A skeletal smirk at the school door -
the greeter-teacher; 50 years later,
I feel his gimlet eyes at my back,
that leer is now plugged with dirt,
yet it can still be traced in the brown water stains
of mottled toilet walls.
A female slave-unit named ‘Miss,’
She never did speak directly to a kid,
only through the thin lips of her personal intimidator,
a third level teacher who lubricated nerve endings.
I am ‘put right’ by a serial wrongdoer
with a goose steeping gait,
his guppy mouth is a blubbery hellhole.
Next,
a second-tier maniac with a penchant for angry rhetoric,
his large hands flay like windsails as they
slap books and heads.
A last Piscean reflection,
a teach sporting a fish-head grin
as he opens a school exit door for me
while I gladly leave forever.
They would all hate to be in a poem like this
so tightly packed together
like oily sardines choking on the phlegm
of what they could have aspired to,
could have been.
Categories:
gimlet, poetry,
Form: Free verse
Breath of fresh air on Christmas Day
To walk cliffs briskly and view the sea
Boat's in the harbour, anchors away
Silent good wishes to sailors from me.
Ragged cormorant on favourite rock
Immune to all festivity
Gimlet eyes sharp he takes stock
Consumed by fishing activity.
Blustery air blows quickly on my walk
Unexpectedly seeing flash of colour
Distracted when those seagulls squawk
Christmas gorse with winter pallor.
Walking briskly all cobwebs blown away
Stop to admire village Christmas tree
Completely energised for special day
Seasonal greeting everyone from me.
Categories:
gimlet, boat, celebration, christmas, sea,
Form: Rhyme
jampacked city streets
that jangled and banged
in the raucous jarring day
shifted
from business to boogaloo
squeezing into moonlight
party lights
gin and lime-kissed
gimlet sequined dress
strutted
in studded six-inch heels
riveting flair
provoking jive and jazzy nights
to tame this lion of New York
The bed swallowed the evening
sucked-up in slumbered
sobering snooze
exhaling the drunkard’s stench
while the warmth of whiskey
and you next to me
laid dreamy still
popped up and propped up
restless and ragged
realizing the changing view
through the dirt-stained window
a pool of placid sunrise
igniting
colorless clustered towers
bulwarks and girders
scraping the sky
out of the easterly clouds
a creeping golden palette
arose
touching every crevice
defining each silhouette
your body stirs deliberate and slow
rainbow hued eyes
slenderly slitted catching
the new-found light
opening, tenderly revealing
the landscape of your smile
disclosing
a cozy contentment
waking with hello
as I fall into your dream
and a new day
Categories:
gimlet, city, culture, day, new
Form: Free verse
Papery feathers strain to take wing.
Frills ruffle, mythic masks gnash at the air
beautifully belligerent.
Plucked, they dally daily
between the surfaces of legend,
and the finery of a silk-stockinged
sentience.
Diaphanous stems are necks-laced
below an open-mouth in full quaff
pastel beaks
revealing a mute floral clamor.
Flame refined dragon-hearted blooms
they consume the oxygen of our
domestic awe. Pepper us with a
salty serpent presence.
Lightweight and splashily bearded
we see them gambol
on the tippy-toe of a metaphor.
When within a circle of sunlight
we place them,
they may fire-dance
with a scolding snippiness
goading all and sundry
with a dragons gimlet gaze.
Categories:
gimlet, poetry,
Form: Free verse
In loving memory the saga goes,
or so they say when feint reminder culls a piercing interlude.
Remnant of an unfinished sentence,
broken shadow haunt awash with grief,
snapshot at the edge of a well.
Parachute of blinding insight on queue or on song,
paper mache angel deep within.
Verses, scrolls, smudges from that pink enamel claw,
whose back fold clip appearance left one reeling,
like some
tree house dweller rattled by a swooping hawk.
Gimlet sipping voyageur
adrift on ice pack yacht,
in need of solace,
yet wishing it to the bottom of his rusty bucket list.
Fragile human being torn apart,
funeral bound,
that once upon a time surreal biker skirting mountains.
A priori stunt man metaphysically divine on rocky ledge,
dare devil prayer when it suits.
Feat performance activist a sleight of hand jester,
yet despite this vapid mask of dumb amnesia,
he wanders blindfold down
an alpine peak while chasing after dim and distant keepsake
Date posted :31st January 2022
Categories:
gimlet, art, august, bereavement, betrayal,
Form: Free verse
Thus, methinks himself wise
to don cooking apron
please do not ask why
trumpeting self as master chef boyardee
so move over wife and allow husband to try
his hand (using skill - let) me prepare Thai
and/or other Asian cuisine dish,
cuz when free to potschke
(To fuss or "mess around"
inefficiently and inexpertly), I haint shy
to blend (indiscriminately) ingredients
ofttimes yours truly barley able to ply
boiling water since significant other
does not give this garden variety
and generic, gimlet eyed
gourmandizing guilt free
Earth friendly gumption goaded guy.
Every so often yours truly
gets so hungry, he could eat a horse
(yours truly jest kidding hoof course)
truth be told, I only eat one meal per day
all day from son up to son down, me a force
tubby reckoned with,
who if he gives way to vice
event chew wooly experiences remorse.
