Late November,
and lonely resonance of harmattan
salutes this solitude.
A weaverbird's contralto, in one
gale-sweep, lays bare the lower balustrade
of a maisonette,
and the romance of the last seasons
shoots the long throat of the clarinet...
O'classicals, on wings
ye come;
leaf cusps and petal ears —
classicals, swearing oaths of
mellifluous assembly...
Calm rhythms hasten to the
ears of Beethoven —
summon him for a serenade,
lest the dark shelter of a
decrepit day strips this solitude.
Anodyne hisses among
this hidden threshold,
curing and healing the weakness of
Clepoatra's hair, dampened with
the venom of haters of vanity.
Classicals,
rid us now of this grief of mundane
dances...
Even in death, Stravinsky hails solitude
on notes of the keys.
From the clarinet,
the bimetallism of barter —
the platitude of life and death
(symbiosis of percussions)
epitaph to the aftermath of
inveterate tradition —
now and forever...
And the clarinet looms.
In Biafra, when we drank from the tilting
cusps of dank leaves and washed with the spittle
of cassava,
the sun scorched like hell.
Añuruedoahu*, the oasis of war, like worldly
cowrie, stagnant, yet devoid of rural fetish,
calmed our nerves and built in the altar of
our souls hopes of answered prayers.
*A mysterious stream in the poet's village.
Feigned cusps of nothingness,
brass knobs holding the fireside,
life's amazement,
like an infant's emotion.
We should be confined to ourselves
too many others opine,
life becomes complicated enough,
shake the air that moment,
ditch the weathervanes,
learn to float.
If age is a constant then daydreams and nightmares
will cease to exist when the best of life is achieved
as maturity stabilizes at a level of immaturity favors
the innocence in confidence-mired ill-retrieved
those hopelessly enwrapped by rhetorical triggers
stemmed by the proposer amongst the ill-believed
'tis liken a heist at gunpoint to corner those regretters
to have brains (methinks) to cusps their mind deceived
and churned their souls to enter their relievers
and entertain the premature notion that they conceived
participants to ascertain the wherewithal of achievers
better or best consciously the line of inquiry perceived
to mull over and enter the zone as one of the leavers
to post with the best, to the winners be my best-wished.
Krokus gets sweatered in chiffon,
in shiverlry, white knighted,
like royalty, a bestowed visage
in heir appearance as jewelry.
An unexpectant delivery
of virgin snow cusps the lips, cupids cold brewed elemental- flirt, eros tipped
arrows for the quiver that will never miss.
You adorn, adore your handiwork
then lay about with your kiss.
Just imagine it, crowned, frosted, tipped,
by the Wite Witch.
I stand on the precipice
the edge of nowhere, nothing
screaming
Screaming into the void
all that I am and, all that I will be
or ever was
I am at the edge of the earth
the rim of reality
the cusps of creation
the point of oblivion
the destination of all
nothing nevermore
the only thing never seen
the deep depth of the abyss
I feel the things never dreamt of
an unnamed, unloved oblation
I stand on the edge nothing
nonetheless screaming
into the void the space
in between and unseen
the void
the realm
of what was and what will be
all of creation in the heartbeat of atoms
The birth of an infinitival star
At the start of all, there is
& ever was or will be
the first last and all ways
screaming into the void
I stand on the precipice
the edge of nowhere, nothing
screaming an unnamed
unloved oblation
a fragment of a god
hey, mind, think back and dwell on this …
our decades-old, warm reminisce
of heady nights when dating Kris,
sweet buxom, avid, bob-haired miss
who learned with us to bill and kiss,
and lift young hearts to cusps of bliss--
but girls might err and then dismiss
a beau whose glance dares roam amiss;
oh, hell, dumb mind, don't dwell on Kris,
she plunged us to lost-love's abyss …
instead think back and … ponder Priss!
October 5, 2022
Single Stanza Monorhyme Poetry Contest
L Milton Hankins, Sponsor
only things grown in the ground remain
but mismatched without the hand of man
see that they dodge beautiful
their languishing longitudinal vegetable bodies
never suffer fracture the stems with fruits
and their armor and weapons, bark and branches
trees
no, I didn't think our past was decent
humans
if you ask me about those days of debauchery
we were building ourselves up like the men we now are
with wars and ironworks asps vertices vortices cusps
and it was discovered that it is easy to be reborn another
improvement is advisable
there is only one exit after a wall called brain
then the field we learned to cultivate
now this is what we are having mastered cultivation
homunculi like scattered tares sprouting without end
the power of some being the downfall of others
history built with annihilations
and then the progress
the home appliances
microwave TV freezer wire and electricity
then bytes and bits
now nanoeverything
tomorrow AI and nothing more.
