Written: August 07, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Mark Toney
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Corset of steel tightens—ratified pain,
Vestigial breath trapped in ischemia thrall.
The ductile hope failed to placate
This Pyrrhic ache, this woebegone gall.
A sojourn in the squalor of soul,
Where sylphlike dreams maunder, downcast.
Ogle the embers of the miraculous nexus—
A seraphic visage lost, quickly.
Vivacious once, now virile with woe,
Panacea tastes of pabulum, slipshod, and cold.
Tinkling memories coruscate as zeugma—
Bright, yet untoward, they never hold.
Quixotic penchant for connection,
Grasping too late the nebula beneath.
What puissance is this—this throe, this tumult—
When tulle-wrapped love meets a gyre of grief?
Ululation beneath pavonine skies,
Adumbrate every glance, every sigh.
Crimson weave keeps a skirt in place,
Valuable, stained, adorned, and slain.
On the porch, stars circle a shrinking sky.
A great adumbrate crown of clouds,
has left just a small pond of night lights.
"Look, there goes a pig chasing a cow!"
She traces invisible lines with her finger.
I see a dragon snapping at a rat,
but I guess the view,
depends precisely where we are sat.
Meanwhile, in the back kitchen,
the kettle whistles,
I go inside to make tea.
She shouts, that she has just seen a UFO
shaped like a star.
I make the tea,
go outside to see the goofy smile
she has been holding
for at least four minutes now.
The neural spark
is ill-defined, a cloud of unknowing.
Nothing begins anywhere.
The tail of the snake
is its neck.
The body grows out of its closed eyes.
An uncertain vapor trail
sheds hieroglyphic fragments,
they could be words,
or only
the residual cooling of a brief potency,
a fast-evaporating speculation
now only a dilatorily dripping
from its dormant inkwell.
You don't know, you just don't get it,
until it takes shape,
then a flint strikes a low adumbrate sky,
only then does meaning arrive
to burn your tongue.
You, (this is your part),
with have to make changes,
fillet out the serpent's pin-bones,
or words will stick in your mouth.
This is how a poem begins.
This is how a poem begins,
not with a thought or a whisper
but with a sly electric slither.
Thinking of you I’m painting of love
Ascribing endearing brushstrokes
Ambivalent of my reach to inform
As I adumbrate upon soul’s canvas
Come build this portrait with me
Emblazon those empty spaces
Color them boldly as you please
Embolden contours of your wishes
And when your heartbeats speak
Indulge them in enamored feelings
Savoring love’s treasured meaning
As flame of passion ignites within
Clasp this wave beckoning now
Lift us, dear, to crest from trough
Glide merrily riding tides of awe
But paint us, my love~ as we are
April 1, 2022
Placed 1st: A Brian Strand Standard Contest
The effervescent glow my smitten eyes ingratiate
The duplicitous shadow your intentions obfuscate
The sparkling twinkle my collateral dreams exfoliate
The superficial glare my residual doubts accentuate
A momentary blink doth my pensive libido inflate
Subsequent roll of your eyes, my fantasies obliterate
An inquisitive glance; a silted pathway doth emanate
Your squinting eyes doth the conduit adumbrate
Satin, silky folds a pure stream elucidates
Dark, grainy cavities; a briny well percolates
Deep, iris blue waves; my horizon illuminates
Pulses of green light skew my compass coordinates
Latin is abstruse whilst the learning battle ceased
Though as theorist thinkers, found a language lost,
Opaque it all may seem, but it’s merely just a dream
Then I’ll circumvent some adumbrate at least.
Impetuous the urge I ask to detail verse for you-
Meticulous does Latin sound, incredibly romantic,
As old as it may be, its sight is not pedantic
It's feature full with feculence, but understood by few.
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