Best Atrium Poems
Two thousand years, a tragedy is past
Yet it's history still leaves us aghast.
On a night, dreadfully dark
A volcano erupted, leaving it's historical mark
Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD
The first recorded in all of history
The entire city of Pompeii
Defiled and buried that fateful day
On written account of a man named Pliny
can we view this volcano's ignominy
A city in which artist and poets did reside
Everything was not lost, the day all died
In centuries after, excavation has commenced
The city of Pompeii, antiquities recovered since
The House of the Tragic Poet, one of many unearthed
I will tell you about, from it's peristyle to hearth
Elaborate mosaic floors, frescoes on the wall
An inscription in Latin, from a dog guarding the hall.
The atrium filled with with Mythic Greek nudes
From the peristyle Achilles to be sacrificed exudes
Art along the east wall are of Achilles and Briseis
and the tragedy of Helen and Paris, all cherished
About the entire house, a living poem depicted
Along with words, owner, an artist addicted.
Two thousand years ago, this home was owned
Loved and nourished by a Popeiian unknown.
The House of the Tragic Poet
If you saw, you would know it.
A. Green
Another layer of lavender scented lotion
Rubbed in vehement laughter
A quelling of sadness
Covered up in mascara insanity
Livid strokes of feathered paintbrushes
Hoping to see the big picture
She cried like oil paintings without a purpose.
A treasure hunter searching for rubbery remedies
Without heart’s sanctified atrium
To light the way
She bled from carnivorous pores
Bites against feeding palms
Struggling licks upon pacifier wounds
Mouth
Shut
Stone’s lonely lyric
Thrown against fragile lighthouses
Beaming through unacceptable horizons
Investigation of deity’s hidden agenda,
She questions validation’s esophagus
Its vocal chords
Torn
Another squeeze from lavender bottle
Empty
Its exhales shedding infantile whisper
…
A bounced reality check
Declaring that it wasn’t a disease
That afflicted her bones
©Drake J. Eszes
How long did it take her to be free?
How long did it take
For the wingless dragonfly to finally open her heart to the world
How long did it take for her to overcome Devil’s workshop
Slowly caressing her retinas
With silky daffodils and two-faced tulips
Where
Now
She dives into a glistening pool of complicated risk
Opening her atrium to the masses
Shedding incumbent teardrops
Just for that one standing ovation
To SET
HER
FREE!
It was then
Where pieces of plastic chains fell from demure stratosphere
Dented taps, similar to a shoeless dancer,
Setting off bass tones and low-key monotony
For she was
One cholesterol filled syllable short
To be genuine
One tearful, hyphenated lyric
Too blunt
To be embraced by their “god”
One dilapidated vowel shy
Of being honest
Her diary didn’t have enough pages torn
From emerald sanity
There were too many “Wows”,
Diluting into disingenuous shoulder pats
Her stanza pushed aside
A glorified booty call with no call back number
Leaving messages towards empty dial tones
…
How long will it take her to be free?
Until she looks up
Knowing she already holds the key
©Drake J. Eszes
grandma's last night
sky bleeds in black
in the atrium
a dappled moonlight
weeps with me
In the dimmed theater, the stage is set
not for a play though, yet a performance
one of baton, brass, notes, timpani
the performance I have waited for has come
As the stage lights grow brighter like sunlight
the theater grows dimmer yet, almost dark
but for the brilliance of the stage lights
then out you come with French Horn in hand
Along with thirty of forty other musicians
you take the stage, you are first chair
therefore you must be at your best tonight
and I know that you will be, you've practiced
The Conductor arrives on stage and announces
Welcome to the Black Hawk County Honor Band
I am sure you will be pleased with our selections
The Conductor takes the podium, opens his arms
With baton in hand he signals instruments ready
You raise your horn along with the others
ahhh the sound is fervent with excitement
the theater is alive with Parker in G flat
I can pick your horn from all the other instruments
you are playing the best you have ever played
you are caressing your horn like a fine jewel
and it sparkles in the light brilliance unimagined
Like your brother the writer of poetic beauty
you also have talent, musical talent like I
you now can hear a song and play it, by ear
like I you are learning the guitar, teaching yourself
The next song, Bach, such beauty to my ears
you and your fellow musicians have mastered the master
two years you have played, it sounds like many more
I film the whole concert, to preserve the moment
The concert ends with a Beethoven, in B how lovely
again you played masterfully, never missed a note
You even hit high G, and you thought you couldn't
well done son and it's all on tape, and in my memory
Red faced you leave the atrium, you worked so hard
I hug you and tell you how proud I am of you
all you want is a drink of water, you drank and
the redness is leaving your face, well done I hug you again
I wish your Brother could have been here to see and hear
he would have been proud too, and would have hugged you
You see, talent runs in our family, Me, you and Jared
all have it, So I guess it's in the gene pool, must be for you see
The Nuts fall close to the tree !
