Best Gentian Poems
Island Blues
My teal eyes rise to southern skies
in soft shades of azure,
A reflection of our aqua serene seas
that sweep the shore.
Summer shallows for novice surfers
in nautical navy shorts swim
From sunrise to sunset when indigo
heavens enchant our eyes with
Dancing diamond stars that mesmerize.
Luna, wrapped in her cobalt robes amid
shrouded clouds, hides.
Midnight lends to darkest sapphire shades in
romantic bejeweled atmosphere
Before gentian skies fade in the majesty
of dawn’s golden light.
7-12-18
© Connie Marcum Wong
Rev. 10-18-18
Brevity In Blue Poetry Contest ~N/A~
Sponsored by Dale Gregory Cozart
In the spring, I'm a Daffodill
In many hues, dancing on the hill
Swaying with the gentle breeze
In the spring I'm easy to please
In late spring, I'm pale pink rose
Growing on the trellis, inviting bees toes
To touch on me, drink their fill of nectar
Sweet, in late spring I'm real neat
In early summer, I'm Buddleia
When Butterflies come, Cassiopeiae
Is so jealous of the attention
As they touch and tickle my extensions
Later on I become Great Yellow Gentian
At this time I'm in another dimension
Waiting the time in the fall when I've lived all
Then I become the great Sunflower in the fall
When winter arrives, I'm barely now alive
This is when Camellia makes her debut
She is really now more alive leaves glisten
They've a glossy waxy shin and the blooms pristine
(In response to Andrea's Blog.)
On
lucent
gossamer
wings fulgent in
my precious garden
nymphs spin golden trumpets
welcoming spring. Gentian bells
sway blithely beneath jubilant
incantations arousing cupids
ardent desire blossoming cherry pink.
Watching Homer struggle
to explain how a god wounded by a mortal
cannot die but may thereafter live with minor pain
and the humor when that god
complains to Jove that His supervision of His daughter
is inadequate and His Love too unconditional
while Diomed (or Tydides)
wreaks havoc on the Trojans and Hector
gives it back (in kind)
anatomically correct descriptions
of spears piercing jawbones and groins
sons without fathers hunting and fishing thereafter
alone. Written
amazingly presciently!
as a metaphor for Vietnam (our war)
forgotten consensually
as this generation slips lazily away
to Hades (or kayaks to the huckleberries)
where the lights are always blue, gentian actually,
supper's served at 4 and former adversaries
pass the heavy hanging time playing pinochle (and pool).
We're selling the house to pay the taxes.
Pallas Athena wars among the men
from the axle of her chariot
and Venus is injured by Diomed,
standing in the field of battle where she never should have been,
in her adorable hand.
What has this to do with Solomon in jail.
Not the Jewish king, a black American male,
same thing.
Your children can be failed at school and marched to war.
You can be taxed and sent to gaol for the honor of it.
anyone lived in a pretty how town.
We have no obligation
to perform the Iliad or read poems and even Homer
considers Achilles effete (compared to Hector)
and Odysseus is wrong even when he's right.
Therefore, modern man explores
the mathematics of circles in coordinate planes and their tangents
(when) (once) (soon)
the secret of warp speed is discovered
expansion of the species will be limitless and permanent.
Adder,badger
barn owl
black hairstreak
silver studded blue
damsel fly
fritillary
sundew-
Marsh helleborine
Duke of Burgundy
goat willow too-
Porcelain fungus
purple emperor
quaking grass
skylark
bush cricket
curlew-
Dowy emerald
bluebell
wild service tree
Gentian
corncockle
widgeon
chalk hill blue
inspired by BBOWT WILD LIFE CHAMPIONS
The October Sky
white and blue hyacinths
float on infinite canvas
water reflects by....
vast as human mind
uncountable mysteries
paint vivid colours....
immense blue gentian
camouflages to orange
the October sky....
