Best Locales Poems
I was a successful, fashionable florist, in mild green days of elegant gardens,
When an orange sun beamed its pleasure, like locales where lavender begins.
I formed arrangements for many occasions, drawing beauty lovers from afar,
As pretty planets arrange for a meeting, after wild rumors of the newest star.
And crowded hours were filled with summer, like pearly dews crowd morning,
Until ruby butterflies are playing tag, and gemmed damselflies are swarming.
Friends felt I might always be found, in some area of flush bloom fragrancies,
Like raven midnight's march to daybreak, with its warm, varicolored agencies.
Fond family held festive feasts, in fading hours of sparkly, fuchsia sun falling,
As whippoorwill songs clashed with red robin's, midst magenta stars gawking.
I lived in the house of tangy, saturated noon, when flowers were in full glory,
Like the most beautiful day of a woman's life, when a bride she's come to be.
Scarlet, saffron and other hues glittered, within the soulful sector of summer,
As starlings sang songs along my street, and sun rose and retired, a stunner!
Neighbors were nomadized at times, as honeydew moon nestles in new night,
When visiting me on eves of silk and satin, when fresh June was at its height.
Silver clouds were saddled with summer sun, in suddenly days of sweet rose,
Like grey encumbering smoke from autumn fires, when in plum mists it flows.
Raven noon was in green treetops, as the inarticulate ravens were squawking,
And fading time seemed to stand still, but ephemeral moments kept walking.
One day I woke to a gorgeous view from my window, daisies pink and yellow,
In the wide field right next to my house, glowing in the rich, sunshine mellow!
It put such a smile on my face, oh my! Like flocks of pretty blue jays going by,
And I kept seeing daisies everywhere I went, like a pearlescent moon on high!
I beheld African daisies and shasta, and pom pom-like chrysanthemum ones;
Along with fine lustrous gerberas, in all colors found, in wild green kingdoms.
I wondered at my strange, good fortune, in seeing beloved blooms anywhere;
Like the young, butterscotch days when Mother said, 'We're going to the fair!'
For awhile, I saw sweet daisies by day, and it seems I dreamt daisies at night;
Like a brief mystic spell of rapture, when hidden beauty's freed from its plight.
during our yesteryears
we made no appointment
to catch up our close friends
their doors were always open
friendly warm smiles greeted us
whenever we walked into their home
not quite so today
when plans are made
mostly at outside locales
the conversations guarded
idle banter, wit but less warmth
leaving heart feeling hollow inside
now there’s no such thing
as a 3am trusty friend
life as we knew it
has collapsed
16-January-2023
Las mujeres que cruzan el rio cada dia
forman una linea larga para la migra.
Muestran sus permisos -- tarjetas locales --
y vacian los contenidos de sus bolsas.
Cuando las preguntan sus destinos,
contestan con las frases que han ensayado:
quiero comprar pollo en especial,
o desea mi hijo zapatos tenis de Wal-Mart --
mientras sus patronas del dia acechan,
a prudente distancia, en sus camionetas guayin,
con los motores en marcha,
fumando impacientemente.
Otro Winston?
(For translation, see "About This Poem")
Creasing Out Happiness
My little luxuries of life I refuse to barter
With Solomon's or Queen Sheba's treasures
Its ecstasy bewitches and beguiles me
As pirates to laden vessels to surfeit
Scrubbed and freshened from bath salts
I prepare for my vintage treat
The shaded candles are lit while
The fragrance of jasmine incense sticks
Stabilise my flickering thoughts
And in a loose kaftan I take my seat
My fingers lightly move to click the button
Soft meditative music plays on for few hours
As I sit in my comfortable position relaxed
My eyelids drop allowing my thoughts
To travel into the past pains, present turmoils
Until they start enjoying the sonority
Of the babbling waters, the tweets and whistles
I think of the beautiful holidays I had with the family
In all the beautiful locales elevating my joys
The creases on my brow get unwrinkled
And the heart floats in nature's midst knowing only bliss
The hours pass and I float out of my transcendence
In a daze feeling as weightless as the air, and I breathe light
I neatly fold my Kashmiri carpet, feeling healed
After listening to the calm transcendence of the binaural waves
April 15, 2016
Happiness Of Life
For Nayda Ivette Negron
Fanatical Clerics feed religious fervour,
by rousing fanatics to kill - as an observer
can see almost daily on the TV today.
