Long Verdigris Poems
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Below the craters of a sullen city
I burrow lightly, cautiously, hands on
Guardrails, one foot after the other,
Into the underpart of the earth,
Through a spiralling, syncope-fomenting
Stairwell, old and broken, but grandly ancient.
The light thereunder is dim and shallow,
And the rest of the matter with it was a
Basket of fusty smell.
It was by the loose side of noontime,
When mustiness gathers sweltering details.
Little rain from last night, falling from a
Sobbing, laconic south,
Made issues graver.
But I don’t mind.
With cracked, besieged walls, the grounds
Welcomed me well.
I stood and gazed at the books on staffed shelves,
Aged and worn,
Graced by times’ capsule of relief by way of
Primitive reckoning.
Tablets and scrolls rave with the lustre of fading
Yellowness.
Tomes (leather-bound) attested to the pregnancy
Of departed eras.
Encyclopaedia Britannica eyed me warmly.
A tall, bespectacled man, the age of Wilde,
With apricot skin and second-hand suit,
Thin and wobbling stick,
And shoes from Lennard’s
Buried his face on a Chaucer
Material, reading silently to the tune of
His twerking soul, his full lower lip
Mocking the higher.
Men and women clutter about, searching
And peeking from shelves of immortality,
On whose dusty surfaces elderly pages stuck
Out their tired, resting tongue-tips —like
Stray, hungry dogs on battered pavements.
The books and volumes sell for a farthing each —
Coins betrayed by roaming verdigris.
The quill feather pens for a few dashing shillings,
The scrolls, some teeth-showing cowries . . .
Above us (the reading congregation of this temple
Of books and time),
A coven of reading witches and winking wizards,
The city throng manages itself with the due process of law
According to traffic —above—
And several feet below — underground —
The hidden treasure of
Digestible info,
Divergent views.
Let us roll together on the cobbled floors of
Europe and pick up, in our greedy search,
Every fallen crisp and old blade of ancient grass.
Good old restless fleas must not peck at them
Or resume haunting the spectres that follow
Them season after season.
And it must be on a Sunday —post
Sunday school—after the church bell has rung twice;
After the spell of the visiting thaumaturge on the village
Has followed the blight of the late rains of a
Second-rate April.
The scent of the market is heavy with spinning films,
Thus rolling the eyes from streets to canals,
Increasingly stunning the breaths of tipplers
Breathing with the rage of manhattans.
A scalding winter shrouds the open intimacy between fogs
And brumes, made sweet with a hootenanny.
The music is loud but soft, and weakens the restiveness of
A new week bound for ceaseless waves of inked drama.
I hasten to the old secretaire I had descried from the
Buried haunt of writers and scribes — men of quill pen.
Its blend of age, the aroma of cellared wines, and the
Blessedness of regal oak has made my day. . .
Oh, sorry, my Sunday.
“Happy Sunday to one and all!” I cry,
Reaching out to the grandmother pouch of time-bleached leather
Around my dancing waist.
And I shall proceed to buy it with European farthings and African
Cowrie shells, and manillas adorned with loud-campaigning verdigris.
Written: October 12, 2025
Quote: "Having hope in the future is like planting a garden," By Poet.
**************
In the calyx of coma,
where terror slithered akin to boas in shade,
a cryptic slipper of mercy tiptoed—
artless, and aquiver,
a callow requiem for innocence.
Obsidian skies whispered their eulogy,
muffled by the harsh breath of dyspnea,
and yet—beneath the ebony loam,
a seed, embryonic,
shivered.
It did not shy away from agony,
nor reject the dark fate
lurking in the shadows of Lethe.
It rebounded—
clear as dawn,
passionate as a golden flame.
Hope transcends mere cliché.
It embodies alchemy—
a dynamic, endogenous force
ubiquitous, yet not ominous.
that navigates through desuetude
Dance around nonsense and detritus,
skirting the prolonged epitaphs
of imitation and the scent of rain.
It shows the archetype of meliorism.
not a golden aegis of katabatic chasm,
but the lush abundance of a rural demesne.
Our heron-filled pondering was slow.
Serenade in dirge to azure sky.
Optimism is not ridiculous.
It is emulous.
A multivocal lilt
in the labyrinthine lagniappe of sorrow.
It is the verdigris of acatalepsy—
the verdant veridicality.
It's a syllepsis amid agony and auric grace.
It is the pulchritudinous gasp,
of a sylphlike truth,
the gossamer wafture of a whispering genesis
in the ossuary of despair.
It is the slipper that fits no foot,
the slipper that fits every foot—
a slipper made of alabaster and stammer,
of aurora and archaic glamour,
of insouciance and invocation.
Hope slinks through the squalor,
svelte and sacred,
a nemesis to nemesis,
a vivacious vestige of Elysium
in the stygian Anthropocene.
It is the seed that knows
how to resile,
how to shimmer,
how to bloom
despite the slipper,
despite the boas,
despite the oblivion.
She’d kept the pewter dusted and displayed
since 1969.
A verdigris had leached out of the urn nevertheless.
She had been hard on him, had forgiven little,
but felt much closer now.
The television became a corner coffin,
its screen a penumbra she often spoke to.
She had interred it in 1974 after Nixon left office
“Disgraceful.” She had said both to his ashes,
and the ancient T.V. set.
A part of her husband remained to dwell with her,
the homunculus felt like a much-chewed jawbone
rattling in the urn.
She began to dream.
His tweed suit walked from its closest,
to make love to her,
sleeves caressed sensitive pockets.
When she awoke, she smelled of mothballs,
Brylcreem and Old Spice.
