Poetry paints prismatic word-pictures
A cubist painting programmed in plain air
Poetry and painting prize pure features,
For centuries, art crafted with grand care
Let us journey to juxtapose the two
Both attract the primeval painters' flair
With colours in rich red, yellow, and blue
Words sketching with wise theatrical care.
Try to catch and caress the words you see
Draw sights and sounds into your fractal soul
Organic lines jotted down joyously
As fractal forms that fill Metatron's scroll
Golden spirals smeared in an author's room
Are geometry's homage on a loom.
Love is a corpse,
a slab on table and a checklist of finds,
6’ 2’’, rich, educated, white, slim,
a post-mortem on a body still fresh
Love is a casino,
a gamble in bright lights,
a bargaining of chips falling where they may,
an under-table sleight of hand
Love is a firework,
a hallucinogenic bonfire blaze
that spirals and swirls with a forever
waiting, a waiting for the bang, the explosion,
the sizzle from cosmos down to earth
Love is a house
with a cupboard for stale secrets
and a creak in an old spine staircase,
flagging passion hung out to dry above
yellow grass in need of water, can rusted
Love is silence is shout is cry is shake
is laugh is let down is let up
is cloud is volcano is dormant is erupt
is triumph is disaster is trust is tryst
Orange peel. Scent fresh but bitter,
tangible in taste and air. A circle in fruit
that dangles and is turned, twisted from
branch. The challenge to keep the
peel whole, no break. Sink teeth into
sweet segments of dripping flesh.
Orange rust. A door, a gate. Age in crinkling
metal, steel ancient with salt and sun and
seasons beating what thought strong. Orange
rust of a family home, a flake for each child
who flies the nest. Rusted crisped wings. Upon
closer inspection the rust appears golden.
Not amber nor red,
neither start nor stop.
A forever-in-motion colour.
Seeing a burnt image of a city destroyed
I imagined it was an Gaza update
I saw some celebrities crying on TV
Wondering what the future holds
Never mind,
If it were Gaza, it doesn’t matter
Imagine LA is Gaza!
The areal image is so similar.
THE HEAVYWEIGHT AND THE FEATHERWEIGHT
Poem written for Ridiculous Comparisons Poetry Contest, Miranda Hawley, sponsor, July 23, 2025
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There’s the elephant, a lumbering titan,
a true heavy weight with a heart that beats like thunder,
each footfall a seismic event,
a gentle giant, who with the grace of a ballet dancer
could crush a car if ballet were performed in slow motion
and involved a lot of mud.
Then there’s the hummingbird—a blur of iridescence,
a caffeine- sugar- fueled acrobat, a featherweight warrior
who sips nectar like a drunken poet,
lost in a world of fleeting moments.
It’s a tiny, feathered daredevil,
with the attention span of a gnat.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Hooray, should I say?
Nay! ‘Tis naught but disarray you fool
I dodge ducks – their beluga-toned feathers at least–
and the platinum pillows from whence they came
Whizzing by like my long four years of fame,
Eggs of pikachu hue, toast of darkest sinew
Oh no, I must go
She’s as happy as a blobfishy
How was I to know
Her special day was two months ago?
My husband is like a ripening pumpkin
Loves to lie down inert on the ground, most of the time.
Lack of exercises has made his belly bloat,
Like pumpkin, that now he looks a comic sight.
A pumpkin carved in shape with a light inside,
Serves as an adornment in Halloween season.
Though funny to view, he is beautiful inside,
With a light shining bright all through the seasons.
As the pumpkins are so versatile and can be put to use,
In making a number of dishes, both sweet and savory,
He has multi talents and adds so much of spice to my life,
That without him, I will be like a flat tyre with no spare!
I know making you less perfect
won’t make me any better
yet I can’t help it
I fabricate your flaws in my head
as if it would make my own disappear
almost as if ruining you
made me any better
…
almost as if making you imperfect
made me as perfect as you
—maybe I should learn to love my flaws instead of obsessing over yours
As poet, I never said I was any good.
If you think I did, you've misunderstood.
I only said that between me and Shakespeare,
there's only one winner-take-all there.
And I left it up to you to guess who.
Son of Man, pause before judgment's seat,
Lest haste consume your soul's retreat.
Do what's right, yet don't waste precious time,
For pleasing all is a futile rhyme.
In seeking validation, you may lose your way,
And those you please will mock you on your final day.
Marry with wisdom, don't borrow to impress,
For pleasing others can lead to financial distress.
You can't please all, not even those you love,
Do little things that bring joy from above.
Take care of yourself, find happiness true,
For in your joy, others will find joy anew.
Beware of three: the young, the old, the weak,
For lies can bind you, and freedom you may seek.
Heed this advice, a treasure rare and true,
Worth more than gold, and wisdom shining through.
Cars, we never had the luxury of cars,
We would endure harsh conditions just to get to places.
Places, we never had sleek structures,
Our buildings were made of mud, unconducive for learning.
Learning, you complain of stress,
The only things we had were books.
Books cause we never had the internet,
We would sweat in the library just to get facts.
Facts, I'll tell you a fact,
Just because you suffered doesn't mean we should too.
Too much progress has been made,
So stop comparing your times with ours.
Our things should not be like yours,
The good things we do, don't have to be the way you once did them.
The thirst for effervescence,
A sweetness I’ve always craved,
To be a child of such incandescence,
So that no soul can claim I’ve failed.
Yearning to be witty, even reverential,
Merely to be something good,
Desperate to claw up some potential,
So that no soul can claim I am pointless.
Lusting to be known as an ingenue,
Perfection in a woman’s form,
An image id walk through flame to,
How can I be true when I am based on pure perception?
Birds can glide high above the sky,
They see everything and can see through a lie
They can go up up and high,
And can always go faster than a fly.
Birds nest where predators can’t rest,
Fight in groups to scare off the best
Feed their children and keep from stress
Then migrate together, flying far far west.
Us humans cannot fly in the wind,
Cannot see through everything as if blind
We cannot see the sunrise shine
And cannot fight or fly whilst inter-twined.
I wish I could fly, high above the sky
See through every single lie
And fly left, right, down, and up high
And perhaps even faster than a fly.
Maybe even nest and get easy rest,
And cooperate together and become the best
To keep children from starving and stress
And go on vacation together, perhaps go west.
I wish I was a bird, and could escape this artificial world
Fly high away and explore the unfurled
Leave everything behind for a world uncurled
Hoping one day this story will become my new world.
Life is....
Life is to live,
To make something of ourselves if we can.
Then to relinquish it all to the past.
As to live is also to die.
All my dreams of you are sweet
With no one else do you compete
You stand alone I here declare
With no one else do you compare
We'll write our songs both night and day
With no one else I'd rather play
I want to visit Lake Annecy
With no one else, just you and me
A rustic cabin in the woods
With no one else, you pick the books
A private beachfront getaway
With no one else, let's leave today
A flute of frosty Veuve Clicquot
With no one else but you, you know?
A fluffy quilt, soft satin sheets
With no one else, just us beneath
My favorite comfy, cozy chair
With no one else, just us in there
These and more with only you
With no one else I'd want to do
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