Best Masques Poems
Archetypes flash straight from a pack of Tarot cards
anti-terror Jing Jang synthesis with neuro-spiritual precision
implants explosive animation from the deep unknown
like a taro rootstock growing wings to fly with found suspension
Stereotactic stereotypes archetypes semi-circling soothing storm clouds
thunderbolts and enlightening darkness are my enema of anxious anger critique
of the mono-morph collision of the scalpel shadow ‘Prozacian’ nemesis
neology of ‘animusity’ of ‘newfoundlandel’ comprehension
Dialectical complementation rises higher and higher culminates in
ethereal transcendence where collective personal unconscious
presents my animus in wishful thinking and projections as
soft and gentle revel rebel raising entropy in tender conservation to escape from
Dogma categorically demanding artificial classification replacing with dimension
flow and rivers stagnant pools of stream of consciousness evading
sexist fragmentation disenfranchising marginalisation assigning male
and female emasculated o-variation where seminal origin implantation
Precedes nurture socialised indoctrination assignment of celibate promiscuity
My animus refuses to accept in emotional rejection whether Jung and I read
symbols from the same page or not of masques façades and liberated self
where academic artistry split hairs and personality for the premise of debate
I am a rebel and claim no higher lower ground of superior distension
He or she who animates friendly animosity is right and incorrect whatever
common ground belies the provocation I propose but possibly my
presentation of what others mean in kindness is too neutral neuters psyche
While anima and animus illustrate conclude a symbiotic destination
the starting point of this and that left right up above and side by side
is far too circular an argument when we should start not end in union
Male and female are constructions of disparity of power and repression
Archetypes are not therefore I am
11th June 2016
Animus-Anima Part II—Animus – Poetry Contest
Sponsor Tom Quigley
Categories:
masques, men, society, women,
Form:
Free verse
The great tempter tries, subtly, watching us, lurking to lure.
Preparing, waiting to dazzle us, in times we are unsure.
His flames dance so beautifully, as we watch we are in awe.
Warm and seducing, calling our names,
They seem to have no flaw.
Rising now, the fire you see will try to take you in,
Inviting you to his den of iniquity, to live once more in sin.
Closer now we feel the heat, as flames begin to rise.
They take the form of hands and then they pull you by surprise.
Do not give in to the deadly one, grab on to the lifelines you know.
This fire will engulf you so fast, and cease your chance to grow.
It’s there and waits quite patiently, being on your guard’s a must!
His masques are quite deceiving, you know, he’s not the one to trust!
Michelle D.
©8/12/10
Categories:
masques, visionaryfire, fire,
Form:
Rhyme
Crowds and noise and people enthralled me
When I had deciduous teeth.
And a simple thought of loneliness
Engendered collywobbles in me.
How amicable people look when viewed with jejune eyes!
Blanketing all kinds under pristine
and untarnished label
Without contemplations and with profound celebrations,
Labelling the sweeter tongues 'good'
And tactless simpletons 'deride'.
Perhaps it was the age of innocence!
It afflicted my eyes with myopia
Hindering my childish wisdom for masques
As one after another, the deciduous white pearls fell
They did shake my bygone edifice of sagacity
With each new rise, my style of mastication changed
Sometimes to the left
Sometimes to the right
My food could not be chewed with stability
Sometimes the hollowness after the fallen tooth engendered agony
And in the artless custom of childhood, I believed all......
Then with time, the new convictions came
Enamels with more glint and rock-like firmness
With age, it pondered and with 'relations' it was illustrative
'That people are not always they appear!!'
'Their words are not always what they sounded!!'
But by that age, I was one of them
Deceptive in deed and sardonic in words
Perhaps it was the stage of Adulthood!!
Categories:
masques, age, conflict, confusion, deep,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
All you have to do is waiting,
To listen to the wind rumble,
Like poor elephants,
All you have to do is waiting,
Sealed in our rooms,
Praying for his slate roof,
Praying for the wires,
I can no longer pray to God,
In the light of a candle,
All you have to do is waiting,
Just pray for the neighbors,
All you have to do is wait,
Thinking about my mom
Alone in his cemetery,
She hears the wind rumbling,
All you have to do is waiting,
Listening to the wind howl,
Decide our fate, our homes
Decide on boats at sea,
Decide on the light
All you have to do is waiting,
May God be merciful?
May heaven forgive us?
May the trees forgive us?
Just wait till tonight,
The masks have fallen,
The storm has captured our souls.