Hum glad to share mine reasonably rhyming hook
twenty six letters linkedin amidst
various combinations, formations, permutations,...
allows, enables, and provides a look
into the mindscape of Matthew Scott Harris
doth show himself with steely dangling
nonsense with sense and sensibility he forsook.
Categories:
gimlet, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Rhyme
I met a man on the road today
otherworldly, gamin, fey.
A gimlet look in his jaundiced eye,
he held my gaze and I questioned why
he wandered here,
a mendicant man of pleasant demeanour,
when, from his coat, he produced an ocarina
and proceeded to play a tune so jolly
yet full of pathos and melancholy
that my soul was transported to another place,
another dimension in time and space,
where I danced and dined and wined and made merry
with Fauns and Satyrs and the Juniper berry.
Great Pan himself held court over all,
and many and varied were held in his thrall,
as nymphs and faeries pranced and disported
my view of the world was skewed and distorted.
As mushrooms and toadstools were proffered and ate
a table of provender was assembled and set.
My pupils dilated and my eyes grew ever wider
and I promised myself to stay off scrumpy cider.
Categories:
gimlet, drink, fantasy, fun,
Form: Free verse
The greeter-teacher,
the smirkier at the door.
I feel his gimlet eyes at my back
and though it is 5o years later
and his mouth is now plugged with dirt
his leer can be traced
in the brown water stains
of mottled walls.
A female slave-unit whose name was ‘Miss’
I cannot recall her ever speaking to a child directly,
only through the thin lips of her personal intimidator
a third level teacher who spat into her ear
as if sexually lubricating her fears.
I am put right by a serial wrongdoer.
A second tier maniac with a lust for rhetoric.
His large hands flay like wind-sails, they
slap books and heads.
On, on,
through narrowing corridors and echoing rooms
counting sadists, ticking off
a long mental list of ghouls
all dead and gone
except for the abusive drills.
One dead grinning fish-head
even opens a door for me
as I leave forever.
Categories:
gimlet, poetry,
Form: Free verse
The Snow Bird
NIX AVIS
They call me a Snow Bird
But that metaphor is absurd
Letting you know I hate the Snow.
Year round summer only way to go.
Best living in good weather
Withoutt wearing sweaters.
I move South out of winter's reach
And head to our condo in Clearwater Beach.
Condo living is the place for me
With water view and close to the sea.
No grass to cut, no dirt to shovel
Not involved in that kind of trouble.
Car, train, or plane will get you there
But a few things I'd like to share.
Make a list before you arrive:
Early Bird Special closes at five.
Vodka Gimlet and Whiskey Sours
Are cheap drinks during Happy Hours.
Don't forget your Handicap sticker
Will find parking spots much quicker.
Do head North in middle of May
Before love bugs and no-seeums come into play.
Something I almost forgot
Leave Florida before it gets hot.
So isn't life grand
With surf, sun, and warm beach sand?
Categories:
gimlet, beach, how i feel,
Form: Ode
Vodka Gimlet, White Russian, or just a Rum and Coke.
As long as it’s alcohol, it really doesn’t matter.
All these people sit at the bar and drink themselves broke,
While the bartender fills them up, her tip jar getting fatter.
To so many people, drinking is a guilty pleasure,
But if you’re not careful, you could take it too far.
The body is a temple that one should truly treasure.
If you do drink, never get behind the wheel of a car.
Categories:
gimlet, writing,
Form: Rhyme
words, words, words
thrown at the wall for naught
clever syntax catchy rhyme scheme
hapless cadence letters caught
grappl'd with a muse
dusty finger crackled keys
a screen fills up with empty
prostrate mindflow webbing knees
staring at resistance
heart cold hunter pupil dark
talon raked out golden gorgets
inspiration miss'd its mark
as an eye grows jaundiced
gimlet squinting at the dawn
another pass beyond the ether
inkwell'd worlds both here and gone
as a helm grows weary
laid heavy onto mossy glen
one last thrust at cruel Erato
spent and protstrate lay down pen.
Categories:
gimlet, muse,
Form: Rhyme
old songs, tired poems,
languid in clotted veins,
human condition,
artistic renditions,
nose-to-tail in ruts carved deep,
of older stories,
of blood,
of heartache,
of tragic mistakes,
the greed of the caesar,
pales beside tomorrow's smirk of the mogul,
hoary stories made new with designer end paper,
and we formless ones,
spilling ink into ether,
ankle deep in the slurry,
of others,
serving wars and empire,
gimlet eyed
at those self anointed who crouch in shadows,
hawking snake oil
disguised as benevolence,
does the poet beatify ideas with the pen,
or oxidize action,
with words spent cheaply like carnival tokens,
or perhaps banked into kindling,
sparking blazes of verse,
keystroked tremors of action,
combusting we quench,
steel and ideal,
so blaze on pilgrim wordsmith,
there's mettle in words
and iron on a thousand lips…
Categories:
gimlet, future, hope, writing,
Form: Free verse
Charcoal dark, gimlet sharp
eyes observing, searching.
Lake below, surface calm,
Tiny ripple, silver flash,
Extended talons swooping down.
Prey ensnared, life expired,
Soaring upward, eagle wings.
Rugged mountain nest on high,
Ravenous young, sumptuous bounty,
Shimmering scattered silver scales.
A testament to
Nature’s glory,
Nature’s cruelty.
Categories:
gimlet, naturesilver,
Form: I do not know?