Best Lustered Poems
When Light needed a body to behold, and color to kiss,
as Darkness dreamnt to die in the dawn of depth,
when Soul lustered to lust for learning, and being learned,
as blood bespoke to bones for building a star of flesh,
when Time needed the umbrage of it's ubiquity to be understood,
the moment texture tempted touch to tease with a thousand sensations,
when laws of love sought a language to express the extremes of it's lips,
as romance rampaged through the ravishings of famished hearts,
when the seduction of sorrow made heros of loving men and women,
When Justice appealed to the instincts of intent for inscriptions of innocence,
as bravery found battle in basic questions of survival and conquest,
when war demanded a metaphor in the terror of it's diligent destruction,
as Faith found resolve in seconds small along with giant gestures,
Death singing melancholy for sympathy and Life haughty upon it's horizon,
when Angels chose to wear albatross of gold to feel the rue of rogues,
as the most perfect woman ambushed the ideals of rumored beauty,
when God wanted imagination to create immaculate reality
Poetry began, born in the instant of forever Art,
because, the only promise of a Poet, is Passion -
Dedicated to Poetry...J.A.B.
In my hunger,
I saw a hallucination of heaven.
From afar, visions of a golden glow,
lustered, lingering above a crowded crossroad.
This aura of agave aromatherapy,
left an amorous aroma of romantic ruminations,
so I became a devotee, desiring her divinity.
But, such was her evanescent existence,
those effervescent eyes now seem ephemeral.
Adrift in the angst of absence,
I feel the lament of an autumn leaf,
yearning to be evergreen, clinging to your stalk.
Or to sharpen and shape like a tenacious thorn,
honouring your rosso corsa, roseate radiance.
If I was a polyamorous poet,
my abundance of adjectives and alliterations,
would be disloyal like daylight,
so my vibrant vocabulary vows to
allegorise you in my anthology of analogies.
My mellifluous muse, I care not if
your verses are vintage or virginal,
as you are my most memorable metaphor -
the assonance to compliment my consonance.
In your majestic moonlight, I'm fluorescent,
portraying a perpendicular penumbra,
craving for you like a citrine crescent
hoping to become complete.
I'm a bard with a baritone ballad,
blossoming words like spring sepals,
into a boundless bouquet for my beloved,
so remove the veil behind your verbs and
reveal your velvet vermilion lips once more.
There is an alluring art to an aubade.
In an aureolin and amethyst aurora,
our lantern of love will forever scintillate,
serenading in smooth and soothing susurrus sounds,
soaring in a serene sapphire sky,
ascending like a saffron sunrise sonata
and if cumbersome clouds,
colour horizons in charcoal,
delicately descend, pouring in holy drops,
soaking my soul like spilling ink
on unblemished ivory fibers.
The wonder of your smile is always there,
just like you gave me on that special day,
when first I saw you on my front porch stair-
your smile imprinted in my heart to stay.
Just as in spring and summer long ago,
and then in later years, your smile assured
my joy of knowing our love stayed aglow-
and now, past autumn years, have still endured.
The sparkle of your smile from first-love throes,
and blissful wedding day we said 'I do',
still lingers in my heart, although now shows
a special glaze from winter’s weathered hue.
The wonder of your smile- those early years,
that glowed with brilliance like untarnished gold-
became my treasured prize and now appears
with warm patina-sheen as we grow old.
Though years have flown and age has had its way-
your antique smile now etched with lines anew,
and lustered with the wear of each new day
brings priceless meaning to my love for you.
Lips lustered with Venus-enchantment flirt as
Imagineer steers your swoon to the Moon on a love song..
Beyond oneness with another, the lover and artiste
Relishes color in counterpoise to white rising light, and so flows
Abstracts across a sunrise canvas to laud a treaty ‘tween night and day
Susan Ashley
April 8, 2021
*aesthete: a person who has a special appreciation of art and beauty.
*imagineer: a person who is skilled in implementing creative
ideas into practical form. A Blend of imagine and engineer.
Poet’s note: not for a contest but inspired by the “Star Sign Acrostics” poetry contest sponsored by Charlotte Puddifoot.. Thank you, Charlotte, for the wonderful inspiration. I’m sorry I missed out on entering your contest.
The noise broils over in the heat
And spread out like wares along the street
The haze of crowd, the jungled feet
Fresh scent of soil and the aroma sweet
I see the bright cloths, and the fashion shows
The haggling voices and their temptations
The big Trelawny yams that twin footed grows
The paltry cents of private hesitations
The market is abloom and abundance tease
The native hunger from its native ease.
