Best Airbrushed Poems
Airbrushed and abused
There are those who make me question myself,
the picture presented, is it really that blurred
Details on the edges of watercolor dreamscapes
melt into reality out of focus and lost of depth
Airbrushed and abused beyond clarity,
to where what I see I no longer recognize
Am I really invisible or just faded from too much light
Can a dim image still shine even when darkness wields its brush
For what have I become, nothing more than an echo
slowly becoming silent as it passes by ears of little concern,
an annoying endless rhythm of distant lyrics
no longer carrying a meaning that applies,
forgotten in the chastised abyss of another’s words,
accusations in permanent ink, shredded verses
tossed to the side to disappear…
For turning my eyes into shallow Pacific blues,
because nobody likes Chocolate.
For transforming the freckled clusterbomb on my face,
into baby skin smoothness!
Because freckles are humanity’s alleged worst enemy
and I refuse to allow my self-confidence to stay Pro-Activ.
Thank you, Photoshop
for giving me that liposuction I ALWAYS wanted
in less than 10 minutes!
Working out is BENEATH me!
And I’m too busy dating these "5 Guys".
Thank you for bathing me in your Black & White Fountain of Youth!
60 is the used 25!
I refuse attempts in removing this fallacy
crawling under my lifted eye sockets.
My wisdom wrinkles shall stay imploded under pretentious needle.
Otherwise, I can’t continue to be fed
flirtatious appetizers by horny sheeple
and bi-curious copycats
hocking hairballs at the sight
of my airbrushed collagen lips
while they dry hump my computer generated thighs.
Their retinas grope my artificially inflated Grand Canyons
which are really only peaked valleys.
Yet, they won’t look at my defaults…
So, I thank you Photoshop
for being unable
to crop my misery.
© Drake J. Eszes
"Dedicated to those who are unable to look within themselves." -D.J.E.
Alone In The Dressing Room: Just Before Curtain Up
Oh Yes! My career!.. It's behind me.
And the bright lights I’d worked so hard for
Now they’ve airbrushed my face
That looks so out of place
On that poster they’ve stuck to my door.
My name is no longer top billing
It’s been pushed further down out of view
By some rich kid who blogs
From his channel of vlogs
And gets paid just to like all this too.
The curtain goes up in five minutes
But I think it should really stay down
They haven’t a clue
What real actors do
On the stage in this backwater town.
I’m the oldest guy here in this cesspit
And this dressing room’s cramped and too cold
The 'luvvies' will shout
That I’ve sadly sold out
Unlike seats for this show so I’m told.
I’m supposed to walk out there all happy
To some kids who just couldn’t care less
And keep 'doing my thing'
And get them to sing
- I’m washed out, fed up and a mess.
A Knock On The Dressing Room Door: Not Long After Curtain Down
I just wanted to say a big 'Thank You!'
The three of us had a great time
I’m not sure where to start
So I’ll speak from my heart
We loved you and your great pantomime.
My husband and I brought our ill son
And now value what laughter is worth
We saw sickness displaced
By wide smiles on his face
Despite his short time left on earth.
You brought us much joy, light and comfort
From the stage to the seats where we sat
No medicine or pills
Can cure our son's ills
But for two hours - tonight - you did that!
Catwalks
Crowd gawks
Wont style
Forced smile
Strike pose
Fake nose
Weird strut
Flat butt
Scant curves
Unnerves
Small-hipped
Lunch skipped
Stick-thin
Chagrin
Faux tan
Pecan
Plucked brow
Used plough?
Long lash
Bleached 'tache
Plump lips
Veiled nips
Waxed mound
Astound
Forebear
Despair
Sweet girls
Morph churls
Sly pout
Grim trout
Taut thighs
All lies
Make hot
Post-shot
Airbrushed
Not hushed
Mere gaud
Defraud
Model?
Twaddle!
- - - - - - - - - -
25 November 2017
For the "Footle Form - Sequenced or Stand-Alone" contest, sponsored by Brian Strand.
My heart seeks the smoky quartz sage within you, in secret,
like a solitary star adrift in the whimsical wilderness.
For I remember your voice, that manifested mellifluous musicality,
nurturing vain verses to thrive like lavender-incensed lilies,
glowing with sun-stroked flames of empathetic iridescence,
emanating sealed serenity amidst the archaic darkness,
crawling above raspberry-red roses, waltzing in silence.
Tonight, I cradle crooning clouds, soaked in sleepless sapphires,
as the petrichor breeze serenades your unconditional love,
that quenched my crestfallen quill, releasing cashmere calligraphy.
