An arbitrary effigy
Enacts its own soliloquy;
Concocts a taste sensation
Fit to consternate a nation.
What's an ethical conundrum?
Sinful, existential ho-hum!
Guaranteed to whiten whiter
Never lit one cross on fire...
Yet the sugar pills create
A side effect that won't abate -
You're free to spend more time prostrate
Than one can ever stay awake.
Now your own somnolent scream
Conducts a constant marching theme;
Reverberates the eight of Rome
As sifting sand toward sunken home...
If as you glance up at the sky
You still sense wonder from on high -
If with every labored breath
You'll glibly force another step -
Seek some meaning midst these words
Although the cadence is absurd:
NeVeRmInD tHe BuRnInG;
ThAt JuSt MeAnS iT's WoRkInG!
big bubbly buxom barista named bellowing Brinks
concocts convoluted creamy caramel coffee lattes
designing delicate extravagant energy drinks
enthusiastic exciting in so many wonderful ways
forming frothy fresh frappes and frozen fizzies
giving generous pieces of advice through the whizzies
Winds blow; clouds thunder.
Occasional ephemeral storms
That this season concocts
According to its whims.
Chill spreads as suns set
Yet each twilight is painted,
Each different, in various hues.
It is a peculiar season, so appreciated.
Golden leaves fall, footsteps crunch.
At several houses, pumpkins glow.
Street vendors briskly sell their cooked chestnuts.
Let us embrace the beauty of Autumn.
Remember, Christmas is nigh.
People want a life
with imagery similar
to that of their dreams.
They wish to replace
the everyday, mundane grind
with nocturnal views.
But how do you transfer
all of what slumber concocts
over to your waking hours?
The answer is easy
but hard to initiate -
Just get out of bed.
This stops the dreaming
and starts the changes needed
so you’ll feel alive.
Opening your eyes
let’s you see the wonderment
that’s always been there.
That which can be dreamt
pales in comparison
to that which can be achieved.
Life has vibrancy,
beyond imagination,
if you go live it.
Humans, long a self-seeking breed,
Oft concoct love foreseeing need.
With tender grass lush green
Does a butcher fatten
His sheep in his own selfish greed.
___________________
Translation |37.01.2025|
Poet’s note: Sanskrit has thousands of verses of wisdom called Subhashhitam. This verse says that man by nature is a self-seeking breed. Keeping in mind a selfish motive, a butcher concocts false love and fattens his sheep with tender grass. But it is only to fetch better price in the market, not for any altruistic love. The transliteration of the Sanskrit verse follows (sandhi duly separated):
Kaarya-apekshee janah praayah,
preetim aavishkaroti alam |
Lobha-arthee shaundikah shashpaih,
mesham pushnaati peshalaih ||204||
A New Poem:
Family Is:
The first thing that makes sense...
It blossoms at every direction it grows...
The flourishing nature of family
Is beauty-impersonified....
Sparks fly when the core tenets
Of family is mixed with a stint of love...
The rich brew that family concocts
Is savoured by invigorating inducive
Recipes like patience, parental care and love
And wholistic mentorship.
Family is...
Humanity, in this complex world...
Courage, manifested through a mother and father's
Loving guidance...
Unity, imminent in the evergreen tenet of togetherness....
And above all, family is...
Love; for all the age-old tales of sacrifice
Altruism, and Strength drawn From the influence of
Love.
For these and many more:
Family is everything lovable
ISAIAH A. ASANGALISAH
Flagrant bird Bernadette feathery flair flamboyant
Towers over average plumage
Parades tassle twist pantomime pow wow warbonnet
Cascade costume illuminating
Cheyenne crowned showgirl, a flurry of torso tumult
Statuesque neck festers fatalism
Stiletto weapon punctuates staid with societal revolt
Rouses a Lady Marmalade rythm
Elusive vermilion mouth majestic Bernadette buxom
Slinks sequined by beside suited
Patrons in shadow of taboo troublesome seduction
Stubble rub struggle translucent
Sashaying aves, aloof eaglet suspended in feminine
Bouyant slow swirl drape tailed koi
Hypnotic bronzed bends transmit treacle pheromone
Concocts a carbonated cider void
26th June Too sexy!
In Milky Way, the silver stream
where stars stelliferously teem,
is home among celestial sea
for willful creatures such as we
who dwell in dream within a dream.
Beneath the welkin’s haloed gleam
mankind concocts each earthly scheme
adrift with spin of galaxy
in Milky Way.
If only humans would esteem
this ‘once upon a time’ supreme
when life went on a living spree
and reached a sunlit apogee!
Have we outstayed our world’s regime
in Milky Way?
~ Harley White
* * * * * * * * *
The poem is in the form of a rondeau…
Some sources of inspiration were the following…
‘The Romance of the Milky Way’, by Lafcadio Hearn ~ The Atlantic…
Milky Way ~ Wikipedia…
Fearless Avant Garde fashion witch concocts love potion number twenty-three
A glorious new elixir that truly makes new sense of “blessed be”.
