Best Roman Nose Poems
It is the evening I have waited for,
stiletto heels three inches high adorned my feet,
real nylons hung from garters beneath a
skin tight, leather skirt of maraschino cherry-red.
A blouse of white silk, with a cascade of ruffles,
played peek-a-boo with my décolletage.
Outdoors, the rain pounded the asphalt
making the reality of his arrival even more bizarre.
A Harley barrels into the driveway.
Apparently, he thinks
he is Marlon Brando
and I am Stella?
I stand on the porch, a black umbrella
covering my new do, and watch as he
saunters through the puddles on the concrete walk.
The color of the umbrella my only
non-incongruent element in the frame, the scene made.
His smile was like a box of Chiclet's
on his clean shaven face.
He kisses me.
I lick the raindrop
from the tip of his Roman nose
and take hold of his Russian fingers.
He tosses my umbrella on the porch,
throws his black leather jacket over my shoulders,
lifts me off my feet, and carries me to the bike.
The sun breaks through the clouds and the rain stops,
just in time for the neighbors to glare at the sight of my legs
reflecting on the bikes chrome work.
Shake their respective heads
and donate a few wolf whistles.
I peer at myself in the mirror.
My forehead is nice though I like it covered with bangs.
Lines there are to be expected,
and so too, the crows’ feet at my eyes.
At the base of my forehead are dark brown brows.
They are the one aspect of my face
that I’ve deliberately and totally transformed.
No longer Brook Shield eyebrow lookalikes,
they have been plucked into the tamer form I desired.
My nose is the same long nose with its strange small hump
that I detested since my youth,
but I have learned to live with it.
Though I am not fond of my profile,
when I see myself straight on, I find my nose rather cute.
As with all things in my life that I learned to accept with time,
I now accept the length of my nose as a quality which gives it character.
My extradordinary Roman nose is part of who I am,
regardless of the fact I have no Italian blood!
When I really analyze my aging face,
I see that the weight of all my years has lengthened it.
My face was always long, but nicely oval.
It’s even longer now, thin, and just a tad droopy.
Yes, life has pulled it down,
and I’m not terribly pleased about that.
Chipmunk cheeks above smiling dimples
have given way for a somewhat more somber look
due to my laugh lines (no laughing matter)
having grown more defined.
Those deeper lines I think reflect
my having delved more deeply by now
into things of which fresh youth
can simply not conceive.
If I could use a veil,
my long-lashed eyes above it would seem the same
as I have remembered them since my guiless youth.
Their light, indistinct color (Grey? Green? Blue?)
stays forever lovely. Find me behind them.
There I am ageless.
Dec. 22, 2019
for the The Metaphor Of Your Face Poetry Contest of John Lawless
March 18, 2022 for 'A BRIAN STRAND 1092' Contest
When I was a little girl,
Mother said to me
on my dad’s side there had been
a pure Cherokee.
I felt so proud that I had
in my ancestry
blood of those who roamed this land
throughout history.
I’d been born with thick black hair,
and my nose grew long!
I supposed the Cherokee
in my blood was strong.
Mom is Welsh and proud of it,
saying I am full
of her Welsh vim and vigor,
plus a poet’s soul!
Of my sisters, there’s just one
with my long-nosed look.
I’ve got the results of the
blood test that she took.
By her DNA we see
Mom’s side very well -
Scotch-Irish, Welsh, Finnish too!
I think that’s all swell.
My dad’s side are the English.
That’s what I suppose.
There’s no Cherokee, so from
whense came my humped nose?
One small part Italian showed
on the test she’d sought.
For ONE percent is it that
Roman nose I got?