The television came to life.
the blue monochrome face of Nixon appearing,
he was crying.
his permanent five o’clock shadow damp with tears.
“Sorry Mabel.” He spoke.
“You should be.” She retorted hotly,
yet her heart skipped a beat as the screen died.
She was troubled.
She broke the glass front of the TV
placing her husband's urn within it.
The urn grew greener as if it were full of Ohio River water.
She saw herself as a young girl swimming
in a river as refreshing as a lime phosphate.
The urn glimmered as new images surfaced,
a tenderness gnawed at her.
Her late spouse teased her with fingers
plucked from her own lap.
He brushed her lips with threads of gray.
Her bitterness toward him
become a speck she kept in a jar of Pond’s facial cream.
“Just in case,” she thought.
A transcendental splendor in sepia hues,
spreads it’s woody arms across a nomadic river;
leaves of cinnamon and amber dog the landscape,
as long spectral limbs stretch to golden beams.
Here lay serenity, a breath of neutrality;
tranquility in verdigris-amber glow.
A spark of Gaia’s soul in copper caress
reflects upon the significance of its’ existence.
The river’s constitutional seems unending;
it bends and winds its’ way among tall sentinels.
It generously bestows life to passers-by
offering up itself copiously.
A supernal entity is the woodland.
3-19-2021
ALL YOURS (Mar 20) Poetry Contest
Brian Strand
Gaia gifts her wares to all, not just the understanding few. Each minute seed with high hopes, sprouts and a newborn emerges from tiny coil within.
seeds stretch
upwards to the light
baby greens
The passing of a legacy from one generation to the next
begins to paint the landscape in shades of elation. Roots begin to find their comfort zone. It’s a new season as Earth begins her greening.
tiny verdigris
tendrils grasp
terra-forma
Nature's gifts fill my senses with spiritual flow.
on the winds
scent of magnolia
soul uplifted
2-18-2023
It Means A Lot To Me Poetry Contest
Regina McIntosh
The willow blushes in the Sun’s caress,
such a colorful personality lending its’
ambiance to the greenwood.
Tiny catkins peek from morning bud-beds
to greet the dawn of this tangerine day;
willow celebrates the natality.
Her roots run deep, like ancient
ancestors spirits bestowing their
care as she drinks of the dew-laden ground.
I sit beneath her verdigris canopy, watching a
diligent squirrel build its’ nest on a branch and
realize Mother Nature’s profound love for her offspring.
10-16-2020
COMPLETELY YOUR CHOICE (27)any form any theme Poetry Contest
Brian Strand
What does it mean, to be green,
Referring to color, not politics or emotions.
There's some tints or hues, between yellows and blues;
With a lot of room, in between, for so many types of green.
There are some greens that actually say green:
Blue-green, yellow-green, light or dark green.
Other greens are just as real, for example: veridian,
Verdigris, chartreuse, teal, mantis and harlequin.
We've also seen, place names in green:
Dartmouth green, India green, forest green
Pakistan green, Paris green, sea green,
Cal Poly green, Persian green, office green.
Plants are mostly green, so many plant colors follow:
Artichoke, asparagus, honeydew, and avocado,
Apple, fern, lime, mint, olive, shamrock, forest, pistachio...
Anyone ever heard of phthalo?
What does it mean, to be green?
I, personally, get a thrill, out of chlorophyll.
All these greenish strengths, are really wavelengths
Of reflected light. We define which green is right.
Form:
Anti-Poem — “Snaking It To Venice”
(Poet’s Instruction: Play “The End” by the Doors loudly, while reading this anti-poem)
it’s you and me baby inside this gliding duster
this ’74 green plymouth cruising machine blasting
spit fire and gasoline grenades into the LA sun
snaking it to venice on the santa monica freeway
passing pillsbury billboards and green verdigris
doors music playing loudly on the duster radio dial
taking us past the santa monica civic auditorium
our rock pleasure palace under the ocean stars
fronted by the six high dudes straight as spears—
pylons of steel drum solos and marijuana memories
standing upward like skinny giants waiting to eat
hippie dudes and the bongo kings stand out front
polka-dotted chicks smile and pass running joints
we’re riding the snake babe riding on main street
looking for the rock gods behind beaming glass walls
looking to hear boogie music with the mind jive girls
the van chicks craving a bong hit of columbian gold
looking to groove on organ sonics that weaken you
kidnap you with handcuffs for a ransom of lost time
now jim morrison shimmies into view with a beer
the boys play the end again in 1967 with amps blaring
the vox organ humming out electric mind lacerations
as Ray Manzarek sits upright again on the melting stage
dig it baby, dig it there are no tomorrows no endings
it’s just you and me baby snaking it to venice beach
passing the dream palaces lit up with phosphorescence
the sun pole-dancing there doing the cosmic bend-over
the ’74 duster blasting spitfire and gasoline grenades
Glowing orange, cloud coals burn
reflections into low tide evening surf,
slap lapping against scattered shells,
ripe fruits for hungry sea tramp's picking.
Itinerant thoughts, aimless as seaweed drift,
scatter like bands of sandpiper strays
on endless quest for burrowing crabs.
Peace rolling off the water, a liquid aura,
brings surcease to the day's anxious plight.
Cavorting light rays pirouette in prismatic play,
unfettered children of earth's weary sun
who slips to rest upon night's graying breast.
Carefree scenes surround, seashore treats,
delectable as holiday sweets displayed on Christmas Eve:
ribbon candy colored cabanas,
verdigris beach poles rope garlanded,
soft stained seashell ornament display.
Almost as good as Christmas, this evening on the beach,
stretched out upon the sand
my back against bleached driftwood band.
Faye Lanham Gibson
Copyright, January 31, 2016