With dusk fall, fireworks began capturing the eyes.
Shooting spears rose high shedding fluorescent hues.
Confetti of sparks in rainbow colours were sprinkled high,
Etching scintillating designs on the panoramic sky.
All eyes were riveted up, feasting on the wondrous array.
The crowd stood aghast at the pyrotechnic display.
The argument of silence, absonant,
hammers into the pliant mind it’s hard
nails of craving.—a spirit thusly marred
will yield to any prickle, every scant
pressure to give in.—once the foreign implant
is firmly riveted, a brain so jarred
can no longer trust its levies to guard
its thoughts against the inner, speechless “can’t”.
Quietudes disturb the peace of silent
folk, pounding its forceful will upon their backs.
When, going unfulfilled, a lurching tic
tickles the unstilled ego, its violent
lashes thrash harsh whips in frequent attacks
on the tender flesh of a crooked back.
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 hand
Lingers on the page.
A red X marks the date.
Turning the page feels like losing you again—
Every day.
The coldest
Month of the year
Has turned my heart cold too.
My gaze, frozen, is riveted on the date—
You left.
Forever gone,
I am still here.
I would trade all my tomorrows
To have you live out all your days—
So many.
The calendar,
Hung on my wall,
Will therefore remain exactly the same—
A reminder of a precious daughter of mine
In heaven.
Your memory,
Imprinted and deeply ingrained,
Follows me around like a shadow,
Making me forget the real reality, you see—
The mark.
The rush that occurs with Van Gogh’s brush.
Deep in the undergrowth, drawn to two figures.
The dappled landscape, lemon, lime and vanilla.
The close couple strolls amidst rows of trees.
The ebonic widower walks with his spectral wife.
Trees, like stick figures, reminiscent of cemetery stones.
This dreamy scene, romantic and haunting. Momentary
pause, as if for a quick snapshot. The forest, seemingly,
goes on forever. The lovely lady dressed in pastoral green.
Although the lovers pause, you still hear the rustle of her gown,
and their forward swoosh through tall grass and wildflowers.
Completely entranced, in their edenic setting, and with each other,
they blend with the tall trunks, relaxed and content.
Robust in recollection, riveted by exotic bird calls, earthy scent,
mixing with her light-lavender, temporal-lingering on the canvas.
Contrast with eternal life, where our imagination flourishes, alive,
with healing in the leaves, loving, forever and a day, in paradise.
The rush that occurs with our Creator’s brush.
Going home
across the Shard bridge
spanning a rattle-snaked river
that bites into the Irish sea
cold-bloodedly pumping
into Fleetwood's gaping fish-mouth.
Here birthmarks
are branded with icons
like beach lighthouse at Rossall Point
as Northwesterly winds
whistle across the dinosaur ribbed sands.
Yet towers still sentinel
over the dark valley
riveted in iron, rusted russet
like warships wrought from steel,
but aspire
like a winged-spirit
above backstreet's cobbled lanes
that echo with drunken frenzy.
The river's stenched breath
perfumes the breeze with sewage leaks
as passing tankers head north
and farm slurry seeps into pure veins.
Distantly,
Alveley's coalfields fade
whose ashen sides once licked
red ulcers with embered tongues.
Their slag banks were stacked
near St Michael's
whose hidden eddies still swollow
many a beautifully troubled mind.
Now the future skies
spread star-spangled
glowing with fractured light
sparks that guide strangers
embracing Morecambe bay's wide
open seas
“Love needn’t be very eloquent. It calms down into silence as man and wife grow old together with sweet memories of the years gone by, which speak to them more vociferous than words” ~ By poet
Years rolled by in silence
With the ease of clouds drifting away
Sometimes as waves pounding the shore
They walk, along the much-trodden path
The same grass beneath, the same gravel
Emotions surge and die in their hearts
Careful of every step, they trudge
Sometimes lean on one another
Two birds fly past them
Their eyes are simultaneously riveted
They move on, hardly uttering anything
Basking in the warmth of silence
Among them words are redundant
Their cataract eyes reflect
A clear sparkle of contentment
Hardly visible to an outsider!
They move on with waves of memories,
Of all the years gone by, knowing quite well,
Life won’t be the same as before,
In the twilight years, but they see clearly
The stars beckoning them
In lustrous luminosity from a distance!
May.5.2023
Entered for Brian Strand Premiere No. 1217 Poetry Contest
~ Placed Second~
Writing Challenge- ‘Y’ Words Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Constance La France
Lethargic and listless
lacking all zest,
I lie on the rocks
under the blazing sun.
The calm sea kisses
the rocky shore,
but no sea breeze
breathes on me.
The salt on my back
basks and bakes
and turns an ugly red.
