Best Chalices Poems
Blush
fair skies
mist Sol-kissed
citrine seduced
mimosa clouds bask
dreamy in champagne light
golden-god’s sparkle fills
chalices roused and
rouged as poppies
hail dawn with
unfurled
whorls
Susan Ashley
August 16, 2021
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: Merse
Sponsor: Malabika Ray Choudhury
*rouged: verb; French; colored red*
*image: Nature Wallpapers > Fields > Poppy field at sunrise*
She's untouched fruit
from forbidden orchards
barren and wrinkled
with fragmented twigs,
whirling to the beat
of melancholic musings
of black-winged butterflies
that croon and reflect
the true tragedy of a queen
waiting for the
return of her king.
Beneath splitting dusks,
above wicked woodlands
of weathered grim dreams,
personified pomegranate seeds
drip in sangria sins
that feed her fears and lies
from familiar chalices,
but below the streams of
poetic gardens,
raspberry rivers taste
sweeter than honeydew melons.
Cosmos decipher
her destiny designed
for a silhouette emblazoned
in tarnished trinkets,
But there's nothing left
In her shining throne
that reflects in sorrow
like a tombstone
adorned with tilted
tulips and wilted roses
in a ruined wilderness.
All that remains is
a crown that lays
amongst ebony
and bones covered in
cobwebs coated in
memories and hurt.
Her tears swiftly freeze
into frost glazed lakes
holding the last breeze
of mourning dunes
searching for a valley
with his finest tune,
but empty chambers below
her feet echo with ghosts
of his rhymes,
as pantoums tangle in the
paralyzed streaks of
her golden hair.
She sits in silence listening to the wind
carrying wicked witches
and mythological stones,
Hearing the tale
of beloved cities separated
by unforgiving constellations.
If eternity can be illustrated
with calligraphic scriptures,
this poetic saga will reveal
immortal affections
through metaphors that
stretch beyond medieval
manuscripts of an
infinite infatuation.
L i f e
I sense your perplexed pulse
within pirouetting pearls,
steeped in sinister streaks,
while fading sparks
of dulcet stars
swing from threads of darkness
on the verge of vertigo,
living in minutes
caught in the crawling contradiction
of tainted t i m e…
O’ f r a g i l e hummingbird,
I hear the hushed hymns
hovering through the ebony haze,
awaiting unlocked gates
adorned with regal rubies,
reflecting heaven that
sings of the sacred.
For in your lonely serenade,
in bittersweet solitude,
you raise fatigued feathers
to the alluring azure,
to heed the heartbeats
of the halcyon haven,
amidst your spirit
drowning in dreariness,
soaked in sadness,
counting cursed crystals
as blessings from the essence
of this endless enigma~
d r e a m gliding in drowsiness,
drenched in midnight terrors,
flowing between technicolor tercets,
etched in obsidian tears
within the raven prose
of Edgar Allen Poe,
oblivious to the table set,
serving chalices
brimming with
moonbeams and hope,
as you’ve long tasted
toxic embers from hellfires,
in a satanic sphere that knows
not the ingredients of peace,
consumed with hate and prejudice,
perhaps prewritten
from ashes seized
from the Hades inferno,
a spring stolen from the
valleys of dancing daffodils.
So let me waltz
beyond constellations of cruelty.
It’s too late to save the world,
to color the globe in lime green
and blooming blue,
as there is no winning
when the devil sits
on a throne of fickle flowers,
where snakes slither
through the narcissistic eyes
of the emperor~
dressed in deception,
eager to rule the weak and naive
with nothing but the scorching
heat of the serpentine sunsets,
bleeding venomous verses
upon your canvas
that pleads and prays
for compassionate clemency.
I feel the rising
of the merciful moon,
embracing the wolverine warmth,
filling the emptiness between
wicked lines,
k i s s e d by the weeping wind,
as purple phrases across pastel pages,
immortalize the poetic need to
paint the world with l o v e and lilac...
