Best Silty Poems
Thick white clouds
Retracing posture
Atop the layers of earth;
Foggy shrouds of white
Overclouded landscape
Clogging the sunlight
In blurry unclearness.
In brown faded bushes
Lies inhalations of dryness,
Catchy like the gasoline
In simple lit strikes
On matchboxes;
Spreading fierce fires
To four cornered angles
On grassy fields.
From silty bits of soil
Hovers clouds of dust,
Distributed casually
By several printed steps
Of slippers and rotating air.
The echoes of the wind
Screams with concurrent whirl,
Stirring up particles
In fiery harsh voices.
Innermost in the terrain
Glares cracking every way,
As the dryness sucks away
Final surviving drops of moist,
From pores of skin surfaces
And wooden doors.
Thence, in customary shrinking
Of shriveling leaves and bushes
Prowls the reptiles, fleeing away
In untiring searches
For cooler comforting abodes,
Resting forevermore
To the swift slashing cutlass
Of the cautious hunter.
Categories:
silty, nature, seasons
Form:
Free verse
Exfoliative sycamore
Limbs splay low above the water
like giraffe's drinking from the shore
at some silty, placid river.
Where once their arthritic branches
at the mercy of winters winds
it’s springs meliorative changes
that bring green budding knobby limbs.
Here I sit astride a boulder
overlooking the riverbank
awestruck by springs natural wonders
recurrent offerings enchant
me like a mesmerizer’s spell:
enthralled, hypnotized, compelled.
Categories:
silty, nature,
Form:
Verse
Winter's crisp yet early breath whispered to me this eve
A yearly session as we, the cold and me, gather
Conferring when, when can I join her, join her as she
gallops wild and free-
Life has been cocooned, reigned tight and sensory
deprived-
all I cry for is the wild. The wild and the wind, as I was
meant to follow-
Espousing her movements is where I was meant to be.
How could you know?
Wrapped in a thick, sticky web of dubiety, never has she,
the wind,
seen me free. Dreams of conifers and dancing emerald
aurora always
calling to me, always calling and pulling me.
Yet, in this populated, polluted cocoon I remain as a
corpse,
not as a thing wild. A thing to lick raindrops off grass and
go where the day seizes me, never to wander among the
honeysuckle and bees, listening... just listening...
Concrete, lights, noise, horns, words, highways, bi-ways,
runaways, flyaways
Speak easies, slippery tongues, silty breaths, monitors,
breaks, jump ropes,
shoes, bonds, bonds- chains. Always chained.
Bosses, fights, liars, diers, criers, things always moving,
changing, squirming, vibrating, stinking, pissing, kissing,
f***ing.
Disease and lies- untruth to ones own self.
Utter self deception- the worst sin of all.
The cold wind fingers my hair, touching intimately
the parts she wishes to follow her-
the cocoon wraps even tighter, pushing her away,
completely away.
But I can still smell her and know she wants me.
She knows I want her, she knows I love her,
she knows I will die before ever truly knowing her.
Categories:
silty, confusion, me,
Form:
Carpe Diem
DIRTY HANDS
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS
Little boys playing with mud and silty sands
Will return to their houses with dirty hands
Mom will scold them, but knows what to do
A little soap and water, they’ll look like new
Soap and water doesn’t clean off all stains
Especially those amassed from ill-gotten gains
Those boys will grow to men and go on their way
Confronted with selections each and every day
All have the choice, a conscious creed election
Conduct with principle or live with deception
Ethics apply, rules obeyed, as society demands
Tread the line cautiously avoid dirty hands
A quick gain of treasure due to fabricated facts
Will no doubt lead to more disingenuous acts
Wealth will grow, applause and fame may follow
Despite images to the contrary the core is hollow
Conscience is muted a false illusion commands
Its always the same for those with dirty hands
Predation of the ignorant by well connected gentry
Swayed by promises that usually come up empty
Lifelong politicians rise to the top of the heap
Fooling the public with promises they never keep
Attaining the apogee and the attention it commands
Could not have been possible without dirty hands
Wealth and power is the ultimate goal
Dirty hands are the symptoms of a toxic soul
Categories:
silty, abuse, betrayal, corruption, introspection,
Form:
Rhyme
The river runs its winding course
along an ageless bank I stand
ceaselessly brewing silty soup
a recipe of dirt and sand….
I played in youth along these shores
And swam its raging watercourse
Wearing makeshift suits, swimming nude,
floating its breadth on inner tubes….
Alas! Those days are nevermore.
… As I mused my lost childhood years
Seeing this eternal river
from a timeless riverbank
it’s hard to fathom life’s changes
until I saw my wrinkly hands.
Categories:
silty, memory,
Form:
Verse
Buzzing rail buggies
spinning paddled tires beating
out a gritty wake feather
on sand dune
deliberation over alcohol burning
engines being better than gas
everyone with lit cigarette in hand
aroma of tobacco with salt launching
forth from frothy waves
forms low misty curtains
a soft silty beach records a tiny footprint
seagulls honking, hovering like sound buoy's
a large black image emerges from the ocean
it could be a friendly sea monster
"it's grandpa" in a wet suit he wore
more often than a coat and tie
bringing his grandchildren treasure from Atlantis
in abalone shell purses over flowing with sand dollars
I could be all day at the boardwalk arcade
with this haul he brought in
there would be Salmon smoked and filleted
for Thanksgiving dinner
all the cousins huddled together in the family room
with 3 bay windows on the cliff
verging on the muffled sea
countered by a fireplace and couches
This painting of a tempest tossed ship with mast, less sail,
over the mantel
brush stroked by some nameless prophetic flea market artist
over the hum of conversation, laughter
and cacophony of china and crystal
a hushed deep voice filled
my chest like a distant fog horn blew
"These are days of calm, my boy....... enjoy them!"
