Best Tapered Poems
they met, once upon a time-
her silky hand melds with his
for but a moment
an exchanged glance, fleeting
chocolate brown orbs
swimming in pools of milk
ebony hair dancing across her
backless gown as she walks away
walked away…
swirling visions fill his head
dreams of her upon his bed
spinning, thrashing to and fro
stars put on an astral show
future bride on horse so white
sparkling jewels illume the night
speaks his name so sweet and low
eyes that cast a hopeful glow
calling, begging for his love
angels dance a waltz above
off they ride into the sun
forevermore they’ll live as one
‘twas the night they met
her heart stolen-
tapered black tie suit, cufflinks of gold
matching his golden locks
momentarily awestruck, diving into
piercing deep blue eyes
was all it took to set her blood afire
his seductive smile teasing
it’s way into her heart…
late at night when the world is asleep
she’s up thinking about him,
secretly hoping he’s dreaming of her too
when she finally closes her eyes
she drifts off, and in a moment of time
she’s with him, ready to love him
bands of gold glimmer like starlight
her silky gown drops gently to the floor
Andromeda turns her gaze
lost in love’s embrace
they burn like the midnight sun-
forevermore to live as one
she glances his way
her heart smiling, believing-
meeting him was destiny
she walks past his desk
drinking in another fill of him
if only she could tell him…
if only he could tell her...
he catches a glimpse
from his lonely cubicle
the nape of her neck beckons
a tender kiss, well-placed-
before long he's lost in a daydream
An honor to collaborate with July Morning
A new day, a new world, a new tomorrow
Shades of painted corners
face these inward fears
Now drenched in today’s worries,
as flat as the cornerstone of suffering
caught within boundaries along wasting moments,
crying blanket feelings,
pounding on the walls of despair
“leaving fist prints like so many discarded roses”
Calling out to the endless deafness
“Time it does not heal,
scars merely cut deeper”,
in echoes among the tapered distance
Fog engulfs the melody, slowly chasing
after poetic symphonies
playing from a southern direction
“vertical compass points from there to here”
Your weary hand trembles
violently as it reaches, pleads
where a monochrome sun sets,
beyond the chosen horizon
in heart shaped vistas and sweet tea landscapes
Trust grows in amber glowing beacons
waving banners of solitude
“free flowing fabric beckoning in longed for motions”
You force the stoic front door open,
creaking hinges scream, fears cup beneath your chest
Breathing in the stench of the past
but lured by the fragrance of the future
Where sorrow drowns in cascade pools,
pain hides where it can not be found
and he waits to lift you beyond the darkness
“and you find you have wings, safely within his opened arms”
Now floating towards a white picket gate,
swinging freely beneath the arbor,
once a collection of lattice work shadows, dark lines
on a desolate earth, now a tapestry
of blooms, woven among long dreamt dreams and
clover leaf wishes revealing a pathway
to the beginning of
“a new day, a new world, a new tomorrow”
3/22/17
Written for the New Day poetry contest
Sponsored by Nayda Ivette Negron
luscious fruit of the tropics
sphere-shaped, tapered, oval-faced
beneath the sun dripping yellow;
tangy as cocktail's zest for happy hour- kisses
on lips that crave for its moist
sweet marrow... peeled
from its curved bodice; sucked
juice trickles from its base--
adding lime, mint to freshen stem glasses
that dangle and anchor the nape
for a voluptuous treat of mild
passion's heat: sliced, striped , tasted
by love's scent—the pulp bits ooze—like
varnished ochre mixed with light rhum
and wine filling hungry vessels
of tongues: the melting husk
cooled by ice as wedges circle around
to whip a luscious Mango Sangria drink!
A fruit like this entices my own
Summer delight, succulent as earth's nectar,
relishing every drool of a caressed,
early night's amber sensation.
For Alcohol Contest: Sponsor Thvia Shetley
Submitted 19/18/2107
Its wings were double fronds of gauzy green,
its fragile form a long and tapered flair—
this fallen dragonfly I had not seen
before, when I had walked out on my stair.
I bent and saw that it was not alive,
its body crushed, its wings ravaged and torn.
Yet something of its beauty still survived—
a remnant of the luster it had borne.
I marveled at such elegance in death,
a noble creature, still, upon my stair.
A wave of melancholy took my breath,
and eyes welled for a thing so fine and rare.
I put the grief away and dried my eyes.
Such is the way of tears and dragonflies.
