Monday, June 27, 2011

Sergeant Pepper



Silent asps hiss in shade
Sands of age shifting shape
Copper-head bolts to strike
Flitting hare hugs four bites
Kissing doves lost in haze
Sergeant Pepper singing grace

For Wordle 10

Sunday, June 26, 2011

El Amor - Nuevo Dia


Mexican Sunrise by Adam Romanowicz


Los colores rosa
Dawn’s blushing colors
La salida del sol

La gracia
   of grace
   taste like the first kiss
   of a beautiful woman
Tiernos labios de un beso suave



Pan fresco de aroma
   serving the fusion of fresh bread with melting butter and honey.
La fusión de la mantequilla caliente y miel

...

El amor
The love
Nuevo día
New day



For One Stop Poetry: Sunday Photo Challenge

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Crazy Days



How can I paint a self portrait
Lookin’ out my door these days?
I can’t remember smiles I had,
Now lost haze of craze.
Today is off its chain,
A maid with lazy ways.
How can I paint a self portrait,
In a crazy day like this?

Trains crashin’ off warped tracks,
People travelin’ to damn fast,
OPEC gas hikes kickin’ ass,
D.C. hidin’ all the facts,
It’s a crazy tinted day,
In a mushroom kind of way.

How can I paint a self portrait in a crazy world like this?
How can I frame my life inside a crazy world like this?
How can a smile and a hungry child exist in oil as one?
In all this crazy haze,
Imposter’s dressed in gray.

I can’t paint a self portrait,
Inside a world like this.
Unless I go abstract and scream
With cubes and strokes of black.
Picasso’s comin’ back
With vengeance in his hat.

Trains crashin’ off warped tracks,
People travelin’ to damn fast,
OPEC gas hikes kickin’ ass,
D.C. hidin’ all the facts,
It’s a crazy tinted day,
In a mushroom kind of way.

I won’t paint a self portrait,
Inside a world like this.
I lay my brushes down and grab
A hammer, nail, and spade.
It’ a crazy kind of day,
I think it’s time to pray,
In a serious kind of way.

Not a time for self portraits,
In a crazy world like this




For One Stop Poetry; Saturday Celebration

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Self Portrait

Antonio Mancini
The Sun

Commotion of self
Skirmishes with doubt
Institutionalized pastels
Zapped dark
Bold strokes
Chiaroscuro

The Moon

Cello vomits
Porridge and bread
Entertaining pedestrians
Contradictory notes
Flat then sharp
Frustrating interpretations
Explorations of id
Undress my conflicts

Of self portrait



(For One Shot Poetry Week 51)

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Proofs of Life

Charles Vest


Stardust serpents shy from light
Sacred etches spark old fright
Stories tangled in temple vines
Gossamer clouds slit moon sky
Threads of bone limp from sight
Proofs of life fade in night

Stardust serpents spark old fright
Sacred etches shy from light
Stories tangled slit moon sky
Gossamer clouds in temple vines
Threads of bone fade in night
Proofs of life limp from sight

For Wordle 9

Cloud Trees



Cloud trees release their fruit to the wind
  a hundred feet above
  in fields of eternal blue.

Clouds are birthed in this grove.

My tears alone water these giants;
  until,
  that is,
  my sorrow runs dry.

But
  do sorrows ever run dry
  this side of  blue sky,
  this underside of clouds,
  where rain falls
  and orange mist rusts red bicycles?

I’d like to move to the sun fruit forest,
  but pay is better here;
  more job security,
  and I am alone
  to create cloud sounds for blue skies,
  and those who live downwind.

I need my trees;
  I’m afraid to leave,
  and the valley needs rain.


For Poetry Potluck

Sunday, June 19, 2011

My Andela



Our love was the real art

She torments me
In each city
Every house I play
She leaves her mark
For me to see
Even in Melbourne
Upside down
Ironic
She’s so smart

Our love was the real art
I left

She has a voice
She sprays in screams from pleading eyes
To change the way people bleed
If you listen
She whispers
I sold her out
We had a mission
But I had dreams to read

Our love was the real art
I left
In Prague

My bohemian princess
Her eyes still ignite
My passion
Now hid by my wallet
And silent
Mute and dumb
Blind to …

Our love was the real art
I left
In Prague
For gold

She has a voice
Even in Melbourne
Upside down
Don’t forget me she sings
Don’t forget
She’ll remind me again in Montreal
She’ll be painted on my door

Our love was the real art
I left
In Prague
For Gold
My Andela
My Andela
My truth
My soul


Note:  Andela in Czech means: Messenger from God

(For One Shoot Sunday. Prompt is graffiti. At One Stop Poetry)

