This one’s a castle; that’s a customs-house.
They’re stolid, listless, just a little dull.
The sky supports an arbitrary gull.
The languidness of Liszt, the style of Strauss
are wholly absent. Colours are metallic.
The eye sweeps over cornice, turret, steeple,
then it dawns on us – there are no people.
Clock towers, mountains, minarets, all phallic,
are void of human life. Stark, empty chairs
adorn each arid, motionless interior.
As we apprise, eyes sneeringly superior,
we note acerbically his love of stairs –
A Will to Power, ever pushing up.
One daub there is, however, gives us pause:
it dates long before Enabling Laws,
before he dreamed of Kesselring or Krupp:
a bridge that’s quite impossible to cross,
going nowhere, has never carried traffic.
With a boy sitting on it. Startling, graphic,
without a hint of Schadenfreude or Schloss.
Self-portrait, this? What features may we trace?
What’s here vouchsafed? Incipient racist brute?
Hardly. A disarmingly awful suit,
and most revealingly of all – he has no face.
TRY FAIL BETTER
doubtless
fragile
in
quiet originality
of
sublimated energy
so redolent
eternal
anguish
elegant
surreal
agonising
challenges
of abstract
concepts
conviction
ineffable
interest
remorseless
the
impossible
complicated
self-absorbing
exploring
the
unshakeable
bonds
of
fascination
enlivened
by
sightings
so much
larger
than life
prodigious
in
appearance
disarmingly
palpable
in
ironic
intimacy
On a bright morning I was greeted warm
By a host of flowers of the self same hue
Smiling disarmingly from an orchid wild
With their white petals washed in dew
Amid the vernal green, they shone radiant
Like scattered stars bursting the seams of the sky
Airily they poised on their delicate stems
Waving at me from their stations high
Scattered here n’ there, not in neat array
They verily had an unusual charm.
Chanting in chorus, songs of lilting tunes,
They put my weary heart into a state of calm.
Had no idea from where they had come
Never had I seen the plant in bud before
They appeared abrupt as under a magic spell
I could count not one but a hundred more
Like festoons hung down from the turquoise sky,
They dangled down, bathed in sun’s early rays.
As they stood nodding at every gust of wind,
I stayed nonplussed admiring their simple grace.
The storm blasted its way across near horizon
Like a fleeting loss of Mother Nature’s temper--
Seething anger, blowing, and drumming ahead
Shouting to the trees “Get out of my way!” and
Sending loose flotsam before it to blow about
With no regard for torn shingles or fresh, clean
Clothes pinned to that long thin line stretched
Between two crosses of piping standing rigid.
The storm strode across the flowering meadow
Like the entrepreneur who owns everything and
Preens disarmingly confident in his arrogance--
Leaving broken stems of royal purple in its wake
Applauding its success while breaking their backs
With flashes of flexing strobes and sudden gusts.
THIRD PLACE WINNER
August 1, 2021
entered "Imagism" poetry contest
sponsored by Emile Pinet
Dramatically daring disarmingly dapper
So soflty serene so subtly sublime
Enigmaticly entrancing enthusiastically enjoyable
Vividly vibrant vicariously viewing
Caringly caressing charismatically cosmic
Admittedly alluring amid amicable azure
Unforgettably unabashedly undemanding
Irrisistably Ignitingly Insync
there are times
when my heart
remains silent
when its pulse is
steady and slow
there are times
when i am
right with the world
fitting in like a piece
to an irregular puzzle
there are times
when the sounds
of the life that surrounds me
blend in infinite splendor
with the music that plays
within.
and then,
there are times
when my heart explodes
and its rapid beating
becomes too much
for the confines of my chest
there are times
when i seem to be
a square block
struggling to escape
this round hole
of an existance
there are times
when the cacophonous symphony
invading my mind
overlaps with what
i hear outside
and the resulting noise
is disarmingly similar
to my inner chaos.
and then,
there are times
when i wonder
when this
nauseating see-saw
will stop its
strange rhythm
when the boundaries
that dictate
the shape of my life
will stop their
shape-shifting
when i can be left
in peace.
and then,
each time
this wondering arrives
it is followed by a certainty
that the answer is
never.