The tallow guttering upon the stone,
Casts out a dark that swallows up the room,
We learn to walk the heavy void alone.
The shadow thickens to a gilded bone,
A crushing weight that stifles in the gloom,
The tallow guttering upon the stone.
We stumble through the night we call our own,
Where blackness weaves a tight and choking loom,
We learn to walk the heavy void alone.
Yet deep within the dark where grief is sown,
The sight adjusts inside the silent tomb,
The tallow guttering upon the stone.
The blackness yields to light that has outgrown
The blinding sun that withered flower and bloom,
We learn to walk the heavy void alone.
The shadow reveals what day has failed to own,
And burning pain dispels the final doom,
The tallow guttering upon the stone,
We learn to walk the heavy void alone.
It takes a while,
time gets trapped behind closed doors,
mice need to be nudged into awareness,
whiskers electrified.
A sleeper adjusts its mouth,
for often lips arrive
behind a scream.
The brain is now ready for its screenshot.
The body stretches to a window,
neuronal mice
pull upon somatic ligaments,
yank upon slabs of connective tissue,
slowly reshaping a new reality.
Unfortunately,
you are not exactly transferable,
you can’t get on the same hamster wheel.
A new you must be rehabilitated,
the world also must be trained
to accommodate this au currant -
this avant garde prototype
of an old guy.
The man in the elevator standing there.
His chiselled face, blue eyes, dark hair, very handsome.
Holding breath, as lustful eyes have spied him
Just who is that striking man within reach?
I’m sure he knows, what affect he has on women.
How could he not? Tall, so good looking, well dressed,
And I bet he is ever so nice to talk to.
Smiling, as he watches his own reflection
God I am gorgeous; he thinks to himself.
As the elevator door slowly opens
Adjusts his stance, picking up his briefcase
He smugly takes one last reflective glance.
three o'clock soap
the edge of night
day off from school
partridge family
traveling band
a tv road show
televised
landing of the moon
reloading cheese plate
warm country feelings
littlest house
on the prairie
star trek
interstellar adventure
before homework
reciting lessons
during carol burnett show
queen of improv
sunday night
with ed sullivan
~ old flannel pj's
columbo
trench coat and cigar
adjusts rabbit ears
the birds vertigo
alfred hitchcock clocks in
creepy shadows
sonny and cher
sassy lip service
do not try at home
bedtime lights out
good night
waltons
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
The sound of summer is about to subside.
Orange-brown butterflies in calm sailing flight,
with fine arches and rapid wing beats.
The admiral in parade uniform and magical wings.
Autumn adjusts us,
we slip into the sleep of the dark ages.
The late-blooming flowers must also kneel.
Birth, growth, decay, aging and death.
Swollen buds, sprout once more.
Floral splendor that soothes and heals.
Where silence lingers and time feels slow.
A farewell is melancholy, as dew in my hands.
Oft resting under wooded trees
Roams she, hides head behind bent knees,
Adjusts her scant bosom rag, tries
To foil peering moon’s prying eyes.
___________________________
Translation (quatrain) | 30.08.2025 | woman, moon
Note: Here is a verse (in Upajati meter) from Bhartrihari’s Shringaara Shatakam (hundred verses on love and romance). A woman is separated from her husband and roams looking for him, hiding in shadows of woods, adjusting her meagre bosom cloth, sparing it as if from peering moon’s prying eyes. Here is the transliteration of the Sanskrit verse:
Vishramya vishramya vana-drumaanaam
Chaayaasu tanvi vichachaar kaachit |
Stana-uttareeyena karot dhrtena
Nivaarayanti shashinah mayookhaan || 56 ||
Four men in a boat,
afloat in the ocean.
The winds are still,
the sails have no motion.
The Optimist waits for the winds
with great anticipation.
The Pessimist shakes his head
and curses in quite desperation.
The Fatalist begins to cry
and screams, "We're going to die!
The Realist lets out a Rebel Yell,
takes a drink of whiskey
and calmly adjusts the sails!
Not a room for the waiting
or the receiving of the waiting,
but a room for a liquid thinking
a turgidity
that trickles through plastic tubes.
Is this where doors remain jammed
forever between Hospital floors?
Unseen, a wall clock drops
heavy packages of time
into narrow chutes,
latex handprints are shaken
from sterilized surfaces.
The regularity
of beep and whir mechanically
sucks light in and out.
The yoke recalls it shell.
Desiccated fingers
squeeze a phantom pain-ball,
morphine as cold as ice
is delivered
to an unknown address.
A swish of a starched presence,
fingertips retrace
scorched fever-lines.
