Best Illustrations Poems
Drifting along on tranquil opportunities
Embellished within the nicest ingenuities
Animating all your stanzas and verses
Giving meaning to them with so much purpose
Never holding back your promises of more
While you add creative imagination galore
Exploring your lines amongst their transition
Acknowledging their intent being my mission
Intuitive cartographic portrayed expression
Removing all of the unwanted indiscretion
Appreciating each of our distinct differences
Regardless of consequences or significance
Influenced characteristics written in script
Gliding along your mind’s many swells and dips
Returning the potential to a clear lucidity
Gracefully floating on your unwavering fluidity
Riding upon your flow of subtle illustrations
Conspicuous gallantry with trusted fixation
Emotions I feel when experiencing your words
While listen to your pieces that you record
Leaves me forever lost in your articulation
Evoking my soul, giving my undying adoration
I stood on the bridge looking at the river below.
A strange-looking man came up to me and said “hello,
“Do you know where I’ll be able to find a job here?’
That is what the strange man asked me in a voice quite clear.
I said, “I don’t really know. I don‘t live very near.”
The way the man looked at me gave me a little fear.
He heard what I said, and then began to walk away.
However, I would meet that man again that same day.
The day in Wisconsin was quite hot that September.
The man I saw was heavily clothed, I remember.
I was relaxing; stretched on the grass when he appeared
the second time that day. The scenario was weird.
Not looking straight at me, he seemed to sense my presence.
He was a big man with some burgeoning corpulence.
Perspiring heavily, he would not take off his shirt.
As he spoke again, he seemed emotionally hurt.
“I haven’t held a good job in nearly forty years.”
The way this man spoke to me rekindled all my fears.
“Mind if I keep you company a little today?
I’ve been on the road a long time with no place to stay.
It’s Labor Day, the height of the carnival season.
Not one of them will give me a job for some reason.”
“What seems to be the trouble?” I asked him politely.
He said nothing. He unbuttoned his shirt quite slowly.
With his eyes closed, he would answer me somnolently.
“I hope to perspire enough, and have them all wash off.
I’ve been hoping the sun would burn me, and they’d cook off.”
With his shirt removed, he asked me if they were still there.
I responded, “Yes they are”, and could not help but stare.
Skin illustrations made their appearance everywhere.
He told me, “My appearance is enough to frighten.
So, I wear this shirt especially around children.
They follow me on the roads with curiosity.
However, they are all filled with fright when they see me.
I know this seems to you to be a very strange thing.
These things are staying on me; it all keeps on going.
I am this way all over. I hope you understand.”
He opened his fist to reveal a rose on his hand.
It looked so real; yet it was just a mere illusion.
His body was a pervasive colorful fusion.
There were all sorts of images in three dimension.
I said “They’re beautiful”. It was not my intention.
To be continued
Based on the short story "The Illustrated Man" by Ray Bradbury
He said, “I’ve tried everything; acid, sandpaper, knife;
I hate these things. I will have them for my entire life.”
You can predict the future by looking at these things.
At night, each of these pictures practically talks and sings.
I worked in a carnival forty-two years ago.
When I broke my leg, was laid up, with no place to go,
I went to get a tattoo somewhere not far from here.
A sign saying “SKIN ILLUSTRATIONS” would then appear.
The artist was an old woman living very near.
She said she could travel through time, and I laughed at her.
She made me look like a fool, and now I know better.
I am covered with these things most people call tattoos
As it turned out, it was I who’d eventually lose.
One minute, she looked young, and the next, she looked quite old.
She returned to her future place, or so I was told.
I’ve been searching for her far and wide for fifty years.
I have the feeling I’ll catch her when she reappears.
When I do see her again, I will kill her right there.
It is her life that I have no intention to spare.
At night, you’ll see all of these images coming to life.
When employers have seen this, it added to my strife.
They would keep me around for a few days, then I’m fired.
It has been this way for so many years, I’m so tired.
There are no images on this spot that’s on my back.
People will see how they die. Having a heart attack,
or any horrible way that will cause their demise.
That is when they discharge me. To me, that’s no surprise.”
I could not believe this man’s incredible story.
However, when it was dark, everything I would see
was coming to life in full colorful animation.
Each image was conveying a prognostication.
I was frightened and wanted to leave, but I could not.
Curiosity made me stay to gaze on each spot.
Based on the short story "The Illustrated Man" by Ray Bradbury
Phonetics of oblivion
Sheathed by plausibility
Elapsing cultures with ease
Fathering quaint illustrations
Daring to be discovered
Along fearless avenues
Embellished by the fences
That compose the verses
Of which we refer to as life
sounds
of pity
surface
as
moods ripple
&epitaphs
happen upon
the legacies
of life..
..
questions flee
in a mask
of be
belief
as issues
melt away
as shadows
of Autumn..
..
reason
dressed with bliss
with thoughts
that rain..
on images
that
blossom
at the margins
and
stir desire..
..
whilst
today
stumbles
into
tomorrow
without
a
wave
inspired by poetry of Macneice
ILLUSTRATIONS
dreams
&
reality
clear sounded
yet
a
fantastical situation
sans
sense
&
literalness
to make it
believable
an involved
setting
the instantly
recognisable
envisaged
unaware
lie
the forlorn
in
confused
forces
of loneliness
&immortality
deference
& gentility
a
memoir
survives
the experience
conceived
in
parallel
NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making this enigmatic form a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood is inherently variable.
Copyright © Brian Strand
No separation
Cannot be illustrated
An attempt to illustrate
Finds separation..
Yet all illustrations are
Already not separated
As is this story...