The canvas is so much like a seashore
Where hands comb for a body to the storm
Sometimes a continental piece will shift
These wounds under the palette —
Give her light while looking through the bars
From some more than thousand marks
The brush of close kissing hair by
The stroke of your blue in brown eyes
Stay familiar this very last year
With painted on tears —
The paints dispensed in the water pass
God, forgive the glass.
A tide that leaves colors to our flashback's wind —
My true colors are yours to see within
The world is a sea of gigantic aquarium
Of immeasurable acreage;
With eclectic species of humans:
Coal, Amber, Snow and Bronze;
365 score days in the whale's gut,
Junketing from Kolkata, Kalamazoo, Kathmandu,
East, West, North and South,
Hustling, jostling, bustling, brainstorming;
Angling for a mess of portage
At the close of season;
Like Jonah,
We will gracefully, and discretely age and be dispensed,
To the other side of the divide,
To interface with the HeadMaster of all Master's!
BEFORE
bands of fleeing lovers
tumble from your dusty room
to their real lives and relatives
those hours with you dissipated
dispensed with the innocence
of Before
now, you must return unclean
to others who thought they knew you
to things pure and untouched by Life
smiling with the innocence
of Before
C2024 Thomas Lee Rhymes April 2, 2024
Brown came to dinner
but black had to leave fast
Purple royalty spread,
the news How orange fled
All ain't well,
when you have combination screams
Kaleidoscoping
Melting pot of dispensed wax
Yellow was promised a seat at the table
But gold wasn't able
to sit down because now conforming fax
no one knows who they our or where there're at
colors at the dinner feast
11/26/24
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2024©
The sledding and the skating in ‘63;
the sugar cookies frosted green and red;
the stringing popcorn with my family
and going anxiously that Eve to bed.
The gift exchange when relatives would meet.
Some traveled far to Grandma's little town.
The feast and seeing cousins, such a treat!
We stayed and played until the sun went down.
The program at our church where all took part.
Our flock was small but talent did not lack.
The joyous songs; before we would depart;
the glorious sweets dispensed from Santa's sack!
No holiday to come could be as dear
as when I was a child in my eighth year!
The storm recedes, its rage now spent,
Leaving the earth to emit a scent,
A dank, damp, earthy smell of wet grass,
That breaks the drought, from its parched impasse.
In the quiet there after, all is still,
Thunder's rumble quelled to distill,
Sound to liquid, rage to peace,
As hopes of rebirth and new life increase.
The scent of rain is a heaven sent smell,
Wafting up to dispel a lingering spell.
It's a therapy from nature's apothecary,
Dispensed from a dry-grass prairie.
Imbibe the aroma of the heavenly scent,
To flush the stench of discontent,
From your life's toil and strife.
Imbibe its smelling salts, revive your life.
I’m Mz Mortenson, if you please.
I dispensed with the charade
when I went to my grave.
Life can be tricky
if you’re pretty.
My life was a role,
I couldn’t always control.
How unaware the dumb bombshell seemed.
Still, I was labeled the obscene Norma Jeane.
in reel life’s small doses,
the role was emotionally corrosive,
merely etching away my fragile identity.
In real life it proved erotically explosive
destroying my privacy, serenity, and sanity.
I thrilled in some 29 films, I took a few pills,
was a plaything for mobsters and tabloid mills.
When I started a fling with the president,
did I have any idea what I was up against?
Some free advice - beware of counterintelligence.
Homicide, suicide - what does it matter
- which one is sadder?
I knew I’d always be there for you, sensuously beckoning,
at 24 frames per second, like an eternal flame - flickering.
.
.
Of course, Norma Jeane Mortenson’s stage name was Marylin Monroe
Written for the 'Lost Poetry from History Challenge' contest.
Where you write a poem in the voice of an historical figure.
16:00.06-17
The vampire exited the saloon doors
covered in blood her gaze enamors;
Cowboys on horses stop mid motion
to see what was causing the commotion;
Mysterious woman dealing black jack,
apparently someone had tried to attack;
Whiskey shots were barely dispensed,
outlaws came in and the energy tensed;
No intention of drawing first blood,
then he asked to play five card stud;
She said ‘I’m not part of the party;
You don’t gamble with the referee.’
He tried to hit her she broke his neck;
Then came his friends, a train wreck;
Not fond of utilizing easy murder,
off she rides from this sunset massacre.
bands of fleeing lovers
tumble from your dusty room
to their real lives and relatives
those hours with you dissipated
dispensed with the innocence
of Before
now, you must return unclean
to others who thought they knew you
to things pure and untouched by Life
smiling with the innocence
of Before
One's heart, One's soul was entrusted, dispensed on a platter with
good intentions.
Some say love should hurt because love is pain, Love shouldn't hurt
it's an expression of actions and not words.
For what purposes? Ego, Deceit, Double Dealings, Manipulations.
Is Love on a two-way street? Triangles, guards, denials, and heartaches
all are Complicated.
Healing amidst all the heartaches ingresses comebacks, self defense and
divine protection of healing one's inner being.
as of soul pact
we dispensed with tact
and took up our stance
leaving outcomes to chance
and so blood was spilt
that made us wilt with guilt
for though we stood apart
we overplayed our part
forgetting who we are
during the friendly spar
now, we’d have kissed and made up
but our ego wouldn’t shut up
and so we had to be reborn
roles exchanged, object of scorn
as the gods watched dismayed
for the light of truth was slayed
since I was he and he was me
yet through the veil we failed to see
the ultimate reality
Thank you for your still laboring pains.
Thanks for the amnesia of suffering
the bedpan and the bible,
the sunny window
that ran with a watery blood
wherever the flying ducks
rushed toward your gun.
Fingertips tingle, the daily callus is softening,
becoming bearable
the way a fox forgets its trap shattered paw.
Thanks for the moonlight dispensed
in cloud-covered dreams.
The applauding grateful
must have partaken of your loaves and fishes
where hooked worms still dangle
bereft of hungry lips.
We are the tenderest of prey again,
the catch we have all been looking for.
What more can be said when gratitude runs away
with its desires still wriggling
and fleshy.
Thank you;
for your mastering love
hath consumed the apple in our mouths
and we are served up
in wide-eyed wonder once more.
Snarky Words
Written: by Miracle Man
26/2023
How oft, toward others,
have snarky words been deployed.
Unleashed without thought,
and valued friendships destroyed.
Once words were dispensed,
we felt remorseful and retreating.
We then spewed “I’m Sorry,”
but forgiveness was often fleeting.
In the Real Estate section,
A question arose
About incense within your abode.
Certain buildings have rules
That prohibit its use
And the writer was set to explode.
If some candles are lit
For the Sabbath by some,
Why can’t she light her incense as well?
Her religion requires
That incense is burned
But the difference, to me, is the smell.
With most incense, the scent
Is intense and, to me,
Has an odor with little appeal,
Which can drift down the hallways
That many do share
Which may impact the way people feel.
Yet the candles she cited
Have no scent at all
So the answer I would have dispensed
Was comparing the two
Isn’t fair, so it’s wrong
Over incense to be so incensed.
It is a plasmid wraith of thickened odors,
its organs, the sticky slops
of dead-end days.
It hungers for discarded dregs,
the dispensed with and disposed of
are its haunt,
scraps of yesterday trail behind it
as grey tentacles no longer able
to feel.
Soon the trashmen will
ambush the bins,
heave them into a reeking wagon,
yet it will return tomorrow
smelling worse,
for nothing absolves us
from its un-recyclable curse.
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