A dislodged leaf from dry tree floats away
in turbulent air across land fallow
with its lone life through the freedom archway,
evades the whirlpool of chaotic flow.
To a woodland it sets its course to fly,
soaking up the aura of sequined dust
splashing from the cauldron of sparkling sky
in dulcet dawn of sunburst color gust.
Plunged in the vortex of the tumult stream
my soul’s lone leaf wilts in disposition
for me to incite my senses to dream
in the serene shade of isolation.
Strolling in the woods of solitude swift
I discern the leaf of lost me adrift.
In my twilight meadow you walk alone,
under my spectral ardent sky coloring you.
At its fringe I wait for you to come to me,
your luring way you’ll find to my heart.
But dislodged hope hurts my psyche,
unkept promises stifle my broken heart,
unkind words tear the lattice of my mind.
My life is an urn filled with your denial.
Your sensual aversion spreads as wild fire,
boils the blood of your intrinsic pride.
Its flare burns my tender demeanor,
its rage blazes our bonding bonhomie.
Your acrimony billows as thick smoke,
smothering your conscience losing sanity.
Vile breath is charged with spiteful ashes,
you deface the composed facade of control.
With the arcane acumen of a trickster
you crawl as a sordid silhouette of menace,
suck the ambrosia of my succumbed soul,
the casualty of your obsessed malice.
The tapestry of the indigo sky,
weaved with lattice of silver cloud,
merges with the still sea in the blues.
The dislodged boulders of cognitive debris
strewn away from the waterfront of desire,
the broken dreams epitomized.
The anchorless empty boat
drifts away from the shore of longing,
harboured by desolation,
lodged lonesome in the sanctuary
of the rocky ledge of fortitude.
In the ruins of my splintered heart,
I listen to the voice of the anguished soul,
the mutilated construct of recluse precinct,
encasing the stifling loneliness of poignant prison
where the psyche languishes relentless
within invincible travail,
negating the hope perspective
in the clutch of mental affliction.
The cauldron of dissonance,
remote from the rhythm of life,
its void filled with drops of depression in adagio.
My dormant desires are demolished,
the malleable mind yields to nostalgic purport,
melancholy swathes the remnant yearning.
Inspired by Melancholy, Edvard Munch.
EUPHORIC EPITHET
disarrayed sands
derive dislodged
from
timeless terrain
settle bemused
on
stratified shelf
of
languid life
disorganized
in
dismantled moments
of
petrified perturbation
trustworthy truth
on
ruffled ripples
of
disordered discontent
oscillates
on
bewildered efflux
of
delinquent dismay
as
metamorphosed elation
reveals tousled
real pretense
of
traumatic transmutation
of
disquiet mind
drowning disheveled
in
distraught nothingness
with
splintered leitmotif
of
embedded emotion
in
sensual sandcastles
on
shriveled shore
of
eroded yearning
where
psyche rises
shape-shifted
to
covert flute
of
passion symphony
plays music
of
ecstatic self
entranced
as
convivial concerto
resonates
the last refrain
of
melodic memory
as
transcendent essence
of
euphoric epithet
Thunder spots we called them, don’t even ask me why,
they fell upon the sun-scorched pavement from the sky;
dislodged the dying lilac blossoms from the tree,
bounced upon the outstretched tongues of you and me.
I think they smelled like Mother's Sunday lunchtime roast,
or maybe it was disturbed rock pools at the coast;
but as they heavy fell and crushed an ant or two;
raindrops declared the summer’s end for me and you.
Unmet expectations damage your demanding mind,
your senses become the fast spreading wild fire.
Uncontrolled, it boils the blood of your intrinsic pride,
and as it flares up, it burns my gentle demeanor.
Its ferocity blazes the bonhomie of bonding chords,
my life turns into an urn filled with your ill feeling.
Your flashing eyes can’t conceal you seethe inside,
generate an inferno of malice for me in your heart .
The twisted tongue spills out your sentiments so sadistic,
smeared with the vicious venom of your malicious mind.
The scorched petals of my floral essence are dislodged
to feel the dreams turn into debris, suffering in silent pain.
I pray to God to give me the strength of tolerant psyche
and the acuity of empathetic acumen to sense that
“the only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.”
So, the spontaneous spurt of imbibed divine forgiveness
emanates from the fountain of my benign soul,
and I perceive my genial mind evade the pangs of agony.
In God’s own humane world time often comes
when life is mutilated by despicable instincts,
people plunge in cesspool of vice and sin.
Dislodged empathy finds its way astray in chaos
as morality is defaced by harsh intolerance
and kinship disintegrates within abhorrence.
In the cramped squalid suffocating state
the system of severe supremacy emerges,
holds the reins of rigid governance
when even the thoughts are imprisoned.
Enwrapped within collapsed wings of caged birds,
the confined hearts crumble quietly
in the abyss of controlled isolation.
For the helpless captured by dreamless darkness
where even the moon must be permitted to shine,
thin streaks of self-respect get smothered
like the rays of hope entwined with sparks of dissent,
extinguished by the strict surveillance of fear
in the situation of silent submission.
