The African night goes robust with
silence and attentiveness.
Darkness, grave, deep and merciless,
hisses remorselessly but soundlessly.
The moon is on a visit to her grandmother
Fireflies on bulrushes give blinking light, like exhausted
Twinkling stars expelled from heaven.
Post-suppertime, belching stomachs recline on
Whims of a slow-travelling night with faithful
Silhouettes walking ahead of stalking shadows.
Orchestral insects keep the night company
Folktales steal into this power of darkness —
A breathing nocturnal art with the pulse of
Communal growth . . .
The town crier is abroad
He needs no other identity but his voice,
A foghorn in the entrenched darkness.
Next is his wooden gong,
An instrument of life.
His voice rides smoothly through the night —
At times with punch, some other times
With the sound of glory . . .
And when there’s gloom,
With the sonorous flow of woe.
Dawn is a broad, unflawed painting
hanging on the loose threads of light,
hiding first behind wavering bulrushes on
the soft spikes of day
before spilling the good spell on us
of a new beginning.
The Dream of a Rill
Up in the highlands a leafy green dell
where day dreamers dream in the quiet still
blissfully dreaming beneath nature’s spell.
Where clusters of daisies cover the hill
and soft sighing zephyrs sway the blue bell
slow dancing in time by a bubbling rill
The rill herself is a wandering stream
And she, like the dreamers, has her own dream
She’ll leave the green dell, and finally flow
beneath the old bridge where children do wade
bypass the tall pines in long serried row
all standing up straight, like scouts on parade
Then winding through banks where the bulrushes grow
mid marsh marigolds that bloom in the shade
She’ll meet with her fate, a strong river free
And join its bold rush to greet the wide sea.
The rolling humpback hills.
Fade off into the horizon.
Giving the illusions of vast herds of buffalos.
Roaming and grazing peacefully across the sun lite plains,
Over fertile fields of wheat and wild grasses stretching into native lakes,
surrounded by tall-growing bulrushes, And cattails gracefully arching
Into magical gateways, with every gentle breeze, your imagination
goes on a journey with mother nature.
Holding hands with the flowing rivers
and with carpets of moss flirting with the edge of the banks
And dancing daffodils that bend and sway,
over the grassy hills and dales.
With orange, yellow, and apricot skirts swirling around
in the summer breeze.
Your Eyes Are Like Magic Marbles
Your eyes are like magic marbles
made of blue sky madness,
they draw my sharpest senses inward
rendering me helpless to your red devouring lips,
which pucker with a blinding instinctive intensity,
as with silent snakes seeking a cooler ground,
hidden inside a hotbed of conniving bulrushes;
your perfumed presence bringing out deliriously
a powerful draw upon my protruding screaming loins,
as if you had stolen my lapping eyes and tongue unseen,
rendering them completely to the burgeoning sky beast,
that now swoops down with grasping talons of arousal;
as you sprawl before me with plumes of mad impulse;
we lie naked, moist and spent; two lovers embracing,
forgetting about time and trouble as living human beings.
Your eyes are like magic marbles.
Nihil Obstat
What is this wave of floating currents,
Which enter the dark side streets
Like far-reaching rubbery tentacles?
It is your resigned reach for something
Infinitely beyond the staid and the shrill;
Your grasping of one moment in flexing time,
Your attempt to save a universe out of whack,
By donning your costume made of plastic fire,
With flashing sun medals signifying eminence.
What is this jaundiced atmosphere I inwardly sense
Within skinned temples made of bitter cortex,
Here in the bulrushes, wearing a feathered cap?
It is the silent pulse of a forest lacking an audible voice,
A meadow with green eyes that scratch the skies,
Looking to erode for all-time the blindness of hate.
Nature nurtures blooms and blushes
With redbirds, bluebonnets, and bulrushes
And peacock-curtained cirrus evening skies;
That unveil a Milky seine before our eyes,
Alluring our awed admiration
With magnetic, majestic fascination;
Easily eliciting an emancipation
To unparalleled faux freedom;
Fostering fleet-flying feelings;
Sending stunned senses soaring
Inevitably inducing intoxication
Which connects our inebriated emotions
That persuade our treasured, deeply hidden internals
Into exaltation of the high supernal.
"for contest FINETUNE THIS COLLABORATION sponsored by Line Gauthier".
By the bulrushes,
Where darting blue dragonflies
Flit like neon sparks,
Hover flies pause and patrol,
In the drunken summers haze,
We sat fishing by the lake.
