Best Peruses Poems
In the office, he smiles so charmingly.
Saying and doing all the right things,
he puts all his female patients completely at ease.
Even the women hard to please return to him,
for he is famous for his bedside manner.
He surrounds himself with a staff of beautiful nurses
who rush eagerly to his aid when he needs them.
Each of them, whether single or not,
imagines herself with him and how it would be
to be alone with him, aboard his fancy yacht
submerged in the mesmerizing gaze
of his warm hazel eyes.
In the evening he goes home to his wife,
a lovely though docile woman, fragile like a flower.
Immediately on seeing her, he starts in
with his usual barrage of complaints,
belittling her and poking fun at her homemaking skills,
the dinners she has waiting for him, her style of dress,
and every minor physical flaw she might possess.
She accepts it all with her pretty blonde head bowed
like that of a wilted lily,
for she knows that to oppose him
will only result in a more tangible type of abuse,
and he is always careful when he hurts her.
Doctor that he is, he knows well to leave no marks.
She retires quietly to bed,
worried little about any sexual advances toward her.
Although she longs for the touch of a man,
she is grateful to be left alone by her spouse.
Meanwhile, with liquor in hand,
he’s gone into the den, shutting the door behind himself.
Logged on as Mr. Hyde at his favorite website,
he peruses the myriads of Adonises available,
peering salaciously at each nude explicit photo
with wide hungry hazel eyes taking in every little detail
as he plans his next big adventure out of town
and fantasizes trysts on his fancy private yacht
with the sexiest of the men that he can solicit.
posted 2/21/12
Submitted 9/23/22 For One From The Dark Side Poetry Contest
Sponsor: John Lawless
She peruses the paper each morning, and the cartoons for laughs
Then she reads letters from the public
Most of these letters are responded to by her staff
She is briefed daily on matters of policy and politics
She meets privately with the prominent and those of fame
And gives out awards and medals
She is from a tradition of times medieval
If she knights you, Sir, precedes your name
When meeting her, women curtsy
While gentlemen bow to Her Majesty
She has reigned with grace
And is loved by people from many places
The daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth
Her accession to the throne was in 1952
After her father's death
In 1953 she became Queen Elizabeth Ii
Late September the hills ring with bellows
as stags roar their challenges with gusto
collecting up the does into large herds
ready to give battle to the very death.
Walkers be wary as you too are an intruder
many have been pierced by their sharp antlers
The nine pointer in his full prime paws in anger
this is his land he is master of all he peruses.
No tolerance for the young contender
they briefly spar and the youngster flees
it is not yet his time maybe in a year or two.
The master stag bellows out his triumph.
A rustle in the undergrowth, and a loud crash
heralds the arrival of another stag in his prime
they meet with a ground shaking crash of antlers
locked in mortal combat they fight for hours.
The ground ripped up and red with their blood
they struggled back and forth, neither yielding
The challenger now weakened gives ground
as with a final clash he turns and limps off.
The master roars out his victory of this day,
gathering up his does takes them to water.
It will be his sperm this year that is carried on
His fawns that will rollick and frolic the meadows
The community cemetery adjoined
the rear fence-line of his property.
Broad, rolling green acres landscaped
with varieties of shrubbery and trees.
Monuments in lines, rows, and diagonal patterns.
Most of them simple, monolithic.
Carvings, etchings, and brief epitaphs
carved in granite or marble
The stones, like spring's green leafed
trees and fresh-cut grass, know the seasons.
They awake to the sun each dawn; grow
shadowed, docile, meditative at twilight.
Nature recycles around them by annum.
Precious stele' standing their post eternal,
while the invisible substance of air smoothes
each carving and etching ever so covertly.
Mornings he would sit, steaming coffee mug in hand,
reflecting on the tranquility of the sentinel stones.
He envisioned the markers being books
to be leafed through, revealing life
from the mundane to the ecstatic.
A few concave or convex letters and numbers
carved in stone could never convey a person's
full saga in time. The humanity of a life.
Those things their blood had seen, felt, or known.
The ranks of headstones still stand guard.
