iris diffuse
colour irrelevant
silver slivers radialize
as dark emotions pass
light cadences
kaleidoscope
eyes remain core's mirrors
refracts every rainbow facet
ascending prisms delight
iris is bridge
___________________
Third Placement: Standard
Sponsor: Sotto Poet
June 26
TO A NEVER-ENDING SYMPHONY
OF EMANCIPATION’S RECONSTRUCTION
Stomping cautiously
Along the erratic cadences
Of slaved-based racism
And its quarter-note overtones,
We groove from one oppressive
Barred-beat to another:
The scored freedom sojourn
Filled with negative rest stops,
Designed to decrescendo
Wailing staccato, rhythmic screams
Of jazzy, flowing notes, echoing
With rebellious metered sounds:-
Bypassing silent apathetic rest stops,
With a crescendo of rumbling faith
And sassy melodic hopes,
Renewed booming sounds of liberation,
void of waning half notes,
Loudly burst into vibrant whole notes
Of modulating fixed purpose:
Creating a never-ending
Symphony Of Emancipation,
Conducted by spiritual directing,
Exacting melodic notes
Of an ultrasonic pulse,
Echoing a never-ending concert
And its encore sounds of
Liberty’s total reality:-
October arrived with a cold, clinical weight. I remember the sharp edge of my car keys pressing into my palm as I walked to the parking lot, the Oklahoma sky suddenly blurred. In that silence, I wasn't a person, just a diagnosis-until I opened the app, a glow in the dark of the front seat. The cursor blinked like a heart monitor, waiting for the "why" to finally become a syllable.
Then, the first line broke the surface. I found a rhyme for the ache, a metaphor for the strength I didn't know I held. On PoetrySoup, the chaos began to settle into stanzas; each poem was a small victory over the shadows, a way to reclaim my body through my voice.
I wasn't just writing into the dark. I read the verses of strangers turned kin-others who had weathered their own storms. In their comments and their cadences, I found a sanctuary where I wasn't "the patient," but a poet, standing whole among the words. This is my life raft: a community of ink that kept me afloat when the tide was high.
I remember when your voice was my mother's,
measured cadences at the mirror, adjusting
my collar, smoothing unruly hair. Now you've
burrowed deeper than her inflection, nested in
the soft matter where I conjugate inadequacy
like a second language, fluent in the grammar
of not enough. You've made a home between
synapses, furnished it with decades of almost,
a museum of moments I should have said
something sharper, stood straighter, been
more. Some nights I hear the echo
of that first voice gentler, trying
to protect me from the world's
sharp edges. But you've honed
yourself on them instead,
become blade
more
than
shield.
The stench of endless days clings to my name;
My folly, like a rust, but stings not him.
A meek heart paid for by relentless blame,
Youth’s bitter wine- a draught forever grim.
Past twilights reel in cadences untrue,
I fall, a penitent within the flame;
Bound to repentance- ash where roses grew,
My voice, the echo of a sullied name.
O sickle, strike the valleys we once promised,
Lay low the ghosts that haunt my dwindled shore.
Let golden breaths on iron fleece be kissed,
And singe the thought that kept me wanting more.
So let the world unspool what once I wore,
That even ruin might return me pure.
Grant me rest under your lissome stems
Let me hide from the raindrops — shiny globules
That drip with tropical hauteur,
Rain that harms the ribs with cold rebukes.
Welcome me within your greenish lair, from
Your cane roots to your starry leaves —I insist on visiting
In your prime, so fresh with dew and so green, like
The envy in the gritty eyes of singed composts,
When waving rays of the shifting sun
Bathe the narrow venues formed by adjoining stems
Up, up and up the stairs and dome of the jungle.
I pray to shoot up with you and befriend the skies.
Oh, such elevation!
Fill my gourd with green wine;
Make me drunk with the spewing colours of life.
My heart is open to receive light —from misty dawn to
Dusk crowned with your blessing.
Let it rain on, I pray.
My palms are spread out like your leaves — I borrow the
Innocence of your frondescence.
Carve me flutes from your nodes, and, from them
Raise the cadences for summons, to be accompanied by
Drums fashioned by hands greased by the gifts of
The forests. . . .
Raise the joy, the frenzy, the tone of the ceremony
Raise, raise . . . upheave them
To royal heights — such as yours.
You’ve lived through loss—
you’ve battled unuttered shame—
yet you hold onto Love like it is more
than a Delusion—it is Honor—precious
and rainbow-like—shimmery and
shadowy all in one.
You speak to her with Soul,
truths that seem simple—
truths that survive in warm hands,
in melodies,
in cadences,
in overtones,
in steady Voice.
You are creased at the edges
like a letter read too many times,
but your words—
your words are both
soft lanterns and sunlight—
lit from somewhere deeper than breath.
Some people are put here
to hold others when they cry,
to remind them that they are still real—
still seen, still envisioned, still worth
writhing, weaving weights of
Dream-drunk Love.
3.3.25
I could hear any music, their sensual lyrics rhyming with the beats,
Cadences rising and falling, calling my steps to sway gently,
I wonder if I will ever find a symphony that feels like it belongs to me,
To immerse myself in its rhythm, to let its harmonies lull my thoughts to sleep.
