Stuck to
myself
the glue starts
to lift
Exposing
my nature
a soul
frozen stiff
Letting
me go
the dermis
strips off
The sun
rushing in
melting
the frost
Open
to light
new Angels
take hold
Rebuilding
my past
the future
remolds
All dread in
the mirror
now turned to
the wall
My essence
unfrozen
and prescience
— rethawed
(The New Room: July, 2025)
feathered …
moony beams daub your lips -
the irregularities
shaping little cornflower thorns
but oh, how supple the
pliant press of those luscious fruits
(savored like honey) …
I touch them delicately with the
back of my finger
then move lower to your
daintily-dimpled chin, and down …
I follow the blue beams
with my fingertips
dancing across your surfaces as
little bumps form and
your flesh jumps here-and-there
telling me I’ve found the
sweetest spots,
though I’m winding my way to
an even dearer dermis
and warmer intent …
what is the enchantment of
these moments -
this magic of moonlight that
makes me want you so?
there is a mad mystery to why such
time stops and waits for us,
and were it not for
the responsibilities of morning,
we would hold this moment forever -
painted in dreamy shafts of blue
trading touches like truths
swimming the rill of each other’s soul
and haunting a wonder-world -
whimsical, immortal
and ours …
alone.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden
Handpicked, like coffee seeds or strawberries, ten eggs I kept
Like a tensed insomniac, for a long time I'd not slept
I found a change in the bloom of the dermis as days passed
There came out surprise-filled tint tots, elegance unsurpassed.
Red, green, blue, purple, and yellow, like a compressed rainbow
With perfectly blown balloons, as children merrily glow.
As seedlings spring up at night and glisten in the morning,
These soft talc and cloud agate gems appear without warning.
Standing erect and straight with sun-moon-stars-tinged, blazing eyes;
Robotic reflexes; peep, peep, peep, filling up the skies
Judgement quality of quantity like the honeybees
Psychic contagion is in them, like treasures in deep seas.
Symbols of resurrection, springtime splendours, and new life
A masterpiece of nature's craftsmanship after a strife
Scenes of Elysium, Coleus, and Jannah revealed
The mysteries of chicks, like the Milky Way, are concealed.
Animals in top hats,
Ride bicycles en road,
Spoked wheels and pedaled spats,
Round about, in ornamental spode.
Animals in monocles,
Spectate in obeisance,
Cuffed by inked chronicle:
Renascence-linked complacence.
Animals in Model Ts,
Toot along en route,
To queue below burlesque marquee,
Bloating bruit by gloat and brute.
Animals in suits,
Sustained by entree manner,
Tasting morsels, cheering lutes;
To labor, bond and banner.
Animals in petticoats,
Puffed in crinoline,
Corsets sweep beneath the bloat,
Ensure the meal’s unseen.
Animals in linen,
Lain in duvets, eider down,
Sunken pelt a skin had been in,
Before its fur had come to town.
Animals in animal,
Adorned disguise of dermis,
Woven threads of blastemal,
Posture vermin with a vermis.
Animals in animals,
Piquant bones to gnaw,
Ascetic starving cannibals,
Feed on creed and law.
Animals in groups,
Extensions of the self,
Lain in egg to cracked coops,
Atop a thrifted shelf.
Instead of rounding out our edges,
To conform our shape to objects,
End the heed, the empty pledges,
Be animal: love and sex.
You have it in your eyes,
a look at night
that invites...
you have on your skin,
sunshine vitamin
that cheers me up...
You have it in your mouth
arsenal of kisses
that even overflows...
I dive into you
in full depth
I enter your dermis...
On you I print my life,
in you I strive my being,
in you I consecrate myself in faith...
In you I fulfill and celebrate,
in you I put my strength,
fulfill my desires...
It is my observation that
those who violently oppose the opinion
Or belief of another
their own self bias disclose
I want to believe
In a power
Greater than my own
To have a hope
For an anchor to grope
In seas starting to foam
And how is it
dermis
Off your nose
What others are
Moved to say
And why does
It so solidly grind your gears
What some happily choose to relay
I fully disagree with you
but not your right
to speak it
I just make a note
for future time
to be sure not to seek it
The idea I have entertained Of those
who don't want Faith and want to deprive others too
Is you have no need
to search for God
because you have found him in you.
The one I serve
Isn't arrogant
Or condescending in tone
So why not
Your merry self loving way go
And leave the God fearing alone
Or perhaps it's due
to the fact that you
Answer to no one up to
And including the ONE who tolerates you.
Each to their own.Sans agendas.
The robicund dominates,
like the beauty of a red rose bush
planted amongst the wilds.
It is of a still life; a blush.
The Tatian tints are flames,
that might torch the evolution
of the Earth. Or the color
is of a ripened orange grove;
or a bowl of tangerines!