To my enemies,
cloaked in t w i n k l i n g topaz~
I’ve become immune
to your illusive m a n t r a s,
recited in roseate refrains.
I’ve learned to see
the vermilion
f l o a t i n g
between venomous
pigments of
psychedelic sunsets
For life is a whirlpool
of uncertainties
slithering through
l o o p h o l e s of adversities
We waltz through
h i g h s and l o w s
while masked foes
orchestrate a
a circus embellished
in emerald s p r i n g s
Yet, I f o r g i v e
your i g n o r a n t skies,
unable to grasp
the vision of loyalty
You’ve long been
preaching in
verses of lyrical lies,
soaring above
catastrophic canopies~
draped with my
sentimental s i g h s
this conscience remains
constantly crippled
by the ecstasy of
poisonous promises~
served from
diamond chalices
once upon
a blood m o o n
There’s still
a pearlescent
shore for faithless
footprints in the
island of h e a l i n g
in the marine bed
of softness
that f l o w s
beneath seething seas,
there I’ll sculpt a
lagoon of
p r a y e r s across
fire corals that
f l i c k e r
in tints of
lethal lime green
As I allow aquatic
pearl ruffles to ripple
through weary waves,
they become the
sacred v e s s e l
that unveils
hyacinth stars,
when your heart is
as dark as the
eclipsed moonflowers
Tonight, I’ll rewrite
the poems I’ve woven
from golden arrows
that assassinated
the alliterative tranquility
in sinister silence
within my inner psyche
In the journey of revival
I’ve mastered the art
of wearing pain
like a crown of
thistles and thorns
I’ll forgive you
amidst unspoken apologies,
and e r a s e the
a c h i n g colors
within greying rainbows,
behind your
soulless eyes.
For, I can feel the
insecurities r u s h i n g
through those veins~
longing for an empathetic
empire that
serves you
k i n d n e s s
So take these metaphors,
make them yours,
ink them across
your s u n l e s s canvas,
and r i s e beyond the
demons that lurk
as shadows within
your a r t l e s s heart.
May the light of twilight,
correct your insincere intentions.
"COMMUNION"
You speak to me in tongues
I hear you with my heart
I feel you with my mind
Like a Spring bloom, I am slowly unfurling
Like a ripe plum, you taste me in my rhymes
You touch me black ink injected drug potent
Red Poppies between lines
I sense you in your dreams
They are swelling next to mine
Like a drunk, I swallow all your delicious words
You turn into endless Golden Chalices of Altar Wine
I see you through your mirrors
COMMUNION
You see me, walking now through mine.
(Lovejoy-Burton/2018)
EASTER
John 19 NIV
communion
noun
1.
the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially on a mental or spiritual level.
"in this churchyard communion with the dead was almost palpable"
2.
the service of Christian worship at which bread and wine are consecrated and shared.
synonyms: Eucharist, Holy Communion, Lord's Supper, Mass
"he believed in Christ's presence among the faithful at Communion"
3. The Spirit, The Blood and The Water
If tormented truth is
the taste of her fire,
injecting her blood
with poisoned rain
in golden chalices,
what is the color of
eclipsed spheres
where there’s a
desolated darkness
that dwells through
devious spirits
to rise higher?
Maybe there’s no
heaven nor hell in
the onyx fields of
soulless stars,
where obsidian roses
bloom as signs of
the devil’s immortality,
crooning doomed
hymns to the
honeycomb hues
of raven's irises,
which reflect every
bitter dream painted
in strokes of thunder.
But when dusk
bleeds seas of deception,
sins stream through
sinister shadows,
slowly pulling innocence
to a chamber of pitiless
pins and heinous knives.
So watch her ascend
as the metaphorical mistress
of death and beyond,
she is no longer your
heretic queen
that serves you light,
that once breathed
and walked through
storms of toxic typhoons
cloaked in
summer serenades,
taming every hurricane
with her crystal wings
that never tethered
to an evil king of serpents.
