I once saw you across the room
Scribbling letters into a journal like I am now
A hint of red hid underneath the surface
Your flannel, as usual, slightly oversized
droop past the beginning of the steel legs
but not to the ground
Music
I could not hear enticed your ears that day
I stared - unpolite I know - but words stumbled
and fell to the floor
failing to form a line of greeting
Were you well?
Was it madness that absorbed you into a world of your own?
Was it the letter filled with kisses from you lover -
which you opened days prior?
Or was it simply boredom to be alone in that room
The loneliness of trying to understand
and to be understood in return
May I be in there somewhere?
These questions made up my meals and dreams that day
and the day after
and now
To know that we were once alone in that room
But silence and loudness collide at once
A hint of sparrows amid browning leaves
Faint shadows the conductor’s baton
A-dance beneath the now visible nests
A cold urgency whistles through the trees
Beauty will adapt in fashioned frolic
Dab colors in the corners of our minds
Memories more brilliant than their moment
Seen through time’s more melancholy eyes
Hands will touch life’s softly falling petals
Holding to the dreams they still possess
Listening as gentle breezes whisper
A hint of sparrows amid browning leaves
Vanished souls in the night.
Years pass by in signs of abandon.
Little hint of the story.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
who was the first musician to sell a billion records?
I think you will only need one hint.
Graceland
What gave me away?
Was it my sway?
Or my long limber limbs
Like glasses with broken rims?
Oh sure, wind has its way with me,
But broken or uprooted, I’ll never be.
Neither short, not tall, could be my description.
My strength and elasticity, a better depiction.
Cry me a river is your first hint,
And for a second; I’m easily bent.
Not a flower, or a bush, but green if you please.
In a botanical listing, I’m found under trees.
What I am, I will proudly bellow.
I’m known to most as a weeping willow.
The secret hint
I was watching a TV program about Hercules Poirot
the heroine in the plot had no **** and wore an evening dress with aplomb
She had not sat on a carpet in the forest of spring where
the animal of love roams is green
as spring grass has a pink underbelly that looks like a purring
cat or a puppy that softly barks. It droplets of scents
that make lovers enamored for a day or so, sadly, there is
always a tomorrow of regrets for some.
If the woman with small **** happens to sit on a carpet in
the girl she will fall in love and pad her bra
and that is ok, why should she not enhance her lack of this
bagatelle when there are tringles of love in the air
and if this does not help, there is always divorce, much loneliness, the man is satisfied with a triangle
a hint of mist
rising off the lake
~ in hesitation
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
She gazes past the golden fields
beyond the wheat that summer yields
above the solitary oak, so still
where a lazy hawk, with circles fill.
He feels the drifts in windswept skies
her soul goes drifting, by and by
she’s carried from her lonely bed
to fly away, no fear or dread.
And when the moon at night alights
her hopeful eyes, with tears delight
she looks beyond the stars above
and feels the wonder of God’s love.
Written: May 6th 2024
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's tough to revel in delight, but I grew!
Dreams rouse me, not in an aphonic view.
Nature provides her bounty every day,
I extend my hand and grasp her sway.
I perceive my youthful self in that place,
Her offerings were serendipitous grace.
In her sphere, blooms, and waterfalls,
A supple deer, an oaring raptor, in altar calls.
Each contributes to a feeling of calmness,
She was a fountain of pure suaveness.
Yet wars and famine steal my breath away,
A sight, luring amid a rutted path of ruby clay.
A moody inquiry into the root of my being,
A fleeting time of pure delightful feeling!
Thus, I wound up shooting my future ego,
Lift a glass, not a pistol, in a sky-dip indigo.
I rise again, and the sun surrounds me,
I can predict zodiac signs and lunar spree.
Along with Mars, Venus, and other oddities,
My mind spills, leaving no room for prodigies.
I shot for my destiny with this radical rhetoric,
Pulling me up a path reflected as historic.
A flash of his pistol, a gaze that said, walk,
My handgun babbled in its wandering talk.
She wrote down “Erin go Braugh or go home
It was the beginning of her St Paddy’s day poem
A couple of eejits were staring at her now
Her corn beef and cabbage was fully a wow!
She took another bite and pointedly did not speak.
She looks Irish to me, said one. His name was Zeke.
The other guy came over and asked her to go on a date.
She drank her mint shake, it was truly first rate.
I think she is ignoring us, do Irish girls do that?
She hissed and she spat like an Emerald isle cat.
They got the hint and left her alone at last.
“Ireland forever!” she yelled. They ran away fast.
Aspects and expectations of color,
be amethyst, be the best, reenlist,
sensory seizes sparks stimulator.
Be lavender and sweeter, forever,
be cerise and release your masterpiece,
aspects and expectations of color.
Be amber then enter to surrender,
be tourmaline, my dream still-ravish-cease,
sensory seizes sparks stimulator.
Be sapphire and satisfy the desire,
be white in your flight and be the moon's cheese,
aspects and expectations of color.
Be copper, chart-topper and showstopper,
be, Xanadu that perfect hue, true tease,
sensory seizes sparks stimulator.
Be ivory, more finer, best primer,
be, turquoise, and make with the noise, puh-leeze.
aspects and expectations of color,
sensory seizes sparks stimulator.
What do think of Gay Pheasant, the Lord, she asked me.
Meg had apparently invited him to her afternoon tea.
He is a bit persnickety and prissy I said to my cousin.
Meg is always being sought by suiters, sometimes a dozen.
He seems to like me Meg told me, I can kind of tell.
I could see that she did not know him at all well.
He likes his male companions the best, I said.
Meg did not get the picture, was she right in the head?
He dresses so fancy in brocades, silks, and satins too.
I think we would be such a sweet couple, don’t you?
He seems to best get along with our cousin Boy Sue.
If that was not the best hint, then what else could I do?
Hued hint of autumn I descry,
as cotton cloud fleet floats away
across end-summer sapphire sky,
beguiled birds bathe in the blue bay.
As the meadow gets shades of fawn,
hued hint of autumn I descry.
Spectrum spills from palette of dawn,
as fall’s footfall looms on the sly.
From sun-burnt tawny trees leaves fly,
gilded with blazing gold donned new.
Hued hint of autumn I descry
on grass with topaz crown of dew.
Stars shine with your lure in charmed night,
cool winds with your scent pass me by,
I’m suffused with sense of delight,
hued hint of autumn I descry.
The heart of autumn pulses deep
Through gauzy veils of morning’s mist
Late summer’s lust shimmers on leaves
A pilgrimage of birds ascend
Summer’s blooms put her seeds to rest
The heart of autumn pulses deep
Bronzed flowers border the landscape
Country roads fringed in goldenrod
Nature’s colorful palette scheme
Amber and crimson among green
The heart of autumn pulses deep
Trees sway in the crisp evening breeze
Farmers harvest from fertile fields
A bounty of earth’s offerings
Days grow shorter, nights grow longer
The heart of autumn pulses deep
Date: August 24, 2022
For: Hint of Autumn Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Regina McIntosh
Syllables verified on howmanysyllables.com
Placed 10th in contest
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