First Placing : Poetry Marathon 2025
Sponsor: Mark Toney
{ FREEDOM “We may want to linger, to stay, to arrest the flow and talk about it, photograph it, lyricize it. Yet this beauty is mercurial and we must let it go, for it is already slipping away to be replaced by the new.” -Stuart Sovatsky }
YELLOW FIELD OF WHEAT
Angel of Death skims blacker than tar
a skeletal knock overturning bowl of oats
smelling of frankincense and ashes
to carry you to a yellow field of wheat
where you will dance radiant waltzes
haloed free
your laughter pranced across blue walls with
Michael Jackson, Spider-Man, cheeky elves
relishing Kentucky Fried Chicken as you
played scrabble with forlorn neighbour
bony body birthing revolutions of
roulette with green life and grey death
how you endured those precision needles
wanting to drum tapered fingers on
waiting desk overflowing with car sketches
your thirteen year old bald head smiling
veins on an enchanting spring moon as our
hidden tears crystallised hospital sheets
we tried to keep up with you scoffing
encyclopaedias, Dickens and muffins alike
cancer like a chess game mastered chemo
doctors and nurses becoming kings or pawns
time was now or endless pathos stalking minds
Laurel and Hardy keeping hearts unlocked
on Merlin’s star-patterned couch you will
jokingly converse with Pele and his team
soccer ball silent under quiescent table
my ink cannot pen sad lines as I feel
your lips still sucking dripping nipple
freedom moonwalks on a
yellow field of wheat
Oh how this bodice is dressed in taffeta,
Lined with hundreds of lavender pleats
Spiraling, drooping, whirling
All over my voluptuous contour …
Bare these limbs grinding on soft moss
To tap among rustled displays
From many a lovers’ heat to children’s romp.
I gaze at my long tresses hung by threads
Of July frills, combing the strands
Delicate as clusters in a spin that ignites
The evening air, the lush of daylight’s vine…
And like Kojin in a free-fall prance, I cascade
Through a mantle of grass, my arms floating
Over wisps of mildest pink, of boldest lavender;
Then to curtsy in a prayerful Shinto bow
Under heaven's marquee where my chants
about lonesome tales are hushed in secrecy.
At nightfall, stars circle my lit frame,
The aroma of wisteria's mint huffs
outside my pores and unto an earthy glow;
Young the nippled buds swelling in lusty dusk
Till I gently writhe as a mystical shadow of the woods.
......................
SPRINGTIME STANDARD CONTEST
~ The wisteria tree is packed with an assemblage
of purple blossoms, falling in tapered clusters
to symbolize a kneeling pose of honor and devotion
based on Asian folklore.
~ Kojin: Japanese Tree Goddess
Yesterday's Flame
The candle’s flame still dances with the breeze
and casts her playful shadows on the wall
that pique imaginations with a tease
and bring back ancient memories that please,
and yet her flame’s not bright as I recall.
This once tall, slender beauty was quite chic,
in evening's dimming light she graced the room
while glowing with a certain soft mystique
that always left emotions feeling weak,
and filled my senses with her sweet perfume.
The fervent flame that left a warming glow
and captured my imagination’s dreams,
still softly burns, though not as bright a glow
that conjured ancient dreams I used to know,
and yet she still emits her gentle beams.
Today this candle doesn’t stand as tall;
her fabled slender fading figure flees
while beads of wax, like aging teardrops, fall;
though not the tapered beauty I recall,
her gentle flame still dances with the breeze.
February 20, 2024
You used to be my strength, my rock
I looked to you for comforting thoughts
Till you thinned like paper
Your caring tapered
And like scissors you cut me off
Received 1st place in PD's "rock paper scissors" contest
Adorable QuiQui
A green-feathered, yellow head beauty,
that’s my prized pet parakeet, QuiQui.
Even when she’s often crabby and snappy,
she succeeds in making me extremely happy.
QuiQui loves dipping and diving into her bird bath,
and hanging from a perch in her cage, like an expert acrobat.
She also enjoys shaking water from her wet wings,
gazing impishly into her toy mirror wildly shrieking.
Relishing her seeds and red strawberry millet treats,
nonchalantly she ignores my sweet endearments and tweets.
But she shows off her long, elegant, tapered blue tail,
Sitting silently and contentedly unloading quite a poop trail.
And even though QuiQui never utters a single word,
I know she secretly loves me too, my little prima donna bird.
11-11-2014
Contest: Pets
Sponsor: Shadow Hamilton
Placement: 6th
The tapered blade glinted in the fast fading moonlight
It slipped so easy between the ribs on this, another murderous night
Swiftly the body was denuded of all his earthly goods
As the bladed murderer slipped off, into the nearby darkening woods.
The tapered blade reappeared two nights from that deed
No one took notice, the warnings they did not heed
The blade did flash the body fell, gurgling sounds did rise
As the body crumpled the life blood gone, twas no real surprise.
A vigilante, they declared, was on the prowl at night
Two evil men had been attacked and given more than just a fright
The death toll rose week by week, but none could tell the tale
The man with the tapered blade, not once his deadly blade did fail.
The bloody murderer with the blade came to a crossroads in his life
He stood between three roads marked Hope, Despair and Strife
Onto his knees he fell, he prayed and asked “Which road do I take?”
I have done your bidding Lord; help me my choice to make.
Looking down from heaven on high the Lord was angered so
“I never told you to act as judge and everyone will know.
Behind you a fourth road is opening this one is called Retribution.
Take that one if you dare I say, but expect no absolution.”
The murderous vigilante, his thanks did express in supplication
He took the given road, not realising this act was in its self the causation
Of the opening of a doorway where stood the Reaper with his scythe
As the curved blade came down, he watched his victim writhe.
The Grim reaper did smile his daily task he did so enjoy
To be given a soul to keep, would keep his devils in happy employ
So if you take the path-the one marked retribution
Remember at the end of it may not be the hoped for or best solution.
