September stalks, tugging on each footstep's shadow.
It saps the warmth of summer's lingering face on show.
Withering leaves spiral down in a sashay chase, falling one by one.
In a solemn cortege winding beneath a flailing sun.
To summer passing, clutched like old friends you want to keep.
As sweet memories and tokens to warm impending winter's sleep.
As darkness descends like foggy mist,
God turns on His ornate chandeliers.
Attended by a cortege of starry maids,
Full Moon arrives in her glowing raiment,
Beckoning us heavenward to gaze and praise
And stay in wonderment at God’s great artistry!
Jan. 10.2023
Bite Size. No.59. Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Line Gauthier
He was a man of many parts,
most of them didn't function too well.
Born extraordinarily, labeled ‘disabled,’
he lived a life of boisterous solitude.
Friends he had on the periphery
of a wheel-bound existence, lovers
were distant pen-pals
mostly gals.
Folks that are put together differently
have no enemies only on-lookers;
maybe a few care bears -
those who care in the usual distracted way.
When he died
the funeral cortege was long.
At the service, none dared say a thing
‘wrong.'
Yet he was just as flawed as us,
difference being
his weaknesses were mostly on the outside
revealed unbidden,
while ours are mostly hidden.
Over the west Sun dies, oozing blood,
The hillside glows in a ruddy blaze,
Pink and crimson fade slowly around,
And a pallid shade taints the twilight haze.
By and by, darkness descends like foggy mist,
Wrapping the Earth in a blanket of gloom
And God turns on his ornate chandeliers
To illumine the world in effulgent gleam
Attended by a cortege of starry maids
The Full Moon arrives in her glowing raiment
Evading the amorous presence of clouds
She enthrones herself before the royal regiment
So glad she is in her princely state
And in her fair mien, she takes delight
Bards and lovers have often been mesmerized
By such charm surpassing all that is bright
Beaming, she gives the night its nocturnal glee
Beckoning us heavenward to gaze and praise.
With benign grace and regal grandeur she smiles
On kings and clowns and on all the human race
She changes her contours with every unleashing night
Constantly renewing and reveling as a glamorous queen
She leaves the world aglow beneath the blue sky
Lending the night its unrivaled celestial sheen
April.13. 2022
A Brian Strand Premiere Choice Poetry Contest
Over the west Sun dies, oozing blood,
The hillside glows in a ruddy blaze,
Pink and crimson fade slowly around,
And a pallid shade taints the twilight haze.
By and by, darkness descends like foggy mist,
Wrapping the Earth in a blanket of gloom
And God turns on his ornate chandeliers
To illumine the world in effulgent gleam
Attended by a cortege of starry maids
The Full Moon arrives in her glowing raiment
Evading the amorous presence of clouds
She enthrones herself before the royal regiment
So glad she is in her princely state
And in her fair mien, she takes delight
Bards and lovers have often been mesmerized
By such charm surpassing all that is bright
Beaming, she gives the night its nocturnal glee
Beckoning us heavenward to gaze and praise.
With benign grace and regal grandeur she smiles
On kings and clowns and on all the human race
She changes her contours with every unleashing night
Constantly renewing and reveling as a glamorous queen
She leaves the world aglow beneath the blue sky
Lending the night its unrivaled celestial sheen
Feb.26. 2022
The Night Sky Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Anna Marie Kaianah
When king Sun outbreaks,
preludes immense cortege:
rays, lights, heat, colors ...
I sit among the stones under a lowering October sky, longing to see more than others have seen,
And tarry where the hurried have passed.
And sit, remembering streets of earth, and hooped
Black dresses trailing the dirt.
And watch agape as a brief cortege enters the gate, and I
Follow quietly until they pause where the small recesses wait.
And as the mourners weep, I reach to comfort and they are no more.
