Best Swelters Poems
The pungence of heartbreak swelters
in the tangled dreadlocks of love-lies-bleeding
Take me somewhere exotic
to breathe not the foul aroma
of disappointment and despair
Show me fields laced with frangipani and orchids
in colors sweet and light as daydreams
Find me seafoam fields poppied
with pomegranate and honey
opium of jasmine lilting on a leeward drowse
delicious sift of sand drifting
warm and soft between my toes
as coral breezes court flamingo scapes
with pina colada suns
and I drift in and out of hibiscus euphoria
Let a mist of cockatoos flutter
in lapis skies puffed with fat feather clouds
parrots and toucans preening
like a rainbow shimmer
Tingle my pineapple senses
through the afterglow of mango afternoons
Create visions of paradise
in the cerulean of hyacinth
and never bring me back
We lie together, you there,
me here.
I reach for you and you, melting into your pillow,
pull away
turning slowly, your message
is clear,
there is nothing, just emotional disarray.
Under the darkening sky I whisper
to you,
the words but an echo in the fading
light.
I listen to the clock tick, our lives
askew.
The dysphonic sound echos our plight.
The more I love you, the less
you care.
My passion swelters, my anger
flares,
but with melting indifference, you just
lie there
as the hole in my heart continually tears.
Your love a landscape of stark
indifference
as time melts slow into
the night.
Me, I'm lost, somewhere out in the
distance,
and you, just out of frame, hide in plain sight,
...as time melts slow into the fading light.
05/07/16
Based on Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory"
The old wood framed home stood stark and abandoned, a
shell of herself, where now new homes were standing..
Rotted roped windows wept with the rains and rattled and
trembled with each passing train..
The once solid foundation now unmoored by silt causing the
aged house to lean, a precarious tilt..
Yet inside her ancient bones still chiseled and grand with her
high molded ceilings and oak floor plans.
For over a hundred years she was home, haven, shelter, thru
cold winter storms and hot summer swelters.
Many years had passed and her families moved on.
She stands out of place where she once so belonged.
Fading photographs are strewn across alabaster tabletops,
drenched in moonlight streaming through rustling curtains.
Snow owls call out to each other through the whistling wind,
as flakes of snow dust
frostbit grass outside crystallized windows.
A roaring fireplace crackles in the corner,
and I sit back upon an oaken rocking chair,
tracing my fingertips over delicate memories,
transported back to harmonious
days and carefree nights.
Your silhouette appears, drenched
in glorious sunlight.
Summer emerges like
a breath of fresh air,
as luscious ivy crawls up
wrought iron fences,
and onyx roses bloom within the gaps.
Your golden voice calls out to me.
A single teardrop slides down
the warmth of my cheek.
It’s been so many years since
I heard that angelic sound,
smelled the aromatic vanilla
permeating from your silken skin,
and fell into your tender embrace.
My blood swelters under your touch.
I whisper, “I’ve been so lost without you.”
“Can I not stay here with you like this forever?”
You whisper back,
One day, my love, for it’s not your time yet.”
And within the blink of an eye,
an icy chill races up my spine,
snapping me back to harsh reality,
to a world so frigid without you—
forever tracing memories until
I can finally take my final breath.
Why brought they flowers to a witch's grave
With greening foliage and color bursts,
With drab, dark pigments that white lilies save?
Nail tight the coffin, Lest we all be cursed.
Atop the new grave, the bouquet was laid.
By morn the flowers have withered to black.
Wafting of chants on wind's organ is played,
While gale of rebirth is calling her back.
The scent of perfume has become hot steam
Where heat of the day swelters the foul ground.
Escape impossible! So it would seem.
Yet casket's empty and witch is unfound.
August is ending with a heat that gives no mercy to the land or man
so intense that the air swelters off the river into the tree tops,
looking ahead, its as if we are passing through the gossamer of summer's spector,
Private Shanon has been missing for six days
although, we believe he is lost, not captured or deserted
only God knows where his feet have taken him,
evidence along the riverbank indicates that he is alive and pursuing us
perhaps mistaken and disoriented, thinking that we are further up river,
Old Dorion is seeking him now like a clever wolf,
Shanon was seperated from me while stalking a coyote
a most mischievous animal that is entirely foriegn to us except in prank,
a bottle of whiskey goes to the first man who can lay a coyote down,
yesterday half of the expedition went hunting the prarie dog
a critter more cunning than a cat and jumpy as a log spark,
after several hours of scrambling around like lunatics
Private Sheilds has finally caught one with pork bait and a twig basket
the poor rascal squieks like a cheap violin,
eventually I will send it to Washington with other novel specimens,
President Jefferson and the Philosophical Society will be good guardians,
the men and I have been refreshing ourselves on the jewels of soil
the wild grapes are so succulent that the Italians would believe
Bacchus himself had seeded this earth with a secret serum
and the plum groves cuddled in the most unadulterated coves
invite the mind into Eden's shadow,
on this journey we have observed migrations of pigeons
that have rivaled the stretch of storm clouds,
crowds of squirrels so numerous they have canvassed the ground with a sea of fur,
and now the mighty, mythical buffalo walks before us
a legend amongst beasts, monstrous in girth
with hooves that peel the Plains and horns shaped by vengeance,
as they graze we seize the prize of their offering with thanks in our aim,
not having horses strategic concealment is critical, they are reknown for retaliation,
we dropped seven of them in a great pandemonium of panic
the gun smoke, field dust and perspiration meld into a fragrance of sacrifice,
our sustenance is secured, their lives feed our future,
J.A.B.
