Best Dali Poems


Premium Member The Persistence of Memory Painting by Salvador Dali - Collaboration with Dilly Dally

Caustic memories dissolve on my tongue
Lingering tastes of battery acid and nicotine  
Cause me to choke on putrid saliva.  
Staring at melting walls, clocks tick in unison.  

Distorted birdsong hums outside of jagged windows 
Under the warped sun, an unrepentant landscape blurs.  
Freshly budding peonies liquefy;  
Veils thin, evaporating the delusion of reality.  

Why must I mould to the edges at your bidding,  
Contort to the point of my own dysfunction?  
For such fleeting worship, this devastation lingers -
Devours and disconnects my inner workings.  

I lie highlighted in shadow, a beacon of quiet distress;
A dislodged scapula desperate to be labelled angelic.  
Grounded, wingless, and forever out of time -
Wearing the last face you cared for as a comforter.  

Neon venom warming twisted arteries, 
Sinister patches stitched upon a breaking back.  
A narcissist's crown digging into my head  
Like rusted nails plunged into worm-infested wood—  
Permanent disconnection, frayed cerebral cortex.  

Blurred vision obscures insidious figures hiding in hushed corners,
Whispering in Babylonian tongue. Hallucinatory illusions haunt  
What was a once-pristine sanctuary,  
Now morphing into a surrealistic asylum. 

Revelation exists above shadow in temporal machination,
I'm consciousness not yet swept up with sand;
Closed eyes cleanse my corneas - I rest in a balm of clarity.
Your power superficial, a cankerous cataract peeled clean off.

It is you who is bereft, washed up with the shell you created.
All the walls of your empty room fallen flat,
As I unfurl in the mirror beyond the shoreline,
I realise - it was never me you couldn't stomach.
© Sara Jama  Create an image from this poem.

Premium Member Melancholy Atomic 1945 , Salvador Dali

The sky is a Luciferian estuary 
rolling and roaring in crimson flames, 
a twisted design of detonated debris,
like splitting sighs
from internal implosions,
raining fragments of the past:
matchbox memories
piercing through suffocating silence
as time tortures the mind
with flashbacks of floating fragility…

O invisible moonlight,
pour me a purple potion
to erase the pain behind
perplexed pupils.
I no longer desire to be
cast in the clamorous clusters,
convicted as the captive ~ 
a ghost of games 
playing on the bones of brokenness, 
this cave of shame,
this cell of hellfire,
this emotional shrapnel,
reflecting self-loathing nightmares.
Perhaps I crowned myself
the commander,
leading the devil’s disciples
into a war assembled from fear…

And this heart ~ a metallic maelstrom 
mourning in the turmoil of melancholy ~ 
breaks from the inability
to step beyond wrathful walls
to a landscape of holiness,
to seek the footsteps of pilgrimage.
For I am caught in
the whirling whispers of
spectral regrets,
replicating rectangular ruins,
electrifying the empyrean
with greyed grief
and yellowed yearning.
Pondering ~ am I the blasphemer
in the cross-eyed faces of monsters?
Am I the breath
that trembled ~ disrupting the peace?
Am I the empty spaces
filling the crystalline cracks
between haunting hours,
while darkness devours
treacherous tales
climbing from the
archives of devious agony…

But can love gift this skeletal sorrow 
a twilight-kissed cloak of hope?
Will heaven be a witness
to these bleeding carvings
within the tall pillars
of my splintered spirit,
while the dying lamp of life
slowly fades and waves farewell
in faint colors ~ depicting misery
like demons decaying,
shaping a sadistic sanctuary 
of malignant madness~ 
a familiar insanity inked 
                 as a heinous home…

