Lidless Poems | Examples

The Glass Eye

You stood there unsteadily
at my bedroom door,
holding your glass eye
in your palsied hand and asked me
if I’d ever seen one before.
Can’t say that I have, Aunt Mary.

You held it like an offering,
moonlit and lidless,
as if it might see me better
than you could that night—
or remember what 
time had stolen.

They said you once owned
a bordello in Chicago,
and had connections with the mob,
but I didn’t know if that was true.
I did know you
roamed the country
with strange, obsequious men
who trailed behind
like footnotes to your stories.

And yet you were the one
who gave me the best gifts—
a microscope, an erector set,
science kits with powders and wires—
things no one else thought to give,
as if you knew I needed
wonder more than sugar.

You nodded once,
slipped it into your pocket
as if nothing strange had happened,
and vanished down the stairwell—
leaving only the faint scent
of camphor and questions,
and a silence I still
haven’t found the bottom of.

The dream that woke

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.

Opus 2025 Night Silences

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

The Eyes

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

Grace

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....

Florida City Park

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.

Inside a Cubicle

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

Moon Flowers

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

On Rode the Valiant

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?

I Lay In Wait

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

What Went Wrong

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

Carnality

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

Flame of Udun

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

Writer's Block

Birthed in the womb of my thoughts
A bird of stone carvings, written secrets and envied flight
Heavy stone sinks through my head;
Chained hands, limited grasp, surge forward to catch you
Links snap taught and brush your elusive wings 
Yet you escape, and plummet
Roving eyes swivel upwards to see you soaring down 
Lidless, ever glaring, they lock onto your secret carvings
But too fast, you shoot past their gluttonous prying
And down through a troubled canal
You battle against the sighing breaths that send you upwards
A wordless plight for expression
But rock wings beat through the oppressive heaves
Unexpressed, to fall down into the pit of my stomach
 and forever disturb my waking muses,
Another block of words unwritten.

Rocks and Skulls

It was like spidural
dry crumbs of silence descending,
a still born sun popped out
through a raw hoematoma :

mountain was guilty of something,
it changed its mood and started
talking to clouds until the sky
turned crimson. The fountains had

a question for the bald owls, who under
the lidless eyes, always carried a massage
of colossal waste after the unholy
dinner. I know your glory was beckoning

to unflesh the bones in mass grave
of winged seeds who died in unsewm 
pods of violence. I have still not come to
terms with the neck high milkless gaze.



SATISH VERMA

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