I sip compliance from a cardboard cup. Tight fine steel lines, hoist five lifelike life sized paper mache white swans. The birds seem to wing from sunlit atrium up and over an oak railing to the mezzanine. Dazzling beneath skylights, they depict ascent, flap, glide, brake and then descent towards wrought iron tables. They mimic our trek from mall entry up the escalator to feast at the food court. I sit alone at the railing, gliding swan overhead, and pretend to eye my phone. Today I secretly study humans. Food court stuffed with youthful staff, bargain hunters, transit transfers, mobility scooters, mothers, babies, bags, phones, the braggadocio of men meeting, gaunt faces of the needy. Bodies milling, streaming, yearning. The bubbling cocktail of pop rock, chit chat galore, languages, slanguages, giggles, and that one guy yelling. The carnal essence of commercial cookery. Unspoken competition for tables, at times nearly a blood sport. Each of us tiptoeing through our daily hopscotch. Only children wonder at the swans. Do mall swans search for lost wetlands, or do they strain to join us? Mythology has it that swans shift between human and avian form. The enchantment of Tchaikovsky’s swan, princess by night pirouettes into swan by day. In the wild, sudden bright white, raucous landing, huge bold birds calling, splashing power and grace. I wish we each burst into swan. But flight feathers do not anchor to my bones, nor contour feathers pierce my skin. I vow to visit the wild ones, and leave.
published in "Unbroken" 2025
There I was.
Inside a crowded Toys R Us
On a mid-Winter’s evening
Abrasively loud 5 year olds
And depressed fathers
Ready to throw their “angelic” brethren
Into life-size Nerf basketball hoop
(Because it was on Clearance)
To embrace sanity’s madness
I was simply here to search for a porcelain doll
For my darling 8 year old angel
To match her serene complexion
But, toddler stomps & red-faced pouts
Equivalent to octaves of Hell’s 5th circle
Could not stop the strut that suddenly coated my foggy nerd glasses
There she was.
Her 5 foot, 10 inch majestic walk
Performing exorcisms on corrupted tile floors
With each
New
Step
My ear canals
Swimming in the serenity of
Her olive-coated curves
And violet-auburn shaded, shoulder-length curly locks
Left
Right
Left
Sensual witchcraft was placed upon my resilience
Chipped away by her Hazel ribboning pupils
My heart’s atrium, flat lining, with laughing hyena smile
Frozen by igloo’s revenge upon madness
“Excuse me, sir”, she vehemently moaned
(At least, in my head)
“Hi”, I expressed with pre-pubescent coarseness.
“I’m looking for a porcelain doll.
But, I’m a tad lost in this maze.
Could you help me find my way?”, she whispered with demure smile
With my tongue pressed against seconds’ icy arm,
Locked for dear life,
I inhaled with Olympic stature
“It’s 9 isles this way. May I show you?”, I confidently declared on sanity’s edge.
With constellations aligned by blue moon signatures,
“Yes, please”.
As crux of evening’s audible stresses
Faded into final curtain’s epileptic sunset,
The winds of Yahweh curtailed all foggy affirmations
Into palms of bliss
Because
On this night
I proudly took the long route
Slow dancing with magnificent silence
To the isle
That was only 2 steps to our left
I believe we both discovered our porcelain dolls on this night.
©Drake J. Eszes
Inspired by Opeth – The Drapery Falls and this entire year…
I sip on Super Mario Brothers hot cocoa cup
Filled with convictions’ drop
From streams of consciousness
Ready to skinny dip into a new plateau
No
Holds
Barred
Ferocity’s grip
Looking upon God’s yesterdays
As He hands me a pen
Asking me what I have learned
…
As days have passed
I slow dance with convex mirrors within glasshouse.
Remedies to my confusion
Thrusting me back to the day
A befriending of cotton candy souls
As we ride against Ferris Wheels with a song
That should never end
Holding hands through rickety roller coasters
Pulling me downwards
Upwards
Parallel to perpendicular resolutions
The square root to pale ghosts
Staring with onyx want
All of their tainted wishes
Were for brighter days
…
As these days pass
I recollect collective smile upon my spiraled breaths.
There should have been more.
There could have been more.
It’s not too late for early newcomers into my atrium.
But, you better have your ticket in hand.
For I have already tasted the scalding broth of disappointing screams
Overpowered in salted dramatics
Please
Just come as you are
Unfiltered
No plastic surgeries are welcome within these heartbeats.
…
As days go by
I continue to dream of tomorrow’s smile
Placing loudspeakers against silenced seclusions
With ONE MIC
I hail to cathedral sanity
Swimming within my stream of consciousness that few can dive into
Without turning their backs
…
As tomorrow approaches
Who will be the spark in our cherry bombs?
To light jeweled, nocturnal ionospheres within breaths of security
And sincerity coated fingertips
Who I ask?
Speak loud!!!
Speak in unbridled frequencies!!!
Don’t wait for another day to go by…
...without me waking up to your sound again.
©Drake J. Eszes
Tumor
Growth in the heart
Right atrium chamber
Compressing tricuspid's valve flap
Scary
The young generation, who believe in dissolution,
promulgating the manifesto
“tradition is the grave of the banality,
only solecism is the quickening of new life…”
yell upholding a flag similar to a bad check
which is unable to secure the needed guarantee for the debt.
