of all things seen and unseen, undead and unsaid.

– Aaron W Small

RHYME Poetry Contest

Deadline March 27th. Submit a poem that rhymes and get it made into a movie. 

Accepting any poetry in any genre or length that rhymes in any way.

All poems will be posted on this network. Over 95,000 unique visitors a day. The winning poem will have their poetry made into a movie.

The RULES are simple:

1. Write a POEM that rhymes. Send it to this contest for $10 and it will be POSTED on this site guaranteed for 100,000s to see. (you own all rights to this poem and whenever you want it taken down, send us an email).

2. Email your POEM to submission@festivalforpoetry.com in .pdf, .doc, .wpd, .rtf, or .fdr format or just cut and past it into the body of the email.

3. SUBMIT as many poems as you like ($10 per poem).

4. The poem can be anything that rhymes. Any event/situation. Any genres. As long as it rhymes.

5. PAY THE $10 SUBMISSION FEE. Guaranteed post on this network. Results to be emailed by April 10th. We will turn the winning POEM into a movie. (You’ll also garner an IMDB credit as your film will be played at various film festivals. Guaranteed!)

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Watch Recent Poems made into a MOVIE:

Poetry Reading: Live Again, by Anika Anderson

Live Again, Anika Anderson

Alive but not living
Surviving but not thriving
Wearing masks, hiding identities
Controlled but not in control
Conforming to roles, titles and positions
Giving all but feeling empty
The meaning of me lost
A life summed
On that precipice of life, I awakened to a revelation
That the the key to me was found in my Creator
The Creator and His creation a relationship never fully explored
So I began seeking to know and understand
About my purpose and design in His master plan
What I discovered was peace, love , joy, trust and intimacy with Him
Most of all I discovered how to live again

Read Poem: What is life?, by Vrinda Nair

An illusion
or an introspection of our deeds
We are puppets in someone’s hands
Starting with aught and
ending with griefs
Restless souls, brooding over past
Lost in the mayhem of snippets of life
To be believed in nurturing
but become wayfarers of thoughts
Crossing many paths, handed aid to several
That was the mission
but juncture fiddled in like an alibi
Approaching the end-
What do we do?
Nowise…!

Read Poem: Rattles and the Rust, by Kartik Prajapat

I endlessly search my flesh and bone
what undernourishment has it gone?

How come they speak of me being shy?
when my days actually passes high and dry.

Some ask me to hope while some to have desire,
struggling is my heart, it is set on fire.

The hands that nurtured me promptly degrades
and her blessings are left as the only trace.

Might be the rust she was bestowed
here I corrode against all her hopes.

This goes till then I was five
Alike the present full of strife.

She kept screaming ‘Help O’ help!’
I was alerted & going to yelp.

He throttled me in a fit of rage
”Damn it you bastard! You shall also die in a cage”

I moved forth and tried to stop,
but my hands were barred by him, from the top.

“Stop here for my pity sake”
he added – Let her char O’ bloody snake!

You are vigilant and letting her die
Applauds to you, bidding her goodbyes.

You went up in the flames, burning so high
O’ count me the reasons, Mumma! what & why?

“Keep blazing O’, dear son
You are my residue, the charcoal unburned.”

Arid feels my heart, the dry leaves crinkle
blow me up with you, I’m ready to mingle.

I switch off the lights, what is sleep?
where’s gone that lap, I used to weep?

Nights are drearier than ever before
I often search for me in my core.

Your wailing reverberates up to now
I turned 23, I still wonder when and how?

Every time I breathe in my soggy lungs
a rattle of your presence fills me with the spunk.

Here I stand as your only fraction,
inbuilt into dynamite give me some friction.

You made me invincible, the heat is on
If only you were here, what wasn’t that I own?

―Kartik Prajapat

DOLL, by Kirsten Warner

I forage for her, the doll of my disappointment

a spray of brittle twigs
a faggot of fallen fronds
crusty sticks with lesions of lichen

crouched over, calling up my ancient sister.

Then it is only a matter of seeing and she takes shape.

A forked branch and spindly legs start running,
over-wide arm-span
shock of invisible fingers
guts hanging out
circulation unspooled
half a skirt of flax flowers,
all bundled together
leaving a strong stick where her head will go.

