Best Papered Poems
She returns my gaze when I'm too restless to sleep
a lustrous pearl mounted, deep set in a sapphire sky
I lie awake in my room, papered in spider spun silk
Slumber is allusive to us tonight; the moon and I
I wonder what thoughts she holds in her heart
Surely not man's doctrine of trivial pragmatism
Not by the one who rules the tide's ebb and flow
Her mellow glow is a healing ointment of chrism
Social Media is raving about my seafood haven.
Any ocean gift you wish is on my menu list.
It is known for chocolate bliss in any form that exists.
I should not dismiss other desserts that are hits.
Casual, tables are papered well for messy shells.
My wait staff excels in manners and menu intel.
I love that guests linger, even ignore phone ringers!
Causes could be shell-spiced fingers or the singer.
Yes, a nightly classic rock band known as “Remand.”
Built on the boardwalk, lights twinkle from the dock.
Floor space grants all my dining guests the chance
To party down, get lost in dance or pursue romance.
All seafood, chocolate, romance and dancing you want
Await your bidding in my oceanfront restaurant.
My relaxed establishment, named ‘Ocean Pleasure’,
Welcomes all to come soon and enjoy its full measure.
A deserted old house stood off the county road a little way.
To keep apace of living I rushed by it almost every day.
For years I'd wanted to visit there to see what secrets it held,
And perhaps find out about the folks who in it had once dwelled.
Towering oaks stood erectly as if to guard the old place.
Clinging vines held weathered clapboards in precarious embrace.
I mused as I opened the latch on the sagging garden gate,
"Why was it forsaken and left in such a forlorn state?"
Floors squeaked and mice skittered as I sauntered down the hall.
Abruptly, something caught my eye on the faded papered wall.
'Twas a grim, unsmiling portrait of a Victorian family of eight.
I wondered who they were and I pondered about their fate.
Off the hall was the parlor where stood a brick-lined fireplace.
I could fancy the cheery flames glowing upon each happy face,
As they celebrated gala affairs or gathered for family prayers.
Alas, the old folks passed on - their children seeking other affairs.
What had been a vibrant, loving home was now a house in shambles,
Almost overtaken by massive oaks, shrubs and tangled brambles.
But my downcast mood was uplifted despite the engulfing gloom,
As I saw roses planted so very long ago now in magnificent bloom!
This responds to “Operation Raise the Colours,” where some have painted the St. George’s Cross across streets, roundabouts, and takeaway shops. Claimed as patriotism, these acts are vandalism and an attempt to erase community spaces and stirring division.
Red bleeds across zebra crossings,
slick on high street tarmac,
smearing over takeaway shutters,
stretched across roundabouts, stubborn as lead.
Rollers scrape and flake,
pigment cheap, sunlight shakes it loose,
drips into puddles,
history seeping through plaster,
like damp beneath primer that never hides the past.
The streets run red and white,
paint claimed by hands insistent on marking stone, brick, tarmac—
silence made loud in streaks and drips.
Roundabouts stand proud under fresh coats.
Slash Dulux over despair—
coverage meant to hide, but failing.
Paint bleeds over more than roadway—
onto takeaway windowpanes, pavements, shop signs—
a mural of identity, impulse, defiance.
Undercoat logic tries to cover the past,
but no sealant ever lasts.
Brushstroke patriots,
disciples of feeling,
armed with rollers like substitute rifles.
The painting’s wrap is hollow,
dressing decline as though it were destiny.
Every slogan,
a stencil sprayed on the breeze.
Pigment flakes with ease,
truth showing through the layers.
Heritage red becomes eviction scarlet,
brilliant white papered over target.
Crowns drip Crown paint onto stone,
monarchs in tester pots,
empires reduced to monochrome.
Borders cut by shaky hands,
masking tape straining against the straight line of intention.
Edges bleed in private,
lines never straight.
Revolutions run off into puddles of hate,
mirroring the sky distorted,
clouds stretched, colours torn thin.
Tins are stirred, paint slapped on the ground.
Every revolution circles round,
because property cannot be glossed,
despair cannot be mapped.
Whitewashed roundabouts cannot hide the cracks.
Paint peels, drips, bleeds into puddles,
but the fissures of history remain—
veins in stone, stories in tarmac,
layers no roller can erase.
Crowns, crosses, streaks of red and white
twirl and fall like the last dance
over streets that remember,
over walls that refuse to forget.
The cracks take the floor,
silent but insistent,
and they will not be painted over.