Friday, June 17, 2011

Sky Hole

James Rosenquist


My arm stretched through a dark hole in night skies

Shocked colors - red flowers - twin eyes - alive
Aqua streaks - splash bold - bare exposed - star light
Complex - explosions - hope mirrors - birth life

I saw within dark holes - spectrums of blue
Palettes of memories - of morning’s moist dew
I could’ve been sucked in -
But pulled love back through

The dark hole couldn’t hold you, the colors are proof

Red flower’s - - twin eyes
Aqua streaks - - splash bold
Complex - - explosions
Birthed spectrums - - I hold

My arm stretched through - - a dark hole - - in night skies



For Friday Poetically with Brian Miller at One Stop Poetry

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Calloway Brown



Calloway Brown is an old salt with a new flavor,
  he sits alone on a summer bluff of the Arkansas River
    watching rafters drop and weave beyond his rock.

A Bronco’s cap crowns his receding gray haired head,
  a burnished brass cross dangles ‘round a reddish weather-beaten neck,
    Calloway Brown is an old salt with a new flavor.

Prayers always leak from his lips between smiles,
  he loves squeals of joy, but squints from screams of fear,
    watching rafters drop and weave beyond his rock.

A Ranger tattoo in bluish ink decorates his right scarred shoulder,
  bitten by a broken beer bottle on the bottom of the brownish bubbling river,
    Calloway Brown is an old salt with a new flavor.

He thought he tasted hell saving that girl with the whitish swim shoes;
  he surely would not have spotted her in the brown swirling depths of the           
    Arkansas River if not for their contrasting brighteness.

He remembers and mumbles, “Amen,”
  flashes of summer when he was lost
    watching rafters drop and weave beyond his rock.
 
As a younger man in creased khaki service pants and brown boots,
  curses hurled at the irritating rafters,
    but a Spirit-led visit to the brimstone bottom of the Arkansas River saved 
      his own life too.

Calloway Brown is an old salt with a new flavor,
Watching rafters drop and weave beyond his rock.


Note:  For Poets United Thursday Think Tank #54

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Just a Man

Picasso

Rocks in my shoe
A thorn in my hand
Wind blowin' in my face
I'm just a man

Walkin' round mountain high
Watchin' eagles fly on by
Bears growl by my side
I'm just a man

I'm just a man
I'm just a man
I'm just a man
I am

Got a poem on my tongue
Pierced words for lost love
Your face stains my brain
Blue eyes blink insane

Miserable
I'm just a man

Runnin' way
I'm just a man

I'm just a man so plain
I'm just a man in pain

_____
NOTE:  A recoring of this poem in song is located at the bottom of this poetry section.
_____
Special Thanks to Don Ross for guitar music @Candyrat / Goby Fish Music/ Don Ross 2010
_____

This is for Poets Rally 46.

Love in the Scent (Reprise)



Mother:
Morning comes with heavy humid breath,
scorching horizon’s hills with red warning fire;
northerly breezes carry the scent of death
marching to the drumbeat of Yankee desire.

Mother:
I smell your sweet potato pie when I close my eyes;
brief seconds remembering kisses on my cheek
before I’d go to the fields where I’d try
to fill daddy's’s worn out shoes and seek
work to help ease your burden and blistered feet.

Mother:
I hear your prayers and I weep
because I know I must die and not cheat
reasons I carry the Rebel flag and cry
the rebel yell to help stem the invading blue tide
from flooding our land and your garden of greens.
I could care less about the “Southern” dream,
or slaves, I just protect my daddy’s bride; my

Mother:
Dawn’s final day has winked
Daddy’s waving,
Blood from your womb pools at my knees,
And I savor the love in the scent of your sweet potato pie.



For One Shot Wednesday – Week Fifty

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Unexpected




Slipping on June sidewalks and falling
Through thin ice in
My life of
Fingers holding on for all they are worth



For Carry on Tuesday #109

Momma's Prayer



You invertebrate
Posin’ in some fancy exoskeleton that ain’t yours
I’m no conchologist
So don’t think I won’t out you
Yes I know the words
You scumopod scavenger
My boy’s a marine biologist
I put him through school
You were doin’ time
A dime plus
Remember
What you hidin’
You shouldn’t come near the beach if you scared
I know who you are
You ain’t changed
That colorful little shell
Doesn’t hide your smell
Darkness has no spine
If you real
Squirm out
But don’t be playin’ MY boy for his shells
Quit usung what ain’t yours
Be gone
I can forgive
But I can’t turn my eye to your shell game
You leave on out with the next tide
And go back to the depths you crawled out of
I’ll be prayin’
I can do that
Maybe you can find a spine
And stand tall like a man should
But until that day
Leave before I forget I went to church Sunday
Amen


For Magpie Tales #69

Monday, June 13, 2011

Rain Check

Sarah Joncas

I’m not in the mood for alluring
Or enchanting this evening
Or stories of devious torsos contorted in sensuous twists of flesh
I don’t want my fantasy wish to come true
Especially involving the lotus position
And its kinship with other bold and strange offers of seduction
I am actually inspiring some other bed sharing activity
SLEEP
I’m tired
My job is sucking life out a drop at a time
But can I get a rain check?