Overnight she stands sentinel,
my doll of disappointment,
through my sleepless 4 AM and discarded novels.
My insides agitate like giant kelp in a blowhole.
Somewhere a strange crying
but each time I get up the whimpering stops.

In the morning the pillow is wet.
I’m flimsy yet my ache weighs heavy on the bathroom scales.
I count my losses in the vanity’s distorting mirror.
It feels like something died. Like I never had a chance.

I craft her head from crumpled cellophane
and glinting, spooky transparency,
attach a savage halo
consider lengths of yarn the violent red of secobarbital
but she’s done. I nurse the day

while she fossicks in the underneaths
grubbing out contagion,
cursing humbug and sideshow
drowning out the comfort of friends
muttering spells to turn my gaze away
daubing herself with horse manure
full of grass seed that will eventually sprout green.

POETRY Reading: ABANDON LOVE, by Joanne Rowe

Performed by Allison Kampf

POEM:

So rich man you think you’re gonna survive?
Leaving the rest of us to die.
Buy your ticket to outer space,
watch the rest of us spinning in space.
You measure time by your own insignificant place

Mother Earth is starting to wake
We can feel her moving – Under our feet
Dancing but nobody is watching

She is screaming in the whirlpools of abandon love,
Drowning in the pools of blood,
Crying in the dirty rain,
In the clamour of the wind and rain,
how many lives have fallen?

We have rend her garments –
Emptying out her oceans
leaving her in disgrace,
and just plain destroyed this place.

With our lust for power and greed to have ever more,
Lies and deceit riding on the backs of the poor,
leaving them to eat dirt while
using our abandoned pets as live bait.

Oh all for the good life,
for we are gonna have a good time.
No one’s manning spaceship earth
to busy fighting and dying
while we are spinning out of control.

Oh sweet love divine
where do we go from here
oh sweet love divine
where do we go from here.
You seem to have abandon this place

For why complain –
we are riding on the crest of sensation,
oh for we all have a good life,
oh sweet love divine

Gaia is opening up the book of change
bringing forth massive amounts of
anger, sadness and despair
For we have abandoned her
Now chaos sets the order of the day.

And when the morning sun has risen –
I will walk outside this world of dust
Watching
Mother Earth shed
her garment of expression,
awakening the deep strata of my soul
and sets it dancing with my shadow wondering,
where we will go from here?

After the tears – a gentle rain falls
One can sense a presence
to a life’s sustaining ocean
of a love that is freely given,
not bound to any one person or thing

Asking mankind to wear a coat of compassion
To hold on to what is good, —- All you need is love
For All Life!

Through The Screen Door, by Dominique Doutre

My favorite color only happens once a day.

It’s that moment right at sunset as the sky changes from blue to grey.

The light that kissed the treetops has faded from the leaves, pulling away his warm fingertips.

The color can’t decide if it’s blue or grey or simply light, tiptoeing the edge of night and day.

The color feels like solemn emptiness and acceptance that the day is over. Do we rejoice? Or am I full of dread? Of emptiness? Can one feel full on emptiness?

I sit watching the day wind down and listen to the birds through the screen door, all while my favorite color sits in the sky.

While the sunset oranges and blushy pinks cling to the clouds for brief moments and then vanish, my favorite color watches quietly.

And for one moment, once a day, right at sunset as the sky changes from blue to grey, I feel a little less alone.

LOOSE CHANGE, by Ben Naga

Endoscopy opens to a hush, closes to applause
Dramatis personÕ stride and snivel in between
While the playwright owns up as simply the you
In disguise and of course vice versa – All change!
Newton, Einstein, Erwin and his imaginary cat
A different sounding at each fresh embouchure

Bringing light, demolishing the old – All change!
Revolution on revolution yet nothing changes
Ancient foolishnesses replayed ad nauseam
Minotaurs and dinosaurs strut the halls of power
External, internal weapons of mass distraction

Eternal, essential the pulse the pulse the pulse
Distorted persists, breathes through every pore
Where would we be without our surroundings?
In a flash flood, a roar and a blaze of lightning
The walls of the citadel quiver and fall – All change!
As Alice tiptoes lightly through her looking glass

Boundless waters surround us as above so below
Rivers linger not and carry our bread away
A true love that will neither fade nor wither
Memories drift like leaves torn from a book
Even as the moving hand writes on – All change!

