the creek is quiet, mossy
phantoms surround inlet
safeguarding all who visits
a lonesome eagle overhead watch
me strike a match _____ flame
dies in cold breeze
silent is vast sky
slowly life appears
chameleon on sediment
gecko peeping
fire I try to kindle splutter
gasping for breath ~
orange tongues appear
god’s original juices
consecrated ibis lands as if
sent from Nile where I drank
waters centuries before
sweet solitude filled with
memories of pharaohs
chariots, hieroglyphs
inlet waters fill voids in mind
I’m inconsequentially cosmic
egyptian geese descend
estuaries flow through limbs
nurturing blood …
_______________________
Placed : 5th : Premier Contest
Sponsor : Brian Strand : May 26
Delectable daze
aligned aesthetic
shimmered swoon
of
bespoke ripples
svelte meander
induced isthmus
vapour vaulting
veracity stoic
conscious cognizant
bard assimilating
aureate archways
seismic
rendered relish
goading effervescent
literary lullaby
interwoven
opportune foramen
tinctured chasm
or otherworld
fractured frisson
bejewelled
template tempter
sonic madrigal
enticing
creative lunge
toward tiered
vanilla visuals
for
ethereal lyric
deft minstrel
of
fermented finesse.
lithe moulder
authorised pen
swimming
enigmatic estuaries
whilst
dance retinue
sunshine swathes
pivotal pirouette
spawning
erudite enjambment
satin weave
gossamer lens
whose
amaranthine fixed
focus eschews
bland doggerel
instead
chatoyant cynosure
replenished quill
lacquers
indigo imbued
bunting’s warble
inducing
hypnotic portrait
surreal verse
delirious
weave web
unravelled
dream denouement
of
epic entablatures
Upon her last sighs, she narrates cosmic
sagas flowing within poetic veins.
She still remembers
those idyllic evenings,
engrossed in raining confessions,
influenced by her shipwrecked heart,
expressing scarlet
sentiments that sail in silence,
across unruffled ink-stained waves,
amidst the endless oceans between
their untouched silhouettes.
Her every desire to reunite and
cast away midnight blues,
float within perfumed love notes
written by the silky seashore,
placed in crystalline bottles
of timeless lyrics,
that shall be carried through
estuaries that lead her
to his sacred island
with everlasting roses~
where pearlized shells reflect
saline left as tropical memories
of tomorrow with him by
her sun-kissed innocence.
I watch fascinated
at its teetering stance,
bobbing up and down,
picking at small insects
that infest the lonely loch,
that it chooses instead of
upland streams or creeks
or fast-flowing rivers,
or in some lonely lake.
Today I sit on a small chair,
behind some bushes on the shore
of a lonely loch, away from it all.
Ah sandpiper, are you emulating me?
Are you in search of lonely spots too,
far from the worrisome cities of the world?
Let's leave behind us wars and strife,
enjoy a bit of peace. Let us be true to love.
A breeze strikes, up and up you fly,
with stiff bowed brown wings
and your characteristic cry,
swee-wee-wee, swee-wee-wee.
Where will you go for shelter?
Do you prefer the secluded estuaries
or the protected inland lakes?
I see you return, too good a place to miss.
But look, you've found a mate.
Heaven provides, love conquers all.
I think I'll turn in, my wife awaits.
Here lies what this aged Indigenous River
thinks s/he needs
and wants, perhaps,
but most emphatically feels,
from us.
We continue to use Her
more like a shameful toilet
than her delivery system
of upstream pure
and nutritious drinking water
would suggest she had coming
from former deep green estuaries
Root flow systems
sacredly emerging functions
from deep EarthMother's darkest
primal wu-wei
winter womb,
dipolar co-arising
health is wealth compunction,
conservation.
Ancient indigenous wisdom
suggests we would be healthier
if we didn't dump on MamaEarth,
from whom we safely drink,
should we hope to keep hunger
and thirst at bay
with and for future regenerations
Pursuing our healthiest dipolar nature-spirit
co-arising win/win wealth
of ecopolitically enlightened nutrition
And empowering fertile poop repurposing
for cultivating improved soil health trends
Ego- and Eco-systemic
permaculturing design,
cooperative planning,
nonviolent implementation priorities
for local community co-invested resilience.
Behind Summer's fullness
richness,
nutritional and nurturing sunlight
empowering bounty
Lies another deep
darker sacred truth
of EarthTribe's inevitable mortality,
death
loss
cosmic stress
universal trauma
MonoTheistic distrust,
disaster,
despair
of patriarchal autonomous
lonely at the top
supremacy
MonoPolistic colonizing,
divisive,
aggressive,
violent,
rapacious,
racist,
sexist,
terrorist
climatic pathology
MonoCulturing Straight Western Male
historic white
protagonist light,
choosing win/lose inside voices
over win/win outside choices
is not so healthily bright
Against deep dark green
ecofeminist
co-passionate
co-empathic
co-arising bicameral
panentheistic empowering
harmonic mindful balance,
EarthTribally accessible
democratic co-enlightenment.
Oh the whiteness of the light!
Oh the peach and pinkness of the horizon!
Oh the breathlessness and beauty!
I fall upon you
As if to dive
fearless
into the eternal frothing white
caught up in the glorious arms of the heart tinged horizon
rocked gently by ... my boat
Your hands alone
place stars in my jet sky
You surf me
No matter how wild the winds and waves
as conductor moves music...a magician of sound
Swirling circles ...creating eddies of air
So you
Move my darkest estuaries and hidden unspoken
hopes
I am symphony
the sweetest notes escaping my lips
till
angels with heads touching
smile and gently nod
and God himself gives a little satisfied chuckle
before going back to his work
You moved me as the tidal currents move
the sands of shore
Restructuring the view till I can no longer recognize
Myself or the Chatham shoreline
at the old fishing lake
In a kingdom full of whitefish
And the mussels are never filleting.
