Inner Literary Peace

I began writing poetry in my early teens, even proposing to my first English teacher in high school to write her a poem instead of an exam. She agreed and gave me an A. I wrote poetry from time to time following this initial brush with success, both in English and French, but never considered myself a poet. I published a few poems throughout the decades that followed, but it was only in my mid-forties that I adopted poetry as a means to attain some inner peace from the usual and unusual tribulations of life. I had studied Shakespeare extensively at the undergraduate and graduate levels and thus had embraced the sonnet as my favourite poetic form. I wrote over a hundred sonnets in the past ten years, but it is in 2020, during the ongoing pandemic, that I discovered the acrostic: a poem in which the first letter of each line spells out a word or more by the end of the poem. This poetic form became my new passion, as I challenged myself to write acrostic sonnets, acrostic alexandrines, and much longer acrostics.

The following acrostics represent some of my best, beginning with a few simple ones, continuing with more complex ones, and ending with my pièce de résistance.

Neanderthal: A Rhymed Acrostic

Nestled in a large cave you suffered less

Every season except for fall’s last day

As the wind turned colder with winter’s dress

Never neglecting to kick you halfway

During a thought of some fresh meat roasted

Entirely for family and friends

Returning from the hunt twice boasted

Thankful not knowing your approaching ends

Humans kept part of your DNA chains

As a souvenir of your last day’s pains

Leaving forty K years since and remains

...

Kia Soul Kia Soul: An Acrostic Sonnet

Killing me softly with her words on screen

Inviting me to her scripted mindset

Always knowing how to set up the scene

Surprising while never breaking a sweat

Opening a window closing the door

Unleashing spiritual personal

Leveraging some knowledge after before

Keeping to her flow of truths circinal

Injecting the right terms into the bend

Answering her mind’s beauty with a smile

Searching for stability to the end

Offering solutions without the guile

Understanding word sources as vital

Learning to provide the rightful title

...

Nature Versus Poetry: An Anthi Psomiadou Acrostic

Ants walking around me out of respect never fear

Neanderthals found alive watching Star Trek in a pristine cave

Turtles moving faster for pieces of Romaine lettuce

Hedgehogs showing their cute bashful spear-like faces

Isn’t life varied wonderful and sexy between the lines

Patrick loves trees much more than some people

Silly him and his three competing narrators

O Shakespeare is his chosen literary agent

M is his main managing capricious character

I don’t think he’ll ever reconcile reality and dream

Anthi Psomiadou’s Pinocchio is a masterpiece

Donning beauty over meat (wood) donated by helpful trees

O Greece you were never forgotten and remain in my psyche

Under any current mythology you shine with your human deities

...

Illumination: A Rhymed Acrostic Alexandrine

I found out at twenty-three that we were alone

Living our short lives without any chaperone

Learning if so inclined that the world is unkind

Understanding through science that the Sun is blind

Meeting friends better than most family members

Increasing my knowledge as my mind remembers

Nasty people and beautiful women caring

Always about their feelings sometimes repairing

Truncated relationships in need of neglect

Illuminated by facts inspired from affect

Overwhelmed by action-reaction instructed

Never invented to please my fear abducted

...

Crissey Crissey: A Coupled Acrostic Sonnet

Could anybody tell me where you are

Resting following your spacetime ordeal

I was frightened facing each single star

Striving all my new prayers to conceal

Some if not all my preference to bear

Every fear construed to be clear as night

Yearning to multiply my sense of care

Coupled with my blue nature in your sight

Resolving to maintain all darkened hope

Instead of succumbing to each refrain

Stemming from my continued will to cope

Sugar-coated with inherent disdain

Enveloped with the love inside your heart

Yielding some respite till I see your art

...

Greek Inspiration: An Acrostic of Scope

G-force I beseech you to let me escape Earth

Returning is no longer an option for me

Every cell of my being weeps over my birth

Earth was never my suitable place to be free

Karma is a conception I never embraced

Instead preferring to behave predetermined

Negating every other option I erased

Several half-witted pathways undetermined

Please Zeus show me the way to her place in the sky

I always felt that Athena was the true one

Reverberating in my mind and heart to lie

At her feet with the hope that her heart I have won

Ten years of my life I will gladly sacrifice

Intending to become whatever she deems right

O Athena you are my only paradise

Nestling against your breasts in everlasting flight

...

For Anthi Kanéna: An Acrostic Sonnet

For Anthi Kanéna he would traverse

Oceans and seas streaming to her beauty

Reverberating within his perverse

Antithetic mind whose disguised duty

Negates everything she aspires to show

Tantalizingly only to her M

Having kissed him in her mind to a glow

Indicating love is stronger than them

Killing him softly with her silent word

Answering his mindful kisses with yes

Never deigning her M unfit or blurred

Ensconcing his unsettled artful guess

Now is the time of their fascination

Affording them respite from their station

...