Haiku Strings
autumnal cortege
files in scarlet and orange
under azure skies
yellow evening beams
pots of gold across the grass
daylight early fades
saffron harvest moon
bewitches the crisp night air
catching earthbound eyes
9/18/16
Funeral Cortege Sans Protocol
The autumnal equinox period
Spells time for worship, pilgrimages
Rituals and a pandemonium
Of festivities and gay hyperactivities
The elephant godhead idol
Over decked, anointed
With all fervour is immersed
In its watery bed amidst chantings
Its worshipped form
Turns to formlessness
The formless deities rise at dawn
Bleating like sacrificial lambs
Leaving a trail of dismembered limbs
On shores like the carnage of pilgrims
Heaped on one another in Mecca
After the great crane's death knell
A convoy of trucks arrive to pile
The mutilated aftermath of their godly images
Littered unwanted on the golden sands
Sweep the once worshipped but
Now shredded and tattered earth's burden
On their slow funeral cortege sans protocol
SECOND
Balveen Cheema
November 11, 2015
Contest: Dark Poetry
Sponsor: Nayda Ivette Negron
The last of the cortege had shuffled quietly away
leaving him alone to face the first of countless days
bending, threw one more handful of soil into the pit
a final act of closure after that it would be it
at the kitchen table head on hands with empty stare
half eaten cheese sandwiches not going anywhere
a life so rich in memories once so clear now just a blur
phone rang as he gazed down and saw the number
it was her
submitted to –'Brevity – The Short Of It ' contest
sponsor – Casarah Nance
Viv Wigley 8th July 2015
AMERGIN
FIRST AND LAST
I am a tear:in tragedy's fear
I am the hope:when power cannot cope
I bring forth life: from the world's strife
I am the peace:that will never cease
I am the fire:in love's desire
I am the light: in blindness sight
I am the grace: in repentance face
I am friend: who but I
Sees the beginning from the end
AMERICAN DOUBLETS
THOUGHTS BEHIND A BURIAL CORTEGE
We,like annual flowers,fade,then die
As clouds evaporate up in the sky.
ALONG THE GARDEN PATH
I brush a tall primrose in early bloom
On the evening breeze a yellow perfume
O PRAY
O pray that we like Jesaus B
That others wonder Y
His Peace,His Joy,His love, they C
Flow out from U and I
After Keat's double quatrain 'O Grant '
Listen to me read these and others at this link
http://youtube.com/ichthyschiro
it lies there alone,
one flower, on a coffin
that the flag once adorned
carrying the soldier home,
brave hero, an only son.
White roses were strewn,
when the cortege was driven
through crowded lined streets,
a flowered road of goodbyes
written in the rose of hope
April 7 2013
THY KINGDOM COME
Partridge ey'd widow wailed
'Give me your life'
Pawn broker, hawkish, grunted
'Take the money and vanish'
Howling of contentious hyena
'Stop shadow games, get lost'
'A handicam', tweetering daughter
Son sneaking at late hours
Fumigating inside shut doors
Fatigue from farthest room,
Wrinkles and heaviness.
Cherished love perished
Dexterous rope dancer
Sober attire in bean monde
Fiascoes in War and Love
Cortege on street
Dalliant moon shower, coquettish
Is this Thy Promised Land !!
Dig nails deep
Uproot conch inside ribs
Life sap dripping.
This is my blood and flesh
Thou shall have it.
Dispassionate soul hung at eyrie
Rest in pieces,pounded
And Thy Kingdom Come !!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chariots of fire exercising this corteges march across times desert dunes....
Washing away fissions stygian trails amid diluvians merciful waters; tradewinds
Anointing blesseds spirits rising above what was and is but, tomorrows caskets
Gathering aneath carrions dust left bleeding in yesteryears scorching zephyrs winds
Now placed atop the altar of adjucations sacrifice; sphinxics self-fulfilling prophecies!?
In the season of this dragons ironic cortege march, along the trails of stygians fissions....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
....“War of The Worlds” *
Danse Macabre
Twin Old Glorys jitterbug above the hoods as silent heralds; the motorcade
congas three-abreast along the Stemmons Freeway sleek in shiny chrome.
Long honks and short beeps unite in harmonious homage
to the office that cradles a nation in her oval skirts.
Dallas, late November blue sky framing puffy clouds, is a cabaret
bobbing in frenetic throb to the glam life-beat of its honored cortege.
As they swing onto Main, the image bounces off the dark glasses of the austere
men that line the parade route like lampposts, and beams to an adoring world.
With a blast and a life-tearing flash, a keen emerges from the
back of the shiny limousine that jumps through the light
implanting itself into the intimate memories of a generation.
The suits whirl about in impotent rage as the surge of flesh
undulates forward in grief, back in terror and commences a final march
while a distant freight train avers its dolor with a mournful whisper.
As night falls on a blood-soaked plaza the wind whips up and
the leafy trees on the grassy knoll sway a spectral dance.
By Jay Herman
For Nette Onclaud's Let's Dance contest
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