For Wordle 8, The Sunday Whirl

My Kingdom

I am the emperor
Iceberg cold
I survive
Like a king
Ruling alone
Ordering myself about

I have total control
All power
I am the man
The ruler of my domain

Who needs you
I don’t cry for Argentina
Stay there all you want
I am not insane

I have my castle of ice
My throne of blue
Look at my cathedral
When I speak my own voice returns in fading waves of subjection
I march to the beat of my own heart

I will not apologize
Even at forty below zero
Some say I cried this castle with frozen tears
But they lie
And it’ll be off with their heads
When I find them
I did not cry

This is my home

I am the emperor
My kingdom is pride



For Jingles Poetry Potluck

Sunday, June 12, 2011

With What Remains


Josh Summers

With what remains

I kneel in dirt, so dusty, so dry, so creek-bed-dead
I cry
I breathe in ash, so cinder, so charred, so colorless gray
I pray
I bleed

With what remains

Drops of blood splash
On barren earth in time with my wristwatch
Tick
Parched pale land swallows each red
Drip
A thirst never quenched, a glut with no
Quit


I plead
With what remains

______

I fled
Yesterday
Rotting in a pine box

So much
In the past

I knelt on gold, so bright, so bold, so filthy rich cold
I lied
I drank fine wine, so dry, so smooth, so sate with pride
I died

Like a loosed leaf
Dried

I saw what remained of me

In a creek bed
Dead

______

I plead from what is left

Mercy … God … please
Forgive
Grant another step
Consume time survived
Like a seed
In your garden of life

And if I bloom in spring
Let my reflection
Be
Your face

With what remains

Of me
In You


For Sunday Scribblings #271 "The next step" and Poetry Pantry #53

Maybe Tonight

Oscar Burriel


Sleepy eyes blink slower
The lower I sink
Below layers
Of silk

As whirling ceiling fans
Twirl
Circular cool air
Chill my head
In the center
Of our bed

I whisper prayers
Silent cares
Yawn an amen
And sigh your name
Again and again
Until I fade
Away

In deserts dry
I dream and drift
In the fracture
Of another day missed
Without your lips
Moist kiss

Lazer-like
Dawn rays
Trace
Once more
Your cool pillow
Without your face
In sight

Maybe tonight
Whispers
Maybe
Tonight


For One Single Impression Prompt 172 "Long For" And for Poetry Pantry 53

I Still Breathe


Rob Hanson photo



Dust and rust and cobwebs sewn
Antique phone molds workshop wall
I still work and want to talk
But techno growth stole my soul

Hidden deep in cellar dank
Missing sheep in old folks home
I still breathe and want to talk
Lay alone in darkened room

Sunrise dawns and sunset fades
Stray light beams sneak in each day
I still hope and want to play
But grandkids use new iPods

Dust and rust and cobwebs sewn
Antique phones wear mold that's grown
I still breathe and beg to try
But new ring tones let me die

Buried deep in cellar’s cry
Missing sheep in old folk’s home


For One Shot Poetry Sunday Photo and Poetry Pantry #53

Dream Seed




Swollen face summer
Shredded shoulders wrong color
Shed blood feeds dream seed





For Haiku Heights #47 prompt slavery

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Inky Spin (Wordle 7)


Sarah Joncas

Inky Spin is a rock star
Gaudy
Unafraid
Not so common in a suburbia kind of way

Sexy and famous in darkened arenas
Yet
Her arms scared with bites of purple blaze
To help her lyrical intercourse with the stage
Gaudy and unafraid
Inky rocks

Her latest single was called, “Undulate”
She had no idea what it meant
But loved the way it sound sung sultry
While she undulated under spotlight’s glaze
Gaudy and unafraid

BUT

There’ve been murmurs from her entourage
Inky’s lost her mind and cries when she’s alone
Her moral compass spins uncontrolled
Chambered in the dark abyss of echoed fading cheers

Inky Spin was a Rock Star
Gaudy
Afraid
So very common in a meteorite kind of way

Beware (Carry on tuesday)(Revised, I shouldn't be allowed to write late at night)


Thomas C. Fedro

Beware of eyes glow red in dark,
Of cries of wolves with howling bark,
Thoughts of scamps wearing dresses tight,
That blind your mind from morning light,
Come away from asp's sweet perfume,
In hidden dens of darkened rooms,
The dawn comes quick to bathe your mind,
Night is plotting to steal your rhyme.