Fall Of Autumn
The deep south, confused summer, autumn's blight,
Nature's microwave is on overdrive,
Dog day noons, sultry dusk undress the night,
Escapist schemes, routes north relief, connive.
Red Indian drumbeats as Fall swelters,
Mirage, sweaty heads host an oasis,
Sane in A/C cars, dash in cool shelters,
Heat holds life, pause Winters' death, the basis.
Latter is solace, fire sparks energy,
Pains of the past, remedies in their youth,
Melts the built, curls their hair, sums synergy,
Drab purple dawn the horizon, cold truth.
Gasps of frost taunt the raw vexing season's,
Soft made tough, green ripens, Fall sets reasons.
2019 October 05
*3rd Place*
Autumn sonnet
~~John Hamilton
Sticky, humid, skin
Sweltering inferno blaze
Summer has no wind
The flies are dizzy
Joy hums from each piazza
Two views of day's rot
The hydrant founts glee
No rain promised in the sky
Water is respite here.
The tongue flakes songs
Lovers returned to the parks
Love sparks a new flame
Dreams burn in desire
The heart pants for new friendships
Pale male on his spire.
Summer has no wind
The city swelters without rain
And love blooms again.
The city swelters
mercury nearing 100 degrees
The crowds are really feeling the hear
Steam rises from the street
As workers with shovels dig out the asphalt
Urban hear is something you remember
The sexy outfits of the young women in the city
Makes life bearable
The endless spectacle that is our metropolis
leads us to believe once again
Urban Heat
We walk feeling the rays from
the sun on our heads
The air is thick
As the day wears on
stars appear in the night sky over the city
The air cools
At twilight you decide
how best to survive summer in the metropolis
Stars appear in formations in the sky
Tomorrow is a long way off
Lets start a fire for all the world to see
The flames so bright they break the night and glisten gleefully
Lets start a fire to Break the chains and molds
The heat so great it melts the forms eliminates the cold
Lets start a fire that sets our souls ablaze
A fire that burns brighter than the sun and burns throughout the days
Lets start a fire so huge it reaches deep inside
The corners of the earth glowing there is nowhere left to hide
Lets start a fire that sparks forward the truth
The flames so great it swelters forward the new fountain of youth
Lets Start a fire for me and you to share
Iv'e got the lighter who will join me lets burn away despair
The pines turn brown,
and the needles fall,
the scrub jays are nesting,
to their loved ones they call.
The crisp morning air,
the heat of the day,
the rustling leaves are deafening,
the trees bend and sway.
The grass is quite cold,
the shade is my shelter,
the squirrels are gathering,
as the afternoon swelters.
The horizon turns pink,
it pleases the eye,
the sunset is bleeding,
into the evening sky.
The stars start to show,
the moon shines bright,
the crickets are chirping,
the woods are filled with light.
The birds quiet down,
and it starts to get cold,
and deep inside, the trees chuckle,
for their stories go untold.
Lost in her oasis
The contours of her skin
Desire swelters
Bathing sun glazed sin
A portrait of beauty
Temptation frames her back
An hourglass of divinity
Her sweet innocence intact
Autumn is in her hair
And springtime on her hips
Yet winter cannot taste
The jasmine on her lips
Eyes savor the splendor
Dripping from summer’s vine
Hands harvest my passion
Washing lust from this love of mine
Children here have the life-span of flies
But leave no Where flies squat a trail of sickness
Breeds in the sharing of their space
The same agony of shame on each face
Death is loud here and we are silent who witness
The garbage truck did not come yesterday
The sun swelters the unburried cat
The tarmac sizzles in the sheen of fat
And the smell refuses to follow dreams away
No one is bigger than washing the scum away
But the pipes drip like saline into the veins
And hands soaked with more than tobacco stains
Fidget in the pockets that have fretted away
If I sigh I will bleed
And if I bleed something will cry
I would rather it swelters in the undying heat,
ice in the brazen freeze,
and stay the stolen relief
but not cry.
I would rather it cease...
Saffron sunbeam swelters and sway.
Vividly scattering its burgeoning brightness.
Aurora is splendid, the dawning on our day
Awarding us admiration, now till darkness.
Magical orchid exudes a calm garden.
Autumn-loving meadow bird warden.
Roses of sorrow willow petals fall to Earth.
Shadowy blackbird spirit seeking worth.
Butterflies are haunted by their essence
Destiny, svelte and elusive existence.
I asked her name, as she sang "Amazing Grace".
She labeled this somehow "Serendipity Grace."
"Ah, well, it sounds very zealous and mellifluous.
Please, beautiful angel, keep playing audacious.
Written: October 24, 2022