Categories:
silty, appreciation, beach, family,
Form:
Free verse
I found a perch this morning
Capsized and defeated by the early spring
Washed into a silty little corner, waiting to become still
The miniature heart, it beat so fast, it tried very hard
Fiercely and with fire it tried, in its very unimportant way
It pulsed a few more times, in vain, then the blood began to cool
Beneath the filigree of grey scales, tarnished with muted gold
Painted over with strong looking black lines, like racing stripes
I stirred then, upon reflex, as it was clear that the life had ebbed away
Quiet within a hush, how small it became, I thought
Some lost minutes held me there in a brief reverie
Myself only a distortion in the glassy button eye
Then the moment was gone and I heard the waves again
My body towered above the scene once more, sun weary and sleepy
I gave a parting breath and turned without another glance
With only a few steps I had forgotten everything
Nothing-thoughts took up the space
I turned and headed back up the path that led me home
Categories:
silty, april, blue, earth, memory,
Form:
Free verse
ducts swell with warm streams
silty briny residue
eroded dreams clog
Categories:
silty, funeral
Form:
Haiku
Iris blue eyes that bright, azure beams strow
Lilly white neck with a radiant, translucent glow
Rosy cheeks blanching cotton swabs of milky snow
Viola black hair coiffed; silky strands strung in a tidy row
Magnolia-crescented bosom with a soft, silty furrow
Camellia-shaped paps that with sweet nectar flow
Butterfly Orchid legs; slender willows with tawny curves that billow
Anemone-cupped hands with graceful seams that her dignity doth sow
Categories:
silty, love, people
Form:
Rhyme
Jilting muse with availing inspiration did wend
Barren reservoir doth futility portend
A bristling quill with no well to descend
No gratuitous frills on vapid contours suspend
Seeking with brokered shill to amend
Imploring vagabond seeking itinerant dividend
Wading through flooded channels, silty grains to append
From literary vault embezzled title apprehend
In voluminous discourse a simple aphorism distend
In ancient annals a trite fable from corroded parchments
rend
From Medieval chronicles a homily with which to contend
Out of Victorian poet's graded folio a euphemism vend
From contemporary laureates' silken threads, new yarn
spin
distend- to stretch out, to inflate
Categories:
silty, on writing and words
Form:
Rhyme
A seagull alights on the broken dock,
dull grey feathers floating
in the thick Florida summer.
It cracks its beak, shrieks to the sun,
barely risen over the bayou.
Light glitters over sandbars, silty waters,
silver fish; light reflects
sky into sea, sea into sky.
A boat rocks on slight waves;
thick, strained rope anchors it to a sodden post.
Its deck is littered with soda cans,
empty sunscreen tubes, torn fishing line.
A door slams from the house by the road;
the seagull flaps away, startled,
leaves wisps of fuzz dancing in the air.
It disappears behind the dunes, a retreating ‘m’
on the horizon. Footsteps approach,
footsteps accompanied by soft giggles
and a pair of hands reaching
for the falling feathers.
Categories:
silty, nature, places, travel
Form:
Free verse
The Mirror of Truth
The face in the crowd worried me it was still
but the eyes were aglow showing an intense hatred
to no one, in particular, a man`s who dreams had
been disturbed by reality; this is the way it is and
he is a slave of the conventional and his lack of courage
to break free a man who bullies himself and others,
if not rescued his rage will turn violent.
What bothers him is familiarity of the face he has seen
it before somewhere was it on the surface of the lake
so deep and silty those thoughts sink to the nethermost
conscience; he has long denied the veracity is shocking,
the face is a mirror image of him
Categories:
silty, forgiveness,
Form:
Sonnet
silty fleece cloaks bough
snowy dander flitters round
rite of spring christened
Categories:
silty, nature, seasons
Form:
Haiku
In ye old days of yore on Malaga's dreary shore
An untidy castle rimmed by salty moor
Housed a lonely, oft-drunk matador
In briny marsh grazed no sheep, but wild pigs three score
Staggering oft around soggy, muddy estate in boozed, dazed state; prating conquistador
With fitted bed sheet he dodged each, wild, voracious boar
On one fateful eve a rabid boar did his flabby posterior gore
Now ambitions stored, bedded his dreams, salved his sore
'Til one morn, a damsel in distress swooned at his door
Bereft of virility, but saddled with tales of chivalric lore
A hearty tonic the prone maiden he did pore, and spouted tawdry tales galore
Unentranced by availing circumstance, his rambling advances she did ignore
Intoxicated by her lovely essence, her father's residence did implore
Confounded by his incessant inebriating pleas, she fell to the floor
Mistaking her bended knee as fealty to be, he let out a drunken roar
Enraged by his licentious intentions, she yelled, I will not take any more
Mind numbed from numerous droughts, he heard, I am your whore
Giddy, his infertile, limp shaft tried into her sweet mound to bore
But his drooping shaft could not breach her silty core
Frustrated the horny goad reversed positions. riding her till both were saddlesore
Finally breaching the chasm, his spent rod found reeling a chore
But her tapped well gushed and she yelled encore
Now understanding his riding days were over, he cried and swore
His ripening virgin unsatiated bade his pallid pilot her canyon explore
Now contrite, he explained fertile streams no longer from stagnant fount could pore
Giving due penance, purged the dross, and from her steamy vat tore
Forevermore an unfit paramour, jilted matador; who no longer his tainted cape wore
Categories:
silty, fantasy, funny,
Form:
Rhyme
blue azure panels
silty wisps shroud the canopy
glossed with rosy dreams
Categories:
silty, art, fantasy, nature
Form:
Haiku