Best Sepia Poems
When I was just a little girl
I painted soaring seagulls
in a dawning sky of duck-egg blue
I painted ladybirds and whimsical butterflies
A red cottage with square-shaped windows
A misty mountain with a purple hue.
All my fields were evergreen
with flowers falling like confetti in between.
A rising sun in molten gold so bright
with shifting leaves along a riverside.
I painted mushrooms covering faries
Unicorns, princesses and queens
Happy trolls and Naughty elves
riding on watercoloured bees.
As such was life, Carefree
As beautiful as dreams.
Years rolled on, trees turned old
Vibrant colours became the past in an hourglass.
All shadows now, are black as night
All that is left are sepia shades
dim as the gloom of a Winter day.
But little child out there, Listen to me..
Never let clouds cover your soul with ash -of-grey
Like candyfloss, clouds might seem huge
But they're made of fluff...Blow them away.
Blow them away before it rains
Yet if rain pours its heavy drops
and gusty winds whirl from strong storms
Never give up!
Lilt up your head, seek with those eyes
In every journey a rainbow hides
Just keep on searching, do not be blind
Leave all your troubles way back behind.
All shadows now, are black as night
All that are left are Sepia shades
dim as the gloom of a Winter day
But now and then a spell's bestowed upon my name
With an old brush and childhood colours
I paint an orchard with sugar-maples
and fragrant blossoms blooming in May.
As I sit upon these old porch steps, that I have always known
A weathered stoop, with gray floorboards, that shake with every wind
These creaks and groans, the flaws and chips, ... familiar to my hand
I have come to some conclusion,,,
I've come to understand,
how well I know each board, each slat, the shape, the size,
the warps, the cracks, ...each rusty nail, ....
but not the facts of you.
Oh yes, ... I've seen a glimpse or two,
in photographs. I have a few
I see a robust man, in yellowed hues, of vintage stock...
By a house, a barn, where land is strewn with stones to move.
You stand behind a horse and plow, in coveralls,... a mustache. too.
I do recall, so vaguely gray, as gray as the paint beneath my hand...
a jolly man, a wrinkled face,
with a smile, a laugh, a loving way
A dream I have, or is it real?
Is that me when I was two,... sitting here, beside you then?
Or is it just my wish to know... more than just a trace of you?
I never knew the man you were, your hopes your dreams...
the thousand schemes that brought you to these rocky slopes
so far from where your hopes began
Where the steep cliffs rose and seas were blue.
Today, beyond these furrowed rows,...
tall grasses grow in amber waves
The eyes will wander, and shadows grow
I ponder how it came to be....
that I am me,....
who came from you;
a man I never knew.
_____________________________________________________________
(To watch the youtube video recitation:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF4GCLqf9_o
The human spirit needs places where
nature has not been rearranged
by the hand of man
Author Unknown
A metal rail now mocks the space
where a massive trunk once rose two hundred feet,
and a long stairway, and a sign,and a doorway
make up ‘The Stump Hotel.’
As a roadside attraction this once magnificent tree
is more suggestive of an amputee
whose prosthesis
could never recapture the living limb or,
a whisper of the spark within.
Think -of the many who came and stood,
here on this altered stump.
Did anyone look up to see its phantom trunk
rising to the moon?
101 in a ROW contest - 12
Contest Judged: 9/8/2016 10:36:00 AM
Sponsored by: Poet Destroyer A
8th Place
Published in “ PS, It’s Poetry” Anthology available on Amazon.
Sepia Dreams
“Let me take from this your kiss, the taste of you my lips shall miss”
So long since I held you
X’s on the calendar days…patterned of my missing
Promises made on long distant lines
and letters sent, penned of love’s smiles on sleepless nights
“My heart it finds the lonely view, of all my days away from you”
Loneliness the common as passing time mounts,
your kiss my mind imagines in the haze of life
Duty calls, yet my heart is not in it,
for on that day I released it to you
“While on this journey’s winding path, my love held in a photograph”
Sepia dreams in brilliant colors,
to hold that goodbye kiss in my hands,
lingering in my tear splashed eyes…
I hold my breath until the time
“When once again of destined charms, I hold you tightly in my arms”
Sepia Dreams
“Let me take from this, your kiss, the taste of you my lips shall miss”
So long since I held you
X’s on the calendar days…patterned of my missing
Promises made on long distant lines
and letters sent, penned of love’s smiles on sleepless nights
“My heart it finds the lonely view of all my days away from you”
Loneliness the common as passing time mounts,
your kiss my mind imagines in the haze of life
Duty calls, yet my heart is not in it,
for on that day I released it to you
“While on this journey’s winding path my love held in a photograph”
Sepia dreams in brilliant colors,
to hold that goodbye kiss in my hands,
lingering in my tear splashed eyes…
I hold my breath until the time
“When once again of destined charms, I hold you tightly in my arms”
Nestled in the arms of night's embrace
I wait for grievous thoughts to fade
as though they were bubbles popping
one by one, in a fluted glass of champagne
When bold colored memories languish
sepia visions distort my sorrows
and the scars branded across my heart
become blurred by the moon and stars
I'd rather not recall the depths of sorrow
No need for crayon drawings of it all
Time should erase the heartache I feel
but it's moving much too slowly, I think
Black and White Photo
In her forties bandana
his mother looks on
Life's taken a turn,
The war is won.