Sometimes, we expect
the sun to rise and smile,
through hazy hellish clouds
carrying vindictive
verdicts of venomous vultures,
surmising hues of
ink to pierce through
pores of this bleeding pen,
imagining rainbows
will unravel colors,
in violent violets and
intricate indigo streaks,
refusing to walk around
streets with
hailing stones of storms.
But what if the skies
unfold mysteries of yesterday,
would tales of truth need
translated transcripts?
oblivious to the weight
of every thorn I sustain
within these words I weave.
Whilst daggers
on my spine
still remain rusted with
runes of revelations,
as I’ve felt claws sharper
than twisted tongues,
so those feculent fingers
pointing at abstracts
across fields of
fruitful flowers,
adorned with
smokey quartz
jewels of life,
is nothing but
mere artless blades,
that burn bridges
from blunt blindness.
Let the bare brokenness
of your rags be
the conqueror of your
own demise,
I’ve seen too many
ghosts turn into
steel hearted devils with
tasteless plans.
Yet these cracks
won’t grow wider
from misconstrued
conclusions,
from barely noticeable
turbulence within a
psychological warfare.
I am more than your
definition of sharpened
needles and knives,
as I’ve been nurtured
in fearless forests with
herds of faceless wolves,
this warrior spirit
is unmovable,
by a million mountains
engraved with
lifeless blood and
bones of your kind,
so take your little
quilt of cowardly questions,
wrap them around your
fragile little ego,
perhaps, sleep too
can reveal
rosier dreams
in your doomed
nights filled with terrors,
for I refuse to
drink from chalices
of emptiness
concocted from
bitter ingredients.
“Just because you are soft doesn't mean you are not a force. Honey and wildfire are both the colour gold.” ~Victoria Erickson
Tonight the moon sanctioned
her golden halo
to unfurl butterfly wings
rinsed with honey
and champagne ribbons,
as feathers of lunar crust rise,
to embellish the sky
with silver sequins,
drizzling second chances
upon fickle hearted dragonflies,
gifted as weapons of
deception to the sweltering breeze,
that wrapped my weakened knees.
I’ve always known trusting
is a losing game with no winners,
but why do I always feel
like an intruder sinking deep
into the depths of spiteful seas~
where planktons and stinging marine
nettles prick my untouched skin?
Yet I am still searching for
a singing star that wouldn’t
need written renderings of
how my black tinted glass
heart was left to drown.
Who would have thought,
there’d be more to the
onyx glittered
ripples that stream,
in teal blue waves?
If only they’d hear
every unspoken tale
of shipwrecked ruins
resting amongst graphite
motions of frozen intuitions,
forgotten through forsaken
lagoons amidst
fleeting monsoons,
left as memoirs along
soft coral mists swiftly
passing through patch
reefs in abandoned atolls.
So let me take my splintered
spheres to a realm of no return,
forgiving sinful anthems
that lured me to believe
that friends were more
than enemies in sweet disguise.
I am soft, not fragile,
neither am I a
shrunken blossom.
I am a tiger lily,
fragrant yet fierce,
ready to face whatever~
hypocritical fangs of fate
may serve in merlot wine chalices.
You used to look at me.
You glanced upon my ripened, caramel skin
With palpitated affirmations
Of your smile
Love
Friendship
Inebriated
Your titanium pupils
Illuminating across Merlot filled chalices
Another umbrella drop
Another hungry thrust
Unto solemn choruses
Another choir of sonatas
Filling our bells
Turning the tides
Against full moon deceptions
Yet, the sun rose.
We would lie on park benches’ lap
As I covered my thorns
To avoid your judgments
Drawing your attention to cresting waves
By our lakeside
Yet, the clouds rolled in.
As vehement rainfall
Caused my roots to blossom
My thorns to strengthen
You were poked by my errors.
Another angel cries.
These wingless flaws I shed
Within retinal waterfalls
As I hold onto empty, rickety barrel
For dear tomorrows
Am I
Now
Not good enough for you
Has your pulse’s arrhythmia from yesterday
Become
Stagnant
Will you still take my hand
In whimsical slow dance
Through God’s uncertainty
Because, tomorrow,
I will still be the same.