Nothing to it but jump
back into the cool sea,
tempting the jellyfish
to sting my feet.
But on the beach
the newly crowned queen,
the one who scorns me,
parades herself
scantily dressed,
all eyes riveted on her.
I wonder who's worse:
herself or the jellyfish!
With dusk fall, fireworks began capturing the eyes
Shooting spears rose high shedding fluorescent hues
Etched scintillating designs on the panoramic sky
Confetti of sparks in rainbow colours were sprinkled high
All eyes were riveted up, feasting on the wondrous array
The crowd stood aghast at the pyrotechnic display
July.8.2022
~ Placed Fifth~
Brian's Contest
Bite size poem. 48. Poetry Contest
Sponsor – Line Gauthier
O Lord forgive the sins of my mind,
tortures of the brain,
my ears’ inflamed with blasphemies,
my eyes with sordid violence.
Open the heavens, Lord.
Encircle me with a halo of purity-doves,
with peace beyond understanding,
with the gentle and overflowing love of Christ.
My eyes, like a clear day
and ears filled with birdsong, sweet.
My mind riveted on the words of life
my brain reborn, like a ruddy infant.
Wise words form seeded clouds.
A bold and gentle rain resounds.
My feet walk on the waters -
a path well-lit by my Savior. Christ blesses
his decisive people in a crescive lifeboat.
5/29/2022
With eyes riveted on War,
You wouldn’t think of The Law
Nor twice look at Rules of Engagement,
Rather baring Teeth of Resentment.
With eyes fastened on War,
One would call A Virgin a Whore:
The one in chastity her best;
The Virgin freshly passed by Hymen Test.
With eyes planted on War,
We work with our worst flaw;
A willingness to waste a man
Or along roads his movements ban.
With eyes trained on War,
You’re to pacifists A Bore:
Forfeiter of one’s chair for the floor;
A demon that mustn’t near their door!
Old melodies,
Old tunes,
Belting out from the radio,
They were my father’s favourite,
He danced to it with my mother,
He hummed to it whenever
he was busy with his tools,
Smoothening and
assembling pieces of wood,
They elicited a
heartwarming glow from his face,
They were the impetus for his pace,
Nostalgia everywhere,
I’m in a realm of my past days,
My budding days with my family,
They were bittersweet moments,
Days of meagre rations,
Days of sufficient portions,
Days of desert pangs,
Though we desired opulence,
We were happy in our little way,
Like a fabric,
We were interwoven,
Soldered and riveted.
March 21, 2022.
I saw it being built on the sacred burial ground
of a field I had died nobly upon many a time.
Dark girders arose riveted to the skyline,
ashen boned concrete walls constructed
by unseen hands.
I still looked to the green field where, as Custer
I had made my many 'last stands'
yet it, like my naivety, was being erased.
I dreamed that I was a dog
chained to the school's bicycle rails.
Inside the new school
demented teachers screeched through split nails,
yammering edicts at small cringing minds.
When they installed the glass
and painted the new school building,
a foreboding stole upon me.
My scalp tingled,
I knew that the arrow in my eye
was going to be pushed
a lot further inward one day.
The Phoenix Column was invented
And patented in 1862 by Samuel Reeves,
Vice President of Phoenix Iron Works.
It consisted of sections of rolled,
Flanged wrought iron, riveted together,
Creating a hollow structural column
That was lightweight, but strong.
It enabled the Phoenix Bridge Company,
An affiliate of Phoenix Iron Works,
To design structures that set world records
For vertical height and distance spanned.
They built Phoenix Column bridges, trestles, and such
All over the United States and all over the world.
Until the day they didn’t anymore.
Eventually, everything changes.
The Phoenix column was made obsolete
By the steel I-beam, which is easier,
And cheaper to manufacture.
Foreign competition took its toll.
Phoenix Bridge Company and Phoenix Iron Works
Both went out of business.
Condos now fill the space where
The open hearths and rolling mills once stood.
But the history remains.
And I consider the fact, with no small sense of irony,
That I compare myself to a Phoenix Column.
I'm lightweight and strong, but hollow inside,
And well along to being obsolete.
Uncharted seas
they are sailing in
time and again
along lines of flight
they defy surveillance
and smuggle
their clandestine dreams
braving
propaganda
indoctrination
derision
oppression
and whatnot
They elude despair
and evade the smear
of the myriad accusations
hailing them
each time they dare
to word their needs
and speak their hearts
infantilism
immaturity
ignorance
irrationality
greediness
disloyalty
lovers of anarchy
and whatnot
Those unseen
whose eyes
are riveted on
tolerance
equality
justice
equity
and whatnot
they will never
give themselves up
to that old mantra
once bitten, twice shy
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