Eyes creep toward the voice.
Consciousness
scratches a self-portrait
upon a white neon sun,
a hesitant, primitive etching.
A nurse adjusts the electronic pulse
of a free-floating mind.
Space expands under her hands.
Clad in Kevlar on some forest land leased,
big saw in his hand, engine idling,
gets put to the tree and shatters the peace,
works it just right, and the tree is falling.
Adjusts his visor, then lops off the limbs,
the yarder comes down, cables cinch up tight,
makes sure it is a good distance from him,
then yanks the logs up as if they’re in flight.
A claw grabs them there, loads them in the truck,
down rough road it trundles with its cargo,
off to the mill, so they can make a buck,
on to the next tree the lumberjack goes,
knows if he screws up there’s a chance he dies,
the risk you take working the mountainside.
With his leonine face,
Young for his age,
A little unsteadily he
Climbs onto the stage,
Adjusts the microphone
From his special chair
Benevolently regarding us
All eagerly waiting there.
A raconteur, a story teller,
He explains his song choice
Then holds us all captive
With the power of his voice.
Songs of the sea
Songs of a different age
Songs of life and politics
As he sits and owns his stage.
The minutes fly like seconds
As the night flows smoothly on
Until all too soon it’s over
And Mick is up and gone.
But, every Sunday afternoonI
I know where he’s to be found,
With his talented gang at
The Minerva Sing Around,
And that’s real class.
Sadly, first The Kardomah and then Mick gone, but we have our memories
Between the chimes………..…… of twelve and two
Darkness adjusts…………………..… the doors of dreams;
I perceive a presence …………..….…. pausing, perhaps,
as one who watches……………..……..... within.
Something beside, sly, ………………..…... speaks cruelly,
whispers words which wound………….......condemn.
Catch me Jesus.........I am near the edge…….. falling…
to your stronger arms beneath.
Paper is cascading off my bed as I move my arm.
Sprawling paper that’s crumpled and scribbled on.
And feels light and helpless in my hands.
The pinching and pulling feelings.
That make me write.
Are fading.
I start to think again.
I start to think about my family, and my hobbies, and my job.
I feel sad.
My mom is downstairs.
I can hear her footsteps.
I know they are her footsteps.
I turn off the lamp, as it’s bright out now.
My body adjusts to the shift.
My writing.
I keep my writing in a drawer.
As if it will someday mean something.
"How to Touch the Lips of an Eclipse"
calamity, the heart rushes in
up against a wall of thorns
and the one removed watches it all
Love comes in little steps small,
or the opposite, thick fast floods
that break the walls
drowning,
you drown,
in the best drowning of all
time stands back
adjusts its hands
dials in time with the Sun
pulls you in closer
like you're the tide
and the other, your shore
yet Love stands back,
barefeet, feeling
the sands of time
moving underneath
surmising the deep
afraid of it all
and Love, stands back
watches and waits
for the Moon to rise
how to touch
the lips
of an eclipse
waiting for some
rouge command,
the curves of a kiss
rippling like waves
across a waist
caressing the time it takes
dragging the delicious
birdsong quilled against
a body like Love
the words unheard
invisible
written on a page
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
Autumn's beautiful changes
- radiance glows
carved out of the rainbow
The chameleon adjusts the colors
- the display is magnificent
The thirst that rises from the soul
long drink glass with ice cubes and fruit
- autumn's honey breath
Exploring multiple dimensions
Beauty is meant to be appreciated
in trusting kisses
My queen, at her death
you were a momentary ornament in gold
- affection gracious
Shadow of the chameleon grows
In the faults of the earth the last act is shown
with a soft voice that caresses your ears
Every stormy night, she rests in the earth's temple
night yet clings
yet smothers the numb highway
breathe the wheel
sigh through the gears
wave-ride rubber after-shocks
follow the beam-eyed light
into the blossoming gray
adjusts to blacktop rapids
the sky is passing
it is now ahead of itself
convertible clouds weep dry tears
slip-slide the slick dark banks
with flickering wrists
A second light blooms
a small sun pastes itself onto distant white
a hooded bonnet shakes like a wet wolf
the horizon is now a mobile scaffolding
the whispering tread of a fast coming daylight
rushes into view, it snorts though a crystal vase
that the mind grips tightly
the roads blind ability
to avoid Niagara or the Grand Canyon
guides cold white knuckles
the drunk rocking of a back axle
warns you of a surfacing
unpaved parking lot
engine bones tick-over
articulate shuddering full stops
as they cough up stillness
here
at the end of
one half of a minute
and that is the third manifestation
of breathable light
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