Lure of mirage
in deranged dunes,
dances in
dandelion rhythm
with oasis dream,
illusion inscribed
in sane sands of time,
sliding continuum
with desiccated travail,
thirst unquenched,
stimulus sensuous,
perpetual.
Dormant despair
usurps harps of hope,
vibrato dissipates
unperceived,
wisdom shroud
unfurls crafty chimera
in life of actuality,
awareness avid,
imbibed.
Stifling shadow
anguished onyx cloud
creeps remorseless,
dissension darkness drips
opaque desolateness
on listless landscape,
mangled in
strife maelstrom,
mind sucked within
hope vortex,
umbrage pervades,
unushered.
Silver spectrum
of lines transient
in acumen cloud,
splits into colors
of radiant reverie
in optimistic prism,
sculpted.
Convoluted canvas,
carapace conjured
for contorted hideous faces,
turning in a trance
into baroque frescos,
flicker of beauty
sparkles sneaky
in conceived smile,
beholder,
the painter.
Lure of mirage
in deranged dunes,
dances in
dandelion rhythm
with oasis dream,
illusion inscribed
in sane sands of time,
sliding continuum
with desiccated travail,
thirst unquenched,
stimulus perpetual.
Dormant despair
usurps harps of hope,
vibrato dissipates
unperceived,
wisdom shroud
unfurls crafty chimera
in life of actuality,
awareness imbibed.
Stifling shadow
of ebony anguish cloud
creeps remorseless,
dissension darkness drips
opaque desolateness
on listless landscape,
mangled in
strife maelstrom,
mind sucked within
hope vortex,
umbrage unushered.
Silver spectrum
of lines transient
in acumen cloud,
splits into colors
of radiant reverie
in optimistic prism.
Convoluted canvas,
carapace conjured
for contorted hideous faces,
turning in a trance
into baroque frescos,
flicker of beauty
sparkles sneaky
in conceived smile.
…beholder, the painter.
Then
he used to get regular calls,
and hurry, carrying the shining me
on his sturdy shoulders.
Used me deftly,
and as I dug and filled,
I saw the inert relics rest
with the buried time terminated.
Now
senile, he carries debilitated
the burden of his time.
An old useless companion,
antique, I stand rusted in the attic.
In desolateness I deem he hears
the scraping of some other shovel new,
and waits for the final call.
“When the birds leave the nest to fly in another sky,
the feathers they leave become memory” - Quote by Poet
I built a nest for them so together we could stay,
kept it warm in the winter nights of frost and cold,
no sweeping storm of strife could ever blow it away,
where I held them in my tender wings’ sheltered fold.
They grew up nurtured in the cradle of care,
learned to build and face life in the chosen way,
the loving process with them I could affably share,
the passing parental joy lasted until they flew away.
The cherished bond turns into frail strands of memory,
entwined with the feathers they leave, I forget to cry.
In the residual time I weave the mental tapestry,
and to retain their fading faces in its motif I try.
A lone traveler at the edge of the twilight I sorely sigh,
with the descending desolateness in the nest I talk.
In the memory mirror the lost dreams I descry,
as toward the obscurity the last mile I walk.
Golden paint drips from diaphanous air,
beneath the opalescent autumn blue sky,
jade foliage enfolds full-bloomed flowers,
I fly my heart like a bird over the canopy.
The canopy of your allure so beguiling
takes me to the enticing height of ecstasy.
The nest we build in the cleft of boughs
glistens in love-laced moonshine night.
Night of strife surged as wrecking storm,
the nest is demolished to debris of despair.
You drift away to the sunny sky obscure,
leave me to languish in the spasm of winter.
Winter frost slithers with the north wind
to desolateness of the defoliated boughs.
I feel my love freeze within the arctic heart
amid the serrated shadow of broken wings.
_______________
Written : August 10, 2022
February 6, 2023
2022 Poetry Marathon Qualifiers' FINAL
Placement Poetry Contest
Sponsored : Mark Toney
On a frosty opaque day in windy winter
I, an old defoliated tree denied the sky and the soil
by the young aggressive ones spreading branches,
walk out of the green forest in sheer desperation.
Crossing the contorted contours of the barren badlands,
I go across the pallid plateau to a city quite far,
where I could see no sun shining with survival panacea,
so I couldn’t soak the rays to get my lost foliage back.
I could neither find sustaining soil of bonding sympathy,
so I couldn’t stand upright in the storm of strife.
Dejected, I then morph into a human figure without roots
in the remote corner of the concrete forest.
In dismal unkind desolateness my heart soon breaks,
and the forsaken fragile hands hang unheld,
picking up pining the strewn shards abandoned,
from the cauldron of a smoldering summer day.
Disillusioned, I walk back to the forest I once left,
and burn the essence of humanity in the forest fire.
January 29, 2021
Title used : If I Were A Tree
Contest : If I Were A?
Sponsor : Mysytic Rose Rose
The effervescence of the party doesn’t seem to abate,
even when the guests leave one by one,
the psychedelic lights dissolve within fading melody,
the rolling ripples of air clutch the last rhythm.
The dark stillness waiting outside enters inside,
the music in the air never gets forsaken,
as the darkness melts, a stream of umbra flows within,
cascading in the vale of vibrant blankness.
I dance in the captivating cadence of bliss within,
merging with the mesmerizing music of silence,
see the guests return from the dark one by one,
and come to life in times drowned in desolateness.
They sing the song of pulsating quietude,
the essence permeating the resounding void space,
saturates my time of lingering loneliness,
and dances to my music …
the party doesn’t end.
