Best Voile Poems
In the center of a fresh pageant,
she throttles like a mythical woman
quick to dance among open flowers,
whirling like a hundred stars
with curves round and breasts oyster pink
as the trees, ovules, candles in her eyes
open the fingertips of near April.
Wild tempo vibrates on wispy notes,
until eyes of fire melt nightfall's brew...
for primal and young is this Aries goddess
holding a voile skirt that lifts
into a twirl while the moon
hangs like a violin... eager to wing
this lady's reggae jigs
drifting on brocade of her springtime arms:
And if every detail of lace in a gown
can be sewn in the light touching her flesh ,
this she shall bring too... this near April debut.
Contest: Your best poem in the last year
Sponsor: Silent One
Written 3/6/2017 Re-submitted 2/5/2018
Listening to your heartbeat
I lie with my head on your chest
Voile curtains softly billowing in the breeze from the open window
Ecstasy still flowing through our veins
Lately we have become much closer
A true friendship now mingles with physical attraction
Unimpaired by our past lives
Gently, you curl your arm around me as you sleep
How truly happy that makes me feel
Light from a waxing moon creeps in
Over your sleeping form
Verifying my adoration of you
Even now, I can’t believe how lucky I am to have a life so full of love and laughter.
**Too bad it's not autobiographical ;)
** for the LIVE LAUGH LOVE contest
A thousand dots of bulbs flutter wildly
exploding into my summer’s redness
to gather awed murmur upon these lips,
my amazement tossed beyond open sills—
How I watch you glitter from a dance
as late afternoon spreads the outline
of your voluptuous curves tapping
beneath warm sunset now giving way
to that quickened female rush ...Just then
against gauzy light—a steady pause,
another different movement quite innocent--
weaves on fine voile of your tiny bosoms...
Until comes the stillness. The nobility
enhanced by caressed petioles
delicate as slow flame unto night’s halo:
I claim tranquility. I become meditative
unaware that grind of day tears my sensibilities.
O you, dear Asian vine grant quiet radiance
hanging leisurely through my window's slumber.
4/03/2019
Written for Craig Cornish: Bougainvillea Contest
When the temperature soars
My Muse is cranky and cross
Whether in or out of doors
Meter and rhyme are quite lost
My head heavy, I'm bored
Sweat pours off my chin
Hunched over the keyboard
What a funk I am in
To slumber I yield
I nod off for a bit
My fate surely sealed
Poetry, I quit...
Yet switch on the a/c
And, voile! A new me!
To the delight of my Muse --
Cool air lights her fuse!
To wander beneath lush morning trees
Imprinting varnish of leaves, anew
When July casts its charm with such ease.
~The mantle of summer decked in reds,
This cycle brings dazzle, to imbue
A warm gust embellished from voile threads.
While meadows parade their sizzled grace ,
I romp along grasses' mellow view
Till sunlight weaves its pour of embrace.
Brooks temperate quide these nimble toes
Lingering on, buds trickle on cue--
My arms tossed in whimsical repose.
Until night gently inks this wild sway ~
A prayer, a moment , this debut
Enthralls my soul...tinged by heaven's ray!
A warm breeze gently lifts the white voile
I watch it dance from across the room where I lay
Half awake, and recovered from yesterday’s toil
I’m awakened to the smell of an early summer’s day
Honey suckle makes its heightened presence known
As it thickens the air with pungent perfume
Soft, sunrays through the opened window shone
Casting shadows of climbing ivy in costume
While a brilliant blue sky steals its golden hue
Bids me arise; take in the beauty all around
Endless sunrises and sunsets, to pursue
When again the world seems young and life more profound
I hear the ocean’s call through the wind, ’come home’
Our long-distance love affair still growing strong
It makes no difference where these feet may roam
Come summer or winter love endures it can’t be wrong
~*~
06/12/13
Olive wore a wedding dress of lilac voile
Her groom gave a beaming smile
When she glided down the aisle
Peter persistently proposed… Peter’s patience prevailed!
Contest: 4 lines
First line: anagram.
Second/third line: Couplet
Fourth line: Alliteration.
Sponsor Silent one
18th December 2015
The Swan King.
Fine fibre lashes flicker, flutter.
Sailing trance-like on warm reflected glass,
Royal icing sculpture, still Lily-White feathers.
Ripples giggling, Dragon Flies dipping,
Sticklebacks cha-cha clumsily within own shadows.
as pulsing circles steady...peaceful.
Lilac Water-lilies whirl-curl open,
as perfumes whoosh! Midges hypnotic.
Verdant reeds stand stiff, honouring dawn’s yellow-zest ribbons,
as a frozen Butterfly poses for flight.
‘S’ curved, sparkling neck, full-stop onyx pupils,
he glance-glares at a Mallard trio...
olive flecked necks scuba dive in shell-pink wellies,
then line-dance...
’One-two, one web forward,
two-three, one web back.
four-five shake booty!’
Rainbow Trout ker-plop leap in this shrine-still lake,
mountains laminate into silver firewater.
As a billion tiny stars come together enhancing wizard–white plumage
the Swan Queen follows his webbed tracks.
Wisps of twirling mist creep in gentle hush,
lovers serenely drift beneath skies of solar-blue,
on bluish-wine water, saturated in Heaven–leaking light,
a fading fairytale vanishes into Moonlight’s magical veiled silk voile.
Each Crystal shape fell white and clear
spreading a film of shimmering snow
like a curtain of voile draped from heavens door
on earths patchwork quilt below
Softly silently swirling
as busy clouds darkened the blue
and each snowdrop covered the bravest of buds
while the raging blizzard grew.
From the silent hills to the valleys below
the wind in her frenzied flight
tears at the heart of creatures small
and covers the earth in a blanket of white.