"The Living Soul Retrieved"
The spine is bound
Inside the pages
with each turn a new leaf
the living soul is retrieved
Inside the pages
there is heartache and grace
the living soul is retrieved
imprisoned, innocent footprints are traced
There is heartache and grace
to judge inverted another’s crimes and place
imprisoned, innocent footprints are traced
she turns behind to see in his eyes her face
To judge inverted another’s crimes and place
She sees a child full of hurt and fear’s disgrace
She turns forward to see in another’s eyes her face
Blue Sky’s white doves beat at windows, Pain's for escape
She sees a child full of hurt and fear’s disgrace
The prodigy between two people, the truth is seen for what it truly is
Blue Sky’s white doves beat at windows, Pain’s for escape
Pages of conflict nobody has won in the bad dream
The prodigy between two people, the truth is seen for what it truly is
The Book slowly opens invisible the hand to receive
Pages of conflict nobody has won in the bad dream
The child looks to Heaven, the Christmas of her life begins to be sung from new seeds
The Book slowly opens invisible the hand to receive
Sensate the Soul begins its dream, walls of a book papered from torn bark a Blue Ghost tree bleeds
The child looks to Heaven, the Christmas of her life begins to be sung from new seeds
Red courses through each leaf, her beating heart, delivered through veins of faith and belief
The spine is strong
with Love it is bound
never broken, it is read beginning to end,
seen and heard, it is sound
the living soul
in its truth,
there is found
(LadyLabyrinth/2019)
for my daughter, Georgia,
Christmas 2019
with love, your mother.
“The Book of My Life” / Sting
https://youtu.be/pBu_EKugl_Q
"Feather in the Wind" / Mindy Gledhill
https://youtu.be/b2_ILTd91OU
Rising from within my quill
Waves of ink crest and crash
Upon the papered shoreline
Riding in and out on the tides
Of yesterday found…
Sullying the once untainted
With both the rash and tender
Of the restive poetic spirit
An autonomous symbiosis
Of today’s moments…
Endlessly seeking identification
Ink scrawled candle flames illume
Scratched out paths into tomorrow
The journey of the minds eye
Of tomorrows chance…
Each penning a new step forward
Into our own intangible dreams
Our elusive target moves ever further
Where no direction can lead us on
Of our poetic hopes…
I sit upon the well-worn vinyl couch
and apprehensively await my turn
to see the doctor. Others, deep in thought,
glance up a moment, then resume their worlds.
I scan the room, a mixture of decor-
odd tables, lamps. But now my eyes are fixed
upon the papered wall, a strange design
of rambling shapes. Amid this chaos hangs
a painting filled with imagery of life.
I fall into this peaceful, quiet scene
as graceful birds with arched wings fly above.
Neath blue-gray skies, there winding down a hill,
a brook meanders to the lovely lake,
as nestled buildings on the velvet grass
are hugged by two dirt roads. And there, my love
with horse and wagon, riding to the house-
our home, surrounded by the blossomed trees.
Content within, I happily await-
inside this painting, work of art, of life-
secured within a well-framed boundary,
suspended on a nail upon a wall;
a sense-filled concept, so confined, compact,
divided from the abstractness beyond
its stable, gilded frame of burnished gold.
I hear my name now called, and it's my turn
to see the doctor- and my mind now leaps
outside the gilded frame- into a world
unlike the painted picture on the wall.
May 6, 2016
Premiere Contest: Imagist Any Form
Sponsor: Brian Strand
At night the city is full of bones
And they
Are very dry
Beneath the trample of urban feet
They are ground
But to live, these dry bones
Must drink words
Sad nervous me, I stammer
Against those arid limbs
Grinding bone-dust songs
Into scattered fragments spun from raging blades
But realizing so many so, I sputter
Thought-hacked soul-flakes, soaring
Crooked in an angry wind. . .
Though stinted, inconsiderable, I say them
Spit them down the papered street
Into a shadow where the dew will stay
And some anonymous day some
Stray seed will grow on them
And suckle upon a speck of misty bone
And though the nights will continue
To align the humps of an un-slaked dune
Something out of this sand will rise
Small, and secretly original
And I will be part of her:
my bony, blue, and sensual city
Walking through the door of my childhood home
brought back tsunami of wisdom overture.
Tastes and colours in décor change with culture;
varied pallet of history in lands roam’.
My children had turned out to be a challenge
as they had early on displayed my talent
for examining and questioning latent
defects papered over; now seeking balance.
We’d a small, intimate wedding reception.
The wallpaper in the lounge is instantly
recognisable (like kin related distantly),
from the photos. No inkling of deception.
My parents had asked this sweet sixteen to voice
her preference for bedroom to replace staid
pattern reminiscent of a fabric plaid.
But they had vetoed black and white Op Art choice.
The celebrations of the many milestones,
spanning the blessed years of three generations
firmly recorded in the decorations;
layers of peeling wallpaper to bare bones.