May 29, 2017/ Rhymed in 7/5 Trochee form
for the Ancestral roots Poetry Contest of John Hamilton
Dear god, she prays, an unfamiliar sensation,
The words tripping clumsily off her tongue:
Dear God, I know I don’t talk to you as often as I should
And I know I sin like it’s going out of style,
But please,
Please, with icing sugar and bourbon on top,
Please don’t take this gift away –
Please don’t renege on this cushy deal,
This transcendental understanding that lies
Between your lofty lap and my roman nose;
Please don’t take my lover away…
This divine effigy of manliness and destructive beauty,
Please let him stay with me, as mine,
At least for a few years more;
Don’t smite him with your bolts from the blue,
Or slip him a tender dose of death in the witching hour;
Please don’t infect me with some outrageous affliction,
To drive him from my side
And please, oh please, don’t corrupt the fragile love that blooms,
Tenuous and oh so sacred, inside the walls of his generous heart
For it is this love that nourishes,
That sustains and rebuilds and redeems this, my condemned soul
He is all that stands between me and the gallows of hell
Without him I should be lost, cut adrift on a high tide
Of my own masochistic machinations
And, weeping, wailing, I would slowly drown,
My lungs filling with the residue of my broken heart
And the filth of nineteen years of dogged sadomasochism
Until, with a last lachrymose sigh, I would slip beneath the waters
Never to see him again, my fallen angel, my ashen deity,
My testament to true love…
Never to kiss his heaven-sent lips…or stroke his feather-down hair
Or spend another blissful night,
Tucked safe inside his arms…
Born of smoke and fire glow
In those blazing summers of long ago
Little mountaintop pagodas
Wooden cabs with cute cupolas
Guardians of the grand Sequoia
Douglas fir and ponderosa
Where vigil kept with eagle eyes
Spotted smokes of wildland fires
Called the word to those below
When lightning arced in brilliant bolts
Around the face of Roman Nose
Raven Roost and Sugarloaf
And oh those names played magic games
Roamed my mind and called my name
Called me up to Sleeping Beauty
Pyramid, Sun Top and Tyee
Wounded Doe and Bumblebee
Curly Bear and Chickadee
But a silence slow descending
Told me of an era ending
And I wander in despair
Searching ridges wind-swept bare
Little houses once sat there
They all have vanished into the air
Tell me, where is Bonnet Top
Three Brothers and Three Corner Rock
I can find no sign or trace
Of Porcupine or Dirty Face
Bunker Hill lies in disgrace
Just memories to mark their place
Now the wind blows eerily
Through the ghosts of their debris
Through charcoal rails and melted glass
Rusted nails and powder ash
No Sourdough or Stampede Pass
Timberwolf or Looking Glass
I'll take the trail to Termination
Tramp the dust of Desolation
Dollar Watch and Devils Dome
Noble lookouts long gone down
They were up when I was young
Sunrise, Clear West and Setting Sun
While looking for Elvis
Met Nessie in Loch Ness
Hoarding a leprechauns pot of gold
While getting ready to depart
I tripped over the Lost Ark
In the baggage of a hitchhiking Pharaoh
Thought I had got lost in flight
Stumble into Camelot at night
King Arthur shooting Robin Hood's arrows
Little green men from Mars
Battling a dragon with bumper cars
Jumping on my unicorn I rode
Diving into the Ocean
The mermaids gave me notions
My search for Elvis was getting cold
Swam down to Atlantis in the Atlantic
Dine at Poseidon's banquet
He had a big Roman nose
Cruising the Devil's Triangle
Being careful for any angle
I try to assassinate Castro
No money for the Florida toll booth
I wander into the Flountain of Youth
I look much younger so I'm told
On my way to Colorado
I kiss the Indian Princess of El Dorado
They can keep their entire treasure load
I saw Jimmy Hoffa eating a hot dog
While sitting with Big Foot on a redwood log
They were both getting pretty old
Went over to Memphis
Back through Las Vegas
My search for Elvis was about to fold
Than an angel named Gabriel
Told me about the new guy down at the stable
So I flew off to Shangri-la with pilot Joe
Our wings iced without warning
Damn this damn Global warming
Flying over Santa and a Chinese Viking Eskimo
We crashed landed in Xanadu
Met a few people we both knew
But Elvis left so I was told
With my new friend Yeti
We shared a big bowl of spaghetti
Amelia Earhart cooked and sold
Round the Garden of Eden
I traded an apple for freedom
From the lost tribes of Isreal though
On Mount Olympus I heard singing
The voice of Elvis reigning
I found the King of Rock and Roll
We ate a fried banana peanut butter sandwich
Elvis offer me the last bite of his sandwich
I politely refused I couldn't be so bold
Before I could ask Elvis as such
He rose and said "Thank you very much"
The answers I needed were put on hold
"Beam me up Scottie" he quipped
Than in a flash he was on the Mother Ship
And I turn and saw my friend little Moe
Area 51 is where that saucer came from
In Noah's Ark we drank wine and hard rum
Finding Elvis I am no hero
Looking for Elvis is half the fun
Its the trip that ends where it begun
Down in Dallas on a grassy knoll
He has a Roman nose, bright eyes, flashy teeth,
Chocolate brown complexion,
Features which animate only when he interacts—
Otherwise, typical unscholarly looks!
A nonconformist in religion, a revolutionary in spirit,
A stoic in practice—
Epithets can be multiplied.
Sought strange experiences:
Travelling in a locomotive,
Witnessing a surgery,
Learning math on his own.
And living on a glass of lassi,
Which I would call starving!
He speaks with conviction.
His memory is prodigious;
To call him a philosopher is no cliché:
He is one by temperament and self-training;
Teaches philosophy involuntarily—as praxis,
As ‘a set of operations,’ as he’d put it.
No nonsense,
No snobbery:
He has been
To New York—as a Fulbright Scholar,
To Oxford—as a Visiting Scholar.
Never chips in to say, “When I was in England/US….”
Never affects an accent.
He is an Indian source of the Poststructuralist virus,
And I was the one immediately infected—
On his return to India
From his stint at New York.
The infection still remains—incurable!
His love of me is something like election love:
Parallels are Krishna and Kuchela,
Kopperuncholan and Picirantaiyar,
Johnson and Boswell.
Would speak for me
Without my knowledge or consent!
We have stuck together
For about five decades now,
Defying the Machiavellian dictum: There are
No permanent friends or enemies in life!
He can’t, ugh, bring himself to love a pet—
On which subject
We violently disagree:
He dubs me St. Francis of Assisi, though!
Was born at Christmas
And so christened Noel!
