Best Blanching Poems
The glass once lucid
now deflects glow differently.
A chuckle clenched in the wind,
blanching and flaming.
Where were we?
Footprints echo, retreat, advance
sagging floor, missing nails.
Not long enough--
like a wheeze folding in and out,
a beam of light held in a still moment.
Sagging floor, nails missing,
steps forth, then retreat.
Where were we,
blanching and flaming,
a chuckle loosed in the wind—
now the glass, no longer lucid,
deflects the glow differently.
The snow drifts to the ground
soft as babies breath
talcing the bottom of the farmer field.
The bows of barren maples brace
for the downy white.
Heat held in the asphalt
melts the first dusting,
its ashen countenance blanching, sullen
as the temperature plummets
cranky in the slush.
The snow laces the still air
edging the scrub brush
like baptismal lace on an infants gown.
A cradle cap for the bitter sweet
snow white and rose red.
Shush, the dawn traffic says
mother and child abed
Engines purr warmed and primed for morning.
Scrapers clear glass lens of light snow
the farm awakens.
A short ditty
Or a simple wee verse
Ink barely spent before creases form
And then the darkness comes.
Jeans in the laundry
The scent of powder and softener
Blanching colours
As forgotten words wash away.
Form: Free Verse
Iris blue eyes that bright, azure beams strow
Lilly white neck with a radiant, translucent glow
Rosy cheeks blanching cotton swabs of milky snow
Viola black hair coiffed; silky strands strung in a tidy row
Magnolia-crescented bosom with a soft, silty furrow
Camellia-shaped paps that with sweet nectar flow
Butterfly Orchid legs; slender willows with tawny curves that billow
Anemone-cupped hands with graceful seams that her dignity doth sow
"V~O~V"
IF I WERE GRANTED FORTUNE N' FAME...
THOSE WHO CONSIDER ME LIABILITY,WOULD ACKNOWLEDGE ME LOVED
TH' SPILLING OF MY BLOOD,MIGHT EVEN BRING A STITCH OF COMPASSION
I'D NEVER BE ALONE,'LESS I REQUESTED ME LET BE
COMPANY DOES NOT LOVE MISERY,SO NOW I'M KEPT AT A DISTANCE
ALL I EVER WANTED OUT OF LIFE,WAS TO RECIEVE AS MUCH CARE AS I GIVE
BUT MOOT IS TH' FACT,THEY WANT ME OUT OF MIND N' VIEW
LITTLE IT IS KNOWN,OF TH' AFFLICTIONS I MUST ENDURE...FOR THEM
IF I WROUGHT MIRACLES AT WILL,TH' MEEK WOULD 'DEED RULE
SINS OF TH' SHAMELESS,WOULD ALL BE MADE KNOWN
A SILVER'D SCREEN OF TH' SKIES,WOULD DISPLAY THEIR DESECRATIONS
VICTIMS OF THEIR TRESSPASSES,WOULD DECIDE OF THEIR FATES
FAR FROM BEING PERFECT,I TOO...WOULD BE ASHAMED
BUT FOR SCARLET OF PAST BREACHINGS,I WOULD BEG FOR TH' BLANCHING
NEVER THAN LESS...THEIR WILL WOULD BE DONE
FOR FUTILE IS FORGIVENESS,IF NOT TRULY...
...IT IS WON
~AZAZA~'09
Burnished, bronze steeples
Early-Autumn, hoary frost
Blanching, falling leaves
Summer rain from darkened clouds pouring
Like the windows of heaven have opened
After the blasting heat, so welcomed, adoring,
Waves of hell from Satan’s seething broken,
No lightning striking, no thunderous booming
A gentle, steady rain like a mother’s soothing
Whispers o’er the hurting tears all-consuming,
Steady summer rain is God’s way of approving.
Relief from the blanching dryness in the field
Wilting blossoms lift their heads refreshingly,
Drink from the cup of heaven’s gracious yield
Like an afternoon sip of freshly-made sun tea.
