Twilight tiptoes through curtained clover leaves
Cape starlings stanzaed thank mighty Lord
spindly legs shake on spritely evensong breeze
closing chirp reminding that day is just a chord
What achievements marked chanting hours
manifesting with helio hands and heedful head
paper, pencil, thoughts danced about in bower
patterned sensations twirled needle and thread
A silent hymn I sit awaiting bright sickle moon
indwelling spirit dissolving wispy wanton wishes
blossoms lotus, liberates mind a special boon
intentions iambic winking flimsy floral fetishes
Moment to moment tasks tangent complete
each twilight twins a masterful morrow sweet
__________________
Apparently,
I was a naughty boy
At three,
Disappearing in a shopping centre,
Lost for what felt like hours.
Legend has it,
The infant siren song caught air-conditioned wind
And led the search party to a curtained grotto.
She tells me, there, they found
My talent on display,
A song and dance before a giant mirror,
While curious stranger neighbours
Changed their clothes.
I don’t believe the myth,
I had no talent then and precious little now, I think.
But it sure sounds fun.
Rumour has it, the best days are behind us.
Though my young’un’s on her way
into legend now.
Loves that tale.
*
*
"Snowbound"
*
For days winter's freezing winds and snow raged
cold windows now curtained white
but, my rooms whisper peace *
*
*
*
*
*
There were special places
where the mind could hide,
way up in the branches
of a tall tree, safe within
a ball of leaves,
halfway to heaven.
Or on a bike aimlessly riding
streets when the hypnotic
hum of tyres and the constant
rhythm broke through
and sent me
into a pleasant trance
as if the body was floating
free of the ground.
Then there were places
where you couldn't hide,
dark and musty hollows
they called holy places
populated with legions
of dead souls sniffling
their sorrows
in the candlelit air.
Dark cubicles carrying
the odor of sin,
the sour breath of absolution
filtering through
a curtained grill.
And all around, images
of pain plastered on walls
pressing a claim
for love under the threat
of everlasting fire
just for refusal.
It all sounds silly now,
the hellish props stacked away
in an unused corner
covered in ash.
Discarded remnants
of an ill informed past.
And yet at times, I am sure,
I can feel something small
still twitch on the end
of a severed nerve.
I call out. But nobody
seems to be there.
They are like two beam lights that claim the stage
on a hot summer eve in the middle of a makeshift
floor parkette made of wood, varnish, and lights that aim
They are more than two American dollies dressed
in French lace and boudoir lipsticks
They are idols of the theater talking through
cables and conductive material.
The imagination of the viewers soar as they lose themselves
in the dark curtained stage, where reality has gone dormant
The only sound they hear is the tingly sounds
of unfolding fans made of feather and paper,
by the old vintage theater Madammes who cluck and gossip
in hushed tones when the first dolly gives the other dolly,
a soft kiss.
The End.
I remember it well- the old Broadway
My city celebrated years ago;
So nicely paved and lined with special stores
And curtained windows, seen in rooms above.
Where we would walk and shop with family;
Attend parades and honor holidays
With decorations and fun spots to meet,
Like the old coffee shop or ice cream bar.
The highlight of our city- old Broadway-
When times were simple- city pride was loved.
Fast forward fifty years- my heart is sad.
A vision now of ruins it's become.
What stores are left- now draped with iron gates,
Or since abandoned, left in disrepair.
Apartment windows gape like hollow eyes,
And litter paves the entrances and curbs.
Not good to walk the streets- daytime or night.
Glories to ruins- Broadway has become;
Now blights the memory of simple days-
When the community clutched love and pride.
I have a light within
that I've somehow curtained,
put something in its way.
I cast a shadow across
everything. It is no defect
of the eye but of the spirit,
a flaw I have in me,
a dimming I pass on to settle
the scene and rob color
of its intensity.
I've gotten used
to the dull glaze I bring
that now it appears
the natural state of things.
Even water speared
by the sun bleeds a muted sheen,
no bright splinters of light
ricochet off to be caught
by eyes having to hide
behind a squint, I can take
my reflections straight.
There are moments
when I can feel a tightening
and something within me
stretch and tear the stitching
on a seam. Light pours out
and affixes a patch of life
in a blinding beam, too bright
to hold or keep except
for the afterglow it leaves
on a page or lingering
for awhile on the horizons
of a dream.
Unexplained encounters,
Undulating terrain,
I'm standing in the rain,
Hemmed by downers.
I find myself in a direction,
A way I know nothing about,
A route that's beyond discretion,
It's an everyday bout.
Where are the answers that I seek?
To unravel the mystery in my walk,
To refrain the hands of the enigma's clock,
Disperse the shadow that makes dawn bleak.
Dawn chauffeurs the unexplained,
Within me, these are curtained,
I'm saddled with the unseen,
None of these could be foreseen.
Everything I do not know,
To this, I do not yield,
I only utilize its vast field,
Keeping hope alive as I go.
March 12, 2023.
