Long Calyx Poems

It is an unseasonable March day.
My kitchen blinds are drawn against morning sun,
their slender slats like new skin protecting the body's vital organs;
eyelids before this rose-covered tablecloth as though the blooms
are the pale larvae of...

Read More

Odyssey from Africa, Chapter 12 (d) The fireflower (cont.)

Dominated by one hilltop 
Round in form, it’s summit hidden
In the whiteness of a cloud base
There they saw their destination 

Now they climbed by steepening gradient
Through a...

Read More

Odyssey from Africa 14f

This colossal ratite was the
Largest bird on all the planet
It would live on Madagascar 
Till the time of William Shakespeare

“Let me tell you” said the monarch 
Quietly pleased at Han’s reaction 
“What...

Read More

My dear son,
                    It is morning, this is our new beginning of conversation
   ...

Read More

I (a youthful sexagenarian)
can no longer quip being
a country boy at heart,
but me as urban cowboy,
I declare would never 
so fuhgeddaboudit dear reader
nothing 'cept bucolic existence
laboring organic garden
harvesting fruits and vegetables
by the bushel and quart
constitute...

Read More

I am the bird that is in the cage
choosing to fly in the enormous sky
I am not a avaricious of liberation and exhale
Only deciding to display some absurdity
act the absurdity and live the absurdity
But, why...

Read More

Written: November 24, 2024 for contest Sponsored by: Kai Michael Neumann
                        ...

Read More

In the winter of my years, stands my barren tree
Its leaves stripped by autumnal winds
Against hope, it had one life left to give
I blew a warm breath into a lone branch
Hoping against hope, I stood...

Read More

Written: February 25, 2024

                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A sun sets in the west; oh, boy, he has gone to rest,
Mama grips her breast...

Read More

We separated like wave and shore
Leaving our feelings bare like sand
I heard goodnight and replied in kind
There was a love song humming on my mind
And I longed to be a butterfly up in the sky
Carried...

Read More

Written: February 14, 2025 for Brian Strand Contest

                      ***********

In twilight,  specks become stars,...

Read More

The most audacious dynasty will beget darker.
When I'm not on the moon, prefer courtship.
When a child is accustomed to bearing a light.
A scotopic vision marker to support you to view finer at night.
"Follow the Dust,"...

Read More

from:  "The Calyx of the Oboe Breaks", by Conrad Aiken:
"The calyx of the oboe breaks,
silver and soft the flower it makes;
and next, beyond, the flute notes seen,
now are white and now are green."
. ....

Read More

With indecision rode abreast
              Intended path becomes digressed 
             ...

Read More

Flight of the Rose

Soft petals of pale pink rose, 
Each engraved in eulogy,
Rise on the white wings of dawn,
Take flight over calm waters
Lapping at the line 
Dividing land’s end and endless sea,
To shoulder tears
In intervals...

Read More

Lonely the flower lied by the beach
Counting the bees that ate her each
Alone, she cried though alive, she died
Hoping to see a soul she finds
Takes her home, loves her blind
Fades the hurt the bees remind
Her...

Read More

Mere means of being master of all labor, this power
Overthrows all virtue, and write the metered history
Nations spin web in web, and now it is the cocoon hour
Emerge the spider on spindly legs from calyx...

Read More

Written: December 28, 2023

Beneath the shades
of velvet shadows
swarms of amber
luminance of daylight
and elusive flits
of faerie embers.
Veiled in jeweled which
rhymed with 
Calyx elixir tints
of moonlit hues,
wings of light fractals
of burnished baubles.

Serendipitous breeze
scribbling rimes 
of a runic serenade
in glints...

Read More

Sympathy

 Who will bring this child come to fruition?
 Who will make a brotherhood of my disenchanted world?
 who will establish the foundation of my rootless race?
 Who will gather the seed of my busted...

Read More

In a moment of juvenile jealousy 
he envies his red rival

with its intimate and greedy embrace of her angels’ share
of honey and vanilla spice
as wet stretchy hands of fervent fabric
possessively cup 
her brandied beauty 

amidst...

Read More

Petals falling 
from unseeded bud
opened by midnight sun
sparkling it to love 
then leaving 
to return on its course
dressed in candle lights
stolen star to star
unmindful
of ice pellets 
tearing at the calyx
teardrops 
frozen in the throat
lacerating heart...

Read More

A Cup Runneth Over

My cup in dry abyss boils over
Condensing dewdrops in vapors of blessing
Into foaming condensed extracts
Like effervescence of divine dust
That bubbles up to the rim.

Rescued like a fallen star
From arid droughts
You send my...

Read More

Crucible

Peer into an unpredictable universe 
Of ambivalent depths
A calyx cul-de-sac tipped up
Into a crucible of the unexplainable
Where curiosity strides into pure moments of mystique
 Fields of glory in bluebells
  Rusted milestones
   Hail...

Read More

Dawn's Calyx Woke Her And She Saw Pink Explosions

Dawn's calyx woke her and she saw pink explosions
As if hot flaming rays across the window sill
She woke me, I was brainstorming some implosions
Laughed together, love was...

Read More

On wayward ivy 
 calyx in woodlands

       a spruce-blue butterfly

sparkling rustles 
       of 
   sweet wind chant
     ...

Read More