Best Lumens Poems
Hashish smoke trails her
along a dusky corridor
Aka the hall of fires
where mirage chimeras unleash
Encumbered with hands splayed
her crystal ball lumens
wires ghostly apparitions
mnemonic attachments
What mystery ensues
a phantasmagoria
of horror nudging
the demonic
Sitters drenched
in profuse sweat
fainting one by one
Alas unconscious
their fate met?
Coroners couldn’t ‘ve clarified
Described as an arctic chill
bolting across the sector
through each limp body
claiming mortality
As icy temps rise
Hypothermia responsible!
for the fatality, for their demise
Latter days professing onto
recordings of a gathering that took place
confessing that a séance
performed by a mysterious woman
in a trance—was the case.
The
Moon is waxing
First quarter crescent
The beckoning begins
Nodding, gurgling
Opening realms unseen
to the naked eye
Madame
Mystic, psychic,
a beguiling storyteller
and Medium
Down in a cellar, along with a Ouija
volumes of her writings discovered
delving into société espirita
The Goldilocks of the occults
Esoteric subjects,
a burgeoning interest
Astral travels,
unexplained laws of nature,
powers latent in man
Madame channeled
ascended masters
The Voice of the Silence
The Two Paths
The Seven Portals
"gifts" from the specters
This time Madame stands
to receive between intervals
and only he is seated
Warning him of dark spirits
a dimension outside
of our physical time-space reality
shadowing, making absence
of light a necessity
To invoke them
another nod
Continues unabated
Reveal the truth!
By sacred decree, by order
Behind the phenomenon
details of schemes came to light
Denounced as Black Magic
she was no longer to fright
Marked as a fraud
it all a façade
The moon is waning
Third quarter
Crumpled Thoughts
They wait – in hues of vibrating silence -
Like leftover orts of rumpled paper wimples
On creased clandestine journal pages –
Bent scraps of wrinkled inspiration
Smudged moments held in their one moment of time
Musings fading to illegible
Lost chords in treasured memories of radiance,
Sunspots of incomplete illumination,
Or crumpled creativity on paper wings
Snapshots of raw moments in tormented terror
Footprint creased signatures of incensed avenging angels
For abandoned ragged beggars in pencil
Of partial tidings
Wearing incomplete tatters of disturbed serenity
Waiting – lined up – for their turn to speak –
Vying for resuscitation
As actors reading their scripts –
Players auditioning for ideas
Of ice castles throwing off anonymity
Whistling like nonchalant sentimental journeys
In phases of the moon begging for words
Libretti confronting notes wandering in obscurity
Impatient plans in fits of tantrum’s flight
Residue of fantasies for
Gypsy fortuneteller’s phantasmal globes
Rescued by ruminations tender muse
With the gift of time to take them from her
Nurturing womb into full life and maturity –
Blinking in the brightness of real time
Bits and snatches adjust sight from consecrated darkness
To lumens brightness of looming footlights
Now taking bows in postmarks of epilogues -
Snatched from wondrous oblivion -
Profiles sketched in hope’s penumbra.
1-11-21
Contest: Crimpled Thoughts
Sponsor: John Lawless
Love, I get love is more than a game the young play,
It is life one commits, not caged bird ‘shopped’ to mine
In the hope lives are saved that don’t sleep in harm’s way!
How can chemistry alter what man can’t refine?
Love is more than a look or a flirt in a mall
And is much more than cash you can steal, spend, or earn.
More accrued by a talent that’s honed by each fall,
Than by lumens discharged when we spark, or hearts burn!
Is it love that we’ve found when acquaintances flatter?
Does sharing a hobby like tennis or eating suggest
Love might be in the offing? Is love more a matter
Of saying, “Love look! I am here (with no test or retest)!
You are inside my borders, beyond reservation,
All love’s where you find it! Can ‘Grace’ be the child of ‘Intent?’
It’s like tropical moisture, trees rain the foundation
For life that surrounds, or can ‘Grace’ be constrained by consent?
Is it people who serve me or those I best serve
Who shine light on God’s leading when ‘push comes to shove?’
Do those get more who give love away or conserve?
Is the servant or fool more ‘admirer’ of Love?
Love, I know what I want, and I want it today!
What I prize most of all? To be Grace to your dreams,
To Grace others, engaged by time’s Author’s staged play
Where poor actors have roles their mute action redeems!
Brian Johnston
4th of September in 2019
Haiku 105
ten-thousand lumens
reset my inner rhythms
winter’s dusky light
12.16.2013
gone back to nature
plants overtaking the streets
nothing to wager
no fannies in too small seats
no more televised repeats
nothing new to learn
knowledge without a future
only time to burn
always idle computers
no new wounds needing sutures
airplanes are all still
no one's borders being crossed
no steaks on the grill
no more items to defrost
nothing's gained when all things lost
meters keep running
no demand for solutions
nothing is cunning
no bulbs creating lumens
Planet Earth void of humans
We dance the confines of our far apart
as though the distance was a normal thing
of cages now estopping lumens' touch
in empires of imperial decree
where lawful ownership is thus allowed
of geometric shapes though air we breath
and blood pulsating does each ampere haunt
in order to preserve the ruling see.
But each time I'm denied the warmth of touch
I feel the dying of my human soul
in algorithms of a bastard psalm
now written thus a darkness could then drain
the very essence keeping it in place.
We have but hope we of the people kind
against the plasma lacking in their ilk,
but hold the ancient yearnings in our watts.
