Mist feathery drifts
last night’s breath loosening
above basalt slopes of Huatung
Pacific swallows trace morning brushwork
over Fuli’s rice paddies
new green scented with rain.
Xiuguluan River flows jade mountain-born
among ancestral stones
white willows in Ruisui weep
dew-kissed
cycad fronds catching first sunlight
Leaf pearls gather on my thatched sandals
Walami earth holds stories in its coolness.
Bihe Pond rests hidden in Wanrong’s stillness
waters reflecting the tribe’s quiet prayers
Bamboo leaves in green and gold
crested mynas gather in quiet repose
wind moves with the chime of a temple bell.
Ancestral path wanders into the Central Range
oolong tea clouds drift
above Qilai’s blue ridges
A white egret lifts over Guangfu’s terraces
air clear as poured Longjing.
A bulbul calls
blue magpie glides
the slow unlayering of day
Huatung Calligrapher’s span warm to newborn light
time unspools—
bright
unmeasured.
Light widens
dawn follows Yu Shan’s shadowed valleys
the world in quiet promise
soft light
drifting into morning.
She snaps like a brine tendon,
spilling embryo chords across the basalt shelf.
Tongues of nacre split her sides,
each vertebra strung with gravid silence.
Kelp-blind, she threads the continental rift,
her fingernails seeded with unfinished continents.
Magma foams in the pouch of her pelvis,
grinding up vowels like crushed coral.
volcanic
activity
liquid
magma
cools
contracts
chisels
rasps
measured
patterns
settling to
hexagonal
colonnade
morphed
entablature
unique
marvel
unsigned
sculpture
Stepping over the threshold
Locating the floor buttons
I press the 3rd floor
~ my brain images still flashing ~
Disfigured long flames curl around
Cherished memories-
Dry spruce branches smoking and crackling
Glowing coals cooking steaks in a fire
Above the crashing waves on the North Shore
Of Lake Superior with mom and dad
Laughing and sipping root beer
Spying a twisted piece of petrified oak
most likely a plank
From an ancient sunken vessel splintered
In the Gale's of November
Loosening the piece from the grips of glistening
Basalt boulders, etching our names and place
Of discovery above striated agates embedded in
Crevices a millennial ago
Proudly displayed on the mantle above my fireplace
Gone
Now
Only precious memories remain
I flash the card lock on my hotel room
Entering
The
Future
2/18/23
A 55 gallon barrel
Full of pulverized
Oyster shells
Mixed with wood ash
And sawdust
And porklard
55 gallons of
Pulverized oyster
Shells.mixed
With basalt.
Alkalinity
Alkalinity
Mind the
Bushels bouiz
Mind the
Bushels!
Pines dressed in pearl hues-
bleached cotton sky. Plumes carve
night shades into taint
of crushed bones. Stone
basalt tools grind glacier till
into pallid skin
colored clay, shaped
into ornate bowls that cradle
crow ossein. Hunter.
https://allpoetry.com/poem/14732450-Cosmos-by-Chrisbreva1?c=1166602438
Adding numbers on fire
Stars burning in the night
Lightning chiseling basalt stones
Statues speaking to fight the tides
Thunder hunting a pruning fork
Eliot staring at Mars descent
Venus is dancing in his lap.
Volcanoes bringing mountains down
Fighting whales eating caviar
Men peddling the play of all
Exploding starfish littering highways
Four by four by four and eight
Poets cutting on carving boards
The moon crushing an elf's face.
https://allpoetry.com/contest/2732551-Quote4x4x4-8
(In the 17th century, when thinkers
were first getting to grips with gravity,
they named it "kindly inclining".)
Seeds adrift on water
coalesce:
fueled by affinity,
they form a community.
Last pearls of wine
combine:
electing against space,
they cling to the curve of the glass.
Berries stain the fingers
that rupture them,
their plasma clasping the hand,
rather than leave unthanked.
We scraps of matter
are emboli,
swimming in Not-Being.
An impulse in the void
coagulates our Something.
Swathes of stellar gas contorting,
slab on slab of basalt pressing,
horses on the hill cavorting,
algae in the swell fluorescing,
ospreys on a rock face nestling,
children tumbling and wrestling,
matter moves to matter.
We are starstuff all,
and motion is our purpose.
We are aided on our journey
by the steady pull
of starlight.
