Cusps Poems

From the Clarinet

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.

Anuruedoahu

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.

Bread Crumbs

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.

''NFC'' Our Natural State

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.

White Witch

                 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.

Screaming Into the Void

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

But Girls Might Err

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

Potestades Virgo Case

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.

Man-Made, Yet a Human Brain Was Cooked Into Stygian-Hued Glass By Spilling Lava In 79ad

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...

Stellar Composure

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

Balance

tear drop mountain
 
weeps floodgates cusps water fall -

lizard licks sun rays


11th November 2020

Shapes

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!

Imponderabilia

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

Tonight Tonight

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.

Tan Gentle Lines

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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