©Drake J. Eszes
The dawn of anticipated darkness,
Pierces these gilded walls.
The smoulder of sinister heat arising-
An entombment of dreams.
Let us raise our chalices of stars
To toast these woodland creatures emerging.
From beyond the drapes of tasseled velvet,
Through the seeps by light of moon.
Find the phantoms that dwell in lit shadows;
They stray to the rhythm of unwhispered truths.
Is this magic that lifts these masks afloat?
Oh, look around! There’s one more behind you!
I behold you, silken facade,
By glimpses across the candelabra.
Do you feel the coming
Of our night’s story awaiting a beginning.
Take care to not unmask these veils
For no revelations should come alight.
As our hands embrace and we glide,
Feigning ignorance in only this night.
happiness, puppy-sweet, lapping at toes. the strumming of sea nymph shells. the laughter of intoxicated friends, slightly tipsy, imbibing in whites and reds, sharing spousal threads and temporarily forgetting the kids, though their eyes drip with tenderness, like honey, as they release the swash of grandchildren pics, ebbing and flowing in the sea of collaborative commotion.
like drunken sailors
with dancing tattoos of kids —
housework abandoned
happiness bubbling over, no stinging jellyfish, only a high as you ride the whimsical spout of a humdinger of a whale. the splash of happiness as your adventurous boat glides over funny water, the rapids contained amidst the cool glacial vistas.
hallucinating
goliath-size polar bears
waving with a coke
friend, i’ll join you in your happiness, sipping our sumptuous chalices, dressed in medieval wimples and petticoats. we shall chat alongside the faerie garden - the wisps of pink and blue wings, a sparkling chatter of singsong at the lovely affair.
wee chalices cheer
our frolicking happiness
leaving us breathless
6/5/19
Hey, Write a Happy Haibun Poetry Contest
Sponsor - Caren Krutsinger
I dream
in the golden glow
of a sakura orchid
nestled between blooming browns~
as saffron streaks of sunsets
spill syllables of l o v e and trust,
scented with sugared crystals,
emitting musical verses
to calm the inner child~
healing in silence
dusted with pastels of p e a c e.
But when the fragrance of
summer wanes,
leaving a heavy horizon
glistening with grieving galaxies,
remember, I am an aching poem
kissed by the garnet green,
refusing to follow
melted moonbeams,
merged with moving monsoons,
and yesterday’s fickle footprints,
that remain,
soaked in rain and tears,
like pixelated promises to the
cracked cosmos,
lost within sand petals,
as nightingales croon
of strife and life,
of cold summers and fleeting colors.
So tonight,
I’ll carve my own b l i s s
from the haze of violet gratitude~
engrossed in trembling ink,
allowing another month
to fade into the ether,
as memories blossom
in blue-black,
staining champagne chalices
with smoke and salt
while somewhere
between fireworks filling up
twilight skies,
rippling with mystic topaz
kissing
the fluorescent stars
sparking across
midnight shorelines,
I found sequins of h o p e
amidst the unattained closure
to the rising of
an inescapable end.
This is the voice of a thistle
reluctant
to
compromise and comprehend
the sound of ticking thunder,
for I am the eucalyptus elixir
to an alchemist’s waterfall,
weaving odes to the eclipsed time
that sleeps in the cusp
of liquified lilacs
crawling through
serpentine circles…
as I have found a rhyme to
glamorize every forsaken line,
letting go of bleached pages
that have no
spirit of resilience,
and chapters with
frosted names
that have
no
space for s o l a c e . . .
LEAST WE FORGET THE GIRLS’ KILLING CRY
(Apropos The Boko Haram Girls)
i
We no longer hear
the screams of the young girls
nor the whimpering
of their little brothers—
nor the echoes of falling tears
of grieving widowed mothers
and the muffled hush, hush, hush
to new born babes.
How much longer
must we awake
to another morning
we wished we never lived to see?