I seek that dreamy softness to bloom amidst this noise,
Its distinct melody making me aware of the heart I ignore by day,
Which I push aside in the daily tumult, lost in the rush of time,
A sound to awaken me to myself, to remind me who I am.
I hear songs at every turn I make, foreign echoes surrounding me,
But I seek that slow and gentle symphony I can call home,
A sonic refuge where silence intertwines with harmony, and my soul dances,
A place of my own, where the rhythm of life becomes a warm and eternal embrace.
Unbound Verse**
Words flow free, like water's gentle sway,
Unchained by rhyme or meter's strict decree.
A river of thought, meandering with ease,
Expressing depths, unfettered and at ease.
No measured beats restrict its rhythmic stride,
No forced cadences mar its natural stride.
It dances with the soul, a graceful flight,
Unburdened by the confines of the night.
Like whispers carried on the wind's soft breath,
Free verse weaves tales of joy, despair, and death.
It paints emotions in vibrant hues untold,
A tapestry of feelings, raw and bold.
In its unbound freedom, truth takes flight,
Unveiling secrets hidden from the light.
It speaks of dreams and hopes, both grand and small,
And echoes voices that reverberate through all.
So let the words flow unrestrained and wild,
In free verse's embrace, untamed and mild.
For in its boundless realms, the soul finds grace,
A sanctuary where thoughts find their rightful place.
Lumbar ladies stroll by as the night sedans plunder the ho-dad hostels.
Looking to find nothing except another dozing cigarette beyond the cadenzas.
Another hot afternoon in suburbia with the repeated barkings of a distant dog.
Billy boy in his red asphalt-eating machine turns the dial to San Bernardino.
There is cool music bobbing in the hot accepting winds, south of Dragons Head.
In smoggy Corona, the dizzy Volkswagens travel in circles like demented dogs.
Billy boy guns the engine as he and the Mexican chick cruise in a ’67 beetle.
They pass the Chuck Wagon, as Slim Harpo melts the sun with Little Liza Jane.
Traffic signals, and the elderberry trees, pretend to dance to the muted cadences.
The hot afternoon winds play their own love-games as Billy boy comes to a stop.
Brown-eyed señorita with long hair flowing tells Billy boy to turn up the sound.
‘Music is life,’ she says, as the red asphalt-eating machine turns left at 6th Street.
Lumbar ladies stroll by now as the night sedans receive the night’s embrace.
At City Park, Billy and his latin lady sleep soundly in the cottonwood darkness.
Poetic Diversion For Violin And No Orchestra
planet shoes tiptoeing
in cadences known to the mourning cloaks
their soft landings on spread petals
teach infinite lessons with splendid hot swishes
fan-tailing silently the unseen cricket kisses
rising and soaring like pepper tree phantoms
saying life is a slow dance in the moonlight
tall earring girl with perfume music blaring
penetrates the soft garden with red fantail kisses
turning the world around with splendid hot swishes
desperately embracing the pepper tree phantoms
planet shoes tiptoeing
words
emerge organically
as blossom
from
inspiration
&
embrace
a
natural
placement
to
visually
evolve
into
verse
in
a harmonious
dance
twixt content
& form
unfurling
as a flower
in the sun
on
the emotional landscape
of symbiotic
thought
becoming
a
rich tapestry
perceivable
wordplay
indentation
spacing &
line break
woven cadences
of expressive
effect
Autumn, the present season
Changes of cadences and colors
It's a very charming time
Which only lies in errors.
The leaves are no longer green
Except those of the everlasting firs
A large number of sentinel birds
Leave, because they are less alert.
Fall is a beautiful and dark season
Which is between the cool and the cold
It's time to decorate the homes
For the feasts of the believers, and for the loas.
Autumn is here; the leaves are falling
On the damp lawns and on the graves
Winter will be more severe this year
And the buds will be absent on the glaciers.
Autumn is picturesque and melancholic
The ladies start to hide their bodies
Bit by bit. The smiles become dramatic
As we celebrate the living and the dead.
Copyright © October 2020, Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved
Hébert Logerie is the author of several collections of poetry.
This is a translation of the poem: 'L'Automne Est Là' by Hebert Logerie
Athwart
Child:
Look! My dear mother, the serene summit of those high hills.
Hark! My dear mother, the cadences of the handsome halcyon.
Sway! My dear mother, along with the debonair daffodils.
Dance! My dear mother, along with the proud plumes that the peacocks adorn.
Mother:
Come, sweet child of mine.
High hills, handsome halcyons, and proud plumes of the peacock are all fine,
but I must step out to earn.
Nature is divine, and from it, there is so much to learn.
Come, sweet child of mine, I will share some secrets of nature you cannot see.
I will make you discover this nature, athwart nature’s glint and glee.
The serene summit of those high hills is lashed by wind and scorched by the sun.
The handsome halcyon makes many furtive fervent flaps before it gets its prize.
The doting debonair daffodils hold acids to make the rodents run.
The peacock's proud plumes make it look large, to keep it safe from its predator's eyes.
Learn to endure like the high hills.
Learn to keep trying like the handsome Halcyon.
Learn to stay strong like the debonair daffodils.
Learn to make beauty your strength like the plumes the peacocks don.
my muse -
departed …
sometimes reality squeezes you dry,
and breathes you away with the dust …
words, beings, cadences,
the gists of the gloaming -
gone …
so …
just write.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, April 12, 2023
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