Writing Challenge - "K" Words - Poetry Contest,
Constance La France.
he panted heavily
muscles twitching in his naked body
running frenzied, without looking back,
he shouted, “He is after me.... my life”
a rip roaring cry....!
the traffic halted
pedestrians stopped
people from shops came out
women through curtained windows peeped
children stopped their play
“so drunk”.... a man murmured
“A crack”.... someone shouted
“coming right after an orgy”
sneered, an oldie...
“pity on him...! Take him to an asylum”
one gentleman suggested.
he needs help, majority opined
‘nab this plague’, the moral police quipped
what is he running from...?
an assailant....?
corona virus....?
his own phantom...?
two sane men staying,
at a corner wondered.
they had masks on their face
“must be a health worker”..!
one of them said...
“yes, the subtle nuances of a cracked mind”
the other agreed!
as the scene on the road,
had grown into a high voltage drama,
dissensions grew and multiplied!
March.10. 2023
~Placed Second~
Cracked Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Anthony Biaanco
Time passed away in the dark,
the bedside clock fell silent
it was never much of a talker.
Below the curtained window
snow had numbed the night,
ill at ease my body stretched
as if seeking a way out of its mind
a place it inhabits
when there is only one room,
to turn around in.
Did the clock
die on the tic or the toc?
These are the sort of questions
to struggle with when it's too early
to actually struggle.
Switched on the lamp -
the one in my head.
Accumulations of amputated dreams
wriggled back into the shadows.
I shake the clock
some residual moments
slipped limply through cold fingers.
When the light freezes,
when dawn breaks its brittle shell,
snow humps (so far unseen),
will resemble the many recumbent hours,
but of course there's no way
to measure those hours now.
It could be days
before the snow melts
or until eyes unstick themselves
from all this rumpled mess
of being.
His is a canvas of white open sky
A stroke of his brush, and the magic begins
A shade of blue with a tiny red dot
Worn on the forehead like a forget me not!
Growing into an orange ball rising up
He juggles the sun and the morning dew
As I doze in the first rays of dancing sunlight
Twisting till he opens my curtained sight!
A stroke of silver as lightening flashed
Shattering my reverie, as it bypassed
From out of the blue a changing hue
He bent my gaze, of course
He has the ability to do that too!
This kaleidoscopic painter
Shaping colours on a canvas sky
Requesting my total attention
Hypnotizing me as I look upward
in his direction!
Bursting out, arched like a bow
As he keeps pulling out a rainbow
from his funny cloud shaped hat
I put my hands together to applaud
The greatest magician that ever was!
28.8.22
Doubt's Rising Shadow
torn from darkness
a burning halo divides the distant night
shifting orange then red across
the ashen clouds that draw a ribbon
between the now and then
this flat rumor bangs along
hangs me wordless on the truth
I cannot say where the singing stopped
the branches call their children home
and now without the winding sun
alone the autumn drops her veil
curtained by a shallow mist
the open water ends and ice compounds
the rocks that split the lattice
shapes of daylight down from horizontal
twisting like a question
hungry and unspoken
there is a boat
and we are in it
there is a storm
and we will pass through it
there is a moment waiting to happen
there is a breath I have not taken
In sunburst morning
clouds waft on hewed wing,
focused sunbeams flush
curtained window glass,
rays make track to sun,
my cold life I run.
March 17, 2021
Contest : Tableau-6 Lines
Sponsor : Joseph May
Small particles of dust leisurely float in the rays,
[Bright sunshine glancing through a curtained windowpane]
Settle gently to the floor, their origins hard to explain,
We ponder the beginning and the ending of our days.
Our lives slowly drift homeward like those particles of dust,
Leaving behind lingering memories of discarded stuff,
Telling us to give them up; surely, surely enough is enough.
Time passing, our treasures become orange-stained, like rust.
A sudden loud knock at the door--a grandchild breezes in
Bright, lovely, and excited with invigorating cheer;
Renews our feeling we had a fine reason to be here,
And wondering what it would be like to start all over again.
FIRST PLACE WINNER
March 7, 2021
Brian Strand's "All Yours"
March 27, 2021
On the splendorous crown of my curtained heart,
shimmering amidst the tinsels of the cerulean night,
you gleamed suffused with the sequins of the silver moon.
I tried to feel the tempting touch of your elusive charisma,
but you glided away out of my sight like the autumn cloud,
across my articulated sky I had carved only for you.
Down the verdant vale following my cascading heart,
your footprints traced the turquoise trail of longing.
As I walked on the deserted garden path going nowhere,
the remains of my love glowed in wilderness, I discerned,
enthralled in the mesmeric embrace of the moon dust,
drizzling with the patina of your grace, I saw veiled.
From the ebony edge of the opaque night falling stealthily,
storm clouds surged with flashing thunders of tearing strife,
splintered the screen of my sky studded with shards of dream.
From beneath the dispersed debris of draped desolation,
I gathered the yearning fragments of my shrouded heart.
December 23. 2020
Contest : Your Best Free Verse 2020
Sponsor : John Hamilton
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