There are many who watch her create this mysterious recipe.
Dancing with the ambiance of this sleek classy newcomer witch named Fee.
My nights have lately become sultry
as suffocating heat chases sleep away,
I lay wide awake unloved and sweating
beneath the murmurous ceiling fan
hoping for some refreshing relief.
Each eventide I hear her bittersweet song
drifting from the verdant vale
like seductive perfume on the breeze.
I cannot resist for long. I must visit every night.
People say there's magic in her.
Rancorous rumors have it that
she seduces with a whimsical smile,
subdues with an enchanting laugh,
soothes with a surrealistic sigh.
Maybe they're right. I know they’re right.
For I am under her arcane spell.
Late at night I leave my rumpled bed
and like a somnambulist I tread
through mysterious corridors of my house.
The dazzling moon shines the pathways
that lead down the surreal vale
into the sonorous cavern where she
concocts her alluring recondite runes.
There I hope to get a glimpse of her
Embrace her gorgeous beauty for untold time
Till inexplicably I find myself alone back on my bed.
Can you blame me if I’m under her spell?
8 January 2021
Some of them are drifting vapor,
fluid pastel flavoring my tongue.
When awake, they linger like nectar,
or the hidden symbols of Jung.
Others are more like nesting dolls,
hand painted selves inside of selves,
secret centers wrung in reluctant recalls.
Narcotic sleep concocts misshapened shelves.
Still others are Fabergé eggs,
grandiloquent intricacies, ornate and refined,
interior parlors absent of regs.
Fantastic reservoirs are carefully designed.
But most of them are made of celluloid,
cinematic and impossible to avoid.
Published in the first PoetrySoup anthology- 11/20
My son Scottie turned out to be an amazing chef
Whatever dish he concocts, it's up there with the best
Know not where it's from
But it's up with my thumb
Deserves the World Culinary Award he's up to the test
The heart within pumps
The rich red royal fluid
And your body machine functions
Your creative, expansive mind
Concocts formulae
Deciding how your body organism
Finds sustenance, enjoyment
And most of all avoids pain
The dreamer, you, perceive, create
As you build, block by block
To accomplish
To reap rewards
As you move
Ship, build, design, experience
On a higher plateau
You do this within the framework
Knowledge acquired
Reap the reward
Beautifying your nest
Dress fashionably
And end each day accomplished
Proud to the point
Of ignored acceptance
Yet strip all clothing
Wealth – all materialistic
Right to the naked bone
Your total stored mental reservoir
Your intellect, your acumen
Like the youthful wise hermit
Now, like a savior in sheepskin
Gather your companion
The echo “What is life all about?”
Sex, debauchery, procreation
Or our collective wisdom
Our attitude towards harmony, friendship
Local and world peace
A sensibility to friend and foe
Yep – platitudes, platitudes
Our ego sparkles and blind
Our lust driven bodies
Enter the arena of flesh
Gleaming immediate status faction
While the nuclear bomb is waiting
Unidentified my world
this push and shove battalion
take from them and leave them broken
Crassly ridiculed by viral industries
black blood automaton
the throwaway plagues of economy
Enemies arduous in pestilence promise
digital demons disposable to pay the fist
take from my brothers and leave my sisters bereft
Born to breath into not my world
the grit pitiful distance between unity
as miseries tourniquet mocks all of us belligerently
From innocent eyes to haunted heart
a misplaced paradigm of sentience
concocts for idiots the demons ideology
For a lifetime the world of not me
my rebellions soaked in propaganda
liberties plasticidal warrior
take my brothers
take my sisters
and suffocate their orchestra
And all the more the cruelty shall reap
the intoxications of biles inaction
and rejoice in the cursed ideology of demons
Unrecognized my world of human
compassions every degree shall embrace every soul
and with the quill of love a future transcribed
by heavenly scribe in the ink of life
is written for our children
Brick House
We call them bricks.
Cold, hard and clueless.
Stacked together, creating a thick wall of ignorance.
Unwilling to learn, resistant to change,
Eyes dull and confused,
with faces as dry as the day before.
Dragging themselves to their designated seats,
not expecting much from their day.
No energy, no enthusiasm,
no imagination or curiosity.
Just there to fill a space.
We shake our heads at the occasional shout of a wrong answer,
a spit ball, or a fight.
Helpless and hopeless
we go on, speaking to no one in particular.
No amount of planning can spark their interest.
No measure of strategy can help them to understand.
A last glimmer of hope concocts ideas of action.
Hoping to make a difference;
to convert their mentality from complacency to achievement.
Our attempts are rejected.
With deliberate defiance we are met with objection.
The lack of support produces disappointment and regret.
A new found disdain hovers over us.
Optimism is a fleeting thought.
Helpless and hopeless we go on,
Speaking to no one in particular.
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