TIDE IS OUT
The iodine of the seaweed smells
And the rattle of empty seashells
Trouble not the whale’s sleep
While crabs scuttle to the deep
TIDE IS IN
Shriveled seaweed in basalt crevices revived
Fish skeletons washed under the rocks
Boats slurp and plop out of the mud
Hungry breakers eat afresh the land
..................................................
Other poems of mine, similar to this, are available at
https://www.fictionmagazines.com/magazines/five/
buttercup of gold
in cracks of basalt and sage
the yellow dress shines
Out at sea on the flimsy raft
My Zorro mask and Tarzan pants can't help
Used only to wipe my brow under the punishing sun
I lost them too after a while by a crashing wave
What could be worse than losing your clothes
Monstrous charcoal clouds mount heavier than Basalt
Weigh on me like planet Mercury
Storms on the ocean can be mean and fierce
Hunger is my next best friend
It clings to me like a lover
Memory escaped as well without permission
I must have lost it somewhere else through negligence
But those are long term problems
Surviving immediately arises here and now
Seas come up and churn on mountainous waves
Thirty feet high and rising, agitated against me
If a cruise ship should happen by right now
I wish they would avert their eyes away
Being lost at sea is one awful matter
I don't want them to see me naked
And I would feel shame if they ask my name
The one thing I can't remember
COASTLINES
Wearing medallions on their shoulders,
The hero waves of the Aegean
Smooth rounded boulders.
Brightness outside, and shadow deepness,
Ruins of civilization with columns,
Calming wind and heat haze - solemn
Olives clinging to steepness.
Naked waves without medallions,
The metallic hum of Atlantic breakers
Cuts ranks of basalt prism battalions.
Wind’s gusty spray, its hazy chill,
Its greyness here and around,
Fills half-buried tumuli mounds
In wet pine forest, on heather hill.
Light a chord progression of sulphur, silver and mist
Set it serpentine and weight the tail
Fixed upon jewel eye, begin your pass between upright columns
Dimly ribbed it clasps the shallowing shadow
Growing pale from black with furrowed intent
Aware of depth of tone and grains of structure
Static lattice encompasses plasmonic manuscript
Fang undoes the bolt, the door swings free
Creaked cacophony emitted by hinges three
Like clouds fast cross the peaks
The serpent's scales weigh the dream
And the tale it does hiss comes measured equally
So step onto stair of basalt or granite or gold
And wind in this labyrinth where the vines are old
And the gourds are hollow and the insects are flat
And the feathers hover and silent are the bats
And amongst the orbs of platinum is but one graphene cube
Which suits your purpose if you wish to pursue
The wake of your chords, the snake rattles the gourds
The charm of holophony ringing true
Your palm presses on corners, volts engage focus
Electric blue now this room adorned with crystalline crocus
Spirals span from your heart, emblazening your view
Of the throne in the centre, humming for You
Marble breasts, Translation of Etiemble’s poem: Les Seins de marbre by T. Wignesan
For Eugène Guillevic
(An eleven line poem of between ten and twelve syllables lines, with the following end-rhyme scheme: aaabbcddeec)
The breasts that you sculpt in marble or alabaster,
poets: antics! I laugh at all your plasters,
flat moulds stung by Cleopatra’s asp.
Mottled red and blue, smooth, shiny, over taut,
marbled all over ruptured vessels, minus epidermis,
that in one life the only ones in a generous sense
I have seen the night – felt the day –trembling in spasms,
more infinitely sensitive than during an ******,
crazed and charred by cobalt fire,
barbed, smarting, fixed within two blocks of basalt,
which during her death were those of a cancer victim.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
I miss you, already
Your rough beauty
How you pretend to be wild
Being already postmodern.
The swings in your mood
Welcoming and repelling me,
Caressing me, bringing me down.
Your invitations to dive into sins
Gluttony, sloth, lust and death -
When in fact, you were bringing me back to life.
A part of me is kept with you
Taken by the roar and fury of your waters
Against the Moles
Against your basalt towers.
Kept in the flight of the lapwings,
Of the swallows
In the height of your trees
In the stones on the corner of the beach of Cal
In the shyness and candor of your people
In the insensitiveness of your guests
In the sincere passion of one of your sons
With pearly blue marbles for eyes
Who never tires of telling about your beauties
Remains with you, a piece of me
Stuck in the whistle of these very waters
When they calm down
Washing the sands
Shaking the mussels
Shhh ... shhh ... shhh ... shhh
One day I will come back to see you, Torres
And make myself whole again.
Torres is the first city of Rio Grande do Sul State, the most southern state of Brazil. I've fallen in love with it.
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