No thought given to victims, who they
regard as inconsequential in their quest
to become martyrs. When obsessed
by unscrupulous bigots who radicalise
these zealots with promises that hypnotise
and inflames them with a burning passion,
and incites them to commit deeds in a fashion
that all rational thinking men fear! Felo-de-se
is regarded as a badge of honour, and we see
callow youths seeking vainglory recognition,
joining the forces of evil! Without contrition
they engage in the casual slaughter of innocents!
To enact obscene atrocities they don garments
that conceal explosives, then infiltrate a throng,
to detonate their device, as their swan song!
By targetting busy locales in many cities,
they exact great loss of life, with such atrocities,
indiscriminately killing adults and children alike,
they leave survivors to grieve. Isis terrorists strike
at the core of democracy, hoping to promote strife
amongst ethnic groups, showing no sanctity for life:
not even their own! Such hated villains are despised!
These forces of evil, must even leave Satan surprised.
Rhymer. August 4th, 2016.
Felo-de-se - suicide
In numerous locales countrywide, they hold sway
Pirouetting at intervals like ballerinas from Bolshoi
Beauteous, feline and very feminine
Slender to the point of emaciation, not quite
Cultivating the undernourished look on a frugal diet
Decidedly austere for a longer tenure in the limelight
Basking in the fleeting warmth of an adulatory audience
A gathering of the doting kindred and the upwardly mobile
Some dirty old men on the sly, dirty young men too
Glued to their seats craning for a better view
By and large captive by choice, a handful perforce
Sitting through to pen their weekly column
Giving those they fancy their due in the sun
Witnesses to a parade of demure eyed lasses
And a few with flashy looks walking tall on stilettos
Essentially female and contoured though not prominently so
At least not to a marked degree, yet with excellent muscle tone
Opulence, no longer deemed a career necessity
Once considered right stuff, now rejected as wrong size
An hour-glass shape belonging to an age bygone
But hardly so, from the viewers’ mind, in retrospect
Enchanting and alluring yet not overtly titillating
Each in a state of dress and undress
Willing tools of designers flaunting their creations
Sporting dresses and hats and shoes, and lingerie too
In black or white and loud or subdued hues
Displaying formal wear, casual wear, swimsuits and sleep suits
Some scanty and figure hugging, others flowing and loose
A bony look required for some, others fulsome
A voyeur’s paradise, to be sure
Indulging a fetish without stooping too low
Chilly weather was never reason enough to cancel a show
Heat of arc-lamps taking care of goose pimples
Or brandy taken neat infusing the needed heat
Harbingers of tomorrow’s fashion and pall-bearers of today’s
The strobe lit platform of the pageant
Serving to launch new faces or is it legs?
The leggy look personified by Twiggy of yore
Carried through in the interim and sustained by the new genre
Captivating without doubt, and thorough professionals
Displaying unruffled demeanour and tutored bearing of thoroughbreds
Exuding confidence with every graceful step they take
Cool as ice despite the harsh glare of stage lights
And callous catcalls from boorish males
Performing in a backdrop of future fashion trends
Money and fame finding some, eluding others
Be it centre stage or in the shadows
It is bread on the catwalk for all
octave of forty words
Forty years - man and wife
long time friends celebrate life
on holiday, pure pleasure bound
four couples, eight countries found.
City ruins, castles, churches, canals,
lots of leisure, legendary locales,
river bends and mountain peaks,
whirlwind journey, two short weeks.
written 24 January 2016
I grew this big thing to impress the gals
I knew that it would get back to my pals,
saw the jealousy coming
but I just keep on humming...
finding Narwhal love in many locales.
For "Impress me with a NARWHAL poem" by SKAT A
On caparisoned, filleted camels do they
Over the great, soft, tawny sands
Ride;
Unfurled flags and tribal standards flown amidst them,
In the very midst of them-
Of they, who astride great tan camels,
Seem rather scandent and saltant.
These are the irregular, well-armed cavalry of the
"Men In Ambush," for such is the literal translation of their
Nation's cognomen;
And on the sands of the undulant, granular, eminent
Near-Judean wilderness do they ride.
Photographing these from atop the vespertine-hued
Summit of a delivery truck from the nearby
Eminent, circumvallatory, hilly
And fortressed city;
From the very roof of an antiquated bread truck
(Though 'twas then very new by the standards of those bygone days)
Whose radiator is soon to vaporously explode
Amid the oppressive, anhydrous desert heat,
Photographs an American, hatted in the whitest
Of Panama hats, who is a correspondent reporting of wars.