Il n’y a qu’à attendre,
Qu’à écouter le vent gronder,
Comme de pauvres éléphants,
Il n’y a qu’à attendre,
Calfeutrés dans nos chambres,
En priant pour son toit d’ardoises,
En priant pour les fils électriques,
Je ne sais plus prier Dieu,
À la lumière d’une bougie,
Il n’y a qu’à attendre,
Il n’y a qu’à prier pour les voisins,
Il n’y a qu’à attendre,
En pensant à ma maman
Seule dans son cimetière,
Elle entend le vent gronder,
Il n’y a qu’à attendre,
En écoutant le vent hurler,
Décider de notre sort, de nos maisons
Décider des bateaux en mer,
Décider de la lumière
Il n’y a qu’à attendre,
Que Dieu soit clément,
Que le ciel nous pardonne,
Que les arbres nous pardonnent,
Il n’y a qu’à attendre cette nuit,
Les masques sont tombés,
La tempête a capturé nos âmes.
Categories:
masques, courage, storm, wind,
Form:
Free verse
The hour matters none ... for the energies have exhausted.
In the year of our Lord ... nineteen hundred and twelve, April fifteenth.
Writes a future living star ... wish their joys so he may shine.
'Tis to be a deliberate endeavor ... they call life.
An unaccountable ledger of sums ... know he the worth of it.
For in that great beyond is an opened book ... ere his youth.
There'd be certain measures that wretched body ... once unmasked.
Natures of a retired validity ... that aloof vainglory.
Tarries an elusive shell ... the semblance of human sorts.
A cub sponged in denizens hound ... the spoils of settled earth.
Masques of the poor scores yon ... and indifference spared them from their kind.
Their pain slices him whole ... in this grand finale of truth.
The role he crawl from under ... frees a den's claimed orphaned cub.
He conformed to their ways ... indulgence begets an awakening.
De-sands a timepiece from Giza ... transforms the silent lamb.
Qualities of Osiris ... no longer foxes kinsman.
Without manipulative truth ... mainly defines reality.
Loss crept e'er so close ... as circumstances affront him now.
The iniquities ... recorded in that hallowed ledger,
He lay claim to its authenticity ... 'twas him who'd inflicted;
upon those who were of wickedness ... and the righteous few.
He included self ... in self-afflictions of great numbers,
wherever the blame may lie ... be it concerning his existence,
thereupon points those sharpened fingers ... deserving of it.
Repentance for his sins ... subjugated through crying eyes.
His life for another ... sans a name or a face in lieu of tears.
They shared the deafening silence ... two muted distinct smiles.
One in tears looked onward ... to a face of blessed assurance.
The last boat edges off into the dark ... desperation arose.
A great clamoring ascends ... into the bitter abyss.
The hymn, "Nearer My God to Thee," ... the chaos stops to song.
Ships officer calls out, ... "Abandon ship, every man for themselves."
Lost lamb hopes his roll's called up yonder ... as his last words read ...
Categories:
masques, anxiety, courage, death, emotions,
Form:
Sijo
Everyday Heroes
Let’s talk about everyday Heroes
Ordinary people like you and I
People who do not always win
But are always willing to try.
People who go on everyday
Making a positive contribution to all
Doing their jobs as best they can
Standing proud, straight and tall
Firemen are unsung heroes
Braving the wicked smoke and flame
To save your lives and property
Their bravery always the same.
The policemen protect our vital laws
And puts criminals in jails
To save us all from constant danger
Their courage seldom fails.
Teachers educate our children all
To improve our future world
To read and write, subtract and add
The history of our nation we are always told.
The preachers of our local churches,
Masques, Synagogues ad Temples
Are always ready to listen and help
And teach us by example.
The doctors, nurses and volunteers
Keep our hospitals working hard
Saving lives and giving aide
Help is never very far.
Construction workers, engineers, scientists et al
Consultants, coaches, pilots and their crews
Soldiers, sailors and drivers in their trucks
All contribute to our nation by freely expressing their views.
Those who volunteer their time
To make this world a better place
Helping those in times of need
Regardless of creed or race.
They are our unsung heroes
Who always help us to find our way
Who deserve some recognition
Each and everyday
So raise your voices so you are heard
And praise your friends old and new
And thank your Lord high above
For unsung heroes like you!
Categories:
masques, uplifting,
Form:
She understands the wind in all its fancies;
First born of all our lives in transition
Sheer elegance becomes a metaphor transparent,
To always be a Dancer in the woods.
She lives inside herself and revels in the freedom.
Her isolation green and softly shining
Incandescent perfection,
Sometimes in anger without understanding
Shame the One who bought the rain...
And let the Northern Winds of Ice
Explain the cost of lies in pain.
She, who would shimmer in the silence
Of perfect selection
Far beyond the boundaries we lay before her
Hopefully waiting behind their masques....
To watch her stepping over words
As if they would soil her heart's desire.
She understands the wind in all its fancies;
From all directions real and imagined..
And she has heard it weeping
In languages only she can understand...
She walks alone
Along a path only the Southern Wind can show her
And speaks in earnest of Life's painful questions
Within the Western valleys...
