Contest: Color My World
Sponsor: Nette Onclaud
Prompt: Morning Pearl
Written¨ for contest: 092726 8:06PMCST
Upon the first step out of my front door,
In the language of the Fall season, the
Voices of gentle breezes began speaking
To me. A simmering relief from the summer's
Heat was flowing in cool and refreshing musical tones.
Yes, it was the second day of Autumn after a
Long and unforgettable nationwide hot summer.
Yes, I could tell that the sun was going to shine,
But not as bright and in much tamer waves.
I saw no dismal tones nor feels of grey.
I saw no deceptive looks of tangerine.
It appeared at least in my area of the earth,
That heaven spoke and summer complied.
Yes, heaven had painted and displayed a
Gorgeous day and called it, "Morning Pearl".
The artist is absent, i guess i killed her off. Built her, just to break her- like a ceramic cup in the decor. A sway and the pieces fall, broken down in chunks of her pain. In the story of everything, the art suffers- tight ship, bad weather- nothing helps. There's no shore to go to. You stay with the wind, flock with the waves like a clueless bird, hoping someday you'll reach a comfort of a place you get to call home. I didn't feed her soul- with words full of love, hate, sad, happy- all she can feel is a hole, in her life where the content used to be. Where the quill-and-ink rested along with a page, ready to be scribbled, ready to be filled with her mind's rage. The ink bleeds once or not at all. It's tiring, having to walk in the spring season, fresh air, new hopes different dreams and yet feeling like the fall.
Every step she takes, every mistake she makes, all the roadblocks that make her feel nothing at all. Carnations over her gazettes, no scriptures, no memories to recall. It has faded into nothing yet she bleeds it somehow. The writer is absent, I think I've killed her off. Clueless in her own world somehow.
Your wild inner child is obviously broken
Despite big smile your words when spoken
Seem to bleed from lack of something
Could it be a dream or just a need to scream
You tell stories of never being allowed
The little things of past precious child
You feel you raised siblings at home
While still a child when days were long
Your body grew into womanhood
But it’s true your inner child stood
Stuck in time in limbo as little kid
Life wasn’t simple and you did
Eventually fall in love with a teen
Who for you bore kids despite dream
To be an artist and be so esteemed
You’re trapped by life you want things
The little kid inside wasn’t ready to be
A mother a wife as destiny winds sing
Perhaps next lifetime you will find
All your hopes and dreams in time
Persisting through the horrors,
Overcoming the challenges,
One obstacle after another.
Rolling with the punches,
Embracing the challenges,
For I am an artist and a Mother.
Not resisting the difficult,
Progressing through hardship,
Experiences that would make one shudder.
Strength found in the chaos,
Dancing with the landslide,
Emotions a full speed runner.
Every great artist must be a little insane
Because nothing that vivid could come from an average mind
Nothing that twisted could spring to life
On canvas and not in the brain
The insanity of it all
The thoughts twisting in little spirals
Nagging, tugging at corners of the mind
That for most are empty corridors filled with cobwebs
Searching for a crack in the dam, seeking a way out
They hit the wall and back in again they turn
scoring invidious trenches deeper and deeper
Leaving damage in its wake
Maddening to not be understood
To be so clever that expressing yourself is so outside the realm of possibility
That you have to die to be known
Through the broken windows of your soul
Glimpses of what life is like inside your head
Not a portrait, never truly elucidated
A tortured, drunken poet,
Mad on life’s nauseating boredom
The fantasy of being known come to life on a page
But never real.
these signs of the times
I see everywhere I walk
I can’t understand
why I’m chased off of the block
why segregated we stand
inspired by Norman Rockwell's “The Problem We All Live With (Ruby Bridges)” 1964. symbolizing the struggle for civil rights and school desegregation in the United States
THE VAN GONE MUSEUM
A gleaming, extravagant building.
Filled with jewels of art.
The brainless herd pile in at
their allotted time slot. No thoughts
Zombie tourists flock into the Van
Gogh museum. It doesn’t matter
how many nationalities are there.
Everyone does the same.
Observers drone from one gallery
to another.
Their eyes not even focusing on the
painstaking art.
