Best Brassy Poems
'Neath umbra skies I seek a mirrored moment
the breeze a capricious charmer
blows serpentine sways to life
a ballet of tall switchgrass dancers
sweeping edges raspy green
dulling in the ever dimming light
their brassy symphony a soft cymbals’ siss
lure my thoughts to ramble a willowy maze
mesmerizing my mental landscape at sunset
whispers lulling my linger
moon-shimmer lends its voice
to chanting chimes in magenta magic
dropping notes afloat on aging August’s currents
like a sprinkling of stardust
upon a cradlesong
hymns of Venus vespers soothing me
my silhouette glides
a twilight shadow an astral body
with a vitality all its own
as the unwed wind ushers
my air brushed footsteps
to where wild whimsy wafts my sighs
free from fetters
a fading breath liberated to dusk
vibrations in violet call my name
I have found the echo to my essence
a spirit aswirl in a whirl of charcoal veils -
I seize a sylph’s escape
and amidst the darkened veils.. we dance
Susan Ashley
August 24, 2019
~ Fifth Place ~
Premiere Contest: A Brain Strand Choice No 1185
Sponsor: Brian Strand
~ Third Place ~
Premiere Contest: 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 8
Sponsor: Mark Toney
~ First Place ~
Contest: N/A Rerun 3
Sponsor: John Hamilton
~ Poem Of The Week ~
Week of September 1, 2019
You frolic with playful abandon
Oblivious to obligation
Such wobbly legs prove hard to stand on
Chameleon charmed by temptation
I don't know why your halo's all bent
Your soul's complaint argues so brassy
Can't pay rent when your money gets spent
Once vibrant jewels bloodshot and glassy
Butterfly flapping with tart contempt
Degenerate goals rot away hope
Your daughter grieves with each failed attempt
She cries each time you roll down that slope
Cheap glutton for wanton attention
That hot spotlight withers your pert face
The clock chimes with mortal dissension
Until there's nothing left to erase
Snuffing your fire while quenching your thirst
You disconnect from honest matters
The mirror displays why you've been cursed
Indolence shreds your core to tatters
Down under continent
Down low is Australia
Australia the big island
Australia sixth largest continent
Country whose desert known as outback
Country who has the largest reef
Reef called the Great Barrier
Reef found off northeastern coast
Coast 35,877 kilometer of shoreline
Coast provides fun in the sun
Sun beats down on the desert
Sun is brightest in our winter
Winter offers some snow
Winter's are mild
Mild hop, hop of Kangaroos
Mild climbing of Koala
Koala live high in trees
Koala eat eucalypt leaves
Leaves favored blue, mansa, and swamp gum
Leaves are Koala's daily diet
Diet of Australian influenced by world
Diet consist of variety of foods
Food introduced from Ireland, Europe
Food from Italy, Greece and Asian new spices
Spices used in stir fry
Spices changed meat's taste
Taste of foods like rice, oranges, bananas
Taste of foods from all over the world
World influences shaped continent
World and Britian settled
Settled by Aborigines
Settled also by Britian
Britain sent convicts
Britian sent soldiers to New South Wales
Wales brassy, bold, stately and old
Wales sandy beaches, Jenolan Caves
Caves above ground
Caves in sea waters for adventure
Adventures in Abercrombie cave
Adventures in Tasmania
Tasmania mecca for adventure
Tasmania's mountainous terrain
Terrain for wild river raft
Terrain of sheer cliffs to climb
Climb the Great Dividing Range
Climb to new heights down under
Under sunny skies
Under skies so blue
Blue
Skies
Written: August 14, 2015
Influenced by Debbie Guzzie's contest..
First Blitz..Whoa!!
