It’s fall of 1888, the south of France,
In the verdant fields of Arles,
Two artists shared a single dream,
And so began their quarrel.
Vincent paved the way for Paul
With bold sunflower sprays.
Paul dissembled, stating plain,
“More practiced effort pays.”
“Don't smile before December,”
Said the mentor to his charge.
And the student pegged his better
As a bon vivant at large.
So, their tenure at the Yellow House
Grew troublesome and dark.
Their artists’ shared collective
Strayed a long way off its mark.
Dry and cold, the Mistral winds
Spread madness like a plague,
To infiltrate poor Vincent’s mind,
Whose memories grew vague.
Mania, delirium, anxiety, and fear,
Climaxed when the voices told him,
“You don’t need that ear!”
He’d heard no praise, regardless.
Dr. Rey used his sorry portrait
To fix his chicken coop.
Then Theo got engaged,
And Paul sailed away to Tahiti.
Now time’s become history,
And that paint smeared canvas,
Nailed to a chicken coop
Means to claim a hefty sum.
And Le Fou Roux lies cold in his grave,
Unmindful of the legend he’s become.
THIS SPACE RESERVED FOR
STARRY NIGHTS AT SAINT REMY
The earth trembled and all felt fear,
Some murmured a prayer.
Most ran out. oft tumbling the stair.
Faithless led to despair.
Apathy led to bars,
Others caused some crashed cars,
Most escaped to watch stars.
Sin dissembled.
The earth trembled.
15 September 2021
Quietus
Tripping Point: An Opioid Odyssey
There are lines we cannot see, hardly know exist
Until we cross them. Then, as if by trip wire,
The temptress snare catapults us into a world
Of primeval darkness with no guide star.
“Hear my song and have a life of feel good”, she promises;
Her dissembled melody the dirge we can’t stop hearing.
Like a virus embedded in DNA she corrupts the message
Using us to propagate her death traps for more unwitting.
Lust for this mistress, Sans Merci, becomes insatiable,
Devouring all we love or live for - even hope itself!
Oh had I Circe’s warning:
Bind me to the mast, fill my sailors’ ears
With wax and sail alee of the siren’s song.
Copyright © 2018 Paul M Thomson
Cloaked Thoughts
By: Miracle Man
2/25/2020
Dissembled thoughts never go on trial,
in psyche's dusty corner their life is spent.
Unless fruition comes by our lifestyle,
intent remains always, to circumvent.
Our thoughts are owned until we opt to share,
but like small town talk they're fast repeated.
Some leave reputations beyond repair,
leading to discussions-some quite heated.
“Good thoughts bear good fruit,
bad thoughts bear bad fruit--
and man is his own gardener”
James Allen
Where's my soul?
Come, show me myself.
But just as I looked into my own reflection,
Behold, it was another person staring back at me; my identity is gone.
Not knowing my own self but in a shadow, in a maze,
I've drifted to where the wind blew.
Dissembled by the little white lies of the Harbinger,
Who brought news of a place with deep affection,
A glorious lagoon; filled with lust and despair.
Pleasures that last only momentarily and then back again in anguish,
Found in a place of remorse; in a cave of woes.
Fill me with wine and keep my heart filled with the lies of my youth,
Tickle my ears with soft soapy words,
Words that will nourish my ego and stretch my wings far from reason.
But like a vanished light, my soul has departed from me,
And as I searched for it, I find only a silhouette staring back at me.
Like a fading rainbow, it is no where to be found.
No where back to myself, but just a shell of a man.
Like a tenant who has long abandoned his house.
For I have threaded anomalously far away from myself,
And has forgotten who I used to be.
So August comes to its soporific twilight
and furtively stares at September,
stance indulged in reassuring ataraxy
August blinks
September earns
September, bearing its comely plethora of dulcet promises
Woe, those of August
For it is fugacious and dalliant
Woe, September, mocking the children of August with its desuetuded and dissembled comeliness
But reap not your earnings of despair, children
All is August demure and dallaint
It will return again, and again
"And so on?"
And so on.
"Why?"
Denouement
Chanel #5
She was immersed in a shallow
Dialogue with the guy—next—door.
A distant conversation,
Mingling with his heart, his senses.
Her “fake” pheromones
Brought him in to an all new ecstasy.
This brings us to the synopsis,
About the pheromone phenomenon.
Deceit and lies barbed her
Surreptitious, razor- edged tongue.
Told in dissembled words,
Concealed only by many falsifications.
