Best Overlays Poems
Paint me blue like the sky
rainbow's smile; thunder's cry
clouded curtains rife with rain
till shroud is lanced and bluebirds fly again
Wistful moods in mahogany frames
melancholy painters with undiscovered names
rearrange reveries in pastel hues
decorating lonely walls with brooding blues
Paint me emerald like the sea
feeling caged; rolling free
stormy rage; morning calm
who knows where swelling waves come from?
Which shades best record a personality?
Which side of the coin is preserved for history?
Shall I smile or appear dignified?
Do I show my true self, or try to hide?
Paint me tawny like a lark
as the sky dissolves to dark
flying free but not for long
a gloomy gloaming swallows up its song
What do you see as I hold this pose?
Will you reveal or conceal my imperfect nose?
Will you paint scars and wrinkles or leave no trace?
Will your biography in oils show lines on my face?
Paint me crystalline like a wine glass
for you somehow see right through
the paintbrush captures the epidermis
but the painter overlays the spirit
Superimposing your style, passions, heartbreaks, joie de vivre
onto my facets, form, features, and flaws
with love, you labor on
transforming my brief life into a lasting work of art
Paint me gold like a sunrise
as it marks the dark's demise
background wash of faith, hope, love;
the colors life's palette is made of.
When bones are one with graveyard soils
these memories preserved in oils
are saved for those who later come
that they may know where they've come from
written 1 Sep 2022
...with gratitude for all the inspired artists who
carry forward the grand tradition of portraiture.
Categories:
overlays, art, perspective,
Form:
Rhyme
The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.
Mahatma Gandhi
___________________________________________
Winter is a suitable time to savor,
Silent, quite starving for, my only flavor.
Quiet seclusion enhances my languish,
Providing pause, meditation, and favor.
Frozen days of chilly nip raise my anguish,
Apply comfy sheets, light for cold to vanquish.
A dreadful bulk of cloud and a brisk breeze,
Inspire sloth in a book respite, prankish.
Beautifully arching shrubs and trees,
A ballet of nature's dreams and appease.
White feathers tumble to the soil below,
As sapphire shines, emerald first wheeze.
Fumes in chimneys coil, merge, and grow,
I burn a recollection as shadows undergo.
Crystal-clear river, frozen pearls, pristine,
Wind gusts at dusk in a cold stream flow.
It's peaceful in my heart and serene,
And mesmerized by the gorgeous scene.
Calm and eased by the stark lightness.
Winter is when I languish, purify, and shrine.
Indigo optimism overlays placid rightness,
Potent nature pride ethereal brightness.
A lovely mix of purple haze made it lighter,
Insignia aesthetic—only ebbing politeness.
Categories:
overlays, analogy, appreciation, heart, winter,
Form:
Rubaiyat
The autumn comes, an open book
To satisfy our hungry eyes
But, sometimes things can't just be read
Not like a book upon a shelf
We can't just look, …..they must be felt
With every strain of western wind,
With every leaf, each brittle vein
Each blade of grass, each drop of rain
Was there ever such a day like this
That stretched beneath the peaceful dust
Of scented hay, while shimmering haze
Goes on and on in overlays
Of misty blue, until it ties
The distant hill to distant sky?
___________________________________
9/19/16
Categories:
overlays, autumn, beauty, inspiration, nature,
Form:
Free verse
Over the chain bridge
shadow overlays the light
Danube is lazing underneath
silence is drifting in fright
You are standing on your tiring feet
An eerie feeling hovers over your skin
pathos pales the face
pain mists the eyes
The eyes, watery deep and swollen
are roaming over the night sky,
You are longing for your loved one
suddenly to stop by
Forced smiles sadden the moist air
no joy, no happiness
a cheerless affair
I wish I could comfort you
kiss your nifty lips,
play with your silken hair,
and breaking the surface of sufferings
scoop out your agony and its tears.
Categories:
overlays, care, loss, sad,
Form:
Free verse
Night drapes slowly around velvety skin
and gives comfort to an unfolding heart
As passion's eyes enclose time, we begin,
to foster love, so it will never part
The quiet vaulted sky reflects moon's glow
and overlays your face in silken gold
That keeps your smile like a frozen tableau
Gentle to my eyes, so that they may hold
Lost, descending in a world uncovered
Two journey to the center of souls, still
To seek delightful peace, undiscovered
and complete the emptiness they fill
The morning will pour across lighter gray
As shades with clear boundaries slip away
Categories:
overlays, love,
Form:
Sonnet
when scorpions crawling on the boiling sands
dance the dance of death with tail culled up
the gaudy toadstools grow in the dark and dampest spot
in the wasteland, and as day progresses the never-ending
merciless killing under the very same scorching sun that hangs high above
the wasteland drags on and on in the urban, areas where people carry out
the activities of daily routine to sustain ordinary lives.
on the street and alley the children’s corpses
though laying here and there
no one knows how to stop the deafening roar
that comes from the blasting bombs and the report of the guns
that take more innocent lives away from loved ones which do not allow
even a moment to the bereaved one to mourn with own accord, and when
the tears of a woman in black burqa slaps forehead and bangs her breast with palms and cries, her maternal affection benumbed and become stone as her tears coagulate and harden.