NOTE:  The prompt this week at Carry on Tuesday is the line, "Beware of thoughts that come in the night."  I used each word to start a sentence.

Captain Cobb (3 word wednesday)

Note:  The prompts for 3 word wednesday were Alter, Fond and Tranquil; HOWEVER I thought FOND read FOUND and I am not going to re-write this :).  So I'll be two-thirds on topic. lol.
____________________________________________________________________________


Laura Barbosa
Captain Cobb:  Neptune's Revenge


Drunken song of missing sailors disturb the tranquil sea,
The fog of night its darkness damp sinks hope they will be found,
Hope is weighed with anchor low on ocean’s rocky floor,
No lantern lit or captain’s wit can alter future gore.

The pirates’ skiff, a creeping crypt of killers, floats a stern,
It won’t be long; there’ll be no song from sailors lost at sea,
Their treasure chest of golden coin will sail with Captain Cobb,
Tranquil corpses found afloat won’t alter pirates’ greed.

Captain Cobb will sail away with treasure not his own,
But Neptune’s might and anger flamed will alter plans of foul,
A giant wave from tranquil seas will swamp the pirates’ ship,
The gold will sink on Cobb’s wet grave by no man to be found.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Moon's Eye (magpie 68)



What do you mean the moon can’t see me or who I want to see?
Someone stole the moon’s eye?
How can that be?
How will I know Gigi and I are still connected?
I encourage myself every night with those words.

Old fashioned?
We don’t need the moon’s eye anymore?
Of course I don’t have internet, picture phones, or any other fancy gizmo.
I never needed them.
Are you telling me technology overtook faith?
I’ve always had that saying; the comfort knowing the same eye that saw me could see my Gigi and vice-versa.

Who stole it?
Venus?
How could a planet steal another planet’s moon eye?
Jealousy?
Venus thought it would be a more appropriate place for the eye?
I can’t see Venus like I can the moon.
No I’m not going to buy electronic gadgetry when I have a perfectly worded poem to use.

Now who is looking into this crime?
No one?
Out of our hands?
Its cosmic law and we have no jurisdiction?
And they ruled we have Micrapple Technology and don’t need it anyway?
How insane.

What good is the moon now?
Tides!
Who need tides when I can’t see my Gigi through the eye of the moon?
We meet on the beach.  I scattered her ashes in the ocean.

I’m not crying.
Have you ever seen the moonlight glimmer off a still ocean night?
The peace it brings?
The moon kept us in touch.



I see the moon,
The moon can see Venus,
And Venus, the bright morning star,
Can see who I want to see,
During certain seasons of the year,
That is.

Foxglove White (one shot wednesday)



I am in the mood for a cup of tea
Sleep’s been mocking

Nights have been long
Even in spring’s corner of the year

Foxglove White is the finest brew
For longest rest

I yearn for
Rest

I yearn for
Refuge

My heart’s weak
Takes breaks between beats

Voice and vision taunt
Sanity bleeds
Grief’s cutting lashes

A child laughs
Under green trees over green grasses
Swings in warmth
Below a deceitful sun

Joyfully singing near
Too near
Foolishly near
Where my Foxglove White
Still grows

The poisonous plant
Remains
For one reason
Alone

I am in the mood
For a cup
Of its tea

I cover my ears
With trembling hands
Under blue moon light

Her final song
Stabs like knives
Over
And over
And over
Each night

I’m so tired
So very tired

I don’t believe
In green anymore
The sun’s a liar

I want to savor the flavor of Foxglove white
Before dawn birds take flight

I’ll sleep
Finally

My rest steeps in steam
For the final dream

But again
I can’t drink its pleasure

A breeze from the underside of green
Whispers
Please
Let the cup cool

And again
I can’t sip death’s release

I’m in the mood
But
You keep sitting next to me
Wanting me to believe
Once again

And
Each night I choose
Life
Not knowing why
Yet

One day
I’ll understand why you didn’t leave
The fragrance of your breeze
Why you hold my hand
Why you love me
Why you believe in me
Still

One day
I’ll thank you
One day
I will

I'm Just a Man (Recording Experiment ... I can't sing)

I am in the mood to change my tree to a cubic version.