He sips hot black coffee and imagines reading
the story inside each book of stone;
opening each, as one gently peruses
the pages and content of a rare, precious book.
Books Etched in Stone
5-28-15
Free Verse
Gardens – After Dark
Buddha sits stoically observing his garden.
The Gnomes snore as the Fairies toss and turn
asleep on the soft petals of flowers. The impish
Pixies party with the flashy fireflies.
Nocturnal seekers. Mice, forever paranoid,
scurry to and fro in a break even carbohydrate burn.
The raccoons, mask-wearing felons, are more direct.
They have already “cased the joint” and are sure of their objective.
Le Skunk, “but of course”, Pepe LePew, he fears no one,
boldly waves his white stripe, slowly peruses the menu.
Monsieur Owl, something of a Maitre d’, oversees the
dining arrangements - while planning his own.
The first hint of sunshine will trigger “last call,
dew will form on the flower petals awakening the Fairies.
Fireflies will drop the pixies at their three story walk-ups.
Gnomes will snort, stretch, and scratch themselves.
A gentle breeze will cue the wind chime.
The Buddha yawns, the birds sing morning prayers.
6/20/2016
submitted to – Little People – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Shadow Hamilton
A mature woman in a white and blue dress
peruses the memorable works of Emily Dickson
who was an unhappy person confined to a lair...
a poetess who narrated dire and loneliness;
no brightness was present, only a distant and faint glitter
of hope at the beginning of the unfolding, mysterious dawn!
And her inner spirit speaks as pages are slowly turned,
it's strange how that eager reader impersonates Emily's soul...
emitting a sadness that conveys regret for days not lived;
why does she see things darker than the blackness of coal?
Copyright ( c ) 2015 by Andrew Crisci
He gazes upon gracious beauty
perform my ripe flower, my willow,
for him only, who pays, do your duty
dressed in your kimono of wild indigo,
play your melodic tunes, dance, sing,
while he survey's divine innocence
as seductive pleasurable tones bring
lustful thoughts, holding him in suspense,
desire heightens, he peruses your face
ruby red lips, masked white skin
eyes of darkest night, with stylish grace
You glide across, pleasure to begin,
you serve him with such affection,
dignified, delicately choreographed
routine, giving all without exception,
beautiful Geisha of pleasurable craft,
oh my beautiful Japanese courtesan,
your immaculate shimada hair style,
you have made him a very happy man
with artistry If only for a little while.
I drag my life as excess packages
in the bag lady’s cart.
Dropping my ingenuity in puddles behind doorways,
the sleeping cats hiss their start,
interrupted from their dreams.
Solace in solitude has no voracity,
Yet solitude drapes around me it seems,
as cynicism backs up to yellowing pale of mediocrity,
My life flows backward rewinding to the place
found in the innocence of youth.
To the days when wonder unfolded
with temple like aura, a masterful truth.
Truth is no longer a valid argument for me.
As her smile, there are too many interpretations.
Hiding in the folded arms of escape
I cringe with trepidation.
Self confidence seduces me, it fills my cup with excuses.
Then, forced to drink my own despair.
I choke on the words that are not there
and sip the silence mendacity peruses.
Can I have my life again?
Not the politically correct version cloned?
I can say now what I couldn’t say when
on the top floor of Wall Street, I was owned.
© 16 Dec 2010 Charles Henderson
For Paula's "You can say it now' contest
Institutional Jargon
Strait lined jacket,
A wheelchair line-up peruses the pasty walls
In synchronized fashion
Secured by schedule
Where the pristine uniform
Clicks heels and strides with purpose
Adorned the fob with pen in pocket
To check the clock and the parade
Of faceless dozers where faraway tellies drone
Dismissed the saline droplet from folded eye
Ignored the fragmented desire to talk
Removed the self seeker to elsewhere
A teacup trolley breaches the languor
And summons the sleepers to take a drink
The war hero must wear his plastic pinny
He wears it with pride just like his medals
As he slobbers the luke-warm liquid
Dished out by the silent and the sullen
Quick automated wipes all round
That tidy up, maintain a dignity
Then charted as fluids taken well
Documented protocol of excellence
That safeguards an ordered day
And eliminates disruptive sound
That cause the uniform to sigh
And break from flippant social chat
To conceal the noise in far off room
Because she’s wearing anothers clothes
And so the day drifts into eve
Food hastened to maintain an early night
And ease the plight of the nocturnal uniform
Nothing untoward in this institutional paradise
There’s nothing at all.