a small rough and simple wooden coffin goes
carried by the stern looking bearded men followed by not requiem
but the shout of the angry crowd brandishing empty fists that won’t do
anything in air the agony of the incompetent father who incapable of
keeping his dearest daughter’s life
nor able to provide a decent funeral and burial services
for the child’s last journey overlays the new-soil-covered little grave
as many layers of sigh after sighs.
when the tanks and armored vehicles sweep through the street
where many, many of those horrible stories rolling and flying
all over like autumn leaves, the soldiers with dust covered
combat boots dash into the street with unceasing gun shots
that hit the shadows because it moves, only because it breathes,
and therefore must be slaughtered. the fireballs hotter than boiling
sun shoot in the air with loud report on the other side of the street.
and between those ear-piercing roars
another angry wave marches on the street
carrying a small coffin, and in this chaos
eventide with no tomorrow dyes the corner of sky
above the faceless battlefield with the red of blood.
Categories:
overlays, anger, child, death, war,
Form:
Free verse
As she clutched the embroidered paper, she wept, observing her tears sprinkle as they percussed the paper. Watching her droplets marinate, she was reminded of a certain pebble she tossed across the waters upon a heavenly cloud as a child, glancing at it in its attempts to clutch the current as it shimmered across the creek. Brushing the wandering dew from her cheeks, she peered sullenly towards the window as the snow danced in its patter against the mirrored pane. Bravely, she stood, aware of her head as it lowered in overcast almost to its own accord. As she grasped the stool beside her, she hurried, wearily, and approached the window and forcefully opened it. As she liberated the air, she sympathised with the tender wind that kissed her cheeks as it lost its direction. Befallen, she succumbed to the tearful weight her eyes whimpered and gracefully fell upon her bed, clutching the silken overlays as she swooned like an osprey with an artistic temperament. Hiding herself between two pillows in a divine light, she glanced up to the tapestries as they moved gleefully to the melody of the moonlight's breeze and the howls of forsaken souls lost in the lands afore. As she focussed on the symmetrical elegance and the rich refinement of tragedy, only then did she realise that art was the only way to run away without leaving her home.
Categories:
overlays, angst, art, lonely, loss,
Form:
Prose Poetry
My hands are embedded in your skin,
And your body is rambling,
To the sea of a thousand waves,
> I am a boat ...
-
I have the heart that fails,
Engraving on the ocean, my wake
When under the terms of travel
You also ondoies the hips
-
... If it is falling into oblivion
After the course of the hills
Fingers hanging with saline scents
On the pleated waves of your bed,
-
When the desire is resting
It has neither beginning, nor end,
But resurrects while whith its whole hunger,
It combines us, and overlays us ...
-
My mouth keeps in mind,
The taste of passion in fruits,
Always present in the heart of the night
> Shining Path of the walkway.
--- ( own translation from french )
-
" Le sentier lumineux du promenoir"
-
Mes mains se sont incrustées dans ta peau,
Et ton corps qui divague,
A la mer aux mille vagues,
Je suis un bateau...
-
J'ai le coeur qui flanche,
A graver sur l'océan, mon sillage,
Quand aux termes du voyage,
Tu ondoies aussi des hanches,
-
...Si c'est basculer dans l'oubli,
Après le parcours les collines,
Les doigts accrochés de senteurs salines,
Aux ondes plissées de ton lit,
-
Quand le désir se repose,
Il n'a ni commencement, ni fin ,
Mais ressuscite, tout à sa faim,
Il nous combine, et superpose ...
-
Ma bouche garde en mémoire,
Le goût de la passion, en fruits,
Toujours présent, au coeur de la nuit,
> Sentier lumineux de promenoir.
-
Categories:
overlays, allusion, beauty, body, girlfriend,
Form:
Quatrain
I close my eyes, and the FYP still flickers.
A faint grid overlays my internal vision:
profile icons, captions crawling sideways,
the heart button pulses in phantom rhythm.
Swipe—
an old video appears unbidden,
a raccoon washes a grape to a looped remix
of something I don't need to name.
Even in its absence,
the feed remembers me.
I catch myself waiting for a voiceover
to narrate my steps to the fridge,
for text to appear above the sink:
POV: you’re hydrating, finally.
Ads linger in the margins,
selling me things I didn't know I needed—
silicone spatulas, trauma therapy,
a sense of being seen
for $19.99 plus shipping.
Swipe again—
and there’s nothing to catch me now.
The app’s gone dark,
yet its framework remains,
ghost-phoned into my muscle memory:
flick, pause, scroll, double tap.
I try to think of something else,
but the burn-in is stubborn.
I see viral dances in my peripheral vision,
imagine a soundbite stitched with my mind's eye.
Somewhere, a raccoon still washes its grape.
In the space where connection once was,
only the wanting remains—
a phantom architecture of edges
that once built something real
from the chaotic communion of sharing
oneself and seeing the same in return.
What do we do with the framework
when the picture’s gone? What do we make
of the void now that we know its name?
