follow the poolside shadows
Venus of Delphi
daughter of bitter waves
peek through the peephole
of my glaucous thorax
open your byzantine eyes and
spurn your locomotor ataxia
one glance at our vitreous hands
– a sight for blind sore eyes
one brush of our riveted lips
– gone astray in malformations
one ponderous confession later
– immaterial as a shadow of the lash
let the weeping corpuscles lie
swarm and jostle in the grotto
rattle and blather away our days
I’ll wait for your recriminations
fall asunder under your touch
fastidious in my entomology
let the bouquet glide downstream
the scytheman is still in his kingdom
then we rejoice in endless daze
the lingering beaten with bravura
my legs welcome the warmth of the Kansas sun
bird with a screech makes weird noises
sweat bee hovers close to my left ear
I swat at it with my notebook
clouds are moving tremendously slowly
an asymmetrical opening shows light blue sky
this peephole is surrounded by brilliant white
have clouds always been this pristinely graceful?
dog brings up empty water bottle to porch
he loves the crackling sound against his teeth
another dog in the distance takes his attention for a second
clouds move a bit faster, I watch, amazed
a wood chopper, car engine and loose shutter sound in the distance
barely perceptible noises, yet I hear them clearly; I have dog ears
small tweeting noise brings my attention to my elm tree
the bee is back, teasing interested dog who tries to catch him
October day, red and orange leaves, lovely heavenly clouds
waving limb with three tiny leaves, scratches against porch
clouds have formed another portal to heaven
I would be more interested if I was not already there.
Melts to a smooth touch that norms Autumn's eve,
eyes calm swans ballet, glissades silhouette,
faint lights pair, a porcelain minuet.
A curio stand, well placed, best achieve.
Nice culled singles tryst, pond sides by vast knoll,
balters few burbled matches. Grasped sunset
prompts a quietude, occasions beset
whilst espy eyes pry, as through a peephole.
Selenophiles resplendent moored grandeur
supine visages, prompt smeared tattooed rouge
amongst enthused pristine hearts, fused refuge
sonder renaissance ere night's prism, savior
flame, epoch pairs euphoric dulcet swoon
per drawn orphic sight, a ringed rainbow moon.
I was born through that bloody door
Through my mother’s womb, I saw the gloam
I was once two, expelled as one
I’m now on the flip side of the portal
Into life, the door closed behind me
I come back to what God denied
I unlocked the door with attempts
I still jiggle the lock pursued by suicide
There are marks on that cold facade
On the other side, I pulled to its face
I know the contours of the living door
Its surface magnifies my weariness
Calls of loved ones have a gravity
They like greater heavenly bodies
Those beyond the gate are sirens
Won't the knob stop beckoning?
I gaze through the opaque peephole
Hoping to see where I came from
The door calls to me before my time
I know the door like an old friend
Only I lay mines on the doorstep
Fight the urge to blast it open
Shrapnels lead others to despair
Keep them safe from mines
The cold steel door lulls me
I’ve got better things to do, death
If I exit your bloody door
Will I, at last, be no more?
No door, no egress, no me
The trinity united with the great thou
A singularity of endings or nothing at all
To exit as one with patience, God
I find that if I cut a lens-size hole
in a cardboard box then place that box
over my head
at night,
the stars form new constellations;
strangely, they can jump time and space
to shine within my eyes.
I find that when I peer through
that eye-hole cut in the box,
that both good and evil
seem to live together, coupled
by the closeness of their separation.
In the box, I find myself
to be almost happy for you.
Love and hate fade in and out,
upon your features
as your face glows darkly angelic.
I find that if I see a dead raccoon
on the road I think
of the Jewish prayer for the dead,
maybe it’s the pajamas they wear,
they only wear half-pajamas, but then
I am only half-Jewish.
Most concentration camps
are left open. You never can tell
which abandoned blood-stained factory
once was a death-camp or perhaps
will be again.
I find myself (when head in a box),
to be the ghost of everyone I have
ever seen from a distance;
close-up the box hides everything.
The carboard box has the power
to see scenes of ecstasy and horror
as one moment repeating itself
over and over aging,
and the peephole is always
too small to tell the difference.
11/14/22
It needs to be correctly retold
The problems came three fold
In came an extreme cold
Across the land beginning to seize hold
Giving nearly ever leaf mold
Nearby a market where there was meat sold
Experienced first hand or seen through a peephole
That was thousands of years or just a week old
In order to get it done, didn't always need gold
Droning on
According to you it was wrong
But not to GOD
Nor any dog
Regardless moving along
Staying strong
Beyond dusk and dawn
This world's f***ed up, I'm gone
Why do they always bandwagon?
What happened?