Bush and saplings cower closer
the weakest will surely fall
no haven now for tiny wings
no sound,no plaintive call.
The wild wind spent of her fury
leaves a wilderness in her wake
the curtain now a shroud, enclosed
the silent frozen waste.
Alone stands proud the holly
as she shakes her mantle free
nestled in the rich brown earth
beneath her boughs of evergreen.
Lies a patch of gallant snowdrops
and a little touch of spring.
The horizon is sleek :
No sails coming
No boat slips
> And I remember
That you embarked, joyful
for this distant country
Where you would be happy
- ( according to what is said ) -.
Because I don't have news ...
just those of the salt
and the wind, too
from now on, happens.
I watch for the liquid immensity ,
all along the day,
but the sea remains empty,
- and absence is its outline.
---
and the original (in french ) :
--------
L'horizon est lisse
Aucune voile ne vient
Aucun bateau ne glisse
> Et je me souviens
Que tu t'embarquas, joyeuse
pour ce lointain pays
Où tu serais heureuse
– ( d'après ce que l'on dit ) -.
Car je n'ai de nouvelles ...
que celles du sel
et aussi du vent
qui arrivent, dorénavant .
Je guette l'immensité liquide,
tout au long du jour,
mais la mer reste vide ,
– et l'absence est son contour.
A trellis of leaves flutters so naturally,
reams hanging free… timeless in a swirl
on the curving breasts of night. And they dance,
prance without restraint
onto altitudes of orbital light,
glistening through their
russet-gold flesh…
Somehow, these leaflets enter into my
dazzled world as if to murmur:
“We are here, but not for a long, my dear
so you must learn our celestial song ,
unfurl your wings across melodious rivers--
come dance with us ,your beauty fills…”
And my hips jut out like a riot
of dragonflies, butterflies, fireflies
towards the same aurora, draped
in a voile-skirt's embrace; my
arms and limbs circling in shapes unknown...mysterious
as autumn's moonlit croon,
while leaves flicker into a hushed
tempo of nightfall's revelry,
deliriously untame..
Translation of Eric Mottram’s The Cat Sat on the Mat, La chatte s’est assise sur la natte by T. Wignesan
(Unless I’m sorely mistaken, this’s EM’s first published poem: Poetry Magazine/Poetry Foundation, Chicago, February 1959, pp. 306-307.)
La chatte s’est assise sur la natte
Assise sur ses hanches de la souche de vin elle
Evoque la loi de trépied
Et elle lance son quatrième jambe
En la direction des parasites
La partie supérieur de son cou blanc: un habile
Petit coup obsessionnel de ses muscles fins
Le soleil se palisse. Des plats nuages font tourner
La voile brumeuse sous le ciel.
A la limite maniaque du pivot
De sa vibrante crise sans fin
De son grattement elle s’arrête et fixe son regarde
De ses paires d’étangs du sens aux teints vertes
Elle s’est enfermée en rejetant
Mon sens d’empathie pour son état de dépression.
Des marées précoces de la panique
Ravagent mes pores et secouent
Ma langue fatale pendant qu’elle
Reste tout bien protégée. Etendue à l’extrême
Dans des toiles tropiques hautaines de nerfs
Des grosses images se sont assises les jambes croisées
A l’intérieur de son crâne outré et absurde .
Une rose blanche ne peut pas croire
Que, moi, je l’ai vu désintégrer.
Des lianes s’adhèrent dans son coeur,
L’impulsion se montre sans même une parole.
Sa jambe obsessionnelle s’est sauté dès son coeur
Et le mythe silencieux en forme de bec
De son amour s’apparaît en se remontrant
Prenant entièrement pour proie le nez et l’aine
L’isotype* de Venus dans son sang.
(Note: * probably an error for “isotope”. )
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 2017
Moonlight is my favored language
It shades misty ,
Though cold night etches wilted boughs
Raking the muddied fields--
Lean willows change into argent gold:
In dripping furrows of hollowness
Fragile roots and stalks
Glimmer against pale weeds
As tassels of orb’s voile thread
Embellish autumn’s mourning grass.
This is moonlight, yellowing the eve
Across the stark open... In my aloneness
I watch it flicker through shadow play
That my essence breathes awhile --
Beams somehow speak to me
about howling pain and lilting quietude;
As a crescent trace draws a hint of radiance
To awaken my inner poise , now
...slowly embracing the wonder of new worlds.
With my bedspread on the floor again I wandered through the night
To where those ink stained messages were written black on white,
And I struggled in suspension, as my dreams were transposed there
Like thoughts of sleeping wakefulness adrift upon the air,
And though each word meant nothing to me, they were knitted into being
Like poetic compositions where the final act was seeing,
And as the night chills wrapped around me, I woke up once again
Between the pages of myself, absolved of all my pain.
As the bedside lamp threw shadows out, they played within my eyes
And every evening moment there looked on in soft surprise,
While velvet curtains beckon me to touch the midnight shade
Where bronze voile nets flap slowly in a buttercup cascade,
And through the open window float dark imaged serenades
That pick me up and put me down, before each image fades,
Then they drift out on a painting of a far off Summer’s day
Of two children in a garden, as they watched the swallows play.
Then as I reached down for my bedspread, through the window shone a star
And it touched me on the forehead, as I wondered how you are,
On the far side of the mirror, was a place that I once knew
Another place, another time, another me and you,
And the star felt just like lips I knew from days of love and grace
When all I ever needed was the smile upon your face,
Then I lay back on my pillow and I wished us both once more
Your head laid softly on my arm, just standing on the shore…
Brilliant gold, sunlight streaming
Creeping leisurely ‘cross my bed
Filtering through the blue/white voile
Soft lips murmuring- beautiful smile breaking
Sleepy eyes flutter - open
Blink….hmm...left over delicious dream!