They are sycophantic speculators hopping on the bandwagon
of the time, they are nothing but a product of a certain moment
of the swinging pendulum, their unfounded thought changes in consonance with the direction and the amplitude of the pendulum.
Although they think highly of themselves,
they assert themselves as the forerunner of the times,
actually, they are unbridled reckless colts jumping, hopping,
and running blindly in the wilderness.
They consider heteronomy as a shackle,
they, therefore, rush to a smithy and heat the shackles to cut it off,
they insist upon autonomy as the beat of the heart,
they, therefore, lay on the cold operating table to cut it open
to see the inside of the heart bearing an excruciating pain
but they found it full of red and blue blood
clotted in two atrium and two ventricles, the blood
contaminated with filthy and turbid human minds
which carried on from generations of generations
of past unchanged.
They try to ascend their thoughts, nonetheless,
above the traditional ones, it’s nothing more than
a word game, a disgusting prank.
Are they mad? Though they cannot even jump
nor have wings, they try to fly,
ah, poor generation, ill, crooked, lost,
who were not even touched by a drop of Medusa’s
poisonous blood, flap wings imitating Pegasus about to fly.
The figure of a goddess which she did possess,
Had the power to make every mortal digress.
And oh, how wonderful I thought life would become
While I felt her love beat through my atrium.
But I should have known that something as rare,
Was too good to be true and would never be as fair.
Yes, a long time ago we were passionate lovers,
But now when I hear her voice I can’t help but to shudder.
Her big brown eyes which were once filled with hope,
Have become nothing more than an object I wish to poke.
Oh, how beautiful she was with that long blond hair,
But now it is as wild as a jungle and tangled beyond compare.
And though I remember how I longed to see her undressed,
The very thought of it now makes it difficult to digest.
The heavenly body which all the girls used to envy,
Has faded away and become nothing more than a distant memory.
But since now I have both the time and money,
I think I’ll rekindle our love and get her some cosmetic surgery.
Rest in ease beside me my love
With grass pillows amongst these sprouting flowers
Destination uncertain but they shoot for the sky
And they long for love that’s wonderfully ours
Hold my hand and pray with me
Those false lives’ they live in ovals will never define them
Ask that truth present its beauty
And love may blow the dandelions’ outside the atrium
Black panther
Striped tiger;
Stray cats challenge
~~~~~~~~~
Takeaway meal
Fast food dinner;
Family feast
~~~~~~~~~
Street bazaar
New offerings greet;
Dazzling array
~~~~~~~~~
Crowded mall
Strangers congregate;
Celebrities entertain
~~~~~~~~~
Busy walkway crowd
Strange faces meet;
Loneliness loiters
~~~~~~~~~
Tired old couple
Sun drenched faces;
Hair greying with late bus
~~~~~~~~~
Child care centre
Noisy kids mingling;
Care-giver disciplines
~~~~~~~~~
Hotel atrium
Tourist traffic brisk;
Coming and going
~~~~~~~~~
Supermarket shelves
Global brands assemble;
Mini United Nations
~~~~~~~~~
Morning kung-fu
Martial arts dance;
Healthy self-defense
~~~~~~~~~
Mirror image peeps
Self-realization stare;
Grey hair and wrinkles
~~~~~~~~~
Leon Enriquez
31 August 2014
Singapore
Atrium garden
Five petal Azalea
Magenta blossoms
By Robb A. Kopp
GARDEN
She smelled like the colors
of an intricate garden in which
every geometry and every dimension,
every expression of soft composition,
had the dominant splash, the pervasive
aura, the relentlessly visible subtext
of red
Centered and rooted in the soil
of tradition, North African shawl
over white silk blouse and long black
skirt, the high Cuban heels and the sheer
black stockings, the curly black hair over
dark honey skin all smelled like the gurgling
of cold running water through the granite
canals that sparkled like sunlight broken
by motion in the highest-walled gardens
of Al-Andalus
“I’m getting older” she said
clicking her heels as they walked
toward coffee at theater intermission
where women of high fashion and girls
without clue set an aesthetic standard that
smelled like the storms at the end of October
that dislodge the leaves, the petals, the last
fruits, and render the garden a study of lost
order overwhelmed by forces without
purpose or merit
“I want you” he said,
sure that every person on the
atrium floor was fully aware that
the finest theater in the darkening shadows
was she in the red shawl and the gentleman
beside her, that she smelled like the languages
of medinas and plazas, of harems and courtyards
and the pervasive odors of espresso and wine,
perfume and tobacco, lipstick and roses, that
the breeze of her breath made him sway
with the scents of the colors of night
Shall we?” he said
and she turned, saying nothing,
began walking slowly through the
flowers and vines with the soft sexy
rhythm that only high heels can offer
And reaching their seats, this alluring
composition of red breezes and smells
and Mediterranean gardens of poetry and
song, mother of his children and the
personification of all he know about plants,
kissed him lightly on the lips and looked
toward the stage “Yes we shall” she softly
whispered like a nocturnal breeze
in a garden where the walls smell like
oranges and jasmine and the
color of red