Inspired by Raphaelesque Head Exploding by Salvador Dali

    emptying of the mind into the ether
contained reverberations
   sent suddenly skywards
            firmly rejected by gravity
      bounce back for the haunting 
         we live on with the fallout

        truth ruins the illusion of necessity
spittle ruins the illusion of beauty
 you can't rewrite ripples caused by history
    only bury the dead on loop
        then repeat the mantra of moving on

      there is beauty still
  in the bright light before nothing 
         that lingers on the retina
     becoming layers
          light that needs slivers of insanity
                    to fill the gaps
              but gaps to separate the insanity

         nothing is new
   as evidenced by what is etched in stone

coffee cup stains 
    create self made crowns 
 in those faraway hideouts
          the uncut planners 
 never lose a drop 
      or burn their tongue

               their hum murmurs on
          in the perfect world they build

    everyone else gives their all
        to fulfil whatever dream
  they need to be sold 

         in the inner workings of every dome
  rest the chorus of lives that built it
             silently watching on
      mouths agape

bridges shatter between downcast eyes
everything wriggles
         finds its way
   once again to a finish line
        for a fresh wave
 as inevitable as the first
          in this thirst for glory

          in every direction lay the fallen
      leaving spaces
for the glorious mourners 
        to preach their refrains
  eventually no fight or song will be left 
only moistened air descending
   kissing your cheek 

        light and sound fade
  atop mountains
     thoughts of mortality are shushed
        legacy leaving its mark
 to echo into a final slowed motion silence


Premium Member The Anthropomorphic Cabinet, 1936 by Salvador Dali

I speak to the skylights
          of your tender soul
in formless forms
    in eccentric accents
aching in aloneness...
when tragedies of footprints
   remain a sculptured secret ~
like an untitled nightfall
dressed in denied definitions

avoiding the touch 
of perception 
   for mindfulness mirrors
memories I hoard
within titanium trays 
of masked melancholy…

but I long for you to wear
chronicles carved within
    my cold conscience ~ 
a universe layered
with moulded memoirs 

tell me how it feels
to be a beautiful burden
to the jinxed jewels
feasting upon 
scrutinized skin of silence 
   skeletons of psyche ~
too complex 
      for concave light...

  let me stay ~ stretched
in the still solitary sketch
          of surrealism ...
I am not a vision
     of gold and glitter
that wicked weavers
can materialize
but an unnamed sight ~ 
a breathing mystery 
the eyes of unfelt dusk
      fail to stroll through…

         intoxicated on pain
 ~ an ecstasy etched through angst ~
    to never be tamed 
                   to never be told

Ete by Salvador Dali

transparency is mirrored
       you may stare
   right through
              my chest

only catching 
  your reflection
       in the subterfuge 
    of rest

            the self it splits & triplicates
    stays bound by feet alone
           an ecstasy of horrors
       spliced & given space to roam

       I'm undone yet placed on parchment 
    to bleed & bloom 
in equal quarts
         a reaching hand
    that never grasps
             with light & dark 
                           ascending thoughts

   all I need is printed
         in signs & patterns
    I can't read
            as I float through all eternity
  half-aware of warnings
    I didn't fully heed

Inspired by The Lugubrious Game by Dali

from the conch 
                whispers come
   dissect
      distract

  blow upon

         scintilla branch to intrinsic thought
weighed down
    consumed

             overwrought 

         mattering - so magnified
  that I can't turn away my eyes
               reach for able hand to soothe
    what dread could deed undo, disprove 

                kisses stolen 
     by long lost words
           explored lactic fallacies 
become absurd
                  til endings are not the body expired 
       but exposure of every cell and every wire

                   cathartic grip held in awe
                       control depletes as hem and haw
        til sadly swings 
              and bridges to shame
call time
        I must 
              on the lugubrious game


Dali Driven

"Curls...
Of spring passion?
Lacerations of decadence?
coiled in ringlets at the nape of her neck-
light wrapped in strands iridescent and bent
toward her silhouette's kiss.
Shadows on a match box painting
absorbing the skin and silk shed cloth."

Frozen air movement shakes me awake
as another museum goer
brushes by my sleeve in an attempt to read
the description... (I am nose close...)

Tremendously, I pull myself away
to the Hallucinations of a Toreador
pulling the scope out on my looking glass,
for one is finely tuned, painted with the single hair of a wishing bow...
and one is the size of my heart, unraveled and sky scraped,
and yet remarkably blurred to initial understanding.

I toss aside propriety and sit down on the ground,
Indian style, in front of grandeur-
a mist of streaming people dissipating my vision
of the surreptitious melting clocks, oozing time
all over the floor, soaking my favorite shoes...

