Possibilities, like children, navigate the classable realms,
settling upon the measurable.
Amorous piglets, their peachy snouts delve,
rooting through the trash heap of desire.
"In a time beyond now," wheatenly speaks the tale-spinner,
plucking a clover, pale and crowned with stardust,
among the untamed grains sown in the depth of breath.
She informs a story of the jewel hung in ghastly night,
makes dark fright beauteous and her old face new.
I crave an eye bathed in Bengal's blaze,
eternity riding a celestial pyre,
Cetus dancing on an ocean canvas,
whose seas flow no fresher than the confessions' wicked drippings.
These realms are places of wonder,
where pigments of reality and fantasy blend,
and I am compelled to dwell within my cresset,
explorer of the shining glimmers.
Sipping the subtle freshness,
a learner from the lessons of Experience,
I gaze through colored glass,
where each tint reveals and re-veils truth like a story.
I wait to touch of hem of a thunderbird,
whose wings span the horizon,
whose voice shakes the earth and sky,
whose feathers spark the fire of inspiration.
And I believe I will, someday, when I soar beyond the dawn.
Children of possibilities navigate the classable realms,
settling upon the measurable.
Amorous piglets, their peachy snouts delve,
rooting through the trash heap of desire.
"In a time beyond now," wheatenly speaks the tale-spinner,
plucking a clover, pale and crowned with stardust,
among the untamed grains sown in the depth of breath.
I crave an eye bathed in Bengal's blaze,
eternity riding a celestial pyre,
Cetus dancing on an ocean canvas,
whose seas flow no fresher than the confessions' wicked drippings.
These realms are places of suspicion,
where pigments of reality and fantasy fasten,
and I am compelled to dwell within my cresset,
guardian of the trimming glimmers.
Snipping the subtle freshness,
a novice to the gallows of Experience,
I gaze through colored glass,
where each tint tells a story of refracted truths.
Where once a fiery crucible
changed the world
a coracle
reclaims its river
Crucible
Peer into an unpredictable universe
Of ambivalent depths
A calyx cul-de-sac tipped up
Into a crucible of the unexplainable
Where curiosity strides into pure moments of mystique
Fields of glory in bluebells
Rusted milestones
Hail ravaged wheat.
Echoes of the prophetic tongue
Swirl in chanted brews and prayers
Mists, parted by potions,
Bleed new horizons rising like cities lost
In hundred year mists
Brewed in a grail uncovered from eon’s smothering dusts
Tasting ego and humility
That knows its need for divinity.
Mercy metastasized in every grieving limb
And through the organ of the soul
Led through foreshadow’s chalice
Into unfathomable days yet to be born.
5-1-23
Contest: Up to 20 Lines
Sponsor: Sotto Poet
Twenty lines.
"Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry." — Mary Oliver
Inside the conscious mind of each poet
dwells stupendous and sundry thoughts.
They can escape as daydreams or nightmares
but sometimes, we capture them on paper
to share with the rest of the world.
We can record our exciting moments
yet also express our fears and failures.
We can create marvelous fantasies -
words to inspire the productivity of others.
It’s neat when we get our notions written down.
It's then our heads are cleared to make room
every day for more unversed ideas.
Best of all we have a hard copy
of past thoughts to read when a spark
within our own minds asks for remembrance.
November 29, 2022
Sponsor: Sotto Poet
Contest: poetry is a life cherishing force 20169
This world’s
sustained drama
seductively alluring,
leaving us
choking on
bits of broken
dreams,
shattered
memories,
ludicrous
lies …
Time to awaken
from sleep!
Strip away oxgoads
that constrain us,
that restrain us,
that bind us to past errors
preventing success
Allow us to roam
across fields,
vast and varied,
expansive fields of
endeavor that speak
to humanity’s
greatest needs—
Hearts can beat stronger
Lungs can breath freely
Minds can then grasp …
The truth!
A flood light from the ground up
means a stud might turn his sound up,
put his gloves on for the pound-up, and
you’re too old and fat to low crawl, so why the hell did you make that phone call?
Who knows? Maybe if placed on death-ground, you’ll fight valiantly. Maybe it’s worth simply dying if you can’t.
Any damned thing’s better than what you’re doing right now.
Confused whores on your flat bed, your best friend is a crack head, and shattering the darkness is a floodlight, from the ground up. Just follow the thing, and see where it leads—old man.
The Crucible Of Fire
We call it ash,
although more like desiccated granular bone coral.
