Alacrity, bestows the sorrowful or does mirth elate the callow and fair the damsel is distressed but love is oft fair, fairly gamed and sore about the heart, the festival of anxiety is artless until we part, so like amiable laughter this next of crooning despair a yolk of sullen glee like vampiric sunken lairs.
The sun is overjoyed
reaching its zenith
suspending in cloudless sapphire skies
in a scarlet lit horizon
its solar sheen is veiled,
beyond the handsome hacienda
hidden from ancient alibis
a time of musings I can’t resist
I paint a likeness of her,
wistful watercolor bursts
highlights by brushed strokes
gently caressing her skin, she wears
an unrestrained ear to ear grin
recherché, warmth rare
as a ruby red stone
a sonorous soprano’s tone
ravened tresses cascade unruly
copious tangled locks flow wild
within stirs the silver stars,
she perceives the wisdom in the callow
& indelible in the wise
youths’ oval ebony, &soulful eyes
a generous yet haunting sad smile,
transcending space &time
it rids me of my harden heart’s denial
on a quest of her own,
a love child grown
…&so has a
a mother’s love
Invisible, you are, but always, there,
as your sands, fall steadily, grain by grain,
while callow youths forget you without care,
you tick off days of happiness and pain.
Each moment, and each tiny grain of time,
as it goes from the future to the past,
can only fall, and never can it climb,
as those bygone days cannot be recast.
While your slim waist, but one grain will allow,
soon the last one's grim outcome will be wrought,
as I approach the closing, final "now",
I find solace in a comforting thought.
My grandchild's birth is coming soon and then,
hourglass, you'll be flipped over once again.
Written: April 29, 2026, for contest Sponsored by: Charles Messina
*******************
Silken buds bloom
Tender winds loom
Vivid birds zoom
Callow hills rise
Cloudless blue skies
New sparkle sighs
Pinkish blooms sway
Golden bees play
Sunny crowns day
Breezy rains fall
Slender seeds call
Springtime warms all
Mister Bourdain clearly in abject pain
The cook feeling crook can't refrain
Asked about same subject did complain
Coffee's not a culture he does explain
Why do they sustain their campaign
His bane such nonsense won't wane
Not like the throng along the Seine
Nor the glitz of Biarritz or arcane Spain
We know a barista may have to train
Wittily says in Italy have made it plain
Breakfast frothy coffee then not again
The agony of Anthony fuels his disdain
Slicker chair made from wicker & cane
Hysteria like wisteria on a trendy lane
Specs and pecs those necks will crane
Feline design plastic surgery is insane
Their ilk less coffee more milk will contain
Let's end yuppie caffeine bean reign
The vastly ghastly inane finally slain
Shallow callow stain down the drain
Forget arty farty latte said Bourdain
He did maintain to party & entertain
Not trippy dippy hippy Lion's mane
Go loco coca not cocoa yep cocaine
.
'gainst mine
mine grateful
face
press'd
hern globe'z
thick
admiring hern
mammillea
'gainst mine
chest
oh
how please'd she
seem'd
'bout hern
rest
. yep
just it be
az that in thuh space
'bove thuh
cloudz
yep
thuh ether
though not in full
rotund
hern less than weak
peruse uv me
mine eyne
i
hm
yeah no
pray'd
yet
she had me explicate
non placet
shnap
")
Boundary rope trope it's the hope that kills
Fatality of the banality of all Bazball’s frills
Hilarity of baggie greens nationwide thrills
Beer swills spills hosts dreams full to the gills
Totality of the brutality still gives me the chills
Stokes not chipper has to swallow a bitter pill
Can't fallow our ripper skipper’s skill & iron will
Our leader will wallow in the shrill media mill
His men shi*ter…hollow can't follow Ben's drill
Callow not brill..of shallow Bazball had our fill
Hallow the Wizards of Oz are still top of the bill
The country alive cheering let's go in for the kill
Begin fearing the din of sneering & jeering 5 nil
No rosebud should ever experience a seed of fear growing in them.
Quote by poet.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seed of Fear
A cryptic shadow slithers
Across a moonlit floor
Past tea parties, glass slippers
And naïve unicorns
Wearing feather boas
To reawaken a seed of fear
Deeply planted
By ashes in driving downbeats
Of thick moonbeams
That penetrates artless innocence
In a requiem for mercy.
Paralyzed in a coma of terror
A rosebud hears
The strident flute song mount
To sing an epitaph for stolen magic
As it bursts from its calyx
On rotting moonbeams
Sowing repeated ebony nightmares
By the full moon
That whirl and spin
In shades upon the ceiling
And like a thorn
The pulsing root sinks embryonic genes
Deep into shivering petals.