Written August 25th, 2015
For contest "October Sky" by SKAT A
Awarded 8th place win
Here in the tropics, fans provide a built-in breeze,
their wind so gentle, laps one’s knees, and butterflies,
gentian blue, fly to sip the morning’s dew
Palm fronds large, and bamboo plants, fight to
scoop unwary ants; and deep below the surface soil
millipedes in moisture coil
Farmers small with tanned, taught-skin, fight to
curb their cows’s chagrin, bouncing udders,
mud-caked hooves, moos that sound the fight begin!
A laughing sun it rains hard down, heat to bake the
foreigners’ frown, while locals hide beneath the shade,
dogs yet not eaten, pant in glade
Traders ask you,” where you from?” repeated mantra
lingers on, and if you think they are your friend, you'll
warm their hearts, when you spend
But’s not for me to predicate, that sumptious missal’s
far too late; I rest and dream in fan’s cool breeze,
while lover’s hand, I gently squeeze.
Prologue
Abandoned and in disrepair the mansion
Is dark now; a story behind every stanchion.
An unwitting monument to a way of life,
Since foreclosed through bloody civil strife.
Antebellum
The hush of summer evenings cued the trilling
(Fiddled on hind legs accompanied by warty pouches)
Chorus; pierced only by the discordant creaking
Of unseen stairs rising to the house slave's quarters
Portending the disquiet of antebellum martyrs.
Wittiness trees attest in angles and chains
To the master's grid and shade the lanes
For the surrey whose wheels rutted the gateway
(Become artifacts) en route to soirées of gaiety.
The prairie land, violated by steel and condescension
To the roots of its towering grasses and purple gentian,
Forced to nourish seeds of an alien flora for hempen
Riches, patiently awaits its day of redemption.
Bricks of fertile earth fired over an Osage hearth,
By chattel hands, in mortise and tenons, gave birth
To a mansion at the prelude of a moral sea-change
That would divide the nation and break its chains.
Current Era
Their lives deprived of enslaved labor, the once-lived
Voices ebbed a little as each generation removed.
Shrouded in leaves of time they are a mute bequeath
Indelibly recorded upon the stories that lie beneath.
Dreamer boy speak for them now. Sing for bluestem that switched
Against the sky nourishing the thundering herds that provisioned
Native tribes. Rage for those hobbled to sow but never to reap,
Weep for a Nation gone mad and seeds planted too deep.
Reflections after touring an abandoned antebellum mansion.
Copyright Paul M Thomson September 2011.
I'm a resilient plant see I thrive on your absence
You can forget about me but for sure I grow stronger
I won't shrivel, wilt and crumble out of balance
Air and light is all I need in life I conquer.
Roots rich with nutrients foiled your attempts of neglect
Positive motivation in germination I succeed
For this gentian my water retention keeps me erect
It's photosynthesis the sheer willingness in life indeed
Erect on the shelf I think to myself how brave
To have a pulsating xylem from root to the leaves
And the wall of moisture I built to defend the toxic ideas you crave
You see my resilience is pure excellence in life I do achieve.
Sit with me a while, here on the soft green grass, that hides the Gentian Violet and the Daisy peeping through and watch how the soft cool wind lifts the fronds of Willow, hanging down to touch the fresh droplets of lasting dew. They stroke the glistening tips, to allow the verdant blades to sip, to grow another inch anew.
Sit with me a while, here on the bank of the silver stream that gurgles and splashes over old stones with swirls of cream and see how the water delights in its journey, talking and whispering, laughing as its rivulets teem. They run down, to catch the sun that glints in its life force, then kiss the edges where the Red Campion bob as if in a dream.
Sit with me a while and smile as the Wagtail swoops and settles on a rock, that gives him a place to stay and look at how he dips and tries, for just seconds, black and white tiny sprite greedy and gay. Take in the visitor Mallard, working their feet, in the deep water, pausing for all the ducklings together to make their way and gasp as you watch them turning round and round in the current tweeting their sounds as they play and feel your heart move at how the mother gathers them to her close and carries on in her loving display.
