A coyote howls amidst the blackscreen
of the woods as unknown silhouettes
crawl on earth's crust ,
rainstorm ramming on muddy soil.
The cry of doom threatens each being
when the monstrous hour screeches
to gather a crew of newborns
and within every vomitting breath ,
weak infants tumble over an abyss
of carnage... without resistance.
Mothers wail, yet sharp hands
blackened by thorny nails
grip the fresh bellv of kohl twilight --
Nearer and nearer
hooded spirits so humongous descend ...
their green eyes breaking the window chain,
moving closer for a more macabre feast
while babes wiggle like worms :
I turn the screen off in a dark, dark foyer
my heart throbbing in throes of angst,
hurrying to view if my young son
lays on his crib... dreamily asleep;
my mind wrapped in thrall... where is he?
The bridal moon, kohl-lined,
steps into silked night,
while dusk, like a mischievous Cupid,
loosens its arrows into the dark.
Over turquoise waters,
fading flares spill aurora borealis,
a star-lit symphony,
trembles like held-back vows.
The ocean, once distant, leans closer—
breathing silver over still waters,
a zero softening its edge
at the horizon of infinity.
A paper, white and soft,
And full of antique creases —
Wordless — floats freely on my table
With the unseen wings of identity.
Minty and fresh with the age of cavern webs,
It’s a palimpsest bearing departing lines of hearsay.
Streaks of cunning kohl and coquettish
Lines of banded reddish lipstick
Join it as it smirks at the futility of
Veiled saga.
hair porcupine quills glow
white hot needles sow
I watch roaches breed with
gecko crap pasted on walls
black confetti malls do not stock
rock steady my vacant dock
graves float gaping gasps
sister screamed a wall they
will erect !
lips rubescent glance
packing, clacking, hacking
cups singing neurotic with
chaucer saucers doomed
gossip eating fish with chips
I observe shadowed eyes
kohl pen did not snore
shattering nerves like flies
east winds carry me
blustering mission
profile glistening white
aura black magnetic
authentic not synthetic
marshmallow lips raspberry
rouged, black cat may not
grasp an inch of caboose
I will return afresh
karma is a vixen witch
clicking switch
when signals hitch ~
©GhairoDanielsPoetry
HONOURABLE WINNER
IMAGE POEM, Allpoetry.com
June’26
Assessor: “The chaos of darkness brings a cracked smile, the quizzical design of words has the reader wanting to pull up a chair, and stay awhile - whimsical and quirky…”
I dive headfirst into Masonite’s wood fibers
compressed baked & primed
blending boundaries of life,
lightning and death’s
cycle of pain in paint
as a path to tranquility treading
through inner turmoil of vibrancy
A hummingbird in her shell breaks away
the triaged torment
for a moment, quietus cabaret on
cacti untamed canvas
conveys an observer in one’s
own collard greens
Tehuana traditional gown
from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec
ripe reds & burnt orange
Oiled in, the gods Xolotl,
guard dog portrayed
Aztec god & fertility goddess
Motherly milky way
flanking figures,
a fiery orb of the sun
& the cool, silvery moon
dualities of balance
Fresco muralist Diego Rivera
cuddled infantile by Kahlo,
adorns a frontal lobe’s
opened third eye
& wears Buddha’s mouth
apprises of oriental wisdom
both his & hers
naïve folk art
enveloped in a cosmic
love embrace of the universe
Fashion’s a verb
an action word
something you do.
A subtle brush of blush
cheeks dusted with peach
eyes, smudge-framed with kohl
a soft fingertip of powder on the nose
so it doesn’t like-Rudolph-reindeer glow
A shimmer of glimmer arching over lids
A bit, a spark, of barely-there bronzer,
and on the lips, a trace of glossy color.
Alchemy or pretty pollution
Chasing radiance on tired skin
powdered to porcelain
Yesterday's bad decisions
hidden by good DNA
and makeup in a cliché
of desperate optimism.
Disclaimer: Tell your doctor
if you show signs of delusion
and begin to believe the illusions
.
.
Songs for this:
One Way or Another by Blondie
Rush by Troye Sivan [E]
.
.
[E] = explicit song
The moment I saw her, I began to forget the world,
With her, I started dreaming of promises across lifetimes.
When I saw her for the very first time,
I began imagining a whole new world with her by my side.
She was dressed in the simplest of clothes,
No kohl, no bindi—just a smile adorning her face.
She kept talking, and I kept listening,
Yet somewhere within, I longed to meet her eyes.
I looked at her with all my heart,
As much as these eyes could possibly hold,
But how much can just two eyes ever capture?
Even that felt nowhere near enough for me.
And again, my gaze returned to her,
As if time had paused,
As if everything within me had stilled,
Wanting just a little more time with her—
That thought alone took over my world.
I wanted to live within her,
I wanted to call her mine,
And just then, she smiled—
And I was ready to forget my entire world.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Twiggy painted her lids white,
then drew the lines~
black brushstrokes stretching
beyond the corners,
as if her eyes were always
mid-flight, escaping
the confines of her face.