Our tears are but the echoes of the verse
that bound us in millenia now past
but since the onion skin was put to flame
or so the elders tell us in the runes,
our future is now prayers to opal ash
that once glowed with the prophets' DNA
since passed to us as chosen ones of light,
extinguished for their once brave-spoken truth.
Let's take the tinglings few that we can feel,
imagining a world of verdant past.
We'll keep the currents as the spawn of faith
and pray the vibrant land will reappear.
If gloom descends; Capsicum appends:
Removing dooms in plumes of red lumens.
Biological conversion from stagnation to movement.
Shaman, brother, lover, friend.
Bold holistic resolute.
Unequivocally coalesced in this; a magnificent fruit.
Human minds muse the light
fire thoughts to the mind sky.
Fools flail for all their might
angry screams hide each cry.
To view the true sole source
take longs looks at the sun.
See earth's lasting first force
its rays can't be undone.
Dark dreams occur at night
while there's no sun up high.
Atoms fuse lumens bright
wise ones won't tell us why.
Myths are spun by the sages
unsure advice to try.
Faith filled tales through the ages
many truths to deny.
We all live with some fright
nature needs to be heard.
Hope that we do what's right
light shines the final word.
107 words rhyme 6/2022 Pen illustration: G. Gaul
Quasi-Humanistic genesis theory of the cosmos
focusing on the sun's light energy.
Inspired by Gustav Dore, Salvador Dali illustrations
and the teachings of the Buddha.
Irradiated in corner rooms; they talk in sun drenched whispers,
Neath the sullen pines they lurk among the void
Hope
Less
This varies, but they see the light shining down; touch forehead, look down.
Assuage the lot of them fears,
Pray
More
This varies, but they see the light of his crown; the absolute, the unknown
Who knows a lot of their fears,
Affliction
Lit fire burns those left behind.
Peace
lumens of wishes for boys and girls
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
Ashamed like a tree
by the wind bent
angry like the wind
that did the bending
neither I or my friend
could remember
the words in the poem
we had read.
On the cruelty of
the assignment
mulling in bed
wouldn't composing
be better than
the parroting?
But at nine decided
would best go sleep
and the adults obey.
Astonished
on awaking next day
every word
had surfaced to my head
like interest given free
by the bank
or seeds sown in
and next day
myriads of flowers
rainbow green
on a carpet blown in by wind.
Lumens angels of the night
power dreams
shine bright
when the heart is asleep
fears unearthing
past errors reveal
so history itself
wouldn't repeat
with warnings veiled
in terror
to unscramble
a car crashing icy roads
may predict
running away from
a monster may mean
to returns and embrace
to heal.
Unrestrained by heart's
fear or greed
sleep walks
where he wants unseen
finding pieces of puzzles
truth reveals
only when the reason is asleep.
Stars and moon shine only
in the dark
when the sun is asleep.
Stray meteoric passion’s red hot beam
fire-wires moonlight dervish in a bold splash
clouds of glitter coat my sweetheart’s gleam
as solar powered pulse rates cut a dash
welder’s arc vapours rise from pure raw ash
us copper tinted fiery orbs ablaze
melt first flush easels with our brimstone rays
spiral eye bright lumens fuse galactic
species skyline sweltered rapt current phase
with torch bearer incense so ecstatic
Date poem created : 10 August 2020
Title : Incandescence
Sponsor : Edward Ibeh
How many lumens would it take to burn you
Sky-clad and free under the pale moonlight
Would your aching bleached skin cry in relief
Feeling anything in the dark of night again?
How long has it been since the full moon shone?
Have ten years slipped away so easily?
It's been longer than it hasn't by now
And has been for quite some time
Reaching for where it once shone bright
I took a piece of that stone within me
It's been so long since I've needed it
Yet I took its name as my very own
Shimmering crimson in gray half-light
Artifice that stopped being relevant even in its heyday
Yet tints my vision to this very day
Did I want you or want to be you?
There's a different stench in the air now
So high above the same town you shone over
It's bitter cold and smells of the sea
And myriad streetlights look like distant stars
My liver's stronger than I gave it credit for
But I certainly never tested it like you
It all felt like ancient history that night
And that night is even older now
What a brilliant scar upon my corneas
To stare at a moon as bright as the sun
Unflinching, unyielding
Just eager for the bowl of soup we shared
I've made my own light since then
Followed it to the darkest corners of home and Hell
Yet for a moment, I could smell your shine again
And it made me set up camp for the night
Where does the moon wander on nights like this?
So high above home, I still can't fathom your view
What must it be like to see continents like this?
And grant the slightest burn to my night-pale skin?
we both knew
you had me
at first glance.
weak in an instant
was I,
then...
I collapsed
and shattered
into you.
Irresistible charms galore
ooze out your pores,
glowing thousands of lumens
in your eyes.
They gazed into mine,
trapped, I saw
no escape.
I knew,
we both did,
that you had
me.
Shambling alone on the periphery of human warmth
Shorn of friendship
Ostracized from faith
Limited in contacts to nuclear kinship
Sausage-linked by an umbilical cord
In aeons
Saturated with discord
In the darkness away from candelas lumens of neons
Reduced to a bag of misery bones
Away from feelings
In war-weary zones
Teeming with sleazy dealings
Fed up with life
Terrorized by famine
Enveloped in knife led strife
In portions of guanine
In the DNA inherited
From dotting parents I love
Greeted and treated
With respect on Earth and from above
But, I feel so forlorn
Although I pretend to be happy
When on my own
I feel within my soul so unloved, unwanted and utterly unhappy.