~
at the old fishing lake
I remember I was oystering
That moment my soul grew scalloping
~
And the estuaries never reefing
Mudfish - mudfish – mudfish!
The lagoon laughed
As I threw in my line
Surprise carp and catfish whaling and barks
Dogs chasing squirrels onto rotten logs
~
look at the water
into the pond bubble-bubble
circles swarms
~
my line gyrating slightly moving and bobbing
guess the fishes are biting
at the old fishing lake
6/25/20
WRITTEN WORDS BY James Edward Lee Sr. 2020©
Drainage cracks and fingers of
eroding souls.
Long dim hotel stairwells
are sarcastic chasms to the flood,
like artifacts of insanity
and poet's blood.
We dare to run down as
prisoners on parole,
humming parodies of parables
and dying at sea.
Our graves are laid in the
phantom fathom estuaries
and reciprocal tunnels
of our beginnings.
Of Civilization and Disenchantment
by Michael R. Burch
Suddenly uncomfortable
to stay at my grandfather's house ?
actually his third new wife's,
in her daughter's bedroom
? one interminable summer
with nothing to do,
all the meals served cold,
even beans and peas...
Lacking the words to describe
ah! , those pearl-luminous estuaries ?
strange omens, incoherent nights.
Seeing the flares of the river barges
illuminating Memphis,
city of bluffs and dying splendors.
Drifting toward Alexandria,
Pharos, Rhakotis, Djoser's fertile delta,
lands at the beginning of a new time and "civilization."
Leaving behind sixty miles of unbroken cemetery,
Alexander's corpse floating seaward,
bobbing, milkwhite, in a jar of honey.
Memphis shall be waste and desolate,
without an inhabitant.
Or so the people dreamed, in chains.
Published by The Centrifugal Eye and The Centrifugal Eye Fifth Anniversary Anthology. Keywords/Tags: Memphis, barges, bluffs, Alexandria, Pharos, Rhakotis, Djoser, Alexander, waste, desolate, river, boat, city, bible, boy, childhood, grandfather
A Singular Presence
A singular presence among a throng of grass blade,
Green as worm blood, her marked grave devours dead air,
Like a convulsing snake slurping a rat’s tail for dessert,
The breaths of ghost winds embrace a shuddering tree,
In numbing grief with robes made of hollyhock and bearded iris,
Her still cry is frozen in the icy prisons of vague remembrance,
Then a single flash of monarch orange astounds the mute witnesses,
As it flutters like a praying monk on fire, landing on drooping leaves,
And her name, etched upon the singular sun-dried tombstone,
Sends to the tranquil estuaries a roaring river of inconsolable tears,
And her awakened soul finds a respite at last in its rush to rise.
In one river in a valley
on its journey to the sea;
water cannot be compressed
so forces endlessly
around fallen logs and shale,
with barriers, no rest at all,
and then displays its power
when becomes a waterfall.
Flowing rushes constantly
over rock, shadow and fern,
falling free and noisily;
there is no tide to turn.
There’s rainbows in the mist
of the tumbling cascade
until a settling pool
where the waterfall does fade.
We can stand back in awe;
see many natural features,
and perhaps get a glimpse
of wary living creatures,
where a waterfall’s a barrier
for life in waters deep,
who gather in the pool,
for the climb is rather steep.
But Mother Nature’s instinct
with a plan, wait patiently
for a rage filled deluge
before traveling to the sea.
It is them against the flood
in a reverse tug of war,
with repeat of generations
like those of years before.
In natures natural beauty
and its amazing scenery;
from outback to the ocean;
inland brown to greenery.
On lakes, coastal estuaries,
where mountain ash grows tall;
few vistas match the pleasure,
of gazing at a waterfall.
Because you craved a diminutive dream
For what was so seemingly extraordinary
Especially for you
You awarded it with a false ideal of
Forever
And, you now know that forever isn’t any more true
For a rock, or an ocean, or, you
Especially, you
[when change comes, breathing new life, beautiful estuaries replace barren slopes]
Yet, deep inside the comforts of static
You held a glimmer of hope in your hands
A glimmer that turned into a sun
Which burned too hot to touch
Scalding
You had to let it go
But that sun didn’t generate its own energy,
It didn’t burn from within its core
And that, especially for you,
Is why it now no longer shines
Forever is too long for anything
Especially, for you
Be the sky, not the mountain
Be everything, not one thing
Be all encompassing, not fixed
All of the times you have been afraid of floating
...of movement
...of change
Now know, this is where you belong
This is where Fire can burn brighter than any sun
Especially for you
Tuned Ebony Shades of Ecstasy
Here we are—
black as the night;
sable souls singing songs
of Nubian love—slow dancing
on opaque rhythmic nimbus clouds.
Unshackled melodies of generations
flow from charcoal tributaries
slowly undulating—streaming
between ebony sheen banks.
Estuaries of ecstasy splash joyously
into the wetness
of the dark hued sea of our love.
Tuned and harmonized
in the abyss of relief,
fading moans moor themselves:
waiting the coming of the next tide.
His skin was pale peach translucence to my closed eye touch
like brushing my fingertips along a pane of warmed antique glass
or the surface of a late summer pond
we flowed over the valleys of each other ...down the estuaries
across the plains
covering the mystical landscape with shimmering crystal white velvet
and leaving tracks of light behind
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