A trick of angles,
the way those lashes spiked
like radio antennae
searching for a signal
in the static of the decade.
Every blink became
a semaphore,
a Morse code of mascara
saying look at me
without needing
to speak.
Every mirror was a protest.
Every kohl line, a rebellion
against the softness
they expected us
post war girls to wear.
We girls copied the shape
with shaky hands,
practicing rebellion
in bathroom mirrors~
sharpening our glances
into weapons.
It was never just about the eyes.
It was about new identities
we claimed with
our orbits of rebellion.
You may read the memoir vignette titled "Twiggy's Eyes" at poetrysoup.com/short_stories/remembering_twiggys_eyes_13651
Cleopatra
Each morning before the songbirds,
she sings until her throat bleeds crimson.
A melody to meet the cries of women before her,
their memories spilling like rivers down her cheeks.
Her siren eyes painted with kohl, had burned with hunger
for territory. She claimed kingdoms like a man.
She bent empires beneath her will.
She fought as men do.
But history, cruel and callous, dared not
let her name linger. Not even the Nile whispers her elegy.
"Join me, Mark Antony," she bellows each night
But the roots wrap around her lifeless body
tightening their grip, pulling her deeper into the earth.
And I know, from freedom and by fate,
that the sky will weep upon us, Kohl in tears of virgins who has never taste,
the night that caste the shadows of its veil upon our decayed flaws on sand,
Glory remains the struggle to embracing a sent of belonging to a homeland,
The sorcery in your eyes steals the soul, I swear by my sacred-self and the Ghoul,
The roses I once plucked withered, burning, turning, sacrifices to my widowed,
Your burdens plant upon my back the weight of the past, once thought to last
Your wounds stain my hands with the blackness of guilty blood and dirty mud
And I realize that I am utterly ignorant of the holiest meanings of purity,
that I have profaned the sacred—
and if there is possibility to piety, it will mess my sanity and rip my dignity.
Life is often painted in black and white
nothing darker do I fear
than the stygian plight of death.
My malaise is carried with unbearable weight
remembering each waking moment when
I didn't say "thank you" or "I love you."
Self-reproach is a penance I can never fulfill
because the dreadful thief of death
took you from me in the ebon reach of night.
I'm sick of hearing the meaningless words,
"You're lucky to be alive. Life is beautiful."
My life is a beautiful lie now that you're gone.
I'd give my life to find a way to you.
An alabaster portal is locked to me,
a pitiable wretched sinner.
If I were to paint it black would there be a chance
it would be blind to see who asks entrance?
But my fear of death...
keeps me from reaching into the pale to find you.
I cower in shame.
Damn my trembling hand that quivers and shakes,
for the portal denies my entrance.
My mind is an unassailable weapon against my will.
It paints in oils that are always blurred with kohl
and the agony inside of me will never be consoled.
"Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow. " ~ Shakespeare
As fragments of the stars abandoned
the sage of night, my kohl heart bleeds
beside your trembling tombstone,
while soul aches to seize the
fading scents within
the iris of
auroras,
leaving
dreams
and
I, lost
like the speed
of shooting sparks,
twirling above ghosts
in the cemetery
of wild corpse roses, whistling
moonless requiems to ravens
blind to the truth etched in lithium...
"The darkened sky stole my tears,"
replaced the heat of hurt with jewels,
specks of lunar-glazed silver dust,
to see me sip rose-wine reveries of midnight,
where procrastinated promises
and dusky dreams of the heart linger...
Perhaps, I knew not my need ~
to be saved by the burning shimmers
and silken shivers of your silhouette
drifting through indigo azure in silence,
like flickers of love long veiled in haze ~
a reflection of nocturnal thirst.
If only you could undress your lyrical lens
to speak the unspoken ache
inscribed within infatuated ink ~
hidden beneath cerulean hymns
then I would not carve kohl lines,
of sleepless sighs lost to time...
So unlock the garden of galactic secrets
breathing within the soul of stars
twinkling russet tales of twin-flames.
There I'll reside, where your voice ricochets,
as the devoted black diamond ~
forever engrossed in dews of desire...
kohl eyed crust e r
u p
t s
like molten
t r
e m
o
r s of heart ~
inner inferno
I blow smoke of dreams to daffodil streams,
beneath the sky, engrossed in love’s last sigh,
while this heart quivers, drunk on astral fever,
in the kohl-lined arms of the cold midnight,
kissing my soul in silver slivers…
O velveteen warrior, allow my gaze to trace lifelines~
sailing interstellar seas of electric stars
wrapped in whimsical wisps,
to leave our closing phrase on the lips of moon-haze,
as I breathe the silk of Luna’s wistful breeze~
drawn from the rosy dusk of his restless repose...
And this pearl ~ the nebulous clarity ~
emblazoned in pixelated poetry,
shall be the timeless spark of twin flames,
amidst the pull of bruised-blue silence…
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.