The Arab cavalry ride for locales
Damascene, in order to pursue one's kingly wish
To renew the gardens Cordovan and long-vanished.
Why can't I write a poem
'bout every shade of color
kaleidoscope sunsets and brilliant blooms
Why's my imagery so much duller ...
Why can't I write a poem
'bout steamy love affairs
where breathless paramours explore
locales no eagle dares ...
Why can't I write a poem
in metric symmetry
Well, I know why ~ If I did that
I'd lose my identity
One by one they left the nest
Daughters and sons
Their time at home done
Let the old man rest
They all started their lives
In brand-new locales
Called him once a week
Vowed to stay pals
But the calls became fewer
They had jobs and kids too
No time to reminisce
Their lives were exciting and new
He had his interests, they figured
His own circle of friends
So they forgot all about him
Blatantly -- didn't even pretend
To care that he missed them so much
That all he asked for was to just keep in touch
That he was pining away, becoming depressed
A forgotten man, no longer blessed...
So late in the evening of his final birthday
Sitting by the phone, to hope and to pray
He put a gun to his temple, for no one had called
This forgotten man, for whom was felt nothing at all
[In UK English, Bath sounds like Barf not Baff, Laugh is Larf, not Laff etc. Apologies if the rhyme fails in other locales]
Don’t pull the plug out when you’re sitting in the bath
If you do the devil’s imps are gonna have a laugh
You'll be sucked down the plughole and you’ll squeeze around the bend
And you’ll be in the hot place when you get to journey’s end
Don’t pull the plug out when you’re sitting in the bath
Whether you’re a school kid or the navy’s chief of staff
Beneath the soapy water with that plughole looking wider
You see a leg, then three, then six, a massive hairy spider
So when you're sitting in the bath, please do not pull the plug
That tiny little whirlpool’s gonna make you go glue glug
If it grabs your biggest toe and yet you pull it free
That big rat on the end of it is having tootsie tea
So if you’ve pulled the plug out and got sucked out of the bath
You’ll need to grab some flotsam to construct yourself a raft
They empty all the sewers out into the seven seas
The message in that bottle reads ‘did you wash your knees?’
And then it says, I see you pulled the plug out when you shouldn’t
I tried to pop it back in but the danger meant I couldn’t
You might think going down the plug hole would be quite a lark
But in the bath (and please don’t laugh) we’ve got a great white shark.
14 April 2021
Contest: Nursery Rhyme (or kids story) 4
Sponsor: Eve Roper
'My thoughts are with you'
What does that mean
Can we send our mind's notions
to locales we've not been
Yet I feel we can
if by this is what's meant
The thoughts I send with you
~ for aye given, never lent
She's the enemy to whom I've yet to be
Formally introduced --
Her sites set on my
Tennis bracelet or clutch...
She glowers.
There's something off about her hair
It's color strange and unreasonable.
She dons a skirt too short
And tight for one her age --
My age.
Her colors loud and far too bold
For this town.
She stares me down like I would flinch,
As though intimidating me would be an
Easy job.
Here's what we can't tell:
She's a child of the Bronx.
A survivor.
It will take much more than
Undivided attention
To cause cowering.
Don't force it.
She despises on principle
Though of which one I'm uncertain...
Probably doesn't like that
We are of the same stage in life
Relatively
And unusually surrounded on
This subway
By a majority who happen
To be of approximately
The same range, age-wise.
Not the usual youth of Beantown
Who seem to own this city
(Or think they do)
Transplants from other locales
Here for educations
Or jobs, or beer,
Or whatever opportunities come their way
To seize upon and take from us.
Why are we not on the same side?
These rides serve no
Purpose other than
Perhaps to bear witness to still lives
And words set upon portable devices --
Commutes and communions
Of little consequence
Other than the fact that
Moving through space and time
Reminds us that we're still
Alive.
RUFFLED FEATHERS
We tramp through tall grass
water up to our ass
to disturb wild, winged creatures
and to photograph their awesome features.
We use the greek and latin names
when speaking to our pals
We chase birds from one nest
to strange and poor locales.
We are boorish, giggling louts
disturbing babies with our shouts
poking through their domains
and others thereabouts.
We ruffle their feathers
and disturb sleep and feeding
we jeopardize their habitats
and upset natural breeding.
We have a lot of fun
at winged creatures expense
to get the best of pictures
we climb the neighbor's fence
We trade pictures and stories
about the birds we've seen
But I think that this behavior
is boorish and obscene.