Categories:
overlays, appreciation, community,
Form:
Free verse
My heart a pouch of rich wine overlays yours
a drop of blood spilled over an arum lily
waits with longing intense, retains no tears
as it remembers its cringes of final fear when it
jumped into your chest of steel, smell of fruit juice, water and old leather all around
My soul lays naked in a room of light while your music plays next door
two plumed serpents dance slow dances to rhythms of drums and pipes, notes of knowingness, sounds repeated
I listen again and again
Spacious a white room waits aged and innocent
in a no-zone forest of mushrooms, poppies and pebbles as the piano vibrates with silence
while Goddess does not speak of a mission that never ends, watching for symbols that appear and vanish while progress moves worse than a snail with a footsore over splintered glass
Surrender struggles to be free !
Drops in space hung on Venus threads
breasts heaving and falling, passing tests of temperance, strength, solitude
swallow death and darkened silence deep
in a psyche of five thousand years
Across oceans of space my thoughts travel
not knowing whether they reach your light or
hermit in your head or the warehouse in which
you play with waves of froth on dirty sand
seals and gulls glide and shout
A lighthouse looks on still and sure
muck in the harbour awaits an embrace
fried chips beckon and call to fill my open belly of waiting Sun as love struggles for freedom on a higher plane with yours in ether on a wall I read
Still you sleep a hundred thousand sleeps of
fear and watchfulness
in the distance runs Skeleton Woman with tangled bones to be untangled
knowing that long ago she completed her work
of inner peace with honours
Spartacus and Helen looking on
I wait not for you alone but to fill your Heart
for another work of love, to drink your tears
slate your thirst ~become one, two, three to
ten again as dough rises with surprises inside
eggs fresh full, two yolks and cream to be
eaten on a jetty of harmonious voids
Love lost and found, lost and found
all over again
Categories:
overlays, age, allegory, angst, feelings,
Form:
Free verse
Through years of chuckles and vivid imagery,
They sit across from each other;
Inventing moment to moment another day,
Past transparent overlays.
Smoke encircles
new-found wrinkles,
In ends so filled with friendship.
Then one day the smoke stopped.
No more to circle overhead
Where French Fries and flea markets
Meant more than friends.
An empty room is filled more now
With sorrow than they could with laughs.
And through a vacant stare
A veteran of his craft
Demolishes his white canvas ~
with smoker’s hands.
Categories:
overlays, friendship, life, loss,
Form:
Lyric
Images of ghosts fly behind my eyes
I shudder
sometimes it's cold here
below the belly of warm eyes.
If you could would you transcend?
Slip in between the day to day
and stop time in your mind
to look at me?
Beyond the quiet face
into the underlay
meshwork of elements
paradox, uncertainty, childlike hope
entangled with a personal universe.
Would you look closer?
Intrigued? Interested?
Or brush your fingertips
across the weblike strands
to see which hum against your energy?
There's an internal waterfall
pulling everything down.
It slows me.
Would you taste from it?
Or walk away hurriedly
afraid of getting wet,
afraid to drown?
I wish I could open up my palms like a book
the pages would be tissue paper thin.
It would be called layers
and it would tell the story
of the way we paper mache our souls
and put overlays around our intentions.
I would rip at it one page at a time
and read every word to you
before throwing them into the fire.
Sometimes statements are really questions
they barely whisper their meaning
in a look in the eye
or the tremor of a voice.
How can we we know somebody else
when we barely know ourselves.
Categories:
overlays, introspection
Form:
Spring Jewels
White feather tipped clouds
Design blue skies with a brocade
A coat of many colors nature dons
Her golden locks a Rapunzel’s braid
A braid made from overlays
Of grains and grass slightly curled
Budding plains of fruited beauty
Breathlessly waiting as spring uncurls
Fine china sits midst
A jewel encrusted ridge
Coveted ores and minerals
Build a jewelers bridge
Crimson grows a sunset
Against the aqua skies
Upon morns light spring rides
Carole Cookie Arnold
Categories:
overlays, nature, spring, spring,
Form:
Rhyme
LANTERNE PHRASIS 6
Honest innocence becalmed in sleep
on pathways that house the mind.
Simple,transluscent,form space
&mass made into one,an ancestor
of the surreal.Confetti spirals,
patterns of peaks&troughs in
contemplative mode.Intervals
that float into space,delicate
overlays,where does reflection
begin&end?Throwaway lines
leap out from the chronicle of life.
From my Lanterne poetry publication 2005
Listen to me recite this part phrasis on youtube under my pen name ichthys chiro
Categories:
overlays, poetry,
Form:
Verse
Over hill, over heather
Creeps winter weather
A thin mantle of snow
Overlays the hedgerow
Wind whistles through trees
As tiny twigs freeze
Creatures retreat to their holes
In meadows, on knolls
Parks and playgrounds deserted
Sunshine's rays introverted
Icicles seen in unusual places
On craggy rocks, in clefts' spaces
The ground's stiff and it's hard
In both front and backyard
Brooks and streams turn to ice
As do small ponds in a trice
Over hill, over heather
Creeps winter weather
Birds of a human feather
Must needs band together
Categories:
overlays, life, snow, wind, winter,
Form:
Rhyme