Best Semblance Poems
Painting You
Before painting, I first sketch you
In my mind’s eye…To compose
The lines, shapes, shadows and lights,
That work altogether to form a semblant sight
Of you for any relative, friend or acquaintance…
Next, I embrace the required courage
To face the blank canvas; to dip my brush
In sublime tones for my wild orchid wishes,
Wanting to stroke across the heavens
For reflecting starlights bright,
Which I’ll situate to split the darker places
Where the inks bleed and branch out
Around you, smudging your purest colors…
That I endeavor to recover
When illness tries to smother
You with a viridescent blanket for on-going days;
Cloaking the glance of your azure blue eyes;
Pulling gray and white from your skull
To streak through your forest brown hair;
Rushing flag red moments to your cheeks
When you growl, “No. Don’t—“ when I
Try any way to help you through the fevers
That hang dredged plum-violet clouds over
The sofa — away — where you stay sleeping…
While I sit crimson awake worrying,
Watching you breathe…And asking
Through faith’s golden prayers for your healing;
For our holy Lord to send some ministering angels
— With their glistening opaline feathered wings;
Who side by side, place hands on you ~ veiling
My first view of prayers’ answers coming true;
Lifting me to a bloom of rosebud gratitude.
I paint you never far.
I paint your ocean blue eyes opening.
I paint you always beside me in a sandcastle brown.
I dapple the air over us an effervescent pink.
I paint your prism presence close.
I paint your mid-night’s Arora Borealis dancing hues.
Our love is a stippled, rolling color wheel
Of our linked diamond destinies: journeying
Together on amber roads under sapphire skies.
—————————————————
(c) sally young eslingwe 10/17-18/2023
Glory to God…
serenity’s semblance on her lined face
as I stoop at the casket
to kiss her pallid cheek
5/29/2014
For Debbie Guzzi's Three Lines Are Fine Poetry Contest
Submitted Sept. 3, 2021
for the 'Kimo Form Old or New' Poetry Contest
of Constance La France
Paraded endlessly, this spectacle the Elephants know to be degrading,
And their counterparts from the sea , the Orcas, resist in captivity
By refusing to unfurl their proud dorsal fin, stings my eyes like a gnat
Lodged in my cortex, no amount of profit seems to dislodge.
Waking from my dream, I notice the old man waving to the crowd,
Gesturing wildly, as if warning of something no-one has yet seen.
Every evolution of Plybinium Quasar, the spectacle increases, with
Dogs leaping and biting at the air, and Neptunes, of disproportionate
Size, unable (or unwilling) to allow the pain to subside.
The viewing platform, constructed entirely of entitlements, teeters
Vicariously in the breeze, with the prominent attendees smiling, despite
Frostbite, inching up their extended promises.
Utilizing “light-track” technology, the time hoppers applaud
At pre-determined intervals, a strenuous exercise for sure,
Given the time restraints imposed by the counters in the Humbolt Quasar.
In this unfamiliar atmosphere, what clean air there is left to breathe
Smells pretty bad, like a cake frosted with sulfur.
01/10/11
9:46 pm
© All Rights Reserved
Far you go
You ask me to come near,
You walk alone and quiet
You still try to reach me here.
In the words I write
You know I find you in me,
Still you will inhume
I know you are lonely without me.
Far you go
You still try to see me close,
I hear you to whisper
When I write about you in my prose.
In the rhymes I recite
You know I feel you speak to me,
And there when you read
I know you are lonely without me.
Far you go
You still try to smile with me,
I hear you to cry
When I ensure you are hiding behind me.
In the fate I bode
You know I quest for your company,
I walk with whose shadow
I conceive that to be your imagery.
In the words I write
I often speak to you only,
And now when you are reading
I know you find me here only.
They said I'm a chip off the old block, but I'd never budge an inch
For it is of nature to bear the semblance of the one from whom you proceed
For it is blood to blood, nothing escaping
For that's nature's will
All we can do is to chop off the externals that does not augur well with the times we are
And that's if that semblance is an Ogre to modernity
~ semblance
Open fields
No farmer reaping corns
Eternal pastures
Bereft of grazers
Streets and avenues
Dead silence only broken by military convoys
Houses and apartments
Men hiding like mice
Schools and colleges
Momentary sirens
Graveyards and crematoriums
Bustling with the dead
That’s you, dear world, today
My brethren say no to worry
Cause worry is a sin
Tell God all your needs
Always with thankful hearts
And His peace would dwell in your hearts
Do not worry about failure
What you consider as failure
For a Christian may not be
Jesus death on the cross
Was semblance of total failure
But it brought salvation to mankind
Worry is the trap of the enemy
To stop us from our blessings
Say no to worry my sisters
It interferes with God’s spirit in our lives
Challenges are transit points
They are intervals for preparation
As Christians challenges must come
But your challenges are not like those of others
Yours bring you closer to God
The recipe for growth are challenges
We learn better in challenges
Worry is a trap of Satan
To ensnare Christians on their March to victory
Your crisis of conviction
Of the ages and the aging
Left me a bereft,
stupid, scarred leaf --
Trembling, weathered, soliciting
something of a haven from
Graver monsters still.
