Have you ever witnessed
The immensity
Of a Celestial Squid?
Coat of clammy jelly porcelain
Alien skin
Cold and damp, despite eons
Baked betwixt stars
Radiation hazed
Star sick tranquil predator
With lidless eyes
Leviathan of mountain-crushing size
Unravelled across the stratosphere
A shimmering mirage
Eclipse the moon
A family;
Pulsing pod
Of briny gods
Gobbling up planetoids like plankton
I found a shoebox stored away
under my young son’s bed one day.
It hadn’t been there two evenings ago.
What could it be? I needed to know,
for in its lid - small holes he had made.
Its contents I felt prompted to invade.
At two lidless eyes I felt myself gape.
A tiny lizard scrambled to escape.
Alligators break the dark circular water,
later, a guy with a big belly and low belt
will grandstand while throwing half-frozen
chickens at them.
This early I’m still surfacing,
last night my legs got jailed
behind lidless dreams; the back of my neck
tingles now, as old sweat refries itself.
I’m waiting for the ‘man’.
A breeze combs damp hair
while I make-out with a Michelob
inside a soda bottle.
He’ll show-up in sockless Crocs,
baggies bulging
from the pockets of
his camouflage shorts.
I and Frick and Frack over there
fake an interest in the egrets
as the morning sun flickers through
snowy spread out, translucent wings.
The ankle-deep mist rises
revealing clearly
that we are simply here
as another form of park life,
waiting to be fed
one more far-out evening.
Every light color I see,
Feels like I'm running on E,
I want to turn it black,
Complete what it must lack,
A blend of every single ray,
Do you see my portray,
It stuffs you into a void,
Making you paranoid,
Reaching for some ledge,
Far from any edge,
A falling dream,
Limitless seam,
Unable to ever stop,
Descent from the top,
Variable speeds range,
Directions don't change,
Lidless eyes never close,
Peering as darkness grows.
two singular heartbeats
emergent with fluttering exhalations
a tiny speck of time and temperature
rushing nowhere beside falcons
pausing breakneck together
i hear her wet whispers kissing
caressing deep lidless eyes
my heart knows the latitudes
understands the lay of the land
bestows a feast of electric night
giving flowers of touchings
receiving tongues of fire
inside this temple of ancient desire
emergent with breathless silences
two singular heartbeats
being watched
by eyes over there
over there
where the eyes are not
their ethereal glare
nefarious
unseen, ready
like puckered lips
this eyeless wraith
with lidless eyes
nowhere, peering
beyond their death
there are eyes staring
that are not there
these shapeless orbs
surrounding
When I think of sky
it is a study of shapes,
radiance with motion;
a lidless stadium for
wings and blissful soaring...
the mental athlete I am
some nature of me giving
all artful snapshots flight,
no ceilings to my heavens,
and trapdoors to all my
belows –
I like to think that nothing
is definite, all Time having
added space – all sentences
lavishly repealed by grace;
my affection for endlessly
happy endings – even wrecks
like me, God yet loving, putting
new heels and soles on my
wayward, panting soul,
out-pacing Him and now
needing blessed, merciful
mending....
Deep breathing walkers
stretch across the blue grass of early day.
The park is a Florida basin under river roots.
A native cracker jammed down in a no-name Ford
listens to a country station that’s mega-nasal,
tin-star shaped and boozy.
Alligators break the dark circular water,
try again to feed on egrets,
as usual the birds are too strong to be plucked.
Later on, a guy with a big belly and low belt
will grandstand for the daily on-lookers
while throwing chickens at them.
This early I am just down in the mouth,
still surfacing.
Restless night and my legs got jailed
by lidless dreams. Now the back of my neck
tingles as old sweat refries itself.
I’m here taking the soft wet breeze
making out with a cold one inside a soda bottle
waiting for the man
who will show-up like a pond swimmer,
weed clinging to his billowing tactical shorts.
Only I and Frick and Frack over there
supposedly walking and talking
see that the park is all too clear-cut
and faking it.