Green, be it Kelly, or olive,
or a simple deep light green,
are the mowed lawns of fancy yards;
or the blossom of the apples
in the flush of a late Summer;
the Autumn apples buoyed
in a barrel of tapwater.
We will know the color blue,
from when we first open our new-
born eyes: The shades of the Sky,
a Sea. A bruised dermis.
The yellows are a petal
of a Daisy, a Sunflower;
the softness of a Butter-
cup. A weed. Ambrosia.
June 19, 2021
Contest: Prompt "My Art, My Drawing"
Death’s undisturbed progress.
And a doted-upon songstress:
In the musical battle field, Matchless Tigress,
Now being taught unforgettable lessons by Skin Cancer,
Her concerned doctors all robbed of an answer;
Likely now to linger only for a few days
In line with the prophecies of carried out x-rays.
The blotches on her skin unbelievably catholic
To dare a long gaze at them, first some alcoholic
Each of them over time has become bizarre
All of them raucously shouting “Here, we are!”
A fall out of musical songstress experimentations
With the skin lightening,
The sequel to her importations
Of the dermis–revealing;
Previously wondrous and mindset promotional
A veritable time bomb and weapon unconventional.
We wend through life with hopes of one true love,
Quite rare, such fits, that match you like a glove ...
A blend of souls ... divine inspiration.
Once heaven found you naught but in my dreams,
Yet now you're real, sweet angel, though it seems ...
This sacred gift ... divine inspiration.
Smooth tresses, golden silk, frame eyes of brown,
Those swirling depths where I would gladly drown ...
To love's abyss ... divine inspiration.
Oh moonbeams dance your dermis like doubloons,
The sweet price paid your form, as passion swoons ...
The carnal cost ... divine inspiration.
Each moment that I spend wrapped in your wings,
Means one less wasted 'midst those lesser things ...
A realm of you ... divine inspiration.
How long I've sought the truth of heaven's light,
Thus, now through you, dear angel, life is bright ...
One in our love ... divine inspiration.
~ 3rd Place ~ in the "Pick-A-Title Volume 14 - Tristitch" Poetry Contest, Edward Ibeh, Judge & Sponsor.
* The title and name I chose is "Afflatus" *
Treasure of sensuality
between my bare dermis,
and your naked brown skin ...!
Fields of the dermis yield a harvest worthy of an ample supply of suppleness,
Foretelling fluctuating skin moisturizing balms that saturates the aged cavities,
Cherished heydays occupied a magnificent face for cameras to envy,
In the advance of time, I am content to tender the waning years.
2020 January 14
Awarded to privileges and sanctioned
embellishment favoring enhancement,
Over time, years chip away unnoticeably
o'er worn breathless moments,
Taunt texture of an arduous youth evaporates
in a whimsical hallucination,
Fields of the dermis yield a harvest worthy
of an ample supply of suppleness,
Foretelling fluctuating skin moisturizing balms
that saturates the aged cavities,
Cherished heydays occupied a magnificent face
for cameras to envy,
In the advance of time, I am content
to tender the waning years,
For a fair measured distance
as a camera poses for a closeup.
2020 January 10
That About A Face
Previously responsible concerning an adolescent resplendent facial hallmark,
Awarded to privileges and sanctioned embellishment favoring enhancement,
Over time, years chip away unnoticeably o'er worn breathless moments,
Taunt texture of an arduous youth evaporates in a whimsical hallucination,
Face delicately immersed in a penny-filled wishing well made full by an Irish spring,
Whereby, encroaching four-leaf clovers anticipate deviating hands to favor,
For a wealth of squishing palms to rub gently the verdurous lucky
chartreuse petals,
Against foretelling fluctuating skin with moisturizing balms that saturates the aged cavities,
Alas, rebellious slaves to periodical moons ebb the epidermis as once kept promises reneges,
Former fields of the dermis yield a harvest worthy of an ample supply of suppleness o'er a lifetime,
Where cherished glorious heyday occupied a magnificent proffered face for cameras to envy,
In the advance of time, I am content to gracefully tender the waning years for a fair measured distance as a camera poses for a closeup.
2019 December 22
Crying; eyes closed
Dermis exposed
Blood on my clothes
Thoughts decompose
Flame-licking burning
Stomach is turning
Dizzy; concerning
Better start learning
Death by disdain
I dance in the rain
Drunk on the pain
Bandage my brain
If you fortune a tangent,
You’ll get a stash,
A rill of crescents pageant,
Old and holding the gash.
Perception not able,
The dynamo dies in the land,
Normal cable to stable,
The bearings of negates and hand.
Piercings whisper through the ears,
Wheat quakes to sliver rum,
Dermis exhalted the overdraft years,
The pollination riffed the drum.
Chrysanthemum sung to oak,
To know the structure is of the silk,
Bacchus architectured folk,
When muscle, mind ruptured n’ did silt.
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