Evenings herald nights overburdened with
Dark eldritch dreams peopled by eery voices
“Wake up at the back there! Pay attention!”
I look around and find myself looking around
“Ninety-eight, ninety-nine …” – “All change!”
“At the third stroke …” “At the third stroke …”

Buy new improved, ditch the old – All change!
Rapine of the earth is not a spectator sport
Advertisements invade us twenty-five-seven
More and more of less is what and all we need
Emergency! Emergency! All hands on deck!

Ben Naga. (https://bennaga.wordpress.com)

Genres: Life, Philosophy, Politics, Social Commentary, Crisis.

QUESTION, by Bliz Mordiop

THE BLIZMO PRODUCTIONS Presents

Whose voice do I hear?
Say which way to follow for a better tomorrow when
Tunnels are very dark, nightmares coming back, and…
I hear voices, different languages but…
I can’t pick my mother tongue.
What language do you speak?
And why my nation did you pick?
Enslave my people and turned my brothers against me.
Just like yesterday, I am still living for
Hope of a better tomorrow
Just like yesterday, the day before today it was sorrow
I am still confused with the idea of unity when only one race is involved. And my life feels like was borrowed I mean
Yesterday still alive today and tomorrow is just a dream.
A dream that will never come…

Now tell I where we going when priests owns jewellery stores,
You still treat sisters like whores
And politicians own mines.
The six has turned into nine.
If in church we meet gangsters…
There we meet all sinners.
But who is protecting us?
Tell me what you doing?
When you sit and watch children abuse alcohol and drugs
I dare you don’t care or…
Scared to make a step when streets asking for help…
And sisters are getting raped.
Who is leading here? Whose voice do I hear?
Tell me which way to follow for
A better tomorrow,
The storm is coming back.
What was once blue is now yellow.
Every hope is now gone.
Is my mission done? Why do I still feel alone?
Let your life be an inspiration and make that be ye mission.

Now pay attention in all you do,
We are all looking at you,
Children wants to be like you,
Sisters look at you as a hero,
Brothers be looking at you as an example.
But I be looking at you the same way,
My fathers did yesterday
Unchanged man,
Unchained man from the past,
Slavery, non-patriotic, still living sovereign,
Listening to the voice of minority,
A stranger we gave home and
Now wants to control my humility
Forcing me to enrol choicelessly, and concuss me
Taking my power and confuse me,
Obscure us all so they can rule over our soil,
Stealing our oil, killing our souls,
Use us as tools. And calls us fools.
But you and I, share the same roots
We not fools, or anyone’s tools,
Bad or good, red is the colour of my blood
Now pay attention in what they telling you,
If it’s to hate me, tell them the truth.
We share blood, a cut on you will cause me pain.
And then you limits my speech, no freedom.

But who’s leading our people?
Who’s talking for us? Or…
Who’s taking us to freedom?
I am still forced to speak thy language,
Beaten with a wooden stick,
Forced to do hard labour even when I am sick.
But ask me whose voice I heard
I heard you,
You selling us out,
You afraid to spend life in prison.
I heard you saying okay,
You don’t care about our generation
Including the one’s coming, including my son Hakim.
A leader being led. So you follow, you don’t lead,
And tomorrow, you can’t reach to the nation, because
The people who stood by you till that position,
Be sitting at home looking at you and see a contagion.
Can you handle the situation? Do you care about the religion?
Do you have any notion to lead the nation?

Tell me what you doing?
Because no one is protecting us,
No one is fighting for our rights,
No one is taking care of our sisters or our streets.
No one is turning boys into men
And then no one talks for our children.
So pay attention in what they telling you,
If it’s to hate me, tell them the truth.
We share blood, a cut on your heart will make me bleed.
But now let this to you be a caution
Let your life be an inspiration and make that be ye mission.
Now pay attention in all the wrong you doing,
It must come back to you.

By Bliz Mordiop.