Sit with me a while, in this English country scene of lush meadows and new life all around, drinking in the stream and the life giving sound, and feel how wonderful it is to say, what joy to be in England in this the month of May.
Abandoned house isolated with cracked walls
Aberration emerging forth from the natural terrain
Red and black roofs of the village nearby almost seeming a beacon of civilisation
The wood boarded lower rotting windows and barred doors
Faded moth eaten curtains a cynical beauty of zephyred gossamer
The time long years doing their gentle but remorseless work
Inside the house light denied world now given to insects and rodents
Left to do nothing but eat and all gone now consume just themselves
Wintertime wind whistles and rain seeps in through gaps
Kept once a garden dissembling now in its own fertility
Nature kindly putting forth hated nettles burrs and docks
By lack of care a garden that is there now seeming to wildness
What now is there left of a man what was there ever
But everything unnatural now reduced to its former glory
Outside the lovely wild garden flowers
The reds of Foxglove Ragged Robin and sweet Herb-Robert
Bright suns yellow the Lesser Celandine and Creeping Buttercup
Butterflies alighting on blue Willow Gentian and Large Venus Looking Glass
Gondolas thrift contently upon a gentian violet
Thrown from dusky sunsets on a marauding wake
Adopting Venetians transpose as the partake;
Sip mulberry wine to toast the ultraviolet.
Cerulean skies, inundations, surge the amaranth
Spray lavender with a mauve bouquet of backcloth;
Bear a pigmentation that the heliotropes strove forth
Luminary, heather halos mimic gamma strength.
Plum age old interceptors, those cardinals and priests
Rage velveteen and indigo, planning sermons apiece,
Text books coloured aubergine bless a firmament lease
Like exorcists displaying ways to snub behemoth beasts.
The Grand Canal is unified as the amethysts surrounding:
Producing arch goliaths, as the buildings passing by
Shape a deep mauve battlement, twilight’s gradual high
The sheer delight of Indigo, the honeymooners grounding.
WANDERING
wandering
and wondering
why…
there are
four coloured
pictures
all
in
a row
angel with a
left wing
right wing
broken wing
another
thing
see the silence
in my
head
see the stab
wounds of
bloodshed
wanting
to be
left
instead
in the scandal
on the mantle
glowing candle
I met Santa
Met
God
In gentian
violent vibrant
blues
© Kim van Breda—14 December 2014
Amazing the blessings that come our way
Scarcely noticed or getting our attention,
The stately sunflower that bloomed today,
Amazing the blessings that come our way
Taking for granted nature’s grand display
Like the delicate, intricate fringed gentian,
Amazing the blessings that come our way
Scarcely noticed or getting our attention.
Written August 8, 2022
I need just before dawn to feel the slopes, love them,
The smell of mint or anise, gentian or orange,
I need to walk to look for ghosts, invisible ones
My parents gone, my wife with quiet kisses,
I need this time away from the sleeping cities,
To find my soul that is lost in loving you,
I need mint, anise or orange, something new
To find the instinct of the donkey, the sweetness of the angel,
I need before dawn to feel the slopes, love them,
The smell of mint and honey, lemon or thyme,
So as not to be late for Alice in Wonderland,
there, write a poem, which tomorrow moves the children.
J’ai besoin avant l’aube de sentir les talus, les aimer,
L’odeur de menthe ou d’anis, de gentiane ou d’orange,
J’ai besoin de marcher pour chercher des fantômes,
Mes parents disparus, ma femme aux calmes baisers,
J’ai besoin de ce temps loin des villes endormantes,
Pour retrouver mon âme qui se perd en t’aimant,
J’ai besoin de la menthe, de l’anis ou de l’orange,
Pour retrouver l’instinct de l’âne, la douceur de l’ange,
J’ai besoin avant l’aube de sentir les talus, les aimer,
L’odeur de menthe et de miel, de citron ou de thym,
Pour ne pas être en retard chez Alice au pays des merveilles,
là, écrire un poème, qui demain émeuve les enfants.