— Ram, .R.V.
Bloody, bloody Ezra Pound
I never got my head around
his magnum opus: The Cantos
I’ve tried so hard but goodness knows
he didn’t intend it to be easy
for me or his mate Mussolini.
Perhaps obscurantism was his policy
or perhaps it was not the meaning but the sound.
Whatever it was I went to ground
thinking: “Is this poetry or prose?”
Mascagni would never have him write librettos
not for all the tea in Chinee.
I carried his Cantos everywhere with me
and read them aloud to anybody
who happened to be around.
Who may have liked the sound
and would have, maybe, tapped their toes
to some missed arpeggios.
Perhaps if I had a (Roman) nose
for this formidable prosody
it would be so much clearer to me.
I could tell my friends that I have found
more meaning than the pints I had downed
before the barman called a close.
I’ve read the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets and I propose
the these cantos are harder than any of those
scribes who spend their lives de-meaning poetry
so it is devoid of mystery
(though it still is likely to confound
the loftiest don of an Oxbridge mound).
I’m sure they were written to astound –
filled with tales of forgotten heroes
(Americans, Chinese and some Latinos).
And The Cantos made way for ‘A’ by Zukofsky
(a much better poet as far as I can see).
Now there nothing more for me to expound.
Except to tell you that my hound,
whose taste improves much as he grows,
has now eaten up my sole copy.
X Factor Disaster.
She certainly has the X factor
Beauty chic and flair
And if I had one wish
I’d be her teddy bear
Eyes of fire
A wasp waist
And a big fat bum
With a tattoo of my face
Legs like a giraffe
Melons of a chest
Her hair is green and purple
With a mochiecan crest
She speaks with a southern drawl
And boy
Can she brawl
Like a bear in a hornets nest
She can drink any man under the table
She’s always willing
And able
she has a slight nervous twitch
We have been seeing each other
For a bit
She has ten fingers
And twelve toes
And a great big wart
On the end of her Roman nose
She sings like
Louie Armstrong
And has Budgie lips
As strong as a bull
With an iron grip
loves watching soaps
All day
Puts our relationship on the ropes
Agile as a monkey
With the brain of a brick
I don’t know what it was
But somehow we clicked
Yes we married young
As her Father stood behind us
With his gun
We have our ups and downs
I once said something
When she was watching a soap
And now she pushes me in a wheelchair
Through town
I love her with most of my heart
And in her own way
I think she loves me
But not when there’s soaps on TV!!!!.
‘’Influenced by an ex girlfriend
Who was so obsessed with watching soaps.
I had to book an appointment
To see her for two minutes in the advert breaks
While she put the kettle on.
I had to buy a TV times magazine to keep up
To date for a two minute date
I hate soaps.’’
Peter Dome©2019.
As noses go, I’d say mine is okay
if it is viewed by someone from the front.
But if you look at it another way,
it’s not so wonderful; let me be blunt.
My nose is long, and if you’re in a place
where other women are along with me,
take note of how my nose fits on my face.
Sideways it could be the longest you’ll see.
.
Imagine please, if you will, a Roman nose,
which means a nose that is a little bent.
A nicer-sounding word for it I suppose
is “aquiline.” But what by that is meant?
For me, the word “aquiline” sounded chic.
But then I looked it up and got a shock.
I learned it means shaped like an eagle’s beak,
which is also larger than that of a hawk.
What in my DNA presupposes
that I have Italian blood, which I have not?
Most of my sisters have short, cute noses.
Why is it that a Roman nose I got?
Few great actresses have a nose like mine,
but I can think of one whose look is great.
Barbara Streisand – is her nose divine?
That’s a nose folks either love or hate!
That bump - that famous bump! Streisand never
had plastic surgery to make it small.
My role model is she. I endeavor
to love my nose. It stands out – after all!
The existence of the Greek profile,
the gods of Olympus...
The Roman Nose Sculpture
the handsome Etruscan athletes...
the wonder of the print
Nordic of Thor,
the typical brunette
of the Latin Lover...
The black gods, black beauty,
Asian exoticism,
the Arab mystery;
All peoples are magnificent
all types... but the most harmonic shape
it is among and among all peoples...
The most harmonic shape,
the admirable people... Woman...!
astonishing people, Woman...!
across there in cold light
gazing to the passing scenes
sometimes a glance back, then
and see that I’m still staring
a striking mask, your thunderous youth
that sharp ridge of a Roman nose, so narrow
deeply fixed emerald and golden-rimmed
eyes of a shepherd at the wing
light upon an ovular range of beautiful planes
where fine skin on signatures raised
is colored the same soft red
aloft in the morning sun
and how the curve of your brow
slips to a gaunt cheek lifting
love in the stoop of those lips
cradling crescent shapes of a jaw
flexed for greatness
filing away each of your features
to a safe place inside
where a figurine of grace
will wait to be painted
Artist Jaques-Louis David
into politics he once slid
He loved the 'Roman nose'
with Napoleon in a dramatic pose*
*https://useum.org/artwork/Napoleon-Crossing-the-Alps-Jacques-Louis-David-1801