Short Sheens Poems

beyond compare
silk..royal fabric of the queens
beyond compare
except to your soft skin and hair
if silk sheets were within my means,
I'd wrap you in their glossy sheens
beyond compare

by: Joyce Johnson 9/11/11

For contest "Weave a Rondelet"...

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Listen to poem:

At daybreak,
the sea sheens, glints and gleams,
as sunbeam shafts blasts holes through clouds, 
to set the sea alight.

Cauldron pools so bright,
sparkle the sea with shimmering brilliance.

Searchlight sunbeams, panning the sea,
create a celestial celebration of dawn, 
at daybreak....

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a palette filled with colors
lavender and green

shades and blendings
both shadows and sheens

lemon and rosy red
gold dust and  ice blue

so many colors
almost every hue

sadness and tears
giggles and grins

fat ones and skinny ones
and fat ones that thin

different colors for happy
for sadness and strife

a palette of spilled colors
in this painting called life...

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There’s a dazzle on the river
an October sun shine-sheens,
makes it flow brighter
as a fresh light awakens its old soul.

An unspoiled air blossoms on every lip,
long dead shadows are shed.
Silver fish seem to leap
out of sparkling eyes.

Some days flow like wine
we get drunk on ourselves;
watch Autumn walk on water,
a normal miracle
once more discovered....

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Glass Galateas, made in heads,
Figures for showing on shelves,
Shining sheens of pondered light.

Glazed goddesses, fire dreams
Frozen to figurine for icons
Kept in sacred case.

Praise them not with touch,
For they are delicate form'
Special for fragile touch,
Fragile for special form.

Praise them with a gaze
Before they shatter, 
Fall and scatter
Raw pain in naked feet....

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in the cradle of my tongue
burns a small pearl 
shaped like the moon
heavy as death 
growing in the rift between shadows 
pulls my skull into the earth
mouth and fire effervescent
sleight of winter sky   
in sheens of thick molten blue
cruel and raw
cut like god
cracks to life
the face of thunder  
in the cradle of my tongue beset
a pearl of blackest night born
my oath to keep      
...

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He knows 
how to see the dancing atoms
of invisibility, how 
to look through unlit windows,
as if he were light gazing in.

Sometimes his deceased wife
will open a cupboard
or wardrobe door,
a faint light sheens
as if a window
had opened in his mind.

He doesn’t know what this means.
His hands seem guided
to find what must be found.

She puts worn socks 
in the wash basket while he sleeps....

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Listen to poem:

Astonishingly are the reflections of moonlight
Colors dancing from prisms taking wingless flight
Waters' second nature is so abundantly bright
Spectrums turning the sheens of wrong into right
Aquatic mirrors paint a tapestry within the night
Singing visual melodies, waves glittering with light
As the sun rises across, the morning takes its own slight
Just listening to its rhythm causes my pen to write...

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I see your searching look 
Trying to read my heart

It is lying beneath the sheens
Protected and distanced

The heart did break
When I was left on the brink

I drifted with the ripples
To rest on prosperous shores

I'm surrounded by precious gems
That have made my life richer

Spiralling in my golden period
I ask no more of god's bounties


October 24, 2016
For Brian Strand
Contest No 227...

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Industrialization,
Urbanization;
Metallic sheens overtake 
glossy greens
as acrid smoke
chokes the land.

All would seem lost,
but there is hope.

Vast floods drown cemented corruption,
earthquakes crumble the foundation of greed,
wildfires blaze through the gates of moral slavery.

Though she may be down,
she's not out.
Mother Nature is reclaiming her land,
and this time,
she won't be stopped....

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All one needs is the virtues pretty
They are just seven in my kitty

Grit, gratitude and curiosity
Optimism and zest being a beauty

Self-control and social intelligence
Are all that make it seven sheens

Let's have all the above virtue
For the personal success true

Besides betterment as a person
One gets all glory in ton

Therefore, I say to have these qualities
So as to gain success in quantities..!!...

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In the country, we do not have city shine,
we have luster, 
we have the glimmer of voles,
the fumes of turbid crawlers
under the slow burn of iridescent woods. 

We who night-watch
see from sunken waters,
gather light from luminous cisterns.
We understand black;
how it sheens the clapper claw.

On the pitch of the concealed
a country ken leads us to a quickened vision,
we see as a horse sees
fleeing from a fire breathing barn....

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Auroras of rain
Imprint water 
On flat roofs
In New Orleans—
Notes written
To uncertain Gods
Dulling brains
In wavering sheens.

Dampness
Burdens air redolent
In organic greenness.

We etch hazy sky
With ancient shadows,
Avoid silences,
Refuse darkness
& quiet walks.

An aureole of grayness
Pulses from fingertips
As we wander in rain,
Hands like hollow things
As millions of raindrops
Do not mean, but are—
A cold, dark beating
Of condor wings....

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