And so I pass the afternoon alive,
briefly breathing in the dusty air and DNA of genius.

Premium Member Mother Goose Meets Salvador Dali

Below within the dwelling deep,
while tumbling in fitful sleep;
the rumble-hum of furnace keep;
the mouse and Cat Lord Bo-peep.

Fluttering lids and labored breath
below within the dwelling deep,
furious dreams do waken sleep
attributes of childhood’s bequeath.

Horrors rise on temporal tides
a stew of insanity bides.
Below within the dwelling deep,
the cat fiddle-screeches life’s weep.

Dali cobbles retinal creeps
the mind dittles and cows moo oon,
The nightmares ending none too soon
below within the dwelling deep.

Premium Member Inspired By S Dali Painting the Persistence of Memory

Big white clock is bored
With the uniformity of time
Flowing unnoticeably every day
Always the same tedious way
The clock has been sitting there 
From the dawn of the time 
Meticulously marking steps of
Hours minutes, and seconds 
Till it could no longer bear
The meaningless existence
Of being a humdrum machine
One day the clock decided to try 
Something a little bit different 
A tiny experiment of stretching
Its' frame to right which resulted 
In arrow of seconds slowing down
Then bending sharp to the left
The arrow of minutes jumped up
Clock excitedly slid down fast
Speeding up hourly flow of time
Then lazily went back to primal
Initial smooth fixed steady pace
Bringing time flow back to 
Normal rhythm of the day

But now the clock felt inspired
So it tried to wrinkle the frame
Excitedly flipping upside down 
Which resulted in unexpected flow 
Of time acquiring velocity of its own 
Detaching itself from the constant
Existence of space and swiftly 
Rolling down the edge of a cliff
Clock fell into the dark precipice
Opening the heavy infinity doors 
Where the clock hasn’t been before
In the pitch darkness it felt lost
Trying to catch the evading time
With the arrows arms like spread 
Flapping through empty space 
But time was evading the clock
Excited and free it mischievously 
Played spellbound hide and seek
With the desperate clumsy clock
Which felt confused and scared
The world felt hopelessly lost
For the lonely terrified clock

The clock could no longer grasp
The wholesome consistency of time 
Which was racing in its own speed
In infinite universe so the clock 
Had to find out the way to catch
The time and make it uniform again
Feeling guilty of such a foolish attempt
To test things that should not have
Been controlled and questioned
Deeply repenting crooked clock
Tried to get back to its original form
Restoring smooth round shape
Straightening three bent black arrows 
Tuning seconds minutes and hours
Recovering the consistency of time
That always flies by in the same 
Monotonous predictable way
The clock swore never to 
Experiment ever again 
Being just a humble guardian 
Of time instead of 
Trying to manipulate it

Dali Makes a Promise

Dali makes a promise
He won't kiss Giraffe's brace
clock melts bopper
A grasshopper
He chills makes volte-face

The Fading of Salvador Dali When Wednesday Rose Too Late.

I regarded us on Tuesday, after finding Monet in the closet, and thought our lives
resembled institutions, I thought I'd tack that painting right above the fireplace, I
imagined we'd laugh...


He took ten minutes to figure it out, he took fifteen to tell me, he took three minutes
more to kiss my lips and I told him he was seven minutes late, so he glanced to the clock
that raced tomorrow above my head and told me that late was better than never as he
grabbed tomorrow right out of my hair...

This tangled me, you see, and I gasped for air as my thighs fell apart, it seemed to be
distinctly him as he swirled into me, and I lost the definition of myself shortly after
Wednesday rose, and we smeared Van Gogh all over the walls as my screams became edible and
he licked his lips as I sighed his name, he removed the fabric that kept me warm, he wrote
forever with his tongue and I thought, better forever than gone, right before I dissolved
into nowhere....


I think my hand prints were distorted and I searched his chest for some resemblance of
sanity, but I only found myself in the swirls of moonlight that ventured in through the
window we tried to block...

he had told me of blankets years ago and I wished they would cover me when December came,
but I haven't seen December yet though I've watched snow fall and settle on his eyelashes,
I've studied the melting of time when he blinks...