Red-winged Blackbird
Look! There in the bulrushes,
Perched at an angle to the reed,
Is the Red-winged Blackbird
Keeping a close watch on his territory.
How do I know it’s a “he”? Easy.
By the jet-black plumage
And the red and yellow epaulettes
That distinguish him from a “she.”
The female’s feathers are rustic colours
With white patches underneath
And white streaks on the back and wings
That blend in with the surroundings.
See! I spot her sitting in the nest,
All snuggled in, keeping her eggs warm.
Quiet—not moving, not wanting
Anyone to know where she is.
Listen! And hear his three-syllable
“Conk-la-ree” cry piercing the air,
Which can only mean one thing to his mate:
Love! And he will be there for her.
Slowly, I back away,
Not wanting to create a disturbance
Or cause undue stress
For the birds.
The night sky reveals in a split second of light.
My mind often wonders at its scintilla sight.
Like a paparazzi camera in the dark bushes
and a floating papyrus-basket amidst bulrushes.
I’m drawn to the laser show of lightning.
Oh how it entertains, sinister and frightening!
Vertical to tall trees and slow-highway-motion.
The stranger never goes unnoticed with its commotion.
The eclectic zigzag, like a serrated knife
carving the melon of the sky with strife.
Dark pregnant clouds partner with danger
— a calm cradle’s serenity rearranger.
Bring it on, with all the players on the stage,
procuring pale and ghostly figures with all their rage.
2/17/2018
Describe a thunderstorm without the sense of sound/Brenda Chiri
the blog wars
hiding beneath and behind
the tufted heads of the nine tailed cats
awaiting the unsuspected entry
of inane innocence at large
devious despoilers – these demons
perfections faulted protectors
exacting a price they cannot pay
holding an ideal as a weapon
denying the truth of a single beauty
because it stands among so many
mocking the buds of beauty’s quest
as inept imposters to the throne
sticking the thorns of jealous roses
into the hearts of blooming daisies
hiding in the bulrushes of ego’s
self inflating fallacy
yet still intruders crash the gates
bold interlopers plodding onward
toiling in the trenches of a dream
unfazed by guardians failing scheme
John G. Lawless
10/12/2015
submitted to – Best October Poem – Poetry Contest
sponsor – SKAT A
The moon is slowly vanquished by the rising sun
The dawn of new day has began
Soon to school the children will run
The soul is enlighten by view of the garden and sun shining like a beacon
The day wins over night
In the morning light
On azure lake swans dazzle with delight
The magnificence of by sun kissed mountains is an awesome sight
The nearby golden grain field sways in early summer breeze
In the hive there is sound of bees
The bulrushes murmur remembering with ease
The old ballad where ancient Gods would do what they would please
In a river marsh, where pondweeds and cattails grew in warm clime,
the fair girl found a tall, black egret
with whom she could have a chat;
and was it the same one that her parents rescued from the wild?
Among bulrushes taller than she actually was,
the anxious girl told that bird one of her wishes:
to hop on his back and fly as the happiest butterfly,
and find her mom whom she remembered singing a lullaby.
" Take me to my mom!" she begged the wading bird.
" Nobody ever takes me there to visit her" she exclaimed.
" She may be miles away from here...way past the blue ocean!"
He replied with little confidence, lacking a sense of emotion.
The fair girl kept on begging, until the black egret finally nodded.
" Thank you, kind bird...now let's fly and depart from this marshland!"
So the two of them ventured into a cloudy sky expecting no rainfall...
not until they had gotten there safely and heard that sweet mother's call..
Rippling brook rushes
Swollen with spring rain gushes..
Eddie place bulrushes
Alligator suns
Basking her tough hide, sun buns..
Hippo destroys fun
Spring turns winter's tide
Nature comes quickly alive..
Bees buzz hopes for bride
For: Carol Brown
Contest: "Whats' The Buzz"
Twas not a twinge that caused my shout,
Nor feats that among bulrushes lay.
Nor dread that brought reshape about,
Nor was it visualized my peg out day.
But by the Holy Spirit I was undressed,
Left meandering, 'mongst cattails standing.
My thoughts,which God, forthwith assessed,
Swallowing sin, leaving ticker pounding.
Beyond my facade, emerged an inward glow,
The magnitude of which caused me to squirm.
From wetted eyes tears began to flow,
I was now God's man, not Satan's worm.
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