Best Striations Poems
KISSING THE MOON
Twilight displays striations of multicolored light.
The shrewd sun and morose moon, begin to fight.
Amber spreads her net across the horizon of night.
Five minutes pass, and appears, a beautiful sprite,
pirouetting across the burgeoning couple’s plight,*
fanning out skirts of tourmaline tints, blushing spite –
rufescent. Soul reverberates, this explosion of might,
viewed through a woman’s eyes, so vivaciously bright.
The sun blows a kindred kiss, disappears out of sight,
as the giddy moon bids adieu in black and blue flight.
2/12/2017
*engagement of sun and moon
We form a queue around a small
million-year-old blossom,
are captivated
by dripping peaks
of creeping continuum.
Rainbow striations
in bezels of stillness,
then the power fails.
A pitch black of nothing
quashes carriage and mien.
Minds shrink like dark stars,
then the yellow flicker
of a generator hums us back.
Nervous grins, holiday shorts,
floppy hats.
_____
The Sun rises...
I know the supposed science
of light,
bips and wavy lines of
pulsed propagation
like a heart
like emotions~
how human feelings start
and stop, the forward/backward of time --
the morning news
our repeated proclamations
stagnation and regressive
signatures, announced and printed
shouted over electronic airways
man’s modern-day gazettes
dawn’s transparent lush
on my face,
I admire and study –
the brushwork of gleams~
patterns of my traveled summits
and depressions indented
zebra primrose blossoming, in short
what love created such marvelous
striations? Say ye a God~ surely even
the moron
in glaring absence of other proof
would not guess less?
Him/Her? Our Blessed Hermaphrodite
of sentient-being creating, of morphing-realms
unending evolving
salacious advances of life mating,
entangling, imparting fond mysteries --
lips of roses unfurling, curling, inviting
nearer breaths for uninhibited exploration –
such exposure awakens and sleeps
yet we sense beyond-maturity
delve the wizard behind the curtain
all us Dorothys
trying to find a true way home
imaginable, at least a steady firmament though we
slip precipitously – My thought, to dust, clean and change
the sheets, as a new warmth attempts to re-freshen
recover nature’s veiled cycles our nightly often deeply
staining retreats
To read or watch movies, that is the question.
When tired at workday's end, depressed about death's
certainty and my recent surgery
unable to contribute purpose
i.e., figure out whether to bomb Iran
or worship Krshna
and other gods such as Homer gives us in the Iliad
I lack vision therefore I choose television.
Chemistry text, bifurcated plant key
esp. grasses, intro to calculus, physics
unopened time slides by inexorably.
That's the dilemma with no resolution,
drooping rachis, striations on the lemma.
Dying chooses you. You don't choose dying.
So go slow as the day will allow.
The cancer patient's real work is facing
harsh realities and making adjustments:
getting the most out of life, considering
what his children will need after he's gone,
preparing his wife, parents, colleagues and friends,
and completing important professional tasks.
Get the most out of life. That's all God asks.
In Life of Pi the tiger is tiresome, short-sighted
eating everything in sight today, no plan for tomorrow.
The boy, however, is beautiful, reading
the lifeboat manual, building a resting place on the ocean
from oars and life vests, writing about his emotions,
loneliness and observations. The tiger's obsession
with killing keeps our boy alive with fear,
an aphrodisiac, a distraction from any hint
of hopelessness. And then there is the ultimate unknown,
the boy's conversations with Krshna which explain
the innumerable stars and their gentle glow.
Fowl meadow grass - Glyceria striata - the striations
on the lemma. Drooping rachis
a weeping willow of a grass.
Recurring periwinkles, myrtle, Vinca.
Helicopter petals. Evergreen leaves.
Escaped from gardens, alien or native?
A little further by the spruce stand
a new mustard, cuckoo flower - Cardamine -
with pinnately compound leaves. What a find!
A good day turns bad.
After you've died, one of them dogs digs up your grave.
You may sit in the rain and think.
Maiden pink.
The dark circle inside the flower
a g-string or garter.
O to fail well. To lay low. To live long.
To run slow. Feel the hill. Pressing down.
Do less. Until one thing's done well.