A mature woman in Victorian attire,
peruses the works of Emily Dickson:
does her spirit speaks on every line?
Brightness is absent, only a glitter
of hope at the beginning of dawn.
Midnight groans so quietly
From a churchyard far below,
Sky within the pathway
Gives off a charcoal tinge,
And darkness roves, alone
Farther than my throbbing glance
And moves back into a shade
Like the deepening of these eyes
Where pale nocturne withers
Past ghastly streaks of mourning:
Like nibbled ashes through late dusk
Setting the sun to be gone
Constellations peacefully gather,
like acrobats falling to sadness
The moon peruses a small light
Overseeing time's twisted face --
This agony evanescing into another trail
Besieged...pierced by stars.
Thus
the
pure flow
peruses
bounds of avarice
flowing highways and typewriters
Mary Worth’s Secret
You’ll see her snow white hair
With a bound round bun in the back.
She’s traversing the shopping mall,
Un-noticed now by one and all.
Blue flowered calico is what she wears,
Black oxfords to protect old feet,
But Mary has a secret –
A secret, I repeat
When her oatmeal bowl is washed, put away,
Mary takes the street car to start her day;
At the nails shop in the mall
Timidly she enters, no need to call.
An Asian lady asks her desire
And takes her to find a polish,
A polish for a pedicure;
Mary Worth carefully peruses and picks it.
Bright Cherry Red chock full of glitter
As bright as a neon sign,
Into the foot bowl she splashes her feet,
By design, by design.
Chopin is playing gently,
Over the trickle of a fake water fall.
If they talk about her in their language,
She doesn’t mind – at all, at all.
How happy she is in such luxury,
Two hours in another world,
A dreamland where she had once belonged,
Long ago, as a sweet young girl.
Reality set in as her oxfords she donned.
Used a silver coin for the street car home.
That night she would slip into pillows of silk,
And admire her sparkly glowing toes.
Her secret is safe as she takes
Her life’s place with her secret hidden toes.
She’ll dance all night to “Coupla jiggers of moonlight,”
And sweet dreams of romance long ago,
Some ancient intellect
peruses the dreamscapes in your mind.
Havoc yet to be wreaked,
but promised just the same.
Can you access this encryption,
can you discern some meaning?
Your thought-stream reaches out to mine;
I feel the cold hand upon my neck.
The Silvery Scenes
By Stark Hunter
The silvery scenes,
Above the sensuous Mexican bloom,
Of transcendent yellow, red and orange,
Back there – in the digesting side garden,
Next door, adjacent the obscene lemon flowers,
An old sot sits and peruses
A darkened shuttered window upstairs.
Blue sky and creeping streaks of contumacious white,
Soar as sky ghosts,
A pitch above the silent stares,
And the forgotten entreaties;
The old sot remembers a long-ago morning in May,
Thirty years hence, years indeed
Filled with wandering gazes and
Imagined gaspings at day’s end.
You, the young girl of Mexican skin,
With eyes of the earth,
18 years old, and at last ready,
Ready for the great cosmic conquest,
You, spying and staring at the man,
Up there on the hill.
Using strong legs and decisive fingers,
I tended my garden, seemingly oblivious,
To your silent inert gazing,
Your self-embraces of squealing frustration,
There in your secret steamy spot,
Behind the darkened unshuttered window upstairs,
Translucent as a dragonfly,
You, thinking forbidden thoughts,
Of wild silvery scenes in the secret shadows,
With the man tending his garden,
And though alone and detached,
You, the young mexican girl next door,
Hiding behind that unshuttered window upstairs,
Knew nothing of his wild designs,
Nothing of his intended episodes,
The silvery scenes in the secret shadows,
Back there- above the sensuous Mexican bloom.