©5/11/2102 ~GG~
Late mid-life street woman she is...
I grew up with her under
mango trees now softly drooping
their shoulders much like hers.. but she,
still shaped like a Boticelli urn, wrapped
in arms diaphanous in flesh and heat,
fanned banana leaves swaying to
latin notes while cooking fried bamboo
shoots, her fragrance buzzing along
summer's exotic fly: how she pinched
my cheek with her tapered fingers still
wrinkled pink in grasses floating
on her quivering body.. .
somehow, she gave me this
epiphany of riding with my own instinct,
the slow wave of breaths gently drifting
through a young rosiness of my adolescent
stems... if i knew how to swirl in the wakening
glides of inner flow , it was her circling baked hips
winding and bellying in nights and morns
of her own natural sashays...
How i long to climb her mango tree,
her waxing then waning shape still
blazing among plucked banana leaves
of female revelry or finery… I tell myself,
there is no age when her contour sways
in places where her eyes dazzle
with her near floating, tanning limbs,
of how she made me feel unashamed
being just who I am without much caution
or youthful pride; humbled so by her inherent
moon-full grace…
©
... ..............
Skat's Contest---Any Old Poem #4
The wind is in the west
and the moon large and low,
the tapered horizon aglow
with the recesses of a withered day;
How symphonic a minstrel display,
tallied up like gathered notes to eve's call,
and the swooning lake ----
How the waves chase the eastern fringes of the bay,
they ask not why they go this way
(or that)
yet merely harken God's call
as they persist their way,
fain without promise.....
And cresting my observations,
as if in some pantomime-movie play ----
I mused:
Where is the Projector?
The calling gull leaves her nest
her wild magic cleaves the nimbus.
An avian aerialist suspended aloft
she sails on tapered feathers of cirrus silk,
ruffled sea breeze ironed ‘neath her lustrous wings.
A wind witch, she defies and defines the w-i-n-d…
a weaver of worlds, knotting strings of stories as one wampum belt
in union with the sea’s connection to land and air.
She steals the sough from the surf and the sigh from my sinew;
my guide to a mindful haven. This nurture-maven
glides among bouquets of pink-peony-cumulus.
She; my blue-sky-muse in celebration!
She; my compass rose, mediates my meditation.
I unfurl fresh wings, a night-to-day tern, and claim my turn with the wind
no longer a granite stone asleep on sand. I soar
from the glacial-age strand and lift through fog.. brief my tryst
with mist. Eyes blessed by the crest of a humpback’s breach.
I distill myself, my will; a droplet, tear, a sphere free of guise.
An ascendant of moon-magnet tides yet a descendant
from stratus to stratum, I settle upon the cliffs along the coast
in union with my soul’s connection to body and breath.
In the cup of my hands I hold the sun and drink its yolk,
white-cap breakers below chant a soluble sonnet.
From my inner dark, a flint-spark flares as I find what I lost.
My heart, a wild cranberry, reborn from the womb of dawn.
I inhale the moment. Red clay cliffs, lifeblood, fire-skies merge.
Windswept pitch pines croon as I grow roots for my tabernacle,
cosmic beams stream through stained-glass-eyes.
The calling gull rests. A distant, silent witness to my quest.
My pulse a psalm as I emerge; a cathedral lit by sunrise.
I would like to share a tale with you
About an ongoing Spud feud
Between two potato families
And the shenanigans and antics pursued
We have the Tater Family
An extremely large family indeed
Round , robust, varied , versatile,
Availability always guaranteed
The Sweeties are the other family
Long, oval, tapered , also versatile
Orange and a little softer on the inside
Availability, sometimes quite the trial
Now, the Sweeties think the Taters common
Often heard yelling ‘You are rotund and quite frankly cheap and crass ’
Many of you are a shade of ugly unripe green
AND~
You are always getting smashed!
Well… ‘HALLO’ , responded the Taters
Have you looked in the mirror of late?
You are certainly no oil painting
AND~
Whats that weird hairy bit at the end of you mate?
The Sweeties retaliate with fervour
Well, at least, we are healthy, special and sweet
Popular, sought after and make a delicious pie
Known as POET-ATO …..a favourite with artistes!
‘Yeah right’ ….reply the Taters
Did you know we ARE known as the people’s spud?
Always available and at hand to help
AND~
To be quite frank Sweeties
When the male spuds wear their jackets….they are considered quite the Stud!’
Now, this feud may always continue
Their differences may always be their fuel
HOWEVER~
There is one thing they will always agree on
SPUDS RULE!!
The ultimate compassionate
sensation resonates beyond
daily circumstances, travails
It is calming serenity
tapered by lustful indulgences
tempting peacefulness
You wonder how such blessings
could have been bestowed
upon a common utilitarian
personality rife with imperfections.
It's mind boggling
how forces intermingle
creating spheres of happiness.
It dangles illusions
of utopian perfection
transforming everyday misanthropes
into circumstantial bliss
that encapsulates illustrious
transcendental thoughts.
Mind altering realities
bestowed upon simplicities
of thoughtless ramifications
turning lackluster days
into something magical.