I'm looking at your shadow
It is cast bigger than what is your truth
The curve of your breasts accentuated,
your contour smooth as it gently glides down towards your hips,
rounding your buttocks to perfect proportions and your thighs just right.
Your calves perfect as they wind down to your dainty feet.
What it doesn't show is that your lower lip
slightly larger than the upper,
when coaxed, parts to reveal an endearing tooth gap
trademarking your smile...
The striations on your breasts and abdomen
from where you nurtured your baby
even before its first breath of life,
to a perfect being of reasoning and effort.
The slight outgrowth on your big toe
passed down from generation to generation,
brought forth and as your predecessors
toiled and tilled the soil that now claims you.
It is a shame indeed, that it does not show your eyes,
deep set and cast like smooth, molten chocolate and just as soft.
Bejeweled with a spark of curiosity and quirkiness completely your own
As your thick lashes fan out of your skin,
often trapping tears that represent your big heart
Why hide in your perfect shadow ,when imperfections reveal the beauty of a life uniquely yours?
Claim it, own it, Live it...
WAKING UP TO OAHU DAWN
Striations of lavender, pink and magenta
Ukulele song of minah birds and rainbows
Sun and moon hula~hula in Pacific seas
Reflection of palm trees ~ warm shadows
7/17/2017
You want to know its merits?
Very well, then. Daylight slants
deliciously across the boy's
inclined, thoughtful face.
His lace collar, crumpled,
houses valleys of shadow.
Or what about the Water Seller?
Look at that poncho's warm
woven woollen texture:
and isn't the rip in the shoulder fun?
And the dimples on the pot!
They scream "potness" at us.
Or the beads of water
clinging to the larger vessel,
whose horizontal striations
practically smell
of the potter's wheel.
But oh, that drinking-glass!
Does it seem possible to you
that unctuous oils and minerals
of earth, gouged from the soil,
can render the ethereal soul of glass?
It was a winter afternoon.
I'd gone along to the gallery
on the off-chance.
Standing before this marvel,
I found myself entranced.
But even as I gazed, the sun
(though never very confident in London)
stepped out coyly from behind a cloud.
Duck's-egg orange light, resplendent,
now fell aslant the canvas.
Surely this was harmful?
Sunlight bleaches (does it not?)
the colour out of things.
Alarm bells should be ringing.
I summoned a uniform attendant.
He nodded sagely as I explained
- but did nothing.
Why should he care?
Minimum wage is no great motivator.
An hour from now,
he'd be hanging up that peaked cap,
and be a person until Monday.
No point in bursting
a blood-vessel
over a silly painting. Later.
But I couldn't leave it.
If I stood just thus,
my human frame was just enough
to block the sun.
One little skirmish could be won
if I remained here
until the sun’s trajectory was done,
or the gallery closed,
whichever came the sooner.
So I did. On tip-toe,
spine inclined, quiet,
I crowded out the light of day
for more than an hour.
Pointless, you say.
I can't deny it.
The very next day,
And each subsequent foray
of Phoebus would
merely recreate the problem.
That's hardly the point.
Finding myself there,
I beat my ploughshare
into a sword and,
for that tiny slice of time,
I made the sacrifice,
bore the quizzical looks
with equanimity, quirky,
standing like a turkey
on tenterhooks
and saved the painting.
highway 69
rock out crops
rounded smooth
coloured striations
undulate through stone
like stretch marks
on the ancient mothers belly
where she grew fecund
giving birth to the world.
rock cuts
break the surface
blown there by dynamite charges
like ragged scars
revealing each pang of labour
laid down in rusted reds, pink, white, and grays
it is in these raw places
that her colours shine as newly made
unsoftened by ages of wear
ice ages grinding
lichens have not crept
their pale green/gray cloth
to drape her nakedness
men have touched her flanks
with force, unloving,
to forge their path north
black asphalt, alien.
not enough to claim their presence
atop each cut stand inukshuk
built to say "we were here".