The portraits and landscapes stare
back at the viewer in
disbelief and disgust.
Please comprehend what I am.
The constant shutter of a camera
can be heard but not the slightest
intellectual thought can be even
fathomed amongst them.
Those photos they taken cannot
even echo the detail of the brush stroke
or slight colour difference.
They are a false facsimile at best.
The painting now a lifeless corpse.
A digital copy is what remains on a
seldom used SD card.
Never to be looked upon again.
A gravity trudges the cattle toward
the famous sunflowers ; not for
artistic merit but for bragging
rights and social media selfies
Although Van Gogh is long dead, it
seems apparent his legacy, his art,
his life’s work is now
Van Gone….
The clocks have fallen silent in the sand,
their golden faces melting with the heat;
time slips away like water through the hand,
too soft to hold, too strange to call complete.
A barren shore stretches beneath the sky,
where distant cliffs are resting in the sun;
the world appears to whisper, not reply,
as if the day has only just begun.
A tree stands thin, a broken branch of dreams,
its shadow reaching over empty ground;
the stillness hides a thousand hidden screams,
yet not a single echo can be found.
The watches droop like memories left behind,
forgotten thoughts that slowly lose their shape;
they bend beneath the weight of human mind,
escaping every cage and every tape.
This landscape is a doorway into sleep,
where hours dissolve and vanish from our sight;
where time no longer promises to keep
the fragile moments we attempt to write.
Artist Annie Lee (1935-2014) “Blue Monday”
Sunken soul like setting sun
Inner child no longer smiles
Carmel like skin is no fun
Kissing hungry ribs all while
A wafting wind blows aroma in
Neighbors meals smell great
Decadent food not a sin
Tired of not having a taste
It’s a blessing bills are paid
Really appreciate that fact
Even if I won’t eat today
Do my best to not feel sad
he sits along beach
weaving vines into decor
hearts and roses
A Gemini artist married to a Libra mathematician?
This will end badly, a relationship that defies regal ambition.
The naysayers laugh for we are opposite in many ways.
I can lose myself in my work and paint canvasses for days.
My libra mathematician likes statistics, it is his powerful tool.
I cannot understand algebra, statistics once made me a fool.
But we eat our beef, mashed potatoes with warm bread.
And we do not talk shop, so our marriage moves along ahead.
A Gemini artist married to a Libra mathematician is insane.
But we have been married for over fifty years so this is plain.
Although I despise math, and he does not cartoon, paint or sing.
We have many commonalities, and laugh at the same thing.
We raised three daughters who understood the beauty of this.
Depending upon the problem, they sought answers for their bliss.
Asking the Gemini when playing and whimsy was the answer they wanted.
If it was a logic question or a math problem, for Daddy they hunted.
Yes, it happened, I saw it for myself the liar said
He is fibbing if his mouth is open said cousin Ned
he claimed he saw a dairy cow jump over the moon
I watched a naïve teenager flutter and swoon
the rest of us knew this con artist as kind of a chit
we walked off into the sunset, not believing it a bit
the teenager was asking him questions about the cow
We rolled our eyes as only non-believers know how
The artist has hidden secrets in
The paintings on her olive skin
Indents on a flat desert plain
Pale pink mirages full of pain
A reminder of a time long gone
Of cries for help from far beyond
Immortalized in the tiny scars
Tragic constellations among the stars
She was enchanted by the way it felt
To burn the cards she had been dealt
But the numbness did not last forever
That haunted string was bound to sever
From the ashes she was born again
And found someone to call a friend
So the artist put her pain into song
Magical poetry about all she’d done wrong
But though her art began to fade
When temptation called, she obeyed
Under cover of darkness, when her wounds start to gush
Her soft, tender fingers still reach for the brush
Baby love infatuation
did not become her station
Her parents held higher expectations
To a rising star she’d marry
on romantic love, she’d not tarry
Yet her primal feelings she could not bury
From college she brought home a starving artist
Who, after two days of trying his hardest
first emptied the fridge
~ then parted with the stardust
alfred sisley
impressionist en plein air
serves peace to my soul
AP: Honorable Mention 2026, Honorable Mention 2026
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