In satisfaction the shade withdraws
With skulking footsteps,
Oblivious to the rosebud’s tears,
Leaving pure petals wilted
In muffled agony
The callow flower’s story
Told in silhouettes
Of shadows on a moonlit wall
Each moonlit night
A ravished garden
Watered by mangled tears
A eulogy grows for ever after
In an epitaph for innocence
Chose a Title; Naïve Faith, Sponsor – Edward Ibeh – 8-27-25
Naïve synonyms: callow, guileless, innocent, pure, genuine, honest, simple, sincere
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Naïve Faith
Callow faith walks with wide eyes
In playgrounds littered with stark cunning
When adorned innocence
Seeks to soar where angels fly
Not blinded by fool’s gold
Nor looted by evil’s glittery tinsel
Or minds darkened by drugs of ebony
That plagiarizes honesty
With rationalized temptations
In ravished glamour.
Artless faith, clothed by incorruptible purity,
Shivers when simplicity senses
A wrinkle in infinity -
Guileless belief skirts gullible’s traps
Clothed in a gift of sight.
When beastly motives
Try to sideswipe honesty
With glitz and jewels of paste
Dangling shiny promises with dark underbellies
Naive faith, clothed in discernment,
Sees with candid clarity.
The rose still blooms despite attacks
By mold or mildewed rust
The sun still wakes the dawn
Even when eclipsed
Crowned by a faultless corona
As stars refuse to enter black holes
Faith embraces the innocent.
A mackerel sky fillets a fish scaled village,
an ear clapping, full sailed, fog
moors itself to the rooftops,
then hides all in a breezeless blear.
Rheumy eyes peep out from nets,
damp noses sniff abaft trawling drapes.
Cloth in hand, potbellied proprietors
battle the splatter and spray,
dabbing at mildewed shelves,
warding away slopping waders
and salty puddles.
On the sightless sea
far beyond the shore and shingle,
fog horns are lowing like lost cattle.
Later, misty reeks will be scoured
from groggy docks,
hauling hands will rope together
the tide-tossed salvage
by and by, squeaky boots
may trudge to taprooms
where codgers and callow alike
can be well oiled
and duly quenched.
Faith is the thing with callow feet—
That tiptoes on thin air—
It keeps no calendar or creed—
Yet finds me unaware.
It does not knock—it does not plead—
But settles in the soul—
A hush, more firm than any church—
A bell without a toll.
It drinks the dew from shadowed grass—
It sings beneath the snow—
And when the sky forgets to speak—
It’s all the voice I know.
It walks where reason fears to go—
A guest without a name—
And when I fall, it does not scold—
But lifts me just the same—
As if it wore a wounded wing—
Yet soared despite the flames .
Most cherished of thoughts, ideas abloom,
spreading, expanding
Overcoming harsh crushing repression,
breaking loose into a fluffy
sacred cloud bound emancipation
Liberation! My spirit takes flight, light,
mellow, blithe and callow
No longer crushed prostrate
'neath the crushing tyranny of the basis gossip
I inhale an atmosphere crisp and fresh,
bounding upward, deep into the wide blue yonder
Grace most astounding ecstatic!
Voices mocking, condemning now stilled-upward
I soar toward a far more welcoming place than
I have ever known
Rejoice!
Alas! You dark, grotesque, vile servant of Lucifer, the antithesis of the morning star.
Once again, you have sought me out and endeavored to siphon my light at the end of my tunnel.
In the past, you may have thwarted my desires, cast me into purgatory,
and whispered sophistry in the crevices of my mind.
But NOW your machinations are no threat to me. What once was a callow mind has turned into growth over time.
I have learned to see where there is no light, how to climb where there is no ladder.
So do your best, you nocturnal fiend. Your reign is over; you no longer have influence over me.
Now I know, good times and bad times are like tides that ebb and flow.
So traverse the realms to shroud my days in night.
I will say to thee, “Hello, my old friend. Do your worst, because God has bestowed upon me my own personal light, and I walk by it habitually every day and night.”
Cacoethes as infatuation
visited me mostly in my youth.
Those deep yearnings fed my soul
with the lyrics of melancholy love songs
that revolved on my record player’s
turntable as I, in my callow days,
lay in bed drowning in my fantasies
of unobtainable desires.
Cacoethes as cravings
found me also as the obsessions
that were literally fed me as food.
Too easily was I led
by edible longings -
but I was not feeding real hunger.
Rather – I was hungering
to feed an empty heart.
Eventually I learned to control
my cravings for the sweet and the salty,
and old longings of infatuation
long ago fled from me.
Any void I feel today
I fill with cacoethe substitutes
mostly harmless and rarely unhealthful
as I move my pen again and again
over paper.
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