Sheila wears tiger clothes everywhere she can.
Do you have a tiger swimming suit? I ask.
She does not.
I feel it is my opportunity to see her in another color.
I am tired of always seeing orange and black stripes on her.
She arrives wearing a tiger caftan of course.
I am shocked you do not have a tiger hat, I say.
I have over three hundred tiger hats she replies.
She gets out her cell phone and begins boring me with them.
WAKING
I woke from a dream
to a clear mellow voice floating
through the valley like the sacred
oscillation of a singing prayer bowl,
the reverberating ring of its braided
harmonics as sharp as the blue of a
January sky and round as the full moon
reveling in the presence of sunlight
at night – an irresistible voice, guiding
the listener through snowfall and fog
toward a luminous glow in a mysterious
clearing on a forested hill, where the
song is in Farsi and the woman who sings
wears a caftan of crimson surrounding her
voice in a bright red caress, her head
slightly lifted, the fire of her faith but a
small endless flame, the soft light so
perfect that the only recourse for the
reticent soul is to break down and cry, to
kneel down and pray, and be visited by
Allah in this wonderful way, in this
wonderful place, at this
wonderful time!
Emanuel Carter
Moonlight shines through my lonely evening
Bringing soft illumination to my inner heart
Warming, reminding me of long distant nights
When we cuddled and were entirely one.
My soul is humming a subtle tune we knew
A distant voice trills a single plaintive note
Assuring me the whole spirit world is dancing.
Then I pull the filmy sheer across the pane
Draw my favorite caftan into a reassuring hug
And savor a moonlit moment alone embracing.
FIRST PLACE WINNER
Brian Strand Poetry Contest
March 11, 2022
THIRD PLACE WINNER
John Hamilton Contest - 2021
Wear love like a caftan,
Less room for grief, she says.
Names entered into his notepad,
Without explanation.
The unlimited expanse in which
All objects are contained.
A flash of light,
As if a bit of electricity has escaped.
You must find out how
To empty the molten pool.
In that Basin of Prophesy the Muses sing.
In the Chalice of Fantasy the Fates weave.
How do you kill a man?
Hit him three times!
Note: "Contemporary ghazals generally dispense with thyme and emphasize the shifts between couplets." John Drury, The Poetry Dictionary, Story Press, 1995, page 120.
I went to see a love of mine today.
She stood in a wonderful red patterned caftan-like dress.
Delightful red embroidery at the throat.
She smiled, pleased, as I was, that I was there.
Her brown hair cascaded down each side of her face over her shoulders,
feathering out a welcome
Her care bespoken face, as always, carried her character, her loveliness through pain,
her ability to have faced pitted despair and found that she still wanted life.
I love seeing her face.
It somehow soothes me,
allows me to feel like I’m alright for the moment.
as though softness and tenderness do exist for my soul.
Intimacy is in her face.
Or perhaps it mirrors mine.
I don’t know.
But I know she is a love of mine.
Dec 2011
A setting evening sun displays thy silhouette on caftan dress,
Reminding of thy same shadow formed by a morning sun.
Sun painted by morning or evening light thou art my love.
Perfumed memories drift
across a sensuous universe
delivered sotto voce: Smell
of morning mist, me into you,
you into black coffee
wearing your silk caftan
as through an open window
city smells melt up
from littered sidewalks,
sparerib bouquet flies out
from juke joints and you,
always you, like fudge brownies
hot from the oven until
one day at thirty-nine,
you fell into a heroin spoon
wafting death
in our cold empty room.
Now, decades gone, in my still-keening mind
passes down a long imagined hallway
with many closed doors,
where a light beneath each sill
waits to be opened to smell,
where memories dwell
never far
from sweet potato pie.
~~~~~~~~~ revised 8/09 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~