“You have the most beautiful eyes in the world,” I informed him, minutes after the night
solidified herself and I realized we were tired.

“No, I don't,” he replied, in a tone that sunk beneath Tuesday, and offered me the calm of
Monet...

“You do,” he whispered, and I could hear that smile and the echoes of his eyes closing, I
could hear myself enter his dreams as I watched my hair flow abstractly through the weeks
he remembered, and sometime before I fell asleep, thinking about St. Petersburg when the
visions that dance underneath my eyelids resemble the imagination of Salvador Dali, he
told me he loved me...

right on time.

After Dali

"How clear can art be?" Salvador asked,
"when surrealism is the order-of-the-day,
the order of my dreams, and for sale
at the gallery down one block and over two."

"Persistence - persistence always forays
to visions we never knew were in us, 
out of us, about us; That's believable."

"Gala says I use her for muse and of
course she is right, she is all ways right."

"There are elephants and chessboards
and fluid watch-hands with eggs to fly in 
every direction. Ask me what they mean
and I'll throw it back at you. How do I 
know what my dreams mean let alone yours,
but you may procure them for a pittance."

"Clearly, inscrutable is a word I like to
twirl in my mustache, for I only buy the 
finest mustache wax, and THAT is inscrutable."

"Glass is to be seen through, a monocled eye
to the deeper dreams just under the surface.
Let us pay homage to form, then defenestrate it."

© Goode Guy 2014-01-04

ekphrastic for 2014-01-12 at 
the Charles Taylor Art Museum of 
slump glass of "After Dali" by Nate Avery
© Goode Guy  Create an image from this poem.

Premium Member Discovering a Little Dog In the Painting of S Dali

A little dog was sleeping 
At the bottom of the sea 
In the painting of Dali 
He was there all the time 
But we didn’t see it
Till a touch of divination 
Wakens up imagination 
And a hand of inspiration 
Brushes paint on the surface 
Of the canvas and we see 
Gentle hand of a little girl 
Lifting the edge of the veil 
Of the deep dreamy ocean 
Slowly revealing the motion 
Of cozy sandy landscape
Of the bottom of the sea 
And in awe suddenly we see 
A spotted dog cozy resting 
In the canvas of Dali 
He was there all the time 
But we saw only plain
Reflection of the sky 
On the surface of the water
And the ripples swinging by 
We did not see below the screen 
Of the mass of bluish green 
Body of the ocean

Premium Member On Looking At a Dali

An exquisite drawing in pen and ink,
Though I’m not a fan of the likes of Dali
Allow me the luxury of having to think.

Some I look at and exclaim, “Golly!”
If I am not a fan, I respect their ability,
Though I’m not a fan of the likes of Dali.

Pen and inks require lots of dexterity,
I enjoy paintings if they’re authentic
If I am not a fan, I respect their ability.

I like technique that causes me to think
Expressing the artist’s inner passion,
I enjoy paintings if they’re authentic.

Recognizing the painter’s usual fashion
Helps me to understand his/her work
Expressing the artist’s inner passion.

Some painters I most enjoy have a quirk
An exquisite drawing in pen and ink 
Helps me to understand his/her work
Allow me the luxury of having to think. 

Written December 8, 2022

Dali,Bob and Me

How does it feel,to be in a crowd that's
so grey?
Know one to understand ,like cows
grazing in a field of baby blue
grass.
know one having one single answer
that will make hope last.
Until the next time we wine in need of
milk.
Like rolling stones going down a hill
made of silk.
Beautiful colours every where ,but
beening mean we hope it rips.
Black and blue cowboys with guns
on hips.
Though the false love that I have
and the real desire from not having
put in red.
How does it feel to not know anything
any more?
Soul is at the core.
Opening vault, signs of the times,
hidden in Purple skies, why?
can i dream of a Bull killing the
Matador?
I rather love,who wants me to kill
what for?
I quit!
Let me think,while the Sun starts to
sink in pink.
Bob asked" How does it feel to be like
a rolling stone?
I only keep moving, because I want life
to leave me alone.
© Tod Gaines  Create an image from this poem.

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