He spreads his lordly cape to slow his descent, gloved talons softly gripping metal throne, his obsidian pallium opulent and ominous. Empowered by wonder and awe, I swallow fear, holding the chthonic messenger’s gaze
Curiosity binds us
The vigilant Seraphim turns
Whether of what, o'ershadows
For our lordly ways
At the level of a friend
Do keep us always;
If low bent, or on grazed knees
Preferential eyed.
What applies to any child
Can here be applied.
Physical is the coat I wear-out
in the elements – the ephemeral
shell of me, and not the yoke, man's
embryo of spiritual wealth...longevity of
experience and immortal growth –
True! -- of the Eternal Now in my
biological years not one has convincingly
surfaced, risen above the depths of doubt
to undeniably attest, my only proof
the intimate echo of a heart-heard
voice, reciting from the velum of a
supposed soul, surfacing despite the negative
chatter of fatalists: lordly provocateurs
of fiery electrons, rejecting sparks
of individual ethereal sense: despite no two of
us ever proven exactly alike, each of us
the unlikely oddity of billions....
a mathematical contradiction that
can only be attributed to the reality
of a God....
With as little thought, think you
Can be brushed aside
All their concerns, as waste of
Sweepings to one side?
Then have you not once witnessed
The regard given
To duck clans, a road, crossing.
Respect, more lordly
To elephant, real king, he
By pride-shrunk, stomped men!
You may think that writing
is dysfunctional-
to script a thought not using
that sign of ABCs post-D.
This art that's built of words
is inspiration-bound;
finding worthy, optional picks
not sounding lordly.
It is most frustrating
to omit that sign-
manipulating, controlling
word forms in a satisfying way.
Committing to construction-
painfully choosing-
discarding- to find again-
class vocabulary to display.
A Lipogram can truly stump
a sharp, rhapsodic mind.
But, constancy can always win-
by solution found in kind.
January 23, 2023
Contest: Lipogram Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Emile Pinet
Rules: Do Not Use The Letter E
Checked with PS Grammar
Rhyme Zone
Brusque cold snaps crisp as a pine needle stab
evoking shivers in the elevated altitude silence
Lordly evergreen points, pierce the ephemeral
like aspen gold splashing in the emerald thrall,
as the lake now stills to glassy gray from aqua ~
Tahoe broods before the snow to stay stalwart
(12/24/2022 For Still-Life Autumn Scene contest)
Living life in their lane, lunge-ful lions do not apologize.
Enthusiastic echo roars resound as shy shaven sheep rise.
Gnashing their torn-up teeth, gnawing on marvelously manly meats,
Lions tear their tasty treats up as horrified sheep tweet out their tweets.
Tigers strive to become kings themselves, taking on lions sometimes.
Apologetic, socialized sheep pretend they are voiceless mimes.
Lordly lions like luxury, loving life in their own way.
So are you a socialized sheep or lordly lion today?
I feel sorry for the dead rat.
It was not an urban or country,
it was a suburban rat; it had a code of behavior.
It never infested, or stole
it strolled these leafy avenues
with a certain rodent pride.
It’s Autumn
and the trees are aflame with
medium income wealth,
the foliage lush
cultivated to be plush.
Yet here under a mighty maple
lies the body of a noble rat;
rigor mortis
cannot hide from our eyes
its once lordly existence.
With my foot,
I cover it with a blanket of
regal red and golden leaves,
as if it were a fallen eminence
of a minor kingdom,
a place where even rats
may claim title
to two or even three car garages.
The Roadside Medicine Sellers
Are Pharmacists' bold tellers
Of an enduring contest
Not unlike a weighted test!
Ever waxing Drug Dealers
Competing as Sure Healers
But spinning laughing profits
For all their being cursed misfits!
Shame to legalizing Laws
Unbolting illegal doors,
Patent Medicine - obtained Rights
A From - Reality Fool's flights
That often drop a body
For a post - Morten study
What a crazy patronage
Of Butchers in Tactful Age
Hardly like us for neck ties
Their tie - free neck for loud lies
Oh' how their shelves kick with drugs
In their stores Persian Rugs
Their Sales' Facilitators
The Non - Stop Oscillators
Admit men ,though, we're the cause
Before customers long pause
Smiles not customer- friendly
Handshakes not given grandly
Lordly prices for packets
The released picture Rackets.