A curve of sky
in a corner cusps a smooth,
thick dusting
of carrot-mauve hues
tonight. Drapes over heather
trees
whose arms
and hands bend with this drowsy sky
as it starts
to fall asleep-
the cyrean "silk" upon
which this
cantaloupe tint
is traced, daubed, by the brushstrokes
of Mother Nature;
is ready
for the deep onyx doves-with halos-
of a cold Spring night.
With the Heavens'
cut diamonds-for the Goddess-
and immaculate
lambency.
This soft lusty Dusk will Father
a shiny glass red
rose,
a radio balefire
that will
capitivate
through the limbs of the esteemed
trees,
wink
through this Springtime's beetling
intimacies
on a windy night.
The man-made magenta
comforts
as it beams
next to the "Sunrise Field",
mowed emerald blades
under
another sky of day-break
pigments-
a dawn
placenta of bright lemon
vanilla,
and little
sugar- coated strawberry
juices-
another corner
of the clay, sea, and cloud-and ash-
colored campus-
bewitching
oil paintings in crystalline
emblems...
Show me a burning arrow from your quiver of love
Avail me fire and kindness set joined earth ablaze
Grant me only this one wish for the hotbed of passion
In fletching’s path we feel think reason and cherish
Throw a kiss to each other to link intimate emotions
And pheromones made in heaven straight to our hearts
Ravishing delight oozes from crest marks and cusps
Irreversible vows in tune with tides and the moon
Unlock the target when darts embrace in mid air
Suspended in everlasting promise we rise to the sky
31st March 2021
tear drop mountain
weeps floodgates cusps water fall -
lizard licks sun rays
11th November 2020
Ellipse, evolute, vertex and curve,
Humdrum circle or ricochet swerve
Astroids or cusps, arcs or sectors;
What have those got to do with vectors?
Curvature, cone, Cartesian plane…
Oval, deltoid… what’s in a name?
Geoid oscillation, pedal, radial, rose…
What on earth do I know of those?
Hypocycloid, cruciform, Sierpinski carpet…
Inverse tangent or Apollonian gasket?
Snowflake, hypercube, space-time dimension
Pressured, gauged, or under tension?
Trammel of Archimedes, planes, rotations –
Congruence, right angles, equivalence relation;
Conchoid curve, Orthoptic, Lemoine hexagon,
Triangle, star or good old pentagon.
Crescent, rhombus, magatama, square,
Caustic curves, salinon, ying-yang or sphere!
About whichever’s the shape that you talk,
Basically, it’s taking a line for a walk!
Memories of future events
Recollections of measures ahead
Reminiscence in fast forward
Aspirations leaping back
Projections of past reckoning
Icebergs frozen in conscience
Consciousness without borders
Recollective molten amnesia
Advanced reality looms precariously in forgone loops of oblivion
Renounced surrender pleads for reprieve in courageous defeat
A clairvoyant seeks to make sense of tea leaves still drowned
The backstage raven cusps darkened hope where none is left
Futuristic amnesia on the run is looking onto sunken imprints
Dragged feet are pegged to a ragged core of stuttering insanity
Wild wings roar raging on collision courses with roots’ firm recall
Yet the fool seeks wisdom if only for reruns of nascent madness
The black bird is caught in a trap of concerted voices in aphasia
A torn music sheet drifts down an abyss behind closed curtains
But the clouded clown’s mind refuses time's penultimate applause
Claps his bound feet and decides to enrol in imponderable cheers
21st February 2020
And so I wake from the sleep of a thousand years
Clawing out from my eyes a desert of dried tears.
And so I scream with a voice that is harsh broken
Repeating the words of the last lie spoken
Everything will be alright
Trust me
I will guide you to the right
Trust me
I am the light, the light
Trust me
Tonight, tonight
Ashes fell from armageddon sky line
Dark the eyes see when everyone is blind
Twisted bones and bible verses laid
On the sewing needle beds we have made.
Innocence grazed like sluggish sheep
Unprotected in the final cusps of sleep
Fighters few and soldiers weary
Even the smell of daffodils seemed scary
Save of us all... we were screaming
There rose a leader made of scars of spirit
Preaching loud so that everyone could hear it
Everything will be alright
Trust me
I will guide you to the right
Trust me
I am the light, the light
Trust me
Tonight, tonight
Pitch black, blood red
Rains from the heavens dead
Repeating the last lie spoken
Faith is broken
Right is the wrong direction
What was left was protection.
She lies, tan gentle lines and curves so sharp
she pairs her heart horizontal to zero
Her body falling from great cusps above
Then deriving great pleasure from the angle
Skirting the limits, fleecing the boundaries
She breaks the surface of space
Then her shell is unfolding, unraveling
Wildly spinning out of control on her axis
The ground giving us no differential treatment
Then her inflections begin to fluctuate
Now she can’t ignore the signs anymore
For a symptom hopes a cure will appear
Strum soft sweet chords on wire lyre strings
A convergence we’ll hold, integrate, we’ll come
Together to throw arc shadows on walls
------------------
Expanded on my older poem "Tan Gentle Lines"
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