Mornings where
the horizon’s plains
are dotted with earthen keloids
of humpbacked graves
in overpopulated makeshift cemeteries
where food crops once grew.
Horizons reminiscent of
the screaming echoes animating
from departing Middle Passage ships.
ii
How much longer
must we experience nights
of damned deranged dads—brothers
roaming, ravaging, raping
sisters and slitting mothers’ throats;
damned deranged dads—brothers
driven by a demonized illusion
of the Nile goddess of fertility;
intoxicating themselves
with chalices of their families’ blood?
How much longer?!!!
How much longer
must our daughters remain
forgotten victims
Of those who’ve lost the free
in freedom—like those who’ve sold the in
in independence—lackeys
to and of ancient slave masters
who’ve learned well
the western ways of deception?
iii
Unmoved and no longer
grievously concerned,
the world mesmerizes itself
with a deceived sacrilege image
of a revered Nile goddess.
Meanwhile, defiled bodies
of African girls
are no longer newsworthy…
these wretched of the earth sisters
continue to suffer ethnocentric
rape and gendercide: perpetuations
of free roaming…hoodwinked brethren,
inebriated with neo-colonial genocide.
I s t r e t c h my arms,
caressing collapsed dreams,
l o s t
within the
debris of darkness,
rising from the
volcanic vortex,
drifting with scorching fragments
resembling a love turned to ashes,
from scarred skin and flames.
For I am the constructor of my own chaos~
singing Lilith lullabies
in this cold confinement~
poisoning vermilion
valleys with vicious vines,
watered with kohl tears,
as these lungs inhale toxic rain,
drowning in the demise
of primrose promises,
while pain bleeds
doleful drafts,
and empty pleas
paralyzed within pages of turmoil,
unable to break free from
the
sinister sequence
of the synthetic sun.
Yet I paint
a landscape
thriving with ill-omened orchids,
oblivious to the shimmering gold
dusted above
the black-magic boulevard…
O mystical faeries
must I forever be
a victim of midnight tremors?
Am I to remain
c h a i n e d
with diamond-glazed knots,
in the macabre chambers
where desolated phantoms stroll?
Perhaps it is written in the sands,
with cryptic strands
of sweltering grains~
I am the cacophony,
draped in infected illusions,
basking in hues of hallucinations,
surrendering to the hypnotic sounds
of satanic springs,
drinking from chalices
filled with pomegranate lies,
from the shadowed spirit
of Persephone on Hades’ throne,
engraved with splinters
from inescapable fate,
scripted with somber i n k ...
Somewhere between
veiled visions,
incensed with vanilla,
and the untold sagas
of a crestfallen lunar,
you'll taste
the aromas of alchemy
I've conjured~
shifting like zestful light,
of neon auroras,
deceiving the deceitful
with their distorted colors...
I am K a r m a ~
clothed in sequined starlight,
scattering lessons of life
upon nefarious sighs.
I guess I’ll cry~
a million origami stars,
watch them form
an endless sea of unwritten poems,
of how, once upon a sunrise,
you broke my igloo heart,
left me bleeding
rustic rhymes,
oblivious to the moon that
breathes within….
Sometimes there is
not enough time,
to write all these disappointments,
when life is a constant battle
between light and dark,
while I remain the
empress of the sun,
still standing my ground,
amidst the bullet-powdered dreams,
and pentacle
of seven swords,
unfolding reversed cards of
learned deception.
Yet I still hope for rising
morning jewels,
kissed with raining jasmines,
to wipe away these onyx tears,
for I’ve long been fighting
dishonest thoughts
clouding my hollow skies,
with greyest of fogs,
merged in the blackest of storms…
These woes I scribble
in zig-zag,
wishing someday, maybe,
someone would see beyond
these hazy words,
the paper-cut pain between
eclipsed metaphors.
Maybe when swirling
sapphires crack,
and twirling topaz breaks,
this aching soul shall sing,
create my own constellations,
design a cave of chalices filled
with undying chemistry.