She walks alone....
She understands the Winds...
She understands.
Categories:
masques, freedom, metaphor, , western,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
I look within my bag, and baggage more unquenched desires.
N erve wrecking mental state, thus illogically surmounts.
T he wisdom of sages to simplify life ends in absurd futility.
R ather than emptying my burden, I trudge along heavier.
O ptimistic spirits flag at half mast with added expectations.
S oul's agony increases as all choices seem primordial.
P eople and their superimposed views ironically carry more value.
E ach breath, thus hisses heavily to keep up that image with fleeting time.
C aution is blown asunder with the pleasurable deluge of being constantly affected.
T ransparency through our traits help us to know ourselves better for intellectual purity
I nner view of our dilemmas and ripping apart our masques is essential to peace.
O ur own self awareness has to be critically analysed to realise what is to be valued.
N onetheless, self introspection is a beep which debates to create order out of chaos.
June 24, 2016
For John Hamilton
Introspection-Acrostic
Categories:
masques, desire, peace,
Form:
Acrostic
Wiz Away
I entered the empty funeral hall.
Am I not at the correct memorial gathering in visitation room H?
“Excuse me, sir, but is this the memorial for Mr. Wizby?
There is not a posting besides the entrance.”
“Never fear, you will soon behold…”
What? I think, seeing nothing around me—not a flower vase or a picture.
“Never fear”, the director says once more.
Odd, I think.
A knock and a rumble of voices echo outside this room.
What’s up? when guests—who are they? prance along the waxed floor, strange masks floating about a sea of wild frocks.
“Who may you all be?”I ask, bewildered—is that a ferret wrapped like a scarf?about the pig-tailed girl with dirty feet?
A falcon perches on the threadbare arm of a midget.
“Who may you all be?”I ask, yet again.
A tall, bespeckled man cartwheels to my side.
”We are the Pennywhistle Circus, who knew of old Wizby well.
Pray, who may you be?”
“I am Ian, his grandson.”
Cartwheel-Man bird-whistles to a bearded portly man standing next to the door. He holds a foggy beaker in his gloved hand and a stethoscope dangles from his neck amid a snowy beard.
“Ah, Binky! So glad you have come!”
“Reggie, I see you have grown taller since last I saw you.”
“Ah, Binky! The marvelous elixir you gifted me was a welcome surprise.
Alas, my pet lizard partook of the vial, growing beyond measure, and thus, died.”
“Everyone, gather near, as Mr. Wizby is finally here.”
Wrapped in peacock feathers, Wiz was quite a sight.
Porcupine quills crowned his pink bald head.
The midget sidled near to pluck a feather, unraveling
old Wiz.
“Oh, dear!” chortled Cartwheel-Man.
Ferret-Scarf poked his wiggling body amid the dancing feathers bathing the room. Midget-Man’s falcon perched atop old Wiz.
What folly is this?” a voice graveled out from once-dead old Wiz
“You take my death lightly, so “poof, be gone, as I am the Magic-Man.”
Wiz leapt into a pile of frocks and masques, shouting
“I have returned, never fear, Wizby lives on for yet
another year.”
Categories:
masques, age, crazy, magic,
Form:
Narrative
Masques, ruses, and facades
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Be careful don't be fooled by smiles and facades
Of false interest and concern
The deepest wounds inflicted are by those most beloved
It's truly no way to live, too many place themselves beyond it
The brutality and betrayal of those centered in themselves
A daily shedding of blood and fleeing of souls
They were once beautiful, now lost
While darkened hearts revel in ill gained materialism
At the cost of priceless forgotten treasure
The word is so ugly, suicide
Misleading to those who are gone
And even more so to others soon to follow
Though possibly by their own hands,
Sincerely not by choice
They surrendered not willingly, look at your hands
See the blood, no one jumped, all were pushed
Never will there be Heaven on this Earth
For far too many are living in Hell
I miss you all, spirits of the light
And for thee I shed this tear.
Categories:
masques, devotionbetrayal,
Form:
Quatern
*Image of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde poster by Wiki.
That's Close Enough
Shapeshifters, and or, shapeshifting ... preps our world always,
A speck sans a cavass, ... materializes a work of art,
At spans of reckoning, ... outlandish evolve viably.
Simplistically, ... caterpillar, cocoon, butterfly,
The explanative being ... the effects of metamorphoses,
Influence of changing, on the surface ... ain't exclusive.
The aspects of human versions, ... do we possess ourselves?
Phases absorb one's absolutes, ... escapism amuses abstracts,
Misshape is needless, ... our character assassinates us.