There is guinep, the same we cracked
At school, a single seed to feed a twenty pack
The hog plums and the apples red, stacked
Like a lean-to shack, melons dripping and the sack
Of cherry tomatoes besides carrots on the mat
Two orange in bags and the eggs in their flat
Cabbages plump and green callaloo fresh and fat
Mangoes early, and seasonings for the pot
The magic of eyes the sleright of nose, the taste
That tells us how much to know goodness we haste
And among all this passion of colors, this fragrance
Of fruits, I see a richer, sweeter elegance
Our people bright giving this place its romance
Women subtle of eyes, whose bodies dance
Like fireflies around a shaded lamp, and men bold
Though bent beneath their unforgiving loads, hold
Work sovereign and do not crringe from sun and sweat
The building is dingy with crumbling walls and parapet
But like the lustered fruits that in cadence to the call
Rise above the struggle turning back the ancient fall
Softly silver snow sifts, soundless,
lattice-like, a lacquered lace of layering light,
startling sparrows, shyly shivering for shelter,
on leafless, lustered limbs - lancets, londonite.
November 28, 2017
For Alliteration Contest
How could I sense when people are in need of hugs?
I always had that loving heart
Now what happened to it?
I'm in big trouble...ragged with loathe
My hugs don't hold the same feelings
It chokes the living from their shelter
It makes them weak...I slowly swelter
If I offered you a hug,
Will you accept it
Or leave me hanging there?
How could I sense when people are in need of hugs?
I always have had that loving heart
Now what happened to the love that shields us all?
How did this horrid situation tear us all apart?
My hugs hold no importance...lacking desire
It only feeds the fire
Not the helpless in heart
It clusters annoyance in the soul
If I offered you a hug,
Will you accept it?
or leave me hanging there?
Now I'm lustered in wrath...
I fear that dad will lose you
Just over a single hug given by him...
Your affectionate embraces feel so grim
Restrain from losing yourself
Accept his hugs that hold such guiltless charity
Free from faithless arguments...don't hold on to worthless words
If he offered you a hug,
Will you accept it
Or leave him hanging there in the freezing cold?
His hugs aren't sold
Like a piece of perishable gold
To an ignorant form just like you
It holds freedom...it's all true
If he offered you a hug,
Accept them and appreciate his offer
Because he doesn't dwell on the negativity
Feel free to say your last goodbyes
But, remember us as our family departs...and dies
If He offered you a hug,
Will you accept it
Or leave Him hanging there in the freezing cold
Without His healing arms
Cradling you and your family throughout the furious night?
If he offered you a hug,
Will you accept it
Or leave him hanging there?
It wouldn't be a dissappointment
If you would willingly
Accept his hugs
We would be drowning with excitement
If you would certainly
Accept OUR hugs
Less lustered now, the once proud sheen
Of that silken-petaled rose,
As from the wilting touch of a hundred hands
Its fragrance, festered flows.
I Silently sipping the last limping remains of wine
within the crumbling confines of my glass.
guiltlessly glistening in the amorous arms of evergreen.
Lonesomely, my eyes lift themselves
up from my blackened
blue brass bottle of bitterness
and gradually grows aware
of the arid aristocratic atmosphere.
Lustered with the luminous larks
who lurk within the numbing neon
nature of the iridescent nightlife.
But among these unfruitful flocks
feebly flutters the faint fanciful feathers of the frigid finch.
Who still sternly staggers his weakened way through the
world’s wishful
word woven woodlands of what if towards the eternally
terminal edge
of mortality.
In search of an answer
patiently perched upon the topic of
what light lingers within the relieving realms of truth.
I hope the shadow of my soul
is clear and present to be seen
And that it fits around the world
to smile in all its lustered sheen
I wish for it to know no bounds
for being one and one for all
And ready for what lies ahead
when spinning off this great blue ball
A soul I think, must know the truth
and so in comfort I remain
Though understanding shuns me now
that one day it is mine to gain
So when I leave and say goodbye
and wing my way unto the sun
When ashes scatter in the breeze
and all the worry said and done
If but one thing I hope remains
as gentle as the skies above
I hope with my still beating heart
the shadow of my soul is love
The dawning of being
In a lustered curl of gray,
And the the Divine loves
Of your smile,
And the rhyme of doves,
Cures, for awhile.
With a wallet full of plastic ...
credit cards to shape my social classification
phone cards so I can stay informed
a debit card that always goes in debt
a card declaring my citizenship and identification
a card insuring me good health, long life and liberty
gift cards that help curb my defamation
The more I owe, the more I glow dimly
All caught up in attaining the American Dream
Yet pale and lustered from self-affirmation
That it’s okay to be lost and confused
That it's okay to be me, not alone in
Paying homage to a false god that sucks
Souls and drains my pocketbook into the red
With lots and lots of stuff
I can’t take with me when I’m dead
There was, once upon a time
When “In God We Trust” was the norm
Card sharking, once illegal, considered a scam
Something only criminal minds or the mob would dare
Is now commonplace and no one seems to care
That it’s all consuming, eating us alive
Of all what is left of any dignity
At an alarming high percentage rate
With fake news and empty promissory notes
And the only cost is to conform
To having counterfeit consciousness
As conscientious as confetti
I’m flabbergasted and plasticized.