Zero if any compassion
Nobody asked them
Yet so quick to voice their hate about my actions
If only you could imagine
Sad that they laugh and backstab quick
My impact is
Like that of the Kracken
Combined with a Dragon
It's often a crap-shoot
That's the truth
Having nothing or everything to do with Black boots
Grassroots
Or Jackfruit
Feeling sad with the blues
Why is it that far too often it's bad news
Father there's a ringing in my heart
I hear a call O' FATHER there's a knocking at my door
Who is it?
Jesus
Appearing I spy through the peephole
There's a man standing there He's whispering
May I come in and sup with you
With stretched forth out arms and hands
He's a vision He tells me
That He loves me
He tells me that
He loves me
He tells me that He died and rose again
And I believe in Him
As I answer the call I open up the door
And I answered the phone come on in Lord and sup with me
1/7/23
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr © 2023
These tornadoes that shred me,
twirled on
knowing you’d one day
haunt my ruin;
use my mind for a peephole,
step lightly over my hill.
Blond curls a choreography
of sunlight and days undone.
Slim legs binding blood
to a wounded feline hanker
and a tin thin regret
My first introduction when I moved in across the hall
Was a lovely older lady, who stood under five feet tall
She came up to my door to say welcome and hello
And to tell me of the neighbours, some above and some below.
She invited me over for a drink, I assumed a coffee or a tea
Vodka, gin or rum she says, of each, i've got plenty
I said rum was good with me, but just a little splash
I watched her a mix a couple drinks, both were half and half.
We talked late into the evening, as she told all of what she knew
Of everyone who had lived there, from now since '92
Sometimes I used to wander over as we lived on the same floor
She pulled a stool to the peephole, before she'd open up the door
I've moved farther away now and I didn't keep in touch
But I do miss our little chats while having just a bit too much
It's been awhile since we've caught up, maybe I should phone
It would be a little different now, since I'm too far to stumble home
Lollabelle lived in a hoarder house
No one knew
She kept her secret for forty six years
Her six children had stopped visiting her
about fifty years ago
She was not the best mother
Maybe the worst one
They ran from her in their teenage years
Only one returned a few years ago
She recognized her through the peephole
But she did not let her in
Her mental illnesses were in charge now.
Her rats kept her company
She slept in on a soiled mattress
away from the piles of debris she had accumulated
Her things were her comfort
She had never wanted children
She still did not want them
She was content
My soul
Glassed
In a translucent dream
Fixed
To the mirror of your eye
Seeing
Right through me
Having full control
The peephole
To my soul
A secretary must control
A randy boss's rigid pole
Her knickers extol
A lacy peephole
A fitting end to his bankroll
Image of Moon Clouds Air provided by Pixabay.
*Selenophila
Ballet of calm swans glissades, silhouette
placed culled singles tryst, pond sides by vast knoll,
balters few burbled matches. Grasped sunset
whilst espy eyes pry, as through a peephole,
faint lights pair, a porcelain minuet.
Lain on their fleeces, woolgathering whirled --
supine visages, prompt smeared tattooed rouge
-- upgrades furtive vagary functions, twirled
tendrils e'er sensing blond frames ... whelve amour
amongst enthused pristine hearts, fused refuge
sonder renaissance ere night's prism, savior
per drawn orphic sight, a ringed rainbow moon,
selenophiles resplendent moored grandeur
flame, epoch pairs euphoric dulcet swoon.
*Selenophila: Loving the moon and finding it soothingly captivating.
2021 May 19
*4th Place*
Summer love sonnet
~~John Hamilton: Judged 2021 May 24
[Loosely to the beat of the U.S. Navy
Seals Cadence ‘I Don’t Know But
I’ve Been Told’]
Cop who tapped on my window
Can’t park there bud, off you go
Said my dress sense wasn’t good
I explained as best I could
I don’t know where I came from
Why I’ve got no trousers on
Don’t know if I’ve been here long
Why I’m wearing this pink thong
I’m all tied up in this car
Strapped into this peephole bra
Need to get home really quick
And wipe off this red lipstick
Can you please untie this rope
This is not my stethoscope
Sir, I must be on my way
For I’m getting wed today
Copper said you might have guessed
You are now under arrest
Thought I’d end up in the can
But that cop was my best man
Yellow tape and a sign declaring the exhibit is temporarily closed until further notice. I feel frustrated that I won’t get my cheap thrill—looking at something I don’t really want or need to see. So the bride is stripped bare by her bachelor but we can’t peep. Étant donnés. Revert the fountain to original use. Secure cherry trees against hares. The fractured glass won’t create a prism and self-doubt leads us to another room.
Duchamp’s peephole closed
temporarily closed off
inconvenient sign
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