But if poems could speak, you’d feel the wildflower warmth of words,
how, once upon a camellia crescent, I found my inner rhyme in your sea-foam sonnets,
unveiling a cosmic collage of a sojourner soul,
healing from timeless tokens carved by familiar strangers, celestially aligned, forevermore…
I am the afterglow of a sanguine sunset~
airbrushed with patience by the power of your peridot pigments,
as your tongue is the mindful maestro, and I, the essence of your charismatic choir. …
In a bubble
A big
glass bubble
Inside
breath fills
outside empties
People preplayed
movies
Clouds airbrushed
stilled in motion
Pigions in
motionless flight
I am looking for
a crack
A way in
A way out
May I show you the shades of my colorful heart
that are airbrushed in love like a true work of art
May I play you a tune of my favorite song
I'm here to engage you and help you be strong
May I dance you to laughter and bring you a rose
from a fastidious garden, where everything grows
May I pull out the stars from the heavens above
and shake down the moon that is oozing with love
May I dream of tomorrow alongside you my friend
and show you the beauty, that only time mends
May we visit the fairgrounds of life once again
taking carousel rides from our happiness glen
May I show you the shades of my colorful heart,
they are airbrushed in love, a true work of art.
Echoes
Every morning a man is seen to climb upon a hill
His mission there to bare witness
To the suns flooding as she rises
Her painted fires airbrushed dawning through the skies
He stands alone upon the grassy barrow
Gathering every thought and fibre
Every nuance of the unknown marrow
His bodies longings for his lover
The colours of the sunrise splash his passion
Peaches suffuse azure washing blues
When the dawning orb breaks its tethered anchor
In her flaming pinks and fiery hues
Lifting his spirit from the ground
All his soul he has encompassed
To an echoes welling plume of sound
From his throat and from his heart felt
And from a smile bathed in saddened tears
It issues from his lips all his happiness and his pain
He stands alone upon the hilltop
Brought there by the echoes
Which always sound the same
With one lasting supplicant breath
And calls out to forever
Echoes every syllable of
Her name
Shouted out for a life he once new
Called to a life he never lived
Turned this echo to a sorrow
By a curious cuckoos tourniquet of fate
He turns to watch his shadow
And carry on his day
Descends again to the waiting meadow
But in the niche of every hour
And in the edge of all his smiles
Lays a sadness to vague to remember
Dormant in the corners of his eyes
Yes the day is filled with loving
In the patience of his hands
And his heart is given over
For living while he can
But in the shadows of the evening
The dusky moon upon the rise
A distant voice is calling
Sees the reflection of her eyes
When his heart is turned to ponder a quietly burning flame
Hearing how the echoes upon their returning
Are whispering
His name
While the forgetful night is passing
In reincarnates senses dreaming
His breathing then beseeches
The pillow of his prayers
And as the day comes on a dusting
Airbrushed dawn of coloured peaches
Washes the flaming azure of her eyes
All those words return upon their longing
Baring witness to the dawning skies
Brought there by the echoes
Which always sound the same
And written in his calling to the new sunrise
Echoes there forever
Every syllable of
Her name
So thin,
with perfect hair
and flawless skin.
Arms and thighs
are just
the right size.
No lumps, rolls,
dimples
or moles.
This has to be
a fake image
I see.
by Ana Espinola Collins
the serene people whose ease of manner
once made him yearn and confabulate
are laughable cartoonish and piteous now
could have been much worse he said
as his last breath left his scarred throat
feral hand closing his own eyes
St. Pudenda greeted him at the tall gates
under the lights at Checkpoint Charlie
Mariachi trumpets rolled out the mauve carpet
and a dog barked from behind the garbage cans
from all infinity we end up with this
a realm of syntax governed by ambiguity
she read from a large ledger atop a marble pedestal
why a ledger rather than a laptop is anyone's guess
apparently the vanguard party had been evicted
by Frankie Boxcars and the Hollywood mafia eons ago
in the great schism over the digitization of paradise
no jury of his peers he noted with unease
nothing of telling import she imparted casually
eyes darting up and down the pages
as if something previously detected had been airbrushed
arrested for self amplification she went on
and sorcery and coughing in quiet places
how did you sleep she asked with a beaming smile
I don't know I was asleep he intoned
I suppose we can reveal the joke she mused
but I was dreaming he countered
backed into a tight corner by snarling lap dogs
tossed into a kidnap taxi with a sack over my head
marched with a gun in my back
through a forest of clichés
fed lines from a hideous new sitcom
about sex among the homeless
a weekly broadcast on Piñata Vision
of course it was more fun
not being an active target
but what choice did I have
knowing what I know
poor dear thing she continued
there is a better version of everything
a law of nature completely natural
and yes it is densely beautiful and
smoldering with awe like a corpse in a bathtub
try to avoid the truly grotesque
in favor of the marginally grotesque
we love having you in our science dept.