Deprived of the draft of ethical air,
destroying the tenets of human values,
people with blank faces under watchful eyes
walk as shadows of nonentity with muted souls,
trying to train their minds what not to believe,
when even the thoughts are imprisoned
as freedom becomes a memory.
On wrinkled canvas winter spider
weaves senility web,
grief of loss instilled in hedonist psyche.
Memory morphs into metaphor
for the past panorama dislodged,
captured in snapshot of narcissist framed.
In the heavens,
Light pervades and intervenes.
Mystery is unmasked,
And the night trembles at the feet of the Divine.
Souls that ascend to the heavens
Stand in awe of their majesty and magnificence.
The arts and crafts are beyond human imagination;
The glow and glory surpass what the mind can comprehend.
In the heavens, an ear listens—
Our songs and heartfelt cries ascend.
We await a descent,
Optimistic that our ascent is a sweet sound.
In the silence of the soul, there is an outpouring from the heavens.
A river meanders through the mind,
Treasures, as the sages say, await us there,
For the river flows to reveal these hidden gems.
There is a gathering in the heavens,
And the princes of chaos are dislodged.
May 31, 2025.
Early morning
and I walk the shoreline
of my waking mind,
picking over what has been
washed up, the tidal spoils
dislodged from a dream,
scattered memories,
the flotsam of time.
These are what I lay
upon a page,
the beach strewn litter
from a throw away age
and weathered sea shells
that speak, murmur into
a listening ear the incantations
of the deep.
The fillet was supposed to be boneless but wasn't.
It caught me off guard, midmeal.
Between bites of slaw and baked potato.
The bone wedged in the top of my whiskered throat.
The palest form of panic set in.
I swallowed hard a few times.
Swigged a root beer.
Everyone's eyes grew wide as I grew dark red.
It finally dislodged on its own merits.
Thank God perch bones are thin.
At times, death arrives out of nowhere.
Sometimes in the form of a freight train.
A bolt of lightning or a yellow perch bone.
From the late 50s until the mid-60s,
As I struggled through the mid-summer heat,
I searched but found neither retreat nor relief.
From before sunrise until after the setting sun,
a little boy labored with a hoe in the hand in the
Spring or with a big cotton sack on his shoulders
in the Fall. Very little favor was the lad ever given.
I longed for the brevity of a sweet release.
It wasn't enough to be shaded by a willow tree.
I craved for the lasting joy of being forever free.
Freedom to feel a cooling comfort upon my body;
Freedom for my soul to set its compass toward my destiny;
Freedom to refuse futility and determine my own choice of toil;
Freedom for my spirit to be dislodged from the cherished delta soil.
By grace, my spirit rose from Cottonland to a higher richer ground.
And like an eagle, I soared high with my wings on the wind.
Time strokes the wrinkled canvas,
the ancient spider in twilight hour
weaves the senility web,
the empty eyes wander in the wasteland.
The hedonist psyche refuses
to gauge the grief of loss.
The face morphs into metaphor
for the past panorama dislodged,
captured in the snapshot
of the narcissist impulse congealed
in the portrait I make of me.
It’s made of latent lattice of delicate design,
lines on lines contour my body.
The vibrant epitome of expression align
with the pattern of unique look personified.
An insular captive of my mental making,
I’m an inimitable loner within me,
defined by the entrenched essence singular,
scared to face the crowded world.
I get driven by the self-obsessed urge
to uplift my sagging morale,
clothe the portrait with an apposite attire.
I open the sparse closet to select a T-shirt
with the walking punchline
“Be Brave, Be You” inscribed bold.
It makes a simple style statement
for me coming out of the lonesome shell.
In the desert of my forlorn life,
I wandered across desiccating dunes you made.
Enticed by your impulsive mindscape,
I sauntered in the sandstorm of dismal time.
Yearning lost in the debris of broken heart,
I ambled with silent sorrow,
emotions swirled like dislodged sands
in the tide of remote time when you were mine.
The transient trajectory of devoured desire
furrowed a blazing track of craving,
I wished I could trail the shooting star,
even if it faded away like the flicker of your love.
In the mesmeric firmament of fervor
you blazed the trail of passion in my heart.
In the configured horizon of longing
I desired to fly as a beguiled bird,
for in my idyll thoughts I wished
you were my dream sky.
Enchanted by the mirage of florid ecstasy,
the flower in my desiccated heart blossomed
when your charisma drizzled on me
like the soothing rare summer rain of oasis.
The flame of my heart was stoked
by the breeze of the yearning spring.
Flaring beauty of glowing fresco flashed
on the beguiled blushing face of desire.
The wilted petals were dislodged
by the destructive dust storm of desertion.
The split flower saw the dreams in debris,
its shriek was lost in the quietude of desert.
As you drifted away from my stormy horizon,
thunder of torment ripped my forsaken flower.
The broken heart suffering mute pain I protected
for you to hear silence speak in emotive eloquence.
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