Sponsor: Nette Onclaud
Contest: THROUGH AESTHETICA
Date: 21July 2026
Night mantled every copse in velvet's umbrage,
Till silence gathered plicatures of air;
The moon distilled its argent effluence through leaves,
And darkness mastered the susurrant art of prayer.
A solitary moth unseamed the cerulean hush;
The brook rehearsed forgotten silver speech.
Earth wore an almost sacramental nap of shade,
While dawn arrived too reverent to breach.
The forest man
He had bought a cabin in the woods near a lake
he planned to go there after his divorce
with no demand on his time, life would be simpler
first of all, he needed a dog, the one he had
was a poodle, his ex-wife could take the mooch
he needed a strong dog that could feed itself
catching rabbits in the glen
The cabin only had one room, a big room he could
make a kitchen in a corner, for the he needed
a hand pump and dig a Hole for a cisterna.
bedroom and living room together was ok, he had
a sofa bed but needed a couple of chairs
He also had to build a shed, an empty plastic
drum to sit on and empty his own effluence twice
a week
So much to do!
perhaps he should get one more dog, the one
offered him by a farmer, had a white snout liked
to sit on the sunny side and snooze
he had to remember to buy tins of dry dog food
to buy provision, he needed transport, a mule
would do, so he had to build a stable
No electricity, so he had to buy batteries and candles
so much to do!
I met a forest man in a tavern he had a cabin in
the woods, near a lake, for sale.
My cousin and I were dismayed
By the kids who were in her third grade
They had no answers to tell
Though they spoke very well
And knew how impressions were made!
They earned an A+ for endurance
For displaying remarkable effluence
They could babble all night
With no fact in sight
Nor any sign of congruence!
Oh, how wise we thought that we were
We could see their minds were a blur!
But now, mid-elections
And selfie confections
We see why they were so sure.
is real
I have an intimate connection with effluence
or of the animal kind.
I could, by aroma alone, which animal
had passed the track.
Most animal dung smell sweet, except for dogs
they have lived so long among us
they crap like us,
Dogs love their excrement and eat it.
A horse evacuation is like rare wine you promise
yourself to buy a horse when you have a garden
Vines that have been fertilized by a foals
morning pee is divine.
If your hands have been in the muck
nothing in the world can offend you.
Whatever happened to common sense
when did we all become so dense
ya can’t fall off an un-sat fence
dreaming of why and where and whence
trying to figure out farthings and pence
trapped in a world of hereafter and hence
can’t really recall but it’s been that way since
we o’erthrew the king to favor the prince
expecting pure satin – wound up with cheap chintz
our armor now rusted, bloodless, with dents
thrown out of our houses we now live in tents
downwind from the castle’s hungerless scents
venom the substance of our effluence
fueled by delay of our just recompense
and for our actions offer no penitence
our fields long gone fallow wait in suspense
for the word of a dead king “let planting commence”
a king raised to power at our expense
John G. Lawless
©12/13/2021
I d r i f t e d
amongst the willow trees in the breeze-
swaying the barren branches into love’s fascination.
sitting along the pebbled shore
assembling sandcastles and counting stardust
plummeting down onto the ebon eventide so gently.
we tremble not at what lies ahead,
for we are but a lifeline to the sunburst of dreams,
our love travels beneath the ocean floor.
FEAR NOT, my love-
I have been enraptured by the effluence of
your unyielding devotion,
encompassing me in all the metaphors and syllables
one woman can withstand.
I never needed a soul to wash away my sins,
but a man to tarry me into lands b e y o n d heaven’s gate.
for you are my redemption and more-
my truce in a war, my salvation in life’s atonement.
you e a s e my aggrievances,
remedy all things that have brought me pain.
June 18, 2018
Zephyr effluence
Drifts a caress to the soul
In sullen sunset
morning fog diffuses light
the sun has lost direction
and the world is enveloped
in silence
skeletal trees line
the potholed road
as two scrawny crows
huddle in the bare branches
yesterday's mass murders,
flooding across the pond,
asteroids,
sudden solar wind.
magnetic pole reversal,
drowning in our effluence?
sow many ways
4 world to end
A human tornado,
driven,
by influence,
by affluence,
by effluence.
The flotsam and the jetsam.
Come and get some.
I would not have came here
were it not for you.
You blame the walls,
I bounce off the walls.
The gift horse is here,
we claw at our eyes as he opens his mouth.
I stare into space and stare into space,
nothing, then galaxies pass by at pace.
starlit hands caress my face,
I am a human race.
I tell you of flying saucers and topless barmaids,
but you never believe me.
You tell me a fungus has spawned in my brain,
And as I was lost, I am found,on ground, again.
For a moment there you took me off task,
retreat or surrender, was that the ask?
But my lungs start beating,
and I breathe through my heart.
It is life that I cheat,
It is death where we part.
And in my pink and black neon euphoria,
I roll up my sleeves and I am back in the game.
Bio Mass.
I have had an intimate connection with effluence or
to use a more proper word, **** of the animal kind
I could by the aroma alone know which animal had
passed the track. Most animal dung smell is sweet
except dogs they have lived so long amongst us they
even crap likes us, but dogs love their own excrement
so much they even eat it. Horses` evacuations are like
rare wine and you promise yourself to buy a horse
when you can buy a bigger garden or vines that
have been fertilised by foals’ morning pee. Having had
your hands in the muck nothing can offend you.
To mill pond at dawn's new day
rippling sunbeams over the calm surface play
freely amongst the stately swans gliding there
in contented pairings, turning sees' a hare
and leveret munching on borage and honeycombs
breakfasting, as a polluted tributory stream foams
with poisonous effluence five hundred yards away
to mill pond at dawn's new day
O glorious cavern wrought with pinkish mystery,
Thou, whose puck’ring lips I have dreamt about,
Are the sacred altar of Sodom’s progeny .
How thy sweet effluence is set to rout
When that fearsome beast of mine doth attack
And rend thy cave apart with its purple snout!
Venus’s temple on its hirsute mound
Seems paltry when likened to thy glory.
For to thou alone I am always bound.
It is exclusively in thy quarry
That I seek my precious stones of ordure,
Be they glist’ning moist or dark and hoary.
I shall gulp down thy mellifluous excrement
And wed my soul to its celestial scent!
a didactic poem
When eloquence leaves you a’wanting,
if verbal effluence you’re flaunting,
should your audience appear daunting,
kiss the Blarney Stone.
I climbed the circular tower,
reached the hundred ninety-third step,
and waded through unhurried queue.
I trembled with anxiety,
gasped for ev’ry uncertain breath,
and paused to view but then I knew.
Hidden underneath the rampart
this infamous bluestone will rest
I shan’t pursue my lips on blue.
When commonsense says, “No way”,
if plain prudence seeks delay,
should consequence have its say,
pass the Blarney stone.
6
LLean is for effluence
lesser mainers dont buy
Her hand sown boots.
They must go
where its cheap
not hay caro but barrato
The uncule raven in din
In undying bueshing sin
Crying fortishly , crin
Try in the essence of quin
Roll scriptural to win sense
pray untotinaly naively
near in far winish your strength
now in here place your antogule
how in again rise your effluence
high in low morn for the lost soul
over in under mar your perch wide
quite in sound reloune secret nature
up in down find the clown
round in around place the frown
away in apart think of unrainishing heart
when invoking the troubled phood
time and give your true loves first kiss
coy and shy remart your silent cry
front in lonely revarnish it's heartful song
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