And from the tree of knowledge, a serpent slid into view
He’d seen it all before, our future he already knew
Moses on some mountain, taking down the tablets god drew
Jesus climbing Calvary, being mocked by fellow Jews
Later history repeats, Galileo scanned the sky
Finds Earth isn’t the centrepiece, gets nailed for asking why
Then Newton made his calculations, watching apples fly
The serpent began nodding, he once gave apples a try
But the overall picture changed, when Einstein measured light
Bending it around stars, real answers warped into sight
His space predictions tied loose ends, causing a major fight
Others found black holes in the theories, they seemed none too bright
Wheelchair bound Hawking figured, but words wouldn’t roll his way
The serpent still hissing, refused to give the game away
Dawkins said god’s a delusion, so there’s no need to pray
Guth papered over cracks, his inflation holds out today
But who is this strange serpent, slithering about the tree
A messenger from our future, or some demigod ET
Charm from my imagination, man’s plain misogyny
Well if you look hard enough earthlings, you may see it’s we!
So there you have my story, blueprints are sketchy indeed
Just like I left out Darwin, because of half truths he freed
What about god, what about god David, who plants our seed
Well like most people, I’ll go searching in my hour of need
By
David Kavanagh
Black ship, kick the door!
Your language is dust
Cornered, sacred words
A forgotten sheep
Demanding a shift
Thunderstorm clouds attend
No one will notice, in the end
Incomplete carcasses
Diamond worm domain
In your prism-like universe
Fed on geometric shapes
Rhyme that door!
Run away!
Black ship, sail!
Smashing broccoli heads
Reach the portal in the rain
Floating bowl on cosmic haystacks
Look it up with my velvet spoon
Then join the silk, sonic blast
On the roof
Oh, but your hands are tied!
Symbiosis shall come in hand
Blow my steps way up high
(Balloons and thread look alike
When papered by fish in flight)
Spider my past into the air
And I shall take you there
Where Has All The Beauty Gone?
There is no time like the now times,
The ever-present blood-swooshing times.
Time again to surrender as a smitten lover surrenders,
To the never-ending rhapsodies of erotic impulses,
Which exhale as a listless leviathan exhales,
Basking in the swishing waters off the windy capes,
Naked, but kept hidden, in the unknown anterior rooms,
Of a hundred dark mansions in the draping hollows,
Encased with ethereal atmospheres and essences,
In stony gold, glittering emeralds, and smooth diamonds,
All dazzling the senses with spurting explosions of light,
Of helpless exaltations and cooing astonishments;
Now they’re seeking the old nights and the old embraces
In the gaping moonlight, amid intense and timid arousals;
Their blinking black eyes squinting from behind the papered walls,
Of dustless airless rooms with drooping statues of dead poets,
Alive still as they rise again in mythic intonations,
Making suave movements with pointing soft fingers,
Upon the moist nape of blond submitting desires.
Watching in spirit now as they once peeped at lovers;
Peeping and prying and peering from behind infinitesimal holes,
Never seen before by the living or the bereaved,
Nor by the delirious or the unjustly defamed;
Now they just bite us, the souls of the dead boys in blue.
And they watch us from behind those bare walls,
Those breathing twitching snarling walls.
So, where has all the beauty gone?
leaves of papered gold
a robe for the autumn king...
for a crown the stars
date: 9/8/22
(used 'syllable counter' website)
Ive just joined a group called poetry soup
A troop of writers , Ney intellectual fighters
They lay themselves bare , Pray you care
To take the time , read there rhyme
and ask them the question
What inspired there direction
Enquire if poetry has salvaged there soul
or has it just papered over the hole
Because we've all been tainted
had our integrity painted
In a light that displeased us
Thankfully humility cleared us
To have another go
Get on with the Show
For the actors need words
Otherwise they cannot be heard
I wait for you in the moonlight
In the quiet of the night
Within this room that holds
So many moments of your life
The dreams you've dreamed
Still linger here
Between these flower-papered walls
That look beyond the window
At the Autumn leaves that fall
A quilted robe lies draped across
A wicker rocking chair
That held you and rocked you
When grief
Was more than you could bear
A bassinet now empty
Where once a baby slept
Remains enshrined
Chained to a time
By the million tears you wept
A picture of a handsome man
With you there by his side
A bride and groom so in love
With stardust in their eyes
Stands behind a pane of glass
Within a gilded frame
Where your lip prints and
finger prints
On its surface..still remain
And now...
I hear your slippers
As they slide across the floor
And I hear...
Your laboured breathing
Outside this bedroom door
And I know that soon
I'll hold you
Here in this flower-papered room
And soothe your old
And frail body
In the light of a silver moon
I...your old companion
An antique Rosewood Bed
Let me hold you...Mary Beth
I..the best friend you've ever had
Let me hold you through the night
And bring you back...again
Sweet Mary Beth
Into the morning light.