That I gave you
So much tarp on which to trample
And the bit of flower I cultivated
Continues to gnaw at me.
The caterpillar now chrysalis
You are morphing into something beautiful
While I a mere rotting, invidious corpse.
Please, I beg you,
fly off that I may collapse
or compose myself
(all compost and rot)
if not into something
good and true
At least into something else.
You don't recognize yourself anymore.
Neither do I:
bearing no resemblance
to a creature once beloved.
In this world no such thing like hate
It’s a turn about form of love
A dejection of the desire
To have what the hated person has
Perhaps all would have been glad
If there was no fate
But somehow something depends
Not on you but on other people
And you do not control them
You just need to pray
To change their mind
In favour of you
Somehow I need to believe in my destiny
Why you are not born in a wonder home
And I am in our family
Perhaps we would be glad to know that
The rest is in our hand
Including our death
You may postpone it
By having a good wish and by doing good deeds
Or by the parents’ prayer and wish
Another entity
In this world does not have any entry
From which we frequently suffer
That is complex inferiority
Again I would have been glad
Alas! there is no such thing
It’s a truncated, shattered form of complex superiority
The desire to dominate
To ride on hegemony
Oops! The war mongers would have been glad
If there is something like that
But I am very sorry to say
It’s a perverted form of fear and phobia.
In the semblance of my darkest
side lie the sunlight after me,
In the dark blue face was a
smile that only a select few could see.
Only a few that fishes
like me when we see the snakefish
Maybe a glowworm or two in
my wake, still, I am onto Kinyeti's peak
as a sad Giant long-legged katydid recasting into a camel to save thy naught, yes thy naught
Though I thought Weddell was
a sea of stars, I was at the end a
Beluga Whale grinding Lulo Rose's diamond
Morrow, morrow, morrow
mermaid promise keeps me going
to the seaside, scary you, scary we
She turned me into a jellyfish.
She put death onto the ghost that heist
me off my kiss, Oh my lips, it is blood
at night, lips in the light, a waterless smile
in the twilight
Semblance Dark, a death oath for a hairy head, a death oath for shaving even one middle-of-the-head hair. Scary ghost, scary clown
Struggling for my stolen heart, stolen heart
hid in the middle of the Cretaceous.
Happiness, for gumiho
O gumiho, stop taking them, I know
thy idea. I offer you Gum, yes O Gum
Tears and tears for the darkness
Sleep and sleep in the glow
It is for the duck of thy dark side, my
dark side, their dark side.
The semblance of my desires enveloped me to him. a pursuit for freedom I needed more. Sexual sensations were defining my limits. Enticed with passion I submitted my substance of longing .I needed his touch his hands to move across my body. Noticing him watching me, my crimson lips could not take in a breath Needing my taste I ached for more. I ached for more. The mood I craved was salacious...a urgency for lust. I had not felt these cravings for a man but this moment I opened up to him. I saw him smile...it was gorgeous. His eyes the color of blue glaciers exploding. I could see his structured frame well toned he handled himself with respect.
Some Semblance of Order
Order always has some sort of semblance,
To insure expected without any suspense;
When will appear,
Seems so sincere;
Unless are being confused and also dense.
Jim Horn
A blindfold of choice
to circumnavigate the truth
a pestilence of history
to be spewed into their time
the fixations of deceit
and into slavery brought
their meditation upon the divine
And so by hunger relinquish their lives
Such a covetous will
and in the black ink of blood
lays its bitter hate
upon the seed of love
for authority
for monarchy
for the guttural monsters
to chew all their beauty into dust
Let heaven be bought by trinket and bauble
let gold be fashioned into godlike idol
and let fear be engraved into their tongue
and speak not, evermore of angels
To the light
bring this shadow
and with it to stand on hatred pedestal
set each and everyone
against themselves
Then leave them to suck on the marrow of tears
and bring them with obedience
dragging at their knees
these paupers, these consumers of holy books
these gadgets shall fulfill our lives
be we the bandits
the very thieves of destiny
the common culture of political crooks
And so by illusion
to use them
and in our pestilence
relish
and in all the armouries of wealth
be separate from them
the scurrying insect
called humanity
will exist by the corrosive means of their survival
and their deaths
shall fill our bellies
…and now that I am retired
I am getting more tired
doing nothing—
It’s more strenuous,
One never knows when it begins
and when it ends.
Wife, still works,
Kids, all grown up and gone.
Now, the days are purposeless
Nights, sleepless.
Too much is going on
in this beautiful world
with some stupid people running amuck
So,
I sit by the TV and worry.
At a whim or a spark of inspiration
I sometimes sit and write.
But, all in all
I bide my time
I wish for the night to fall
And,
the day never to dawn.
~Contest: A Brian Strand Premiere Choice.
D-awn
I-n
A-ppearance
N-egates
A-nother
T-wilight
U-sing
P-resence
A-nd
S-emblance
Topic: Birthday of Diana J. Tupas (September 07)
Form: Vertical Monocrostic