Might It Be--
by Odin Roark
Musical consciousness
surpassing even the bliss of silence
Touch that lifts
layered secrets from the
striations of marble
Salt upon the lips
swirling distant memories
of aquatic heritage
Colors that mix
mind's forever pigments
with imagined emotions
not yet born
yet ancient in nature's
sorrow and joy
Might it have been...love
That
which we know little of
which rises above earthly truth
to the darkness
that only light can know
Mr. Barber
To a secular believer
what is your Lamb of God
if not something
only transcendence can deliver
perhaps while listening to one's breath
or your harmonies of ethereal conscience
What might it be?
reading between the brow,
furrowed as it were,
the earth - the dirt of his face,
his eyes - his eyes tell a tale
seeded with rhizomes burrowing
deep in his psyche from all
the rings of his years
what has grown down there?
mushrooming into fullness
of speculation and strength,
of oaken striations
lining all the creases
of life and the bird's-eye
whorls that are his eyes
the impossible is there,
the possible is there too
the anger of burnt suns
past ruddy iris's
is smoothed in saline
glistened to a cameo pink
stubble sticks out from
the furrows and cracks of
mounding cheeks and a
bone-dry chin jutting
into a world it has known
for seasons beyond the horizon
facing the future dauntless,
with a smile, his countenance
beckons invitation to ask,
questions that he asked once
and was given answers by choice,
by others or simply by living
© Goode Guy 2012-08-22
Her anger blows
frigid, like Arctic wind
Tears of hostile disposition flows
bosom lethal —
Pulmonary liquid nitrogen
Acrimonious breath
expel serrated exclamations
Jagged exhalation
feels like six below death
Such an icy sensation
Formaldehyde intimation,
cadaver cold pulsation
Got a cryogenic nature
that resides
in an unemotional South Pole
Frostbite vocals
has igloo vibrations
Freezer burn temperamental flatline
show glacial striations
Sub-zero body language
Kilimanjaro translate
hypothermia lacerations
Those neon palpitations
has taken nether hold
Arrhythmic separation
breaks at the
jilted Fahrenheit of six below
Pulsating pain, so cadaver cold
09-10-21
Museums are quiet except
For crackling parquet floors,
Wooden squares, a game board:
Checkers or maybe chess
Of various right angle, grain striations.
Parallel to paintings in oil, red lines
Begin a court for pickup basketball.
But whether subjects of famous battles
Or romances between animals and gods,
They are stuck in a frozen frame moment
Like mammoths in some La Brea Art Pit
It is this instant we are to see anew
Each brush stroke, a wisp of hair,
A dab of white, a cloud condensing,
I lean close.
An unseen alarm makes a statue come alive,
A funerary, votive docent who guards
Mesopotamian and Egyptian antiquities.
She curses me in hieroglyphs translated
And dictated from an Old Kingdom tongue.
My crime: too close to art.
As if my admission, and apology
Were not punishment enough.
I could have cast my eyes
At strangers surrounding me.
Vatican visitors are permitted
To touch the Pieta statue for luck.
Suspecting it has only so many
Touches before marble succumbs,
It’s luckier not to take a chance. (1/30/02)
Life is an enigma;
A shifting world cast in shades of black and white
A chessboard;
Every move a potential lapse into destruction
It lies before you
A shimmering sequence of stepping stones
Gilded in sunlight or shrouded in shadow
Lapped by the waters of Death’s tepid lake
Fate’s cool wind stirring burgeoning ripples
Striations of circumstance brushing against your timid frame
Nudging you ever closer to the last stone
The last step
The plunge into cold wet darkness
As you die
I'm playing seafaring games on the marble table,
sketching between the blue striations of the stone,
a slab that resembles an ocean to my young mind.
I draw armadas and stick figure Spaniards,
foes that fall into shark-infested waters. Cannons roar silently.
Mum is at the sink drinking. Soon dad will be home,
he will bring with him, two magazines; a ‘Woman's Own’
and the ‘T.V. Times’. He'll have a bottle of sherry for mum,
a ‘Mars Bar’ and a Superman comic for me.
Clock hands crawl nearer. It seems that the terraced house
trembles, slightly at first, but gradually the shaking
gets so I can hardly stay on the stool. I have to hold tight
to the table. Oceans tip over. High waves slosh back and forth
in my mind.
My own stick-figure shudders, teeth chattering together.
My mouth begins to mew like a seagull. Mum looks around,
yells for me to stop -
I can't it's 6.30 P.M. on any Friday, and for a while
we all will be together in this one rocky boat.
~~