with the state secrets and midget **** videos
masquerading as the way things actually are
where the misty cows moo in contentment
and the Vaseline runs hot behind sanctuary doors
horrors altering the course of suns
between the here and the there
every bit of it needless she giggled
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
Artist Portfolio: http://walteralter.byethost32.com/
Living the lap of luxury all that glitter isn’t gold
Whatever ‘retail therapy’ provides is not worth the soul
Compassion mixed with a dash of guilt thinking of the ‘have not’s
But it is not enough to stop waiting at the door for the UPS drop-offs
Money, greed, power these are the values of today
Torn between love of man or feeding the cliché’
Keep up with the Jones’ bombards the airwaves, everything airbrushed in between
When all looks just so, she’s a size 2, he’s GI Joe, and baby completes the scene
Then you will have ‘arrived’ so this is what ‘they’ say
Strokes of eloquence
breathe airbrushed scenes
painting my world in linguistic dreams
How tasteless bland these buds would be
If phrased thy love were unspoken to me
like honey barren of sweetened flavor
a silent, save-less savior
In awe
giving pause
grant witness your thoughts
grandiloquence such passion draw
as violent rage to sweet stillness assaults
Like Iridescent colors
wrapped in transparent light
are the words of my lover
divinities descendant a lingual delight
If loosed a cellos strings
an octave low
an unworthy note
void would be the magic
at the touch of the bow
But No!
I hear the heavens open
my soul spun in a rainbows glow
oration poised a symphonic token
of love as it was intended to show
Let my days grow ever old
bereft my riches in tow
but take not thy language of love for me
lest my light fade away for the woe
Simply pleading...
Don't go, don't go
Thine eloquence to have and to hold
look away
look away
when confronted with someone old &
pick the age at which someone becomes
unworthy of the same
cultural pulse
in which you find yourself beating,
for here in america,
the old are thrown to the side &
left to fend for themselves
without an adequate safety net &
without an adequate amount of
respect---
what can be found is a vast menagerie of
airbrushed imagery
plaguing the covers of every magazine &
filling all the children avec
wide eyes focused on the
net,
with the sense that what matters is money
because money can make you beautiful &
if you are beautiful you will be loved &
if you are loved, you’ll age slowly &
if you age slowly, you will never become that
“wrinkled, ugly, useless thing”
which the idolized american culture deems
irrelevant---
how funny it is to think that for such a short time,
the bumbling chutzpah of youth
can overcome even the tiniest of flaws &
yet when the youth begins to flush down the
toilet,
the flaws are still there
glaring one in the face,
with nothing but time to make them stronger &
more pungent to the smell & feeling,
like the more powerful of snobby cheeses---
yes,
young america,
you will age & die
just like the rest of us &
old america,
you are going to get there quicker,
whether you like it or not---
seems that beginning to look all ages in the eye &
remembering just how irrelevant we all are,
how much evolution has no need for the lot of us &
how quickly our lives will all cease,
might bring a bit more kindness into the world &
start a reevaluation of what priorities need to be in our
heads.
A blissful, calm day echoes.
A warmth of a kiss it yields.
Atop trees and fertile fields
As far as the sky meets.
Favor grin honor its joyfulness
Of that felt by summer’s rays
On nature’s medium maze
Of color spray in sway, in gay play.
Keep, long moment narrative open
To the comfort landscape painting.
The finished airbrushed scene, reigning
By the hands and heart of the sun.
Pinwheel quivers rapidly, savoring time.
A breath airborne towards space
Across limbs with misplaced grace,
Expressing seconds of melodious chime.
9/4/2025
When nylon nights
trade crystal colours
in the stalls of nimble
butterfly wings,
I blossom as an
irenic origami
fervently fabricated
with snowflakes of
greedy gloom,
stealing royal violets
from the smokey estuaries
flowing beneath the
heavens befogged
with indigos, glistening
in periwinkle-arcs of
abstract auroras.
I reminisce those
amaranth stars
that whisper
graphical pantoums in
pearlescent pixels
of plum pentagon-
shaped skies,
as everytime when
porcelain acrylics
get spilt upon mauve
pages ribboned
with hydrangeas,
my orchid lips spin
a twist of leathered
spells amidst
frozen fahrenheit of
frostbit textures.
Painting heliotropic
oxygen with brushstrokes
of peony petals,
I carry unspoken
words of iris,
so that artificial aroma
within sculptured truths
remains caged
behind these dark
magenta carnations
printed upon
cashmere curtains
of hallucinating hyacinths.
Do photogenic pansies
never get frozen in iced pyre
of parched patchworks?
For, I believe that,
drowsy poppies
too have streaks of
wine stories
to narrate in their
ages of ache.
Perhaps, I'm a
glasswinged sorceress
of arctic hailstorms,
tracing phlox-
fluorescent forests
with tropical crayons,
as oiled hues of
multi-dusks flutter
across lavender orbs,
sprinkling mauve
dewdrops upon
watercolor dusts of
pencil-shaded luna
who unlocks
silver secrets
with skeleton key,
washing my bones
with lilac fog.
So, when these
thistle shaded leaves
crack their crystal
cocoons and
the sun sheds its
fluffed feathers
of hibernation,
meet me along the
horizons where
bright Veronica
takes the shape of
the moon and
reincarnates as a
crocheted sangria
memory along the
translucent sleet of
snowy sights.
My skin is softer
than raisin pearls
of mulberry seas,
as my spirit is stained
with glamorous grape
dyes and amethyst-fresco
distemper across bitter
skies has discoloured
every apathetic shade
that doesn't seem to
define my airbrushed
heather heart.