Best Vaporous Poems
A coloratura rises
from the suede-edged shape
as the gnarled grande dame
comes to light.. a vision
draped in sweeping evergreen
and a pale cape of kidskin haze -
a beguiling soprano in soft-
focus fools the guileless sunrise
with a diva’s deception --
for in the vaporous golden hour
she can still be breathtaking
the age of change
is beclouded - softened
in gray’s cashmere atmosphere
where blending and bending of
over-ripened perceptions
are smoothed with a dewy smudge..
roughened boughs
and litter-fall is obscured --
unless, you get up close
harsh lines become artfully coy
in the bosom of the pearl mist;
a bedimmed dreamy blur of
Impressionism masks her reality
with the sleight of hand and a mockingbird’s aria
Susan Ashley
March 8, 2020
~ Third Place ~
Premiere Contest: Brian Strand Contest No 1183
Sponsor: Brian Strand
N/A
Contest: 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 6
Sponsor: Mark Toney
*coloratura: runs, trills, and other florid decorations in vocal music.
A lyric soprano of high range who specializes in such music*
*aria: an elaborate melody sung solo*
Upon a glorious night
A burning fire lit upon my unrented spine
Deafened by fleeting sight
I flee the home that never was quite mine
Crushed in garish fight
Within the corridor I dare to flee
Blinded by his might
While all the sad spirits return to me
Oh Tempest, you blow in me hope
Of sorrow more true than any other light
Oh Tempest that guides my departed
To your soul so bright
Rejoining each of us—the broken-hearted
Upon that vaporous eve
Enclosed in bond beyond mortal grief
Lost to the foggy reef
The fog that so lingers in these glistening eyes
That vapor drew me near
Bedazzling more than the moonlit mirror
To where I see him fly
Twas a heart-reaching place I always fear
Oh Tempest, you blow in me hope
Of sorrow more true than any other light
Oh Tempest that guides my departed
To your soul so bright
Rejoining each of us—the broken-hearted
Between the beat of my breast
A heart that beats only for him
He slumbers in the clouds
The clouds that pour my poignant prose
Beyond the darkened seas
The wind does carry the scent of his bequest
Within the folding of the storm I cease to rest
Oh Tempest, you blow in me hope
Of sorrow more true than any other light
Oh Tempest that guides my departed
To your soul so bright
Rejoining each of us—the broken-hearted
To him my sorrows lay
And fall into the arms of strangers' trembling spine
As light and pain fall gray
Twas there they grayed and blended with the rain
Twas there they grayed and blended with the rain
Twas there they grayed and blended with the rain
under streetlights haloing amid the black trees,
your shadow follows close to me
on the familiar sidewalk
where we talk of a million nothings
at home in the dark
I lie awake, again,
whispering to you
my every thought
while the moon is caught
in the hollow space beside me
filled with the eager nearness of your
listening
now all is echo
hollow, where we once walked
hollow, where we once talked
of the nothings and the everythings
never afraid
never alone
I am given the vaporous rush
of you, lingering
in all that love,
there is no love
like that
which I feel
when the night begins,
in the dim quiet voice
of the hallowed silence
“Each morning is an invaluable gift- To be alive is a boon, to be able to stay healthy is a bonus, to enjoy love and beauty is bliss”- By Poet
Early morn, I wake up from my sleep,
Sensing on my cheeks, dawn’s first gentle kiss.
As the shroud of gloom is lifted off from earth’s face,
In my heart rises sweet whispers of bliss.
Yesterday’s mistakes, gone like vaporous nothings.
A calming peace gently overpowers my soul.
The air is crisp, quiet and pleasantly still.
The morn opens new scenes and vistas whole.
Flowers gently sway in the passing breeze.
Bees buzz around, not giving rest to tiny wings.
Coloured confetti fall from the Gulmohar tree.
Butterflies flit around as my soul in joy, sings.
Remember, how lucky we are to see another sunrise,
To savour what nature offers as an inestimable prize!
"The pain is deep when the heart is spent"...Poet
Your face floats through my mind
in vaporous wistful dreams of illusion
that drape over my soul
in an invisible cloak of yearning
the footprints you left on the soft ground
as you vanished in the shadows
when the rain poured
the last cold kiss devoid of feeling
frozen by the heart's emotional collapse
these are visions of melancholy
that dance with me
on a floor of vacuous emptiness I found
where nostalgia is a hard shattered shard of lament
that lay scattered across my mind
in sobs of burning torment
that form a wistful smile to cover my forlorn face
whenever you appear so present
Comes the night with a residual rampant roar
As the shadows swallow the remaining light
For death documents it final scurrilous score
And breaths are barred from taking flight
Sequestered sight with a vanishing view
The sandman serves his final daunting dream
Vanquishing vaporous veils are long overdue
A sabbatical sleep thru a scriptural stream
In paralytic phantom plight of nevermore
The sky cascades with a galling guilted gray
The soul journeys thru a celestial shore
As we float fallaciously on such a winters day.
April.25.2017
STANDARD CONTEST any theme 1,2,3,4 line form may be sequenced to 12 lines
Monostich/Monoku etc/Couplet/Distich/Epigram etc/ Tristich/Haiky/Senryu/Triplet etc Quatrain and other 4 line forms
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
Scarlet and golden etched,
autumn leaves reflect summer's apprehended glory
incised in deep veined images.
Released, they sigh earthward like final breaths.
Sharp pungence ripens , musty tang,
a piquant vaporous mustard milked
from forest loam's black breasts
beneath life's heavy kneading tread.
Sudden, determined winds attack
raping writhed skeletal remains;
stripped spring's green clad darlings.