Written August 7, 2022
Edited November 7, 2022
submitted to "Rainy Day" Poetry Contest
sponsored by Sotto Poet
Sacral veil that shrouds bright hopes, dark fears
Screening altar that christens so deep a bond
Scrolled with the innocence of carefree years
Sacrificial shutter signifying all self-serving interests will abscond
Separating from the corporeal ties that correspond
Shade shielding truant desires from the dawning light
Mantle that merges burgeoning stems into fertile frond
Curtain hiding fawning beauty; maiden's honor not to spite
Mysterious tapestry woven to purposely slight, then seemlessly delight
Universal symbol sanctioning fealty, consecrating fidelity
Satin awning whose placid eaves opprobrium doth disquiet
Temporal cloth lifted; two souls span the bridge to immortality
Ceremonial threads relegated to the scrapbook of blanching time
Cherished patent that spawned a new love in it's prime
A somnolent trilogy of Greek hubris
Hero journeys into infernal abyss
Blinded by salty pride and avarice
Seeping into Poseidon's lair, nothing amiss
Swept along by steely reserve, prowess
Bounded by fate and drifting malice
Flooded by trials, providential interstice
Curdled by envy, lathering jaundice
Odysseus's rite of passage into briny bliss
Travails on high seas; champion listless
Brackish bilge, undulating fervour, blanching rigamortis
Beached by despair, marooned by injustice
Stranded by capricious swells and divine artifice
Quarantined by chilling fears; bleaching cowardice
burrowing critter
burnished red veiled cloak
blanching blighting winds
Zimbabwe
From shimmering oil
of ebony still
will come flailing of limbs
will come hacking
quick slashing
of hands now untied
tattooing no pattern
not even a maze
depriving gray walls
of their stone
will come spittle
wild churning rivers
agush from slack jaws
of blanching gray hounds
till one day at dawn
will come quiet
Donal Mahoney
Seasons have changed their weathered cycles here
A frigid frost frolics on dead dry air.
Old man winter is summoned now so soon
It is a cranky world and a coatless moon
And through it shivering the homeless roam
Like sea froth bumping on a bridleless foam
They left the customed haunts of parks bare
Under the white sheet of bleak frozen air
And in every church door, and store front stand
Rubbing and rubbing their shriveling hand
And in their eyes pop a stark dread, bland fear
The sum of our sudden and sick despair.
Ah winter is added now to all
We must endure in our life's brimming gall.
ii
Across the world the winds have changed; this hell
Of winter wrestles patience, bulge its spell
In large leprous mounds of silent ice
Wind banked, shriveling us back into rooms
Where the budget for heat can ill suffice
The heart's frigid condition, we the tombs
Of hope, who broke bonds for a modern life
Blanching love, faith and sacred human strife
We on the edge of each truth once so dear
Withering the world, and making Christ drear.
I feel the sharp winds, the victims cold knife
Tempests cold knell on the piper's pied fife.
In confusion we wait against the thaw
Senseless to break the markets dismal law.
******
[Winter is real and it is a metaphor. The last lines of the 4 sonnets reads vertically:
"Aw, it is cold, love."
'...the thorn in sharpened shade
weathers all loneliness.'
-Hart Crane
Branches scratch the sky
blanching the twilight
pale and grey,
the day is dying;
my way is dark and dismal,
the night jar's distant cry
my only solace
as I wander washed
in reveries of you and wish
with all my heart
it could be different.
(Note: an exercise in alliteration and assonance...
short 'a,' long 'a,' long 'i,' short 'i,' short 'o' assonance.
'b,' 's,' 'd,' 'w' alliteration.
Poetry is music... similar sounds and a deliberate rhythm.)
There are no words
Only emotions
Raw and unrelenting
A petulant obsession
Blanching sight
My hands
Tools of asphyxiation
Choking prudence
Squeezing pulsating pens
Bound to a mute mistress
Who can read my mind
Like a blank piece of paper
Do I bed my muse
Or lie to my mother
Who held my trembling hand
When fear stole her slumber
And unspoken words
Her son
The frozen voice hangs on the
door. A crowd waits.
Midnight explosions
will start soon
to herald a benevolent sky-
for squatters.
In rise and fall of an empire
I won’t put any label
to generation drift. The
changing geography will
take care of the ashes.
A ragpicker will tell the story.
Ambulatory moon
had become economical, blanching
the stained dreams only
like our land’s wounds.
The sea of hate lies naked before us
to sweep the carcasses. I know not
how to become omnivorous.
Satish Verma