"I would rather be on a leaky ship that is mine, than aboard a more seaworthy vessel going where I don't wish it to go"—Poet's alter ego
Yes, I know what I’m doing
I’m the master of my fate
The captain of the sinking ship
Seeking harbor in ports whether safe or rocky
With gusto I plow through uncharted frontiers
Why do I do these things to myself? you ask
Perhaps I’m a rebel in search of what's unbeknownst
to me, in search of virgin long lost horizons pristine
Horizons others deem unreachable
I’m bold, brash and yeah sassy, brassy
And irrepressible! You can’t love me you see,
I’m a Lonewolf, and it's quite fine, to be…
Untamed as the wild northern wind
Sweeping the prairies with a gusting woman’s surge
Nature's raw elements try in vain to halt my advances
But I laugh and mock at Mother's efforts
Although I’m tossed and torn
In the grips of Her relentless tempests,
Her storms of fury suppressing, oppressing
Her stern and staid demands to obey, tame and domesticate
You may say I’m the constructor of my own chaos
A free-spirit, challenging myself
My integrity intact, place not your pity on me
Respect is my hallmark and independence,
my calling.
The birdfeeder hung on a narrow limb,
away from deck rails, discouraging squirrels.
No problem for the little robber
who raided the feeder day by day.
Repeatedly, he climbed onto a tender branch,
inching forward until it bent, riding it down.
Each trip, he leaned off and dropped freestyle,
disappearing inside with only a furry tail visible.
He emerged with both cheeks bulging ,
and sunflower seeds scattering below.
On a continuous march of palm-less thievery,
the brassy chipmunk mouthed his loot home,
adding to his cache.
January’s snow flows stealthfully through my fifth-floor apartment window, flung wide open to welcome in the new year. The half-drawn curtains bellow with brisk salt air blowing in from the North Sea. A distant foghorn groans in a resigned, forlorn resonance, guiding ships braving the churning, ice-slushy waters as church bells strike twelve stately brassy tones.
This night I stand alone and content, a rich cup of espresso in my hand. Eschewing nostalgia and perhaps too sober of thought, I prefer my pleasures to be of the vicarious variety. Beneath me I take in the muted ambers and oranges spread out from the four cafes, out past the cobblestone road, glistening as snowflakes alite. Young couples drinking, glasses clinking, hug, kiss and revel, strolling out from the cafes. Some indulge in a traditional waltz, before the speaker blares more modern fare. Waves of laughter and singing ebb and flow as I turn and head toward my bed and blessed sleep.
Again the foghorn blares mournfully, like a tuba vainly pleading to be united with a long-lost orchestra.
Sometimes, I can hear that happy, bubbly brook
bouncing over stones and under the wheel…that giant wheel.
It would drone along groaning a wooden song;
each night luring the brassy sun ever toward a distant skyline
by soft chattering of cog on cog and mesmerizing clockwork.
Other times I’m haunted by the gritty rasp of stone on stone
and swirling tendrils of fine dust doing a serpentine dance
through heavy air, reaching like so many ghoulish fingers
grasping desperately before dissolving;
coating my memories and that dusty wood-planked floor.
Yesterday I yearned for simpler times when
I would lazily strum my second-hand guitar
from a mossy log in the shade of our old gristmill.
Plucking those plaintive songs of young heartache
or gleefully accompanying cardinals in a nearby thicket.
But today all that remains is corporate.
Steel rollers chain driven by diesel motors.
A dried up creek bed cutting an over-burdened field
of chemical pesticides and fertilizers to grow
everything but food for my soul.
6/3/2018
Written for The Gristmill Poetry Contest
Hosted by Craig Cornish
She lay upon the chill drying sand
disheveled
lay the brassy gold of her hair
adorned with seaweed
upon her blue gray cheeks
small pink crabs crawl
the ruched red skirt she wore washed
back and forth waist high showing white cotton
chill winds blew drying sand across her open blouse
drying like bits of stardust on her lashes
sand sleepers nest in her open eyes.
Brassy Barry’s boastful bumbling Brana Bull
Badgered Billy’s bashful buffoonish Baboon
Into baking a boisterous Blackberry Bisque
Beyond bunking, Barry’s brave babysitter
boldly bellowed brashly.
Bonafide bamboozlement boasted Brana Bull’s bed buddies.