The docile Doctor Jekyll ... and ominous Mr. Hyde,
The tale tells induced chemicals ... freed the latter temperament,
Stevenson, a mixed decrypt breed, ... Woolf faults, Hemingway hails.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, ... Wilde's graphic inward peer,
Retorts pundits, ... proxy masques wickedness, textured facades ethics,
Books ain't moral or immoral, ... they're just well penned or naught.
A star radiates ... cast hither, trimming and grooming 'rounds,
Revolving amazeballs recasting orb's landscapes, ... picturesque,
Bubblegum pops as its meaning ... is clearly intricate.
Brief spells also have an effect, ... ravenous bears slumber,
When pushed or at risk ... stimulates safeguards that ensure their species,
The game plays out who's game ... prey or predator lives or dies.
Transformations constants about ... subtle yet definite,
Persona exploits cellular structure ... registers vividly,
The former's substituted ... the latter assimilate.
2022 June 01
*11th Place*
Shapeshifters and Shapeshifting
~~Anthony Biaanco: 2022 July 04
*HMS: 14,16,14 syllables x 8 stanzas
Categories:
masques, allusion, change, character, identity,
Form:
Sijo
In the red dust bowl of a dry river bed
an afterlife flowed to the distance ahead
where the eyes cannot figure the view at the end
or what lies in wait around the bend.
Gnarled fisher of dreams in twisted pain,
serotonin running on empty again,
hook, line and sinker striking out
at the mercy of drama and throat-baking drought.
The matrix yields fish scales and white brittle bones,
snarling with pushcarts and tyres and stones,
cold hearted cold comfort in buying the farm,
played out and gutted in way of all harm.
Saviours in capsules, tempting, awaiting
slow release promise of sweet contemplating
of sunshine and smiles and a clouding sensation
on perceptual lips of a doped Prozac nation.
Reality crooked and head-cocked to the quizzical
ironic destiny, mental and physical,
for where can a tangible world claim to be
in a chloroform blanket of glib fantasy?
A channel, once arid, wells up with blue water
baptising the night growing lighter and shorter;
slap happy people with slap happy faces
rise and shine early to go through their paces.
Delusional masques fashioned harder and stronger
to heads in a dizzying party line conga,
the bad blown away in a chemical fatality,
antidepressant…or anti-reality?
Categories:
masques, health, life, philosophy, happy,
Form:
Verse
Cave wall shadows.
Plato warned us.
Like Prince Prospero’s Abbey.
A cyber-dominion of masquerades.
Anonymity is a collective loneliness.
Electronic patches and flickers that we create.
The naked selfies exposing our genitals.
Neon carnival signage of our disposable selves.
White nationalists and conspiracy theorists.
They savor a bloodthirsty authority to incite.
Nameless silhouettes that sway against the wall.
These figments were once billed as democracy.
Like oil, an indiscriminate flood of marketplace ideas.
But we are still constrained by cave chains.
We are children of apparitions and appearances.
We prefer the dimness of our dreams to the brilliance above us.
We believe our enslavement is safety.
Our narcotic electronic contours are our engagement, our toy selves.
Our faces stare hypnotic at cellphones, our glitter boxes.
Our façades on laptops convince us of who we are.
We enter new chatrooms, new social networks like drunks.
We think we know who we are in our costumes.
We think we know our friends, lovers and enemies.
But there is great danger in the endless party.
The peril of the red death awaits us behind our masques.
Published Tuck Magazine 04/2019.
Categories:
masques, computer, evil, identity, power,
Form:
Political Verse
A madness of marigolds
cascading light
the garden gate,
a painting to protect
one from the savages of truth
an obsession
with brush strokes
irises laden
with weeping desire
changelings in poppies
granite jawed
from a hunger moaning
with the all forgiving night
come into the gloom
spare not thy pen
nor still
the rustle of skirts
along the garden path
a masquerade
begins
behind the golden
masques
flattering gazes
skin aglow with uncommon
beauty
oh sweet wayward child
princess of the tower
sing out loud at midnight
thy coil of grief
unfurling
in the sacred arms
of time.
Categories:
masques, imagination, mystery, garden,
Form:
Free verse
”You Can Become Dreamy In A Spa”
(by Rainbow ?? Promise)
Soft Erie-like musical strains -
Guitars, flutes, banjos, violins
Float in the Air with rhythmic flare.
With rhythmic flare you lay bare,
Soft lights, candle lit, flicker there,
As Erie-like strains drone on.
As Erie-like strains drone on
Facial being done, masques run
Dripping, nostrils squeezing, squeeze.
Nostrils squeezed, can you breathe?
Hot chemical-filled towel like a wreath
Placed in triangular form, chin to nose
Triangular form chin to nose
Droning, Recurring soft music you pose,
in solitaire,
O, a Spa can be Erie like a Morgue!
Categories:
masques, allusion, conflict, dark, feelings,
Form:
Senryu