Best Rouged Poems

Blush
fair skies 
mist Sol-kissed
citrine seduced 
mimosa clouds bask
dreamy in champagne light 

golden-god’s sparkle fills
chalices roused and
rouged as poppies
hail dawn with
unfurled 
whorls


Susan Ashley
August 16, 2021


~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: Merse 
Sponsor: Malabika Ray Choudhury


*rouged: verb; French; colored red*

*image: Nature Wallpapers > Fields > Poppy field at...

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I search for you eagerly
in the shadows of your words

                                   ...

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The evening 
is soigné in outfits of rumpled elegance 
at the tables and on the bar stools, 

resplendent with a necklace 
of glistening notes from the piano 
in the corner,

rouged by the blushes imprisoned 
in our wine glasses.

Let's stay for a while then,

until the blushes...

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Music echoes through the halls,
climbing stairs, and gilded walls.
Our lovely lass discreetly swoons. 
With longing eyes, she scans the room.

Young ladies dressed, in gowns, divine,
are coifed, and rouged and powdered fine.
Their dancing partners, starched, refined,
drink them in like precious wine.

A rhythm, now, she can't define,
has...

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The 18th of December was her last day;
she neither knew the date nor cared to.
Gathered at the hospital, keeping vigil,
we never overcame her fright, or ours.
The pain, too great to be driven away,
was only managed with IV drips,
needles stuck in bruised appendages --
bony things, arms...

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Translucent turquoise tide pools
soft shimmer on the sand,
mirrors for vain seagulls,
bathtubs for crusty crabs.
The tide slap lapping on the beach,
cavorting up and down the shore
with sounds of gentle laughter
mixing tumbling rocks and broken shells.
Adrift along a fantasy,
stretched out upon the sand;
my mind a merry fishhook
baiting...

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Dark denizens of the night
    gathering in ill-lit backrooms
      haunts of the night
 
  They tease each other with
    rouged cheeks, their mascara
      their pimply breasts, shaved legs

...

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(inspired by ‘Dusty Rose Dreaming’ by poet vb)

We’re powdered city girls heading into a club,
bright orchids entering the hothouse
spreading fun with noblesse oblige,
qua somethings suited for silver screens.

Our attention’s as uncertain as the stock market.

Experts at mixing trickery and disguise,
we’re but vague summations of nature,
as...

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Words on a page, sounds, Mother's calling
soft tones rose from leather tomes sweetly,
through rouged lips they tumble with love.
Lullabies call through the coldest of nights
as frost haloes about the curls, open-hearted,
eager, a child of contested love’s joining.

What would this chimera become now joined.
Oh what would...

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Let Me Give Her Diamonds
by Michael R. Burch

Let me give her diamonds
for my heart's
sharp edges.

Let me give her roses
for my soul's
thorn.

Let me give her solace
for my words
of treason.

Let the flowering of love
outlast a winter
season.

Let me give her books
for all my lack
of reason.

Let me give her...

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Moving from left to right Cancer day and night Cancer the day heaven 
Witnessed the pain women experiencing, suck their bellies the chemotherapy 
Machines drank hundred thousand souls shaver from their hearts personifies by the scent of Cancer.
The air we breathe break to air pollution...

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LOVE POEMS II

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about passion, desire, lust, sex, dating and marriage. On an amusing note, my steamy Baudelaire translations have become popular with the pros ? **** stars and escort services!



Le Balcon (The Balcony)
by...

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The image of morning mapping from the four cardinal points at the center of 
busy pedestrians running ups and down to the bottom of their energies, 
Chasing the note they never designed to decimate 
ownership.

The smiling morning bubbling their imagination to the high magnitude of...

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Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul 
and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.  
- Emily Dickinson 

 

My search for gold dust glow in harvest moon 
depletes me when once fertile ground’s plucked bare....

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Pasha Acremodios grew greedy,
discontented with the domain he dominated,
so he turned covetous eyes toward Farabia,
sending his soldiers to seize this ripened plum

Spoiling for a fight and fighting for spoils,
his army swept across Farabia
like a bloody broom,
brushing it clean of plunder,
bringing back abundant booty–
orichalcum and gnometal,
moonweed...

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