Feigning innocence,
the gray storm fiend curtains guilt
beneath pure, snow white overlay.
Copyright, August 2, 2014
Faye Lanham Gibson
I need, once more, an hour of rain
Cleansing away the residue of living
Until only the freshest waters remain
This hour, to myself, I am giving
Cleansing away the residue of living
I drench the roots of my spiritual tree
This hour, to myself, I am giving
To clear the kismet forest of debris
I drench the roots of my spiritual tree
Drinking full the aquatic, purified air
To clear the kismet forest of debris
I undress the stress, to discard elsewhere
Drinking full the aquatic, purified air
To replenish serene crystal streams, anew
I undress the stress, to discard elsewhere
Sourcing in the vaporous prisms of blue
To replenish serene crystal streams, anew
Until only the freshest waters remain
Sourcing in the vaporous prisms of blue
I need, once more, an hour of rain.
10/22/18
Submitted to 'Strength through Adversity' contest
Sponsor: Gregory R. Barden
Placed 7th
I was just learning how to write a Pantoum poem, so this was a tricky new form for me-
Wherefrom poetry shades recall,
and the other side of yesterday
is but a dreamt hallucination,
can't see the foliage from trees'
darkly forested boundaries,
insofar as frivolous moonbeams
agitate sun's glorified imagism
'midst hues of baubled madness
& vaporous sentiments are replete
within day-trippers' remote motives,
shadowing delusional chicanery
of rosé-tinted Jedi mind tricks
Majesty
is how the river pours
free from gravity the water falls
sitting still
where carved rocks are quiet
listening to the bubbling roars
to be cleansed
by a vaporous mist
that lays upon the soul in silence
wonder stirs
beneath vibrant sky's kiss
where peaceful dreams and I come to merge
contest Some form of Crystalline
Frederic Parker
10/26/14
How precious the moment ,
to know you're alive
To feel each breath, without care
Seeing each footprint you've left,
before it vanishes
To find beauty, before it fades
Like vaporous thoughts, leaving a fragment,
a memory, clouded by desire or need
To know innocence and how delicate and short life is
To travel beyond vision and dream
The changing hues, in a round sky, its vastness,
forming a collage over the surface of my mind
finding you're part of the design,
Without malice watching the sea rise and fall,
giving a sense of time
plucking a flower to inhale its sweet scent
Why do I dwell on such things?
How is it I care not for glittering jewels,
seek not the room's center
Rather to leave crowded spaces and freely breathe
To inhale the Earth with vision and scent
To grasp a moment in life,
while butterflies lay in air on wing
over each stem fraught with color
and dream of wondrous things
To know I was here,
and saw only beauty
4/23/14
The two-lane road stretches
through a shimmering glaze
to the horizon, passing
smokestacks of mesas spewing
clay and maize in vaporous mass.
I hear the sibylline whisper of rain
through emerald brush
and serpentine hiss
of slithering sand.
The acrid smell permeates
evergreen and purple sage,
carries the aroma
with fine dust.
I point my thumb west,
a prayer for a willing traveler
to whisk me away
from the cumulative downpour
when the desert paint
floods umber in the gullies.
The Haunted House
Abandon all hope on haunted hill enter the house with a bitter chill
Walking bold with a thrashing thrill breaking through the rusted grille
The door slams shut as we look behind now facing fear and confined
We roam the bowels in darkness blind shaking silly to what we find
+
Spiders finish their webbing spin and entangle with our shrieking skin
The house grumbles a grunting grin so it may welcome its kindred kin
Spirits approach to dance and dine as we stand with a shrinking spine
The floor is set for a spooking shrine the broods macabre now entwine
+
Necromancer of the nefarious night waking the dead in a frantic freight
Evening emulous enchantress in flight descending from a haunting height
Caldrons cabalistically calm in their still before the fire breaks their will
The ravens caw a shivering shrill and the wolves salivate a bloody spill
+
Open caskets appear in a vaporous view attended by a skeleton crew
Witches walking with a shriveled skew as warlocks wine in their woo
Tombstones lift above the ground the dead arise to break the mound
Admits shattering screams that surround only wake the hilltop hound.
Aug.12.2018
The Haunted House (Scare Me or Make Me Laugh)
Sponsored by: Dear Heart a.k.a. Broken Wings
Placed 4'th
*
A wind came along, and we were set free
away from two places, where we used to be.....
Circling and settling, folding over and over again,
until the shape we once knew, was made into new
Origami stars, one sun, one moon, one world
Where outside, looking in, eyes can't see where we connect;
Built to be strong, but light as the air
Built to face winds, and that tumble and tear
With strength to face night when dark stays too long
Never will we understand the shifts and strains of wayward winds
that whirl, and rattle and open fate's own door
The knowing why is not what counts, what matters deeply more...
is when I reach my hand to touch this vaporous thing...
it is too impossible to define
Mortal words cannot explain, .......... nothing to see, nothing to touch,
just the faint breath of us
A truth, not myth....that final sleep cannot erase....
So sure this breath of life we share
is reason enough, that we are here
____________________________________________________
Eternal Teardrops
Eternal teardrops trapped in tangled tautological time...
Through the infinite voids, my liquid love longs for you,
admits dimensional vaporous vortexes a cosmic climb
Within each teardrop an ocean, a deluge of love’s bliss,
drowning in tenacious tears of the love that I will miss
With reflections of you in each drop drip before my view,
and moist echoes cascading in love's parallel paradigm.
Music Video by Martin Garrix feat. Khalid - 'Ocean'
Aug.08.2018
Rhyme Time 6 - Verses of Metaphors
Sponsored by: Laura Loo
#.1 for contest