Whether ash or coral, I will be.
I am afraid, as I see
through unseeing eyes,
as I feel, even though I cannot feel,
the flickering flames that feed through the doors ahead
waiting for what was me.
Young once.
Not special but a beginning, a promise.
No hill too tall to climb, no challenge too great;
no laughter too big to embrace.
Dreams.
and then desire shredded,
sent aloft with the winds,
Vanished to some other world.
Hands grown spotted with time.
Eyes gone dim and rheumy,
sour old man breath of despair, and yes,
magic, either forgotten or tossed toward the fire ahead.
David Holmes
As scorching as the spring’s mid-day sun
Muddled with pain from the burn
Fiercely caressing to the bone
Obviously heating to hurt
In silence he mourns
For it hurts with sore
But diligence he brings to fore
Slowly begetting patience at dawn
And his reward ultimately borne
Yet out of fear
Hands dare not come near
As he feast there
Hoping to overcome his flare
But he is now as cold as snow
For he hold pretense in the low
Seeking for patience as it sows
And finally he bows
For the heart that beholds him
In front of the vestibule the dragon slumbers
Atop a skeletal heap of unfathomable numbers
Like the despair that guards my fatigued core
Surrounded by the ruin of all that I implore
Beside the parlor bearing my unadorned diadem
Broods a scorned and jealous leviathan
As the scarab pushes the sun across the sky
My worry and anxiety continue to ramify
The imprisoned kraken waits with ominous patience
Beneath the bedrock and the foundations
The primeval serpent slithers around the apple of my eye
As my vigor wanes and my dread intensifies
However, I will never yield, I will fight forever, with my sword, with my shield
I reach for Excalibur, I reach for Mjolnir, I reach for Moses' Rod
And I summon the power that comes only from the true God
I wrestle my demons, I fight my fiends, and I clash with my foes
And I reclaim back from their greedy tendrils my hard-won repose
Thus is the plight of recovery
With each new height and discovery
Comes a new battle to wage
That I might enter my "golden age"
IN THE CRUCIBLE OF LOVE
Love
unlike hate
is eternal;
and cannot be
transformed.
Love is
and can only be
its self;
but hate
has many manifestations;
demanding
and expressing evil
in various deceptive ways—
Seeking to destroy all that is good.
Ah, but the goodness of love
is of God
and is impervious
to the will and destructiveness of hate.
Love surpasses all things;
and in due season,
hate and injustice
will fade into love and justice;
and hate and inequality
shall melt and flow into equality:
Such is the power of love—
Where love is, hate cannot abide.
Dark I stand, cobalt cold and chipped ice
to the touch. Like a jetty on a winter's day,
mooring empty, friendless boats jostled
by vexed waves; bullying the weak.
But there was a time. I stood like Vesuvius,
naked to your cause. And hungered
for that momentary thrust of raw steel,
releasing spumante detonations that
reached a soot filled sky. I resonated with
the intensity of platinum-white heat, ready
to shape your dreams. Before returning it
forged by my love and pliable to your hammer
Buckets of water would quenched your prize and
sent screaming rivulets of steam off to find a
haven from the heat. Then, standing proud,
admired our work, as an artist to his canvas
But, days passed into years and years into an age.
And from the corner of my empire, I watched
the spring of your prime, turn to the clay filled
winter of your day. Like the dimming of a lustrous pearl
And now your apron, hangs on its nail,
gathering collections of a spiders yearly
endeavours. Whilst motionless and resolute,
I guard your kingdom and await your return.
Ready to recommence the heat of battle once more
Evil is among them,
Or so it truly seems.
Lies afflicting witches,
Is what holds the town of Salem at bay.
Abigail's mistake quickly turns into a terrible mess,
that leads to eternal damnation.
They tell the town that witches are among them,
to gain privileges that others cannot.
John and his wife have kept a cold house,
because of John's choice to lay with another.
The lies continue for days and days,
and people in the town of Salem even start to hang.
Abigail's lie leads her to control the town,
But what she doesn't know now is that she will eventually go down.
Spring came like a crucible-
With a flicker, a spark, a bursting
Into color like a blossoming flame
Out of a crackle of breaking ice-
The sunlight burns through
With the brilliance of revelation
As season blazes into season,
A divine transubstantiation.
Boy
Obstinate, belligerent,
Cursing, fighting, bullying,
Girl, crucible, ring, child,
Relenting, healing, sacrificing,
Steadfast, kind,
Man
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