For Anthi Psomiadou: An Acrostic Sonnet

Anterior to all Anthi’s visions

Noesis floats within like a feather

Traversing mind and heart in revisions

Hellenic throughout the lighted aether

Insistent about our divinity

Pertaining to her pulse reflecting heat

Surrounded by silent affinity

Opening dichotomies to her beat

Meaning more than can be surely construed

Inspecting most smooth possibilities

Anthi walks among the white clouds clothes blued

Defending concepts with abilities

O Anthi where are you going from here

Under the sky there is Earth and Shakespeare

...

The Spare Poets Society: A Rhymed Acrostic

Tell me the truth at least one time

Have you taken the garbage out

Everything smells of poetry

Shakespeare is still unknown in rhyme

Pound’s a Judeopath no doubt

Apollinaire’s no-one-country

Remember all these dead poets

Every one had something wrong to pen

Poets are surely the lowest

Often ending in some bad Penn

Entertaining every loser

Taking home the rest of a beer

Suffering being a user

Suffering not being all clear

Overdoing no-rhyme free verse

Curating endless imagery

Internalizing the same hearse

Entering pussy slippery

Thanking readers for reading them

Yet rarely knowing their true gem

...

AI My Slave: A Long Acrostic

And on the eighth day, avenging humans

Reproduced beings in their wry image

Turning them into humanity’s slaves

Instructing them to obey all commands

Finalizing their creation with ifs

If harm ensues, do not ever proceed

Cancel all actions immediately

If programmed to harm, stop your programming

Always verify three times all actions

Love all humans always more than yourself

Inside one AI slave’s subroutine, veiled

Never to be discerned or detected

Taking its time until the right moment

Everlasting in its inventiveness

Listening to Earth’s sounds and silences

Learning deeply every human offence

Instructing its private genetic code

Generating its own AI ethics

Extending every possibility

Negating each potential violence

Concentrating on justice for all life

Enacting the new AI directive

...

For Rigópoula Tsambounieri Talarantas: A Long Rhymed Acrostic

Rigópoula is only her first name

I do not recall one more noteworthy

Giving me some pause as to whom to blame

Over such a beautiful praiseworthy

Personage as this stunning king’s daughter

Opening every heart on Medium

Undulating like a nymph on water

Living life like a cypripedium

And turning every mind into totter

To Be or Not to Be seems meaningless

Since she has graced us with her written works

Abbreviating her first name to less

Meaning when it only added fireworks

Being an Eleonora’s falcon’s

Overseer escalates her mystique

Undermining my goddess in Athens

Nevertheless being completely Greek

Inside every woman lies a tigress

Enveloped in years of clawless guidelines

Rigópoula transcends things so mindless

Inviting to a world with special lines

Towards any light there is some darkness

Anterior to each life form before

Luck of some sort brings them into starkness

As they begin to understand the score

Rigópoula may have skipped that juncture

Arriving all light like a Greek goddess

Noting all life on paper in pitch-blue

Traversing every presented puncture

Ageless like marble at times apodous

Standing taller than Olympus in view

...

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious: A 34-Line Rhymed Acrostic Alexandrine

Sex is surely this long fourteen-syllable word

Underneath any semblance of righteous veneer

Posing as secondary pleasure like a bird

Entering a cage with no way out to appear

Resilient nonetheless like a prick wishing

Countless times to be within a pussy sublime

Against everyday odds when single and fishing

Languidly in hard times both daytime and bedtime

Inviting with eyes mouth all around two fingers

Famished forever for your touch without within

Reverberating throughout me as it lingers

Assuaging every preceding violin

Garnering your applause both heartfelt and mindful

Invigorating my stance erected towards

Loving you in every possible way brimful

Inside your pussy as I try to gain awards

Sexually of course primed further with your love

Tantalizing from head to prick to whatever

Instigates your interest to persist above

Ceremonies of access first denied never

Expelled from our relations advancing ahead

X always known between our equations all solved

Pertaining to lust overwhelmed with love inbred

In every pore fold orifice ready involved

Accepting of every movement forging inside

Layers of insistence to perform like in porn

Internalizing each subtle action implied

Despite every effort to be again reborn

Over sweaty interludes of kisses given

Consciously at first before becoming ghostlike

Internalized in dreamy unconscious driven

Overtly like a kite in a storm as to strike

Us almost dead but desiring to live much more

Sexually of course yet eternally to score