Best Photos Poems
You're a camera obscura, a broken bell's rings,
You made me dance slowly on sad phantom strings.
You always had the slightly off-color touch,
Your insensitive skin never softened up much.
Our meals were quiet with subtle trespass,
Off like a mispronounced requiem mass.
I corrupted your files, threw you askew,
You knew my pictures weren't entirely true.
We never could see in each other's mirrors,
Our focus was broken, our lenses were tears
That clouded our vision, that shrouded the past,
Our statements were false, or if pure couldn't last.
I voided your interest, the chasm was steep,
You fell into boredom, I put you to sleep.
You woke up translucent, you dissolved in the air,
Did I ever see you, were you ever there?
December 17, 2016
For Daniel Turner's contest - 'What was I thinking'
I took this family portrait yesterday as we walked along the beach…
our entire family could not make it…
some were sleeping…
others out of reach…
But I noticed through the camera lens as in the sand I knelt
even the family members who were absent…
their presence could be felt.
I don’t know how it happens
but when I take a picture of my family…
I swear
I see the people in the picture frame…
and the ones who are not there.
Which makes every family photo…
a reason to give thanks…
as my eyes look at the picture
while my heart fills in the blanks…
So once again I smiled as I snapped this picture…
suddenly filled with but one thought
how my entire family is always with me…
whether they’re with me…
or they’re not.
At the shopping mall
A long line up waits
Children excited
To chat with Santa
As they wait their turns
They day dream of toys
Underneath the tree
Coming Christmas Day
Each child has a photo
Taken with Santa Claus
A picture to treasure
For many years to come
With their memories
Of that special day
blissful day launching endless honeymoon
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
Photos With No Memory- For Poets
Subtitled: What If You Had No Past
Of course, we all have one, but why
do we keep reliving it?
We use it as an identity, as if that
were todays', we?
Why do we insist on using the same
forms each day?
Might you try doing things in a very
different way?
To live from the unknown future,
not a re-played past.
What heights could you achieve?
What limitations, would you overcome,
if you were not bound by your poetic
repast?
What if you transformed your poetry,
in which you sparkled like a precious gem?
Not leaning on the same old forms..
again and again and again?
"Breakthrough poetry," the freedom to
be the unique, grand poet you are.
To shine through and truly be the
newest, glorious, poetic star!
September 3, 2020
4am PST
That little girl in the picture was never me.
I was always this body
but you hid me.
under pink flounces and
was hidden by the universe’s cruel joke
puberty.
I was always this brain
locked with a red satin bow. To keep the world from knowing
I’m not your baby to cuddle and hold, keeping safe from the world. I’m not the one to be protected from the mean girls.
I don’t need to learn. To tease, the boys on the playground.
I am who the world is scared of, saying that in my creation someone made a mistake.
I am NOT a mistake.
Protect me from the men who hurt me because, I cut my hair. Tearing the ribbons which adorned it
and wrapping them ‘round my breasts.
Let me chase the girls
better yet let the girls say NO, I don’t want to be chased. And allow me be the type of boy who can respect that. Allow me to be any type of boy I want.
Respect me. Don’t just allow me.
Take a new picture of me, one that isn’t a lie.
Look at this picture, the only one which tells the truth
Put my now smiling face on your
Nightstand.
They stand before me in uniform columns
A mixture of snapshots and Polaroids
As testimony to the time of us
Each is a witness to a moment that was
When I clicked you into permanence
And sanctified an instant never to be denied
There is the shaded image of you asleep
Your hand resting easily on the pillow
And I remember wondering where you had gone
In the passage through your dreaming
You are there with funny face and clownish pose
Sitting pensive and aloof beside the River Po
Lifting a toast, as if to us and all tomorrows
Somber and dejected on the day the canary died
You are there, made as forever as a statue
Immortal upon flexible plastic
And indelible upon my memories, you are there
Each photo a recollection, like ashes of reality
Engraved upon my soul in kisses and promises
You are there because I am your inheritance to you
Actually a rondolet
Grainy photos
On milk cartons of missing kids
Grainy photos
In the hopes that somebody knows
Where they are now and who they're with
Parents prayers enclosed within
Grainy photos
2/20/12
Received 2nd place in PD's poem of the week contest
The streets were not the same today,
For nervousness did rule
As moms and dads escorted kids
Their first day back to school.
As cell phone cameras helped record
This memorable event,
I wondered if those parents knew
What’s not quite evident…
That years will slip right from their grasp
And melt into the past.
These monumental moments,
Though they’re precious, do not last.
At least I have those first day photos
In a dusty book,
But what will happen to the pics
On phones those people took?
The most important memories
Will vanish into air
Unless we print those images
To prove that we were there.
PHOTOS ON THE WALL
By Leonard Kleeman
I look at the photos hanging on the wall.
How I loved those kids when they
were so small.
And, I loved them still as I got old.
They changed a lot but the photos
still hold
their youth and the stories that
they were told.
Their photos will be forever maintained
as their ages stood still when they
were framed.
I can never erase what they looked
like then
and I can never lift and hug them again.
As I look at the photos hanging so well
I feel all the love and it makes my
heart swell.
I can hear all their laughs and even
their cry,
But I know in my heart it's from years
gone on by.
I know that the pictures are forever bound.
They'll hang in frames for so long on the wall,
To just be there without muttering a sound.
Perhaps for eternity or until they fall.
The photos the frames hold as they hang
on the wall
are photos of children who have now grown old
and have their own frames with more photos
to install.
But the photos I have I will cherish and hold.
They are my dear children whom I'll always adore.
And the photos in frames that I keep on the wall
are to remember our youth and the children
we bore.
As we grow old the photos stay young,
and our children still stay so small.
December blows its frosty breath,
ice flows downstream.
Isn't ice white? This is so grey.
Where is the beauty of yesteryear?
Shouldn't the air be fresh?
It's spoiled, tears spill,
she takes out her Polaroid,
click after click
snap after snap and she vows
she'll send them as good news
of the progress of the countryside.
Will he love her photos?
Will he leave her then?
Will she miss his sweet hot lips?
She knows not.
She sees the river bank,
dead like a plate of grief,
her tears spill more.
The Polaroid works harder than before.
Sauntering Upon The Edge of Insanity.
.
Sauntering upon the edge of insanity
Fanciable inspirations
Drawn from the unconscious well
Of nonsensical surreality
.
Stretching the boundaries of an avant-garde
Lucid fertile imagination
Unconventional to the rigid
Laws of physics and mainstream norm
Seeing things from the inside out
Bending abstract line and form
.
An unorthodox man with a box camera
The artist innovating with inventive eye
Exposes monochrome and sepia stills
To perceive the world from another side
.
A Pandora's box for subjective conjecture
Creating a mood of confusion
By# manipulative illusion
But leaving the insightful voyeur
Awakened in awe creative inspired
And satisfied.
.
‘’ the photos of surrealist Man Ray’’.
.
Peter Dome©2020.
photos in album
camera snapped long ago
eye snaps memories
scattered old photos
my happiness and sadness
hits me all at once
Something about ever afters’ that never last so best to capture laughter.
Do not refrain to frame a moment captured.
Snapshots that taught subsequent generations maxim.
Phantoms of past, present, and spirit can not fathom the fruitful scrutiny that lays
ground for disposition.
A lesson taught found more valuable than a penny.
Garner somewhat twice to learn two cents will buy boundless validity.
Endless resource found within affiliation.
Those bound not by secluded blood, rather congruency and love.