Flicker of ancient shadows playing with fire.
Crackle of light, fine spirited wind and chimes.
Infant’s lullaby, before the sea aspire.
Unfurling leaves, hunter green, sonorous climb.
Twinkling of eyes, brightening of poet’s inspire.
Christmas bow unwrapped, labyrinthine daytimes.
Wonder of a storm, rocking and rolling force.
A stupendous show, tree splits, a ship off course.
Peaks and valleys alight with touch, candlelight.
Flicker and sizzle, creaking, crashing of bed.
Crisscrossing to transcend remarkable height.
She whispers a moan; romantic fire, widespread.
Trunk bends, ceiling fan blowing a clash downright.
They’re like thunder and lightning. Oh what a night!
A storm, like a firepit, is stoked; flames are high.
All at once, all is calm. Cloud's singular sigh.
POWERFUL STYLISTCS-:
smooth
finished
positions
rendered
fragmentary
in an AIR OF AUTHORITY
favour
extra
dimensioned
spatial
qualities
with CRISSCROSSING
sophisticated
changes
retreating
obscure
constructs
I am a forgotten home
where people fall through slats in
floors wooden, scarred by pulled
furniture. Footprints lost under dust.
I am a derelict building
where industry once flourished.
Fires raged and pallets stacked.
Assembly lines ran in humming circles
eternal now form static loops lost
without worker. Ghost metal halos.
I am a garden overgrown
with crisscrossing blades and
thorns cursing from shadowed trenches.
Mud slops over once shining
pathways like greasy suds spilling from
sink, scrubbing at stains immortal.
I am a hollow man,
a hurt man.
I am a man devoid.
An airless body.
I travel incognito, using a name I once found
in a book of minor sorrows.
I have a longing for the sea, yet languish here
behind the wheel of a rental,
crisscrossing arid lands with many miles ahead.
A white plastic bag flaps on a thorn bush
it could act as a windsock but turns listlessly
in the breathless air.
A GPS guides my mind over a flickering map
toward an ocean that is too far away to reach today,
a place where silver fish leap in the aqueous air,
only to pause as still as stone in an ice-marbled sky.
That shore for now, is bereft of place and time
it can only be imagined through gaps in
rising walls of dust.
The hatchback seems to trundle slowly over
dinosaur bones, dry axles groan under
tired springs.
A hundred miles ahead a fish-restaurant
is getting ready to close its doors for the night.
A Motel 8’s neon lights flicker in a sea spray.
On an unseen shore, snow crab dance and sing
like sirens in the rolling surf.
Every doorway is well lit yet barred and locked.
This is my dream body, it is chasing its twilit shadow
down blind alleyways
pausing only to heave breathlessly
as it comes to a stop
in yet another walled-off cul-de-sac.
Daylight couples slyly with moonlight,
it forms a vaporous union that creeps under skin,
We are two hands and a mouth,
weak hands scratching upon a lid of fear.
We call such mind-hauntings: nightmares,
yet they seem so very real
as we fretfully slumber -
then they chase us remorselessly
through our daily lives.
Why record such fantasies,
these myriad variations of horror?
Why relive the frights, the needling frets
of these subconscious ghost trains - images
that fly through all our darkly hidden spaces.
Perhaps only to share an elusive puzzle-picture,
to reach into other sequestered minds
that may experience the same
other-worldly hinterlands, the same fear-threads,
and there know we are crisscrossing
the same unidentifiable landscapes
all of us have created for ourselves.
Oh, how they danced as the sun shimmered red,
it dipped far away as the stars upwards sped.
Still, they danced, leaving footprints on wet sand,
Sometimes straight or crisscrossing, everything grand.
Occasionally, they stopped, and in a hug, they kissed.
Or ran to some cave that was their secluded tryst.
Time passed fast, and they returned to their bridal suite.
Before retiring, they drank champagne and pastry sweet.
crisscrossing parallel universes
by some freak of nature
teeter tottering tumbling
to one side then to the other
in one world her home
Julia is unbearably lonely
a devastated grieving widow
inconsolable since her tragic loss
one day she crosses over to the other side
walking into a parallel world where
all is the same but for the accident
and her marriage never cut short
like a curious puzzle she puts pieces together
understanding that in this new world
she is squandering her treasure
taking for granted the man of her life
throwing away in one world the same prize
desperately grieved in the other
how will she balance the two worlds ~
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
(inspired by 1988 movie 'Julia and Julia' starring Kathleen Turner)
the skies overhead
as airplanes come and depart
crisscrossing smoke trails
the smell of coffee
perking in the kitchen
wafting on the air
Written: December 28, 2023
Beneath the shades
of velvet shadows
swarms of amber
luminance of daylight
and elusive flits
of faerie embers.
Veiled in jeweled which
rhymed with
Calyx elixir tints
of moonlit hues,
wings of light fractals
of burnished baubles.
Serendipitous breeze
scribbling rimes
of a runic serenade
in glints of jades
and emeralds.
wisps of wood smoke
soft mists of
Myrrh and Frankincense
fragrance of
Amyris and Bergamot.
