They pose with the austere stares of
Loving, friendly ghosts —tall, gaunt and lissome,
With big, rounded head.
Draped in weathered robes of care,
They are the only guardian spirits we see.
They have the calming power,
Where drunken machines run amok
Through broiling engine oils
And reckless crankshafts,
Spitting gas, and brittle axles.
Roads are unpredictable.
In winter they storm with the quiet rage of
Sods, dragging queens and whims . . .
Guide me, O limits of spirits!
Check my fattened excesses for fibrosis.
Darkness thickens —even by feast-time of the sun.
The seething waters took them.
I rage,
rage against the deluge,
an unmoored,
unrestrained rage.
I rage for the innocents,
a rage that drowns all else
except more broiling,
more roiling waves of rage,
an anger that unstrings
the harps of angels.
Rage I now, at the blind horror
of godforsaken moments
that snatch all away
as suddenly as a surging,
untethered,
Texas tsunami.
I rage against
the ever-deceitful aspirations
of peace and calm,
rage utterly
against all heaven-sent calamities,
rage most,
upon
this violent earthbound dream
we have plunged into,
it is a raging river
that will sweep us all away,
even little girls,
all those struggling to still swim
above such raging torrents
only to slip through flailing hands
as hope sinks below
yet more tumultuous waters,
waters which
it has been written,
that Jesus himself
once walked upon.
My drinks enticing and sweet
On a chair in the middle of the street
My little floaters been dinged
Toiling waves the edges singed
The wood alive with roaring flame
Waters pulsing like a broiling brain
The cars flow downriver like syrup
I float on my raft with an empty cup
My chair can't sink among the heat
Since it's not the damn drivers seat
So I travel the world and surf
My cup will never touch any turf
Arms reach out from the ocean waves
They hold tight, the current fails
They want saltless delight im sure
I lift the parasol, sugar is the cure
I reach down and share the fluid
The current takes it, people included
It's no matter, I can surf without it
So I crouch on the boards and sit
Then lie and bask in the sun
And even the hands cant ruin the fun
They still reach and pin me
From below the board they see
Grab my cup and take it
I laugh and spit
I let them take it where it belongs
Bubbling under the wooden walls
And I still have the suns fire
It extinguishes the waters pyre
The lapping waves cant burn
My raft of wood will never turn
Everything is so warm and free
As long as my drink is lifting me
There’s a tugging in my chest
It leads me straight to you
Bubbling, broiling love and luck
Of pink and golden hue
A kind and sweethearted soul
Deserves the world anew
And when she talks, my heart goes light
And face burns red for you
Sweetheart, sweetheart, hug me close
Pull me tight to you
My little blue jay, birdie, love
Fire alarm, love me too
Jigsaw girl was a supreme pleaser
her pieces imperfectly placed by "the others".
Always the first to acknowledge the last to be noticed.
Nobody cared enough to really get to know her.
One "other" paid her frailties some attention
loneliness always jumps at the first glance
to escape from its granite chrysalis...
but being stretched like silly putty never really lasts.
She only halfway snapped back long after that.
She withdrew into a coil of broiling silence
where jagged echoes only invite things
that are lost, brass-eyed, in crisis.
It took "the others" forever to toss her a rope
she tied a half-dozen white roses together
slid off the last wicker chair dream,
dangling from all hope...lifeless.
Today Russia has begun a war broiling in Putin’s sick fantasy
Ukraine people gird themselves for bombs and deaths, many deaths
Can the USA, NATO swoop in and stop the invasion?
Maybe yes maybe no
Humans can fly to the moon and aspire to travel to the stars
but can’t figure out how to feed or stop killing each other
maybe they don’t know how but
it looks like they just don’t give a damn about people
It will be written in the fate of mankind
that mankind did not earn a second chance
as killing of humans and animals continued
appalling acts in the name of selfish egos of men
Who have a rock of grizzle in their chest where a heart should be
convincing themselves a bad idea conceived at night is good however
the reality of an ill thought out plan in the chill of evening has a price
The destruction brings forth a different realism that hurts
women, children, the old and they pay the price
but they, the people hating, war mongers don't care.
Ideas are slapping me in the gut today.
I shove one, another falls, one urges me to play.
I bite them and smash them and slash them to bits.
They keep coming back, not caring if I scream or have fits.
Come on! I say to my imagination. Give me a break.
She takes out a potato and starts broiling a steak.
A pink dinosaur with orange dots stands on my head.
I guess these ideas will keep coming until I am dead.,
Thunder growled and prowled the leaden sky,
no sign of birds in trees, no bees nor butterfly.
High summer and the thrumming of rain on leaf,
the catatonic stillness and quietude only brief.
A crackle of jagged light excites and splits the sky asunder,
followed by a murmur then a crescendo of rolling thunder.
The rain applauds with hordes of watery droplets,
that hiss and sizzle in the clammy air like rhyming couplets.
A moments grace as clouds race and build to thunderhead,
then the moiling, broiling vapour ignites and crashes overhead.
The brooding skies lighten as the heavenly orchestra perform,
diminuendo, percussion and birdsong the ending of the storm.
COME HERE SWEETLY
BY: MIGDALIA TORRES
Come here Sweetly
I know you are my friend
Come here Sweetly
I want to know your Name
I am Robin Rock
Who walks along the way
To Grandma’s House away I will go
and meet Sweetly on the way
Come here Sweetly
I need to know your Name
Come here Sweetly
My Wolf Pack is at Bay
Take another look and place another Hook today
for Children like you are my Bait,
and tastes sweetly just the same
Come here Sweetly
and don’t you walk away
A Fire Pit is Boiling
I’ll have some Meat today;
A Wolf Gang always gets his way
A Wolf Gang never walks away
So come here Sweetly
I’m Broiling You Today!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!
August 1965
Laying hot tar and sand
Swarms of mosquitoes
Broiling summer sun
Warm water tasted cool
Low pay, nasty job
No job, no pay
Endless stretches ahead
Laying hot tar, sand,
Sweat, and what was left
of my self esteem
On Georgia roads
Baking, broiling, blindingly bright, blistering sun,
Super scorching, sweltering, sizzling sand
The kabob that is my body skewered, searing
Deceptively blue skies devoid of any deliverance
No cavalry of clouds coming to convey compassion
Rising balloon-like bubbles of hot air
Causing distant objects to ripple and dance
Shimmering in the atmospheric boil
Falling to my knees, I detect in the distance
Glimmering patches of blue and green—Mirage!
A maniacal mime of molten mockery
Deriding my dreadful demise
All night sweating under a skin-wet sheet.
Fevered fantasies of skinny dipping
in a kiddy paddling pool,
toes as sticky as denture gum.
it’s broiling August.
Cold showers frazil
with soapy earth-baked splashes.
There’s a place to go
where they sell snow -
it’s a drug store, where they deal
in root beer floats, numb-numbs;
an ice-cream brain freeze. It helps.
Of course, in steamy September
when the sweat on your nose
flows upward
into parched eyes
a chilled Lime Phosphate
is the only cure.
despair is the devil's dungeon broiling in darkness
We visited the camp to see
Our grandkids hard at play.
Of course, the temps were broiling
On this sunny summer day.
The camp had lots of water and
The trees gave lots of shade
And lots of cool activities
Were planned and thus displayed.
The kids were thrilled to see us
As were we to watch their fun
But, despite the shade and water,
We were fried when it was done.
The campers all looked happy,
Too absorbed to note the heat
While we grands were glad to make it
Back to our A/C retreat.
eve's pond of white star charms
biters are broiling beneath
heaven daubs the blackness
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