Delicate petals on stately stalks sway in the breeze,
sweet, scented nectar attracts hummingbirds and bees.
I watch them while sipping iced tea in my lawn chair,
Snapdragons adorn my garden with a decorative flair.
They're not fire-breathing blooms, standing in sunlight,
proudly displaying a variety of colors, bold and bright.
They grace my walkways in the seasons, spring and fall
as floral sentinels they greet me, standing lordly and tall.
August 27, 2002
Eight Lines of Ryme - Your Favorite Flower contest
Sponsored by Tania Kitchin
Partitions and Parallels
Silent, sliding, shadow-moon sly
Glides from the slit, in a
Crow-flocked, Cloud-frocked,
Winter-mocked blue sky.
With half-open eyes, he stares at the last
Who lay their still-sleep of Three Hundred Years Past.
Below lies Thomas, old grounds-man head
With permission he rests amongst the high Lordly-dead.
Beside him, his daughter, Sarah, aged five,
Whispers message of doom, to those yet alive.
More high-staff, scattered, buried around,
Next to Knights,
The Most Reverend,
The marble and mound.
Here now, commoners trample, with no ‘by your leave’
On vaults and tombstones
Where Ancients still grieve.
Whilst the ghost-grey eyes unnoticed, sublime
Marks the
Tick- tocked,
Click-clocked,
Face for all time.
COPLA UNO: This Bad Guy World - in all seriousness
[The entire sequence of 114 coplas: “This Bad Guy World”, dedicated to Jorge MANRIQUE, 1440?-1479. I give here in translation his third “copla à pied quebrado” in Arte Menor metre:
“Coplas a la muerte de su padre” (Coplas on the death of his father) -
Our lives are like rivers
that empty into the sea
……..where we expire:
There the lordly peers
come to their final spree
……..and no more transpire;
There gushing rivers swell
and others less imposing
……..and the rivulets
All arrive at the same sea level
those who toil with hands living
……..and the fortunates
Translated, December 2013, Paris by T. Wignesan
Masterful!
lordly framed
picturesque rain stain
ing icy cap summit’s height,
vaulting off grassy green
pediplain’s sloping foothills,
impinging azure sky’s obscur
ing clouds.
blazing sunbeam painted
freshet rush to where river-rocks
are the fairest.
rosy-finch, gray-crowned,
bathe cross-winds breeze clink
ing conifers lazing at the frost rich shore,
river flow, embolden splendor.
the poetics surrendered?
ingest’d without disturbance,— by us,
graylings are of abound... thus!
Held unyielding in your narrow mind
is the ignorance which keeps you blind.
Building dams will only hold you back
from accepting that white is not black.
Like a slow moving, barricaded stream,
your thoughts clot like curdled cream.
Thin skin has need to slough rejection,
Your rigid stance in mirrored reflection.
Break open the dam across the estuary
that hinders your vision. It's necessary
to move in sync with malleable fluidity
instead of sputtering words of stupidity.
Shedding skin will allow you to breathe.
Release your potential from its sheathe.
Even a snake slithers out from its skin
to crawl from where it once had been.
Little is the chance you have to accept
new ideas if they are not circumspect
to the fault of having such a closed mind.
Throw off the veil that keeps you blind.
Don't become stagnant and decompose
by turning your back, continuing to oppose
any idea with which you just don't agree.
You'll drown in arrogance, acting so lordly.
Laugh and the world will laugh with you,
Smile and the people around you will smile too,
Weep and you weep alone,
For the sad old people who borrow from this earth,
They give an expression of mirth,
But have trouble enough of their own.
Sing and the hills will answer,
Sigh as you get lost in the air,
Echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voices that care.
Rejoice and they will seek you,
Grieve and they turn and go.
All they want is a full measure,
And to be grateful to share your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad your friends are many,
Be sad or you lose them all;
If you need to decline, try not to choose any.
The halls are crowded,
Fast and the world goes by.
Succeed and give,
It helps you live,
No man deserves to die;
There in his room deprived of pleasure
Hearing a large and lordly train,
One by one we are put on file
Through agony of suffering pain.
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