Dark and beautiful
her son at her side
leans his head to her cheek
Norman Rockwell style.
He grows dutiful, practical,
colors in the lines,
stacks his blocks neatly
and gets gold stars.
Sepia
The jobs come.
The jobs go.
The scotch helps.
His mother is old.
The #two bus comes.
He hasn’t the fare,
He drags three Glad bags
on the sidewalk to nowhere.
All his possessions
in three double ply bags.
The perfect son to perfect bum.
Nobody cares.
Before you ~
I dreamed in sepia
With you ~
my eyes opened to see blacks and whites
Awake ~ vision sharpened into colors I never knew existed
a look a hug a kiss
more~ so much more ~
You offered me the gift of a kaleidoscope world
Where ~
your laughter blew away the gray clouds and I saw a sky of blue
your wink put the rosy blush in my pale cheeks
your lips pressed mine into the magenta of fine wine
your love turned my life into a kaleidoscope world ~
filled with wondrous new colors every day.
Sunglass water pails
The cover up, never fails
Draining water from her
Heartbroken pools
A screaming silence
Blocked behind her
Tinted view
With a blink, rivers flow
She is lost and all alone
Who is there ?
When there is nobody else
Beside her.
She feels
As separated as her tears
As they are falling
Hope disappears
Collecting pain
Where the hazel pools drain
In her
Sunglass water pails..
Sip the slide of spilled champagne
Feel it glide through every vein
Scented by the rose red lips
Aghast beheld by rapture's grip
Scars reflect in mannequin eyes
Silent screams and splintered sighs
Famished with a tongue that's tied
Stuck in place; nowhere to hide
Love stained sheets stacked layers deep
With every page left incomplete
Flyblown how it always goes
The suffocating ties of a forgive me rose
Prolonged tones kept secret deep
Ache your dreams in twilight sleep
Failed your heart of required rest
The heat runs steep within your breast
Ignoring signs that divulge in play
Mocking ignorance still kept at bay
Ingest the cup of a costly regret
Mouth his name in one last breath
Or carve the dread you often apprise
And sip the slide of sweet red wine
Sepia-tinted season is on
You are yellow and red
Crunching leaves in the lawn
Soft sun on bed
You are yellow and red
As I pick apples
Soft sun on bed
Squirrels under maples
As I pick apples
In red-and-gold forest
Squirrels under maples
A Robin in your armrest
In red-and-gold forest
Snowy mist in air
A Robin in your armrest
A petal in your hair
Snowy mist in air
Gondola waits in the lake
A petal in your hair
Rich flavour of the cake
Gondola waits in the lake
String of verdant hillsides
Rich flavour of the cake
Evening playing with tides
String of verdant hillsides
October nip in air
Evening playing with tides
Melancholy eyes in the chair
October nip in air
Crunching leaves in the lawn
Melancholy eyes in the chair
Sepia-tainted season is on
-------------------------------
October 3, 2019
Poet's October Pantoum Cash Prize Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: William Kekaula
You wanted the truth
What does that mean?
The edited version
or uncensored blood-scene.
Shall I skip the part
about regimented dreams
haunting my nights
Or the throat-ripping screams
I gave to the times
I was missing your voice
as nothing compares
to that beautiful noise
Do you want to know
of the times I shudder
as memories flood
in sepia, then colour
They kidnap my breath
and won't let go
They leave me out
to fight the cold
Though I try to resist
the way that I feel
when these memories march in
It's almost surreal
to get through one day
not thinking of you
I'll try to conjour
a more virtuous truth
... sepia dusk settles
onyx raindrops, moist pebbles
sheltered flame crackles ...
Chance flavours time
As wit strings rhymes
Old ancient ways
In buried stay
Old picture book
Brown sepia looks
Old times live on
***** yet beyond
Old photos here
Milestones once dear
Old memoirs style
Strange faces file
Old beyond trace
Haunting this space
Old brown sepia
Quaint black media
Ancient old wits
Lost times, blown bits
Leon Enriquez
18 August 2015
Singapore
Spend your days in black and white
Day dream away in sepia
Reminisce of yesteryear
And nostalgia bleeds from you
You've locked the door and lost the key
I know you'll never let me in
I kept on knocking 'til my hands bled dry
Who is that stranger in your skin?
And rain falls harder every day
I need to find a place to sleep
I searched for shelter in my dreams
But even they had turned on me