The morning sun is very bright,
Like a refrigerator light that shines on a shoe.
I put on my socks, a terrible fright,
My left foot is wet, like a swampy stew.
Oh, cotton fibers, why do you deceive?
You are as effervescent as a broken chair.
I cannot find a reason to believe,
That my toe is cold, but the wind is not there.
My sock is a puddle, a tragedy of old,
Like a banana peel floating in the deep, deep blue.
It is very moist and also quite cold,
And I think I have a potato stuck in my shoe too.
The day is ruined, like a sandwich in the rain,
My foot is squishing with a sound of despair.
I shall limp forever through the hall of pain,
While smelling of laundry and wet, moldy air.
I am here to confide it's countrywide
as whenever the British gather together
the first topic of their conversation
is almost always the inclement weather
whatever precipitates such predominant
drizzle discussion drenching debate
or downpour discourse
I do not know and cannot relate
soggy foggy or boggy it's one and the same
altho' it's plain we know where stays the rain in Spain
it has also been seen to land on England's pleasant green
yet after such falls mostly all goes down the drain
yet without its descent on the Emerald Isle
there'd be no rainbows to make me smile
but fleeting I do remember it well and can recall
out of three hundred and sixty-five it was the one day
when nothing liquid dripped down from the sky
and as a result last year summer was on a Monday
I had a dream about you last night I had to wash the sheets again
Birds scatter above goldish light rays
sourced from sun and streetlamps
that light a damp walkway with dewy air.
Walking is a long-legged, brunette beauty
adorned in simple, classy black and white
who hides somber, wanting eyes beneath a
stylish black hat. Golden bouquet in hand,
she passes a suited, middle-aged man - passes him so close it seems intimate, as
if they are also two secrets passing.
Early in a damp woodsman's camp
seeing sawyers from a logging town
to stop the conversation bogging down
as asked my age among other things
I replied, 'Cut off my head and count the rings,'
then had to be quick-witted and fast-footed
made a bee-line through the trees
so as not to lose my noggin
when a burly lumberjack grabbed his axe
I ducked and dodged his mighty swing
which (in a nonce) saved my bacon (and my bonce)
and them's the actual facts
Your hair smells like the rain,
damp and heavy,
but still so undeniably you.
You sit cross-legged on the floor,
telling me about a dream you had
where we were clouds,
floating somewhere we couldn’t name.
I wanted to ask if it was lonely,
but instead,
I ran my fingers through your hair,
feeling the knots and tangles
like the spaces between us.
Sometimes I need light.
Sometimes we,
sometimes everyone needs light.
In the dark and the damp of rooms,
of feelings, of thoughts
and of our lives that flow,
we need light from the window,
from the open door, from the open spaces
under the open skies,
and then we need some lights to glow,
but from where, when or whether
it will come or not come, we never know.
And for the deepest dark
of our dilemmas and destinations,
of our regret, shame and sorrow,
sometimes the lights of touch and words
we need to borrow.
To light our paths of today
and tomorrow,
so that we can survive
at least within a meaningful light
all the way to the end of our show.
(07 December 2024)
I rig a dream to fill it with all the anguish
my heart has felt in a damp world always weeping.
My worn coat hangs in a closet, its arms empty,
like winter branches sighing, their damp world weeping.
A yearning to run, an inhale of rain, I yield
to a vulture of shadows weeping in damp worlds.
In the silhouette, a scared animal picks its
infant away in gray snow, its damp world weeping.
Under the surface of water, a turtle’s shell
ripples slick and obsidian, its damp world weeping.
I need to touch and feel rich testaments of joy
my emotions not derailed in damp worlds weeping.
@jjote 090624
Attached segregated I touched his warm skin yet
Deceased He was asleep he was non awaken
He was hidden he was asleep under the sheet he slept
His chest no longer rose I placed the side of my face contemplating
Down by his nose his eyes were shut closed
No breath his soul a spirit risen he was in death
Detached segregated I touched his cool cold skin yet
No breath his soul a spirit risen he was in death
1/5/24
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr © 2024
grey clouds
like shrouds
hover
cover
wind speed
like steed
fright'ning
lightning
thunder
sunder
cryin'
welkin
raindrops
fat plops
muddles
puddles
pit pat
rhythm that
awakes
damp shakes
earth drenched
thirst quenched
God's free
AC
Jumping in the rain
Cloudy boat runs after sun
Shadow is trigger
© Mahtab Bangalee
19/03/2023
A briefly wrung-out sky
is blotched with clammy clouds.
A humid air clings to my chest.
Damp squirrels hang limply
from dripping branches.
Desultory birdsong mops
but not much.
I yearn for the cold slap of sea-spray,
chill cheeks and fresh lips
not this damp-dive-walking
through a moist miasma.
Maybe the day will shake itself free
of its mope?
Perhaps this drizzle will tip over
into a cresting surf of sunlight,
or anything that smacks of a
rolling ocean
that can dry-out, rinse and clean.
Immovable object that you see?
Truly not, if you allow it free.
Intolerable silence you hear?
Try softening your sense of fear.
Impersonal, harsh touch of old love?
Therapeutic caress from above.
Inevitable in taste of grief?
Transitioning stages for relief.
Infinite smell of Autumn decay?
Tumbling leaves in dull, damp, dying day.
I have a frightening mental block,
Poetic reserves lost, no stock,
My mood is down and damp,
My hand has constant cramp,
Imagination not worth a dime,
Brain all mushy, turned to slime,
Fantasy faded oh dear oh dear,
Inspiration none, it’s gone I fear,
Funny, horror, politics, history or love,
Blankly, see grey cloudy skies above,
My thoughts are less than dazzling,
Stop me, for I think I’m babbling,
My poetic sanity is somehow unraveling,
But hey, just made up a rhyme,
Guess all I need is time!
My muse just texted me, she is on a plane back home!
November Intrigue--Five Haikus
Moss breathes dampness, near
shifting blankets of old leaves.
Beds of lichen thrive.
Both pure and pungent,
the air is soul-enhancing,
gifting faint wood smoke.
On the forest floor,
Princess Pine grows sweetly
in pristine patches.
Old stone foundations
and a gurgling waterfall
capture heavy mist.
Dark reeds cross the marsh
to a long strand of young spruce,
vivid and spritely.
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