Life has been beckoned.
by the sun messenger.
In that aurifying light,
crisscrossing balmily
and all at once.
With your shifting cloak,
snail
silver tree,
life is futile
& vain as smoke.
with your beshrews roads
case of curiosity
devoted to
the art of taxidermy,
decorative, restorative
and anthropomorphic.
A canorous dream,
capacious
mellifluous
Hurry past me!
An endless night of love
A dream and erotic love
In a harmony of caress
And melodious symphony of happiness
Everything is perfect tonight
The sky is starry in the dark night
The sleeping moon lights up the whole sight
What a wonderful night! What a beautiful life!
The eagles are in a deep sleep, in the fresh air
From a distance one can barely hear the breeze
Crisscrossing in the atmosphere
Everything is perfect tonight
The sky is starry in the dark night
The waves are silent. We are at peace
And the fish are swimming in the currents
Oh! What a feeling! It's a jasmine fragrance
A shining love
Oh! A lively love
What a wonderful life!.
Copyright © April 2020, Hébert Logerie, all rights reserved.
Hébert Logerie is the author of several collections of poems.
This is a translation of the poem Un Amour Sans Trêve by Hebert Logerie
Winter has left one empty shoe
upon the doorstep.
Around that footless mouth
tulips grow
despite the muscular winds
and a thin sunshine.
The crisscrossing of the seasons
does not confuse the land,
people grow out of themselves
as do the ants and the hedgehogs,
the green womb cannot be emptied
by just one shoe and its gaping mouth
no matter how loud it shouts.
Crisscrossing streets in a city landscape
a place where the mind panics
wanting to be found
or to find, or not be lost within.
Every doorway is well lit yet barred and locked.
This is my dream body, it is chasing its twilit shadow
down blind alleyways
pausing only to heave breathlessly
as it comes to a stop
in yet another walled-off cul-de-sac.
Daylight couples slyly with moonlight,
it forms a vaporous union that creeps under my skin,
I am two hands and a mouth (not my own yet)
scratching upon a lid of fear.
Why record such fantasies?
Why relive the minor horrors, the needling angst
of subconscious ghost trains - images
that fly through darkling places.
Perhaps only to share an illusive puzzle-picture
to reach into other sequestered minds
that just may experience the same
other-worldly hinterland
and there know we are crisscrossing
the same unidentifiable cityscape.
(Cold Harbor, Virginia, May 31-June 12, 1864;
1,845 Union dead, 788 Confederate dead)
cathedrals rise,
tall arching boughs, crisscrossing limbs,
lush, leafy rooftops lofted high
and rustled by warm tender breeze;
green rooftops shimmer, reverent,
while casting shade to consecrate
this hallowed ground,
this battlefield,
topography forever scarred
by trench and earthworks dug in haste
scratched out for fear and valor's sake,
grave-deep furrows
once harbor to
depleted men far from their homes
who wept and moaned and fought, survived,
sad ditch and trench from which strong trunks
loft high the ceiling's verdant vault
while saplings bend in pensive prayer,
roots buried in brown detritus
discarded by last autumn's chill,
dark moldered leaves
now slowly melting into earth
where men once battled, suffered, died…
to ash from ash,
cathedrals rise
November 15, 2022
The Crap Shoot #2 Poetry Contest
John Lawless, sponsor
The only star for me
Is a split binary, that cannot agree
Tearing me apart, within this melee
From the moment, of man’s creation
Forever open, to lame interpretation
Was I assembled, in a solar system
Inanimate, and lacking any wisdom
Brought to life, to fill a Gods quota
I haven’t got the faintest clue or iota
Heavy elements, and dust coalesced
Later on, wise men attempt to process
Spoiler alert! I’ll tell you what I know
Science and religion, puts on a show
Orbiting each other, huge quandaries
Crisscrossing our human boundaries
Why can’t gravity, bash them together
If not for worse, definitely for better
In a supernova blast, releasing sense
Knocking me off, that stubborn fence
Burning away, every bit of my doubt
Or is this failed star, never to find out
By David Kavanagh
11/07/22
Love is a dream that begins
Love is a chimera that begins
It’s a ballerina who dances
It’s a poet who thinks
It's a bird that sings
It's the freshness of mints
It's the lie of the ancestors
It's the gossip thing
That's all we see
That's all we hear
It's the old man who lies bitterly
It's the shadow we stumble upon
It's the pretty or the ugly woman
It’s the existence of the soul
It's our sad imagination
It's our painful inspiration
It's the farewell of lovers
It’s the escape of a charming being
It's the death of emotions
It's the end of the passions
Love is a dream that never ends
Love is a nightmare that never ends
We don't know what else to say
While crossing or crisscrossing the ages
And by stepping or jumping over the clouds.
P.S. Translation of ‘Les Multiples Facettes De L’Amour’
by Hébert Logerie.
Copyright © June 2022, Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved
Hébert Logerie is the author of several collections of poetry.
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