When the ankle-deep mist rises,
it will be certain that we are waiting for some,
and another much cooler tomorrow.
We work inside a cubicle.
Our faces bathed in bluish glow
Like corpses at a funeral,
But if we're dead we don't yet know.
Instead we numbly press on keys
Within our lidless coffin row.
Complacency is our disease
For nothing changes day to day;
A truth a habit guarantees.
Yet soon this herd with faces gray,
These mindless, faceless, zombie-men,
Will shuffle off each on their way
To find our peace, some rest, but then
Once more at eight we'll rise again.
4 25 2019
Quirky Tercets Contest
Luminescence in pond
reflecting couple in love
romancing in moonlight
exhilarated by mist
from chocolate fragrant
berlandiera daisies
caressing hearts.
Moon winks
walking away vagrant
cradling sun to sleep
in vain
its lidless fiery eye
radiating heat and light
to rotating earth
nearing its light
to plug into
its energy
to feed life
then move
from its embrace
to cool down.
In beauty and silence
the sun
nourishes without
being nourished
self sufficient
like dare I say God
growing life in beauty
of serenity
interlacing elegance
of flowers and leaves
liquifying waters
of snowflakes and ice
splendor
of each season
returning
until eyelids close
to its light
and open to a Light
without night.
Look a new day has begun
sun rising from satiny
rose bed
sweeps with its rays
of white light
darkness out of the sky
awaking birds on wires
with songs and chatter
opening sleepy flowers
to bees and butterflies
sparkling water diamonds
to mist and vanish
like soul immortal
returning in cycle.
First Place Winner- Brian Strand-All Yours-6/1/21
Through the gates of Absalom,
steed and gate did ride,
charging fast and furious
o'er centuries gone by;
peace did shout in vain,
the Lidless Prophets...
must come again,
nigh is the evening sky
but full of hope
The ramparts held fast, ballast and beam,
cannon-fire bombasting flesh and bone,
groans of death ---
such dreary breath!
of decay centuries old
The Rose of all that is Earth,
her petals unsheathed,
torn for time ---
tear and antiquity ---
her red sheen lilts in the new day sun,
begging for Love, she asks:
Shall they come?
As I lay dormant in the grass,
cold blood fuelling languid dreams
I wait in silence for you to pass
a harmless thing, or so I seem
I lay asleep, my lidless eyes
yet watching all that moves or may
my callous brain computes the size
and danger, marking some as prey
Though I may lay here mute and still
all my being's coiled and ready
to snatch my quarry and quickly kill
yet my pulse is slow and ever steady
I lay as tranquil, as calm as death
as you walk towards your waiting doom
For I will smell your dying breath
when I strike, here in the gloom
In twilight,
the noose tightens-
and shadows start walking
towards you; to reclaim
your anonymity-
and declare in deadpan manner:
the author is dead.
Your smallness goes
on sale. You are subjected
to scrutiny by the small print, but
the truth escapes from lidless eyes.
A private punishment.
There was blood on the knife.
Why did you write a
sanguinary poem for your savior today ?
Satish Verma
I moan the departure
of death,
which was sitting in the golden
throne after the vision.
It had been a waging
war between religion and sex.
You want to align with the
sect devising the bared gestures.
Was it a personal vendetta
of the god who led the thirsty
years of man ? It was a lidless
Hibiscus who will not stop crying.
Satish Verma
A dark power rises
from the bowels of the earth
Breathing fire and
brimstone
A battle which takes place
deep in the earth
Results in a magical
transformation
There are numerous trials
which take place in Middle Earth
The world of men, dwarves, hobbits
and elves
Must be protected
One of the Istari
must overcome
The treachery of the head
of the order
Gain the title of White Wizard
for himself
The Flame of Udun - A balrog
is the supreme test
Borne away by eagles
Gandalf the Grey
becomes Gandalf the White
Durin's Bane defeated
clearing a path for the
greater challenge
The conquest of a
lidless Red Eye
Evil Incarnate
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