________________
Posted : December 21, 2020
January 25, 2023
Contest : 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 25
Sponsored by : Mark Toney
Almighty always assures equal attention to all from above,
bestowing benign benevolence brimming with boundless bliss,
His bountiful benediction blossoms in my beguiled soul.
When tormenting times take the toll on my toiling life,
I hasten to harbor His blessings to heal my heart harshly hurt,
so, suffused with His splendor I sail on sea of sanguine solace.
Dwelling in dry desert of desolateness after deceptive mirage I dart,
shrouded sketch of sanctimonious self sometimes shuns my sight,
I thank God for guiding me then to tread the trail of total truth.
September 11, 2020
Contest Alliteration 004 (I Prefer Old Poems)
Sponsor : Poet Destroyer A
From the edge of the ebon night sky,
under the engulfing clouds of gloom,
the promise of moon I’ve made to you,
I’ll keep before the eclipse starts.
The somber storm of smothering strife
drifts me away across the slate horizon,
the clouds melt in the torrent of tears
as my sky falls with the marooned moon.
The promise kept after the agonizing wait,
your fervent window opens on vista of hope,
ushers in the dislodged moon called heart,
rolling onto your satin bed long unslept
In the dark niche of your desolateness
glows the frozen moonbeam burst,
while the floating tinsels of silver dust
flutter like fairy over your silhouette face.
Holding the magical moon turned crystal globe,
you look deep into the illumined fortune
in kaleidoscopic images portending the future,
where my yearning paints dreamscape for you.
Written : March 10, 2020
June 9, 2020
Contest : Strand No. 790
Sponsor : Brian Strand
In the burnt barren wasteland
Once a graphic garden
I rise from the arms of ashes
A fortified sapling
Split the crevasse of desolateness
Where I bloom a solitary rose
A pervasive singularity of creativity
Enclosed within the sublime soul
Fathomless as the cosmos
Timeless as the eternity
I unfurl for you in essence
The beauty of the universe.
__________________
Written : March 7, 2020
For A Brian Strand Freed Verse Contest
" Amid the jagged shadows of mossy leafless boughs"
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Gold tinged paints dripped from the air,
under the clear opalescent autumn sky,
jade foliage turned to full-bloom flower,
I flew my heart like a bird over the canopy.
The canopy of your allure so beguiling
took me to the enticing heights of ecstasy.
The nest we built in the cleft of boughs
glistened in love-laced moonshine night.
Night of strife surged a wrecking storm,
the nest crumbled to debris of despair.
You flew away to the sunny sky obscure,
left me to suffer in the spasm of winter.
Winter frost slithered with the north wind
to desolateness of the defoliated boughs.
I felt my love freeze in the congealed heart
amid the jagged shadow of broken wings.
" Without love, we are birds with broken wings"
- Mitch Albom
November 28, 2019
For Brian Strand's Contest A Brian Strand July 12
They all grew wings and flew away
to distant lands, leaving the nest empty.
In the void of desolateness prevailing
my sky was draped in shades of grey,
until down the years lonely and long
when third generation buds blossomed,
albeit in the alien garden so far away,
to me the colors of joy drifted along.
The smile of grandchildren on ipad I see
each morning flashing like dawning sun.
From gloomy horizon of emptiness I rise
while the aura of delight embraces me.
May 24, 2019
Trudging alone on the indolent desert dunes
fragile footprints collapse and the sands flow
on cadence of mirage music, life’s unsung tunes
fades away slow.
In the trembling spine of my parched shadow
hungry predators burrow harrowing dark hole,
as dry desolateness sucks me harshly hollow,
from the depth of soul.
Familiar faces turn to cactus of thorny sprawl,
blood desiccates in the cleft of fractured heart,
trunk of fossil life crumbles in parts or whole,
time trampled the dirt.
Waned neurons rise from psychedelic trance,
subliminal cortex networks fervently strive,
capture images of sprouting stars’ silent dance.
Am I alive?
Written : May 11, 2019
Contest : Completely Your Choice (6)
Sponsor : Brian Strand
Frozen sky and frost fastened ground
In the mystique mask of departing light
They meet in the abode of those departed.
The identities dissolve in inseparable oneness
Bringing together in seamless proximity
The living and the dead
In gripping stillness and in deafening silence
In fading light and in gloomy desolateness
Of the graveyard in the wasteland reclaimed
All engraved in the consumed life’s winter frame.
Defoliated trees clad in somber grief
Stand static as the shadowless sentinels
Lest those lying beneath the stones resurrect
And fly away with the northern wind.
The children of the past born under the sun
Left behind the warmth in the distant hearts
When time came to find a place within the earth.
The lonesome bouquet laced with love not yet dead
Carries the frozen fragrance of remembrance.
The defrosted soul may rise someday as mist
Enwrap the lives enfolded within despair
Of the cold embrace of the dried drops of tear.
Written : September 16, 2017
April 24, 2020
Contest : Strand Pick D, Any Theme, Any Form
Sponsor : Brian Strand
Blow away the morning dew
And clear off the heaviness of summer wetness
Times gone are gaunt, your heart is weary
Unbeat the drums of your sordid story
Emancipate your innocent soul
From this spectral link with old life
You are not forgotten
Just another moment of longsuffering
The past is done, you’ve been betrayed
Your presence is no longer
A melancholy of irking tales
That hollow heads with desolateness
Your name belongs to the clouds
High above the highs and lows
You are not forgotten
Just another case of ill fate
Abort your Inertia for life
Conceive your long time passion
Look at the sky above you
The stars are falling down
To locate your place in the sun
Let the flash lights carry you on
Focus your eyes on
The neat cluster of glory bright
You are not forgotten
Just another case of prolonged destiny
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