Beyond bothersome boneheads, Billy Baboon’s buzzards bawled
Baboon’s beautiful baked bonne bouch betwixed buddies and beasts
beautifully, bumping boastful Brassy Barry’s beliefs, which bumbled
on beyond the brink of believability boulder.
Chetta is the nom de plume
of a brassy, classy, sassy, and a little bit trashy
sister of the summer sun,
she's a lover of sugar and spice and everything nice;
feels sunny, funny, and a little poetic,
but fears the wrong word, the wrong rhyme and the typo;
her dream is to see the world in peace, children in laughter,
and all the people in love with each other~
Chetta lives in the city of wonder in the state of creation
where she always knows the Achara is blooming...
...then will be delighted to see
the lights of eternity,
and the daughters she imagined
awaiting her in heaven.
She lay upon the sand, lowtide-cold, salted-dry, dissheveled.
Tomorrow would have been her twenty first birthday,
unadorned, except for the seaweed in her brassy blonde hair.
Tip-toeing across her blue-gray cheek, a pink crab foraged,
unhindered, it dined on the whites of her eyes.
Only the sea and sand cradled her now.
First Published in Of Sun and Sand 2013
part Of a hurricane Press
Some girls are brassy, some girls are flashy
Some girls are even a wee bit trashy
They give you a tweak
A tug on your cheek
Actually prefer girls that show a bit of their ass-y
© Jack Ellison 2015
I am fire, I stalk you and wait to burn your fat,
I am the pyre that delights to ignite your passing hat,
I am fire that brassy whore that sucks you dry with flames
you cannot quench
I am fire, the mongrel of the days and bastard of the night,
who lick's your secrets with the torturer's tongue ignites.
I am fire, who so rips your thirst to quench and leaves your
mossy bank and dew unfit for leaf or mordant hue, so such
a sigh as this, can drench and leave the cracked pot with open
black-soot teeth... a zebra's mouth...black and white
I am fire, my necklace, burning tyre with petrol, dances on the
victim's screams, my delight to be this God, no quarter no release!
and while I taunt you with these fiery lips of death...
remember too I cook your stew and heat the stones of sweet
relief, and with my song, oil your aching back to heal and rest,
but all the while I lay down my pain and smoke to wait, the
falling match the careless brand that spark of quick ignition
I am fire, the grand inquisitor, the knave, the happy mistress
feeding terse sedition, the chance friend who craves your recognition:
I am fire.
She asks him if her butt looks Big
In last years summer dress
My dear you look Hot in that
It accentuates I must confess
And are these streaks too brassy
On my mousey shade of brown
My dear you pull it off with style
You wear it like a crown
She points to her crows feet
Are they getting worse each day
It lends character to your features
And that's my final say
Then she goes for closure
Will you love me till I die
I'll love you to the moon and back
He whispers with a sigh
So ladies the next time you declare
In a voice so strong
That you are ALWAYS RIGHT
And He is ALWAYS WRONG
And if your man agrees with you
IS HE RIGHT OR WRONG???
The seasons passed beyond the glass doors
I could see in detail each of their days
As I wheeled my chair forward-
No one day remained the same
You can always find some difference
Mirrored by choice
Save for a sparrow
That began its visits
On that autumn morn
It perched itself on the handrail of the deck
And bathed in the warmth of the sun
Pruning its feathers as it looked toward
The distant mountains collage
Of copper, gold and brassy reds
And every year
on every season since
It did not fail to visit
Standing on the handrail of the deck
Outside the sliding glass doors
During winters I placed out seeds
And in the summers I gave water
And like this
nature chose a companion
And I named him
Then on a very hard winter
the wind blew
cascading landscapes
of deep snow fields
undulating as a tide
He came
Laying with a broken wing
That dotted red the snow
Instinctively I gathered him,
Brought him from the cold
Not knowing the choice
I had inspired
That had already been made
Sustained -
I set his wing
We spent our days together
Till the time came
to let him go
I put him out on the handrail
He stood there for a time
Pruning his feathers
In the warmth of the summers sun
And in the end never left
And there was not
that broken sparrow
That he gathered from the cold.