Her fragrance brought
On intrigue as of a sweet libation.
Leading for a possible
Affinity that was from the start.
She breaths life in to him,
As they allocate their yet lone salivas’.
Life was better with her,
He cannot live as well without her.
She is the girl of his dreams,
Every night, still in his unwaking dreams.
Oh, Chanel seems
To still turn quite a few heads.
Travis “Ceijaeh” Klein
Memory is my fading friend
of millennial days transpired—
faithful scribe and guardian
who measured mercy and intent
and gauged love’s joyful glint—
yet never turned from rutted path
when sorrow’s specter, tinged
in mottled shades of gray and black,
sought only to inveigh.
Dissembled memories puzzle,
viewed dimly from afar—
where motes of recollection dust
swirl in thoughtless disarray.
I stepped within to query,
asked what’s to be done,
but rueful silence was
the sole reply of ones
not only deaf but mute.
Then appeared a trove of treasured books,
pages crisp and white, without a crease—
gatherings firm, oblivious of age.
I lightly touched the gilded words,
their selfsame title: Wisdom: Gift of Time;
the Author’s name was mine.
I nodded, smiled and then withdrew
aware at once of where I was,
secure in all I knew.
1st Place, Portrait of a Poet, Gautami, Phookan
I know it's she
even though the
photograph is dark
features dissembled
in motion and shadow.
I can see
her face enough,
straining at her smile,
fists frantically
joyous. This is her life,
awakened into
unending sunshine.
Stay now with me , and listen to my sighs,
Bidding me to drain the curse and know it all.
Feigned that I spake ill of thee,
As to who beholds two currents thwart amid
the fluctous profound.
Pass , pass upon your way , for
I grow never old...and townward take to their
whirring flight. That o'er the green
cornfield did pass as I trembled.
Remarking how ill we are ; all
dissembled.
Hands, that the rod of empire might have
swayed, in one long yelllow string wound.
Tell how they lived and died
not heeding to the blight.
Dying in distant music, even as it came...
upon the fated night , gloomy encompassing
thee around.
And in the green underwood and cover, up ,
from the mystic play of shadows twining
and twisting as if they were alive...
Mindful the while that thus time flies for you,
That I myself was not more whimsical. Burning
more truely as it dwells, than
where the lights scatter amid two voices.
And all else is silent & perfect
with my choices.
As she laid their, withering,
Her mind in a fog,
She stared at the dissembled body, of the one she once loved,
The blaring sounds of bombs, shouts in the distance, and thundering gun shots
The woman screams at the man to wake up, shakes at the broad man
as she cries uncontrollably
But all he hears is the deafening sound of a grenade blowup,
At the break point of dieing his last thoughts, memories were of a woman and child.
Men come over to take the woman away, as she fights to see him,
She looks at the man, tears in her brown eyes, to see him being
taken to a hospital wing, tear stains on his sunburned cheeks
She comes to see the man,
the smells of Latex and death
As she walks over to his bed,
She falls to her knees
Her heart in retching pain
She closes her delicate eyes
and opens them to see a sheet over a body, not breathing nor stirring
and a round object, glittering in the sunlight
She picks it up, in rough, muddy hands
It's an uneven medal, shaped like a heart, material of purple
of a remember solider
By Sarah
The girl in the corner
Sucker cheeked
Sweet lips
had such a pretty face
you'd think
it was broken joy
in a flower pot
waiting to be dissembled
by sticky wrappers.
So many are self-contained.
Wanting freedom agonized by pain.
They want democracy and equality which encourages hope and pride.
To give up your rights and your opinion is suicide.
I don’t encourage violence.
But a voice without words will be silent.
Salvage and educate the youth.
Please don’t hide the truth.
Never a pessimist but always a realist
Nothing more nothing less.
Do you know where our future is headed take a guess?
Over the past decades our leaders have dissembled.
Well I mean they’re invisible they just fled.
Let’s look at the indisputable facts.
There will always be disagreements with whites and blacks.
When one has been rejected as much as I,
dissembled to and told naught but lies,
it would please to have no need to abide
by the love of any man.
For at my young and tender age,
my heart is broke by sorrow and rage,
and by lovers who sought to entertain
very little but their privates.
At only eighteen years
I find myself confronting fears
of love that may never come near
and a future all alone.
My mind no longer wishes to know
of love and passion and eyes aglow,
but my heart betrays the truth in my soul:
I desire to learn of elusive true love.