A fading sunset warmly glows
On woodland touched by Autumn's clay
And trickling down, a soft rainfall
Beneath a copper frame of sky--
My humming senses grasp the patter
Like keepers in a serenade
To taste a calmness that renews
Ripe budding of soul's gentle drift.
Mellow the sound passing through shrubs
A constant wait for drizzles to tap,
That silence holds its own language
Where grasses meet my eyes, humbled
By droplets that heal sweet forgiving...
Through graceful bows of moistened leaves.
I lay upon the lucent straws of gust
Till downhill walk takes me back home.
Sky seem to touch the distant ocean
Vastness surpassed my limited vision.
Sky and Sea were with me in unison,
as I walked on sandy- rocky beach.
Waves, rolling, roaring, rising high
amusing silent witness azure sky.
Sky-blue? Ocean-green? Which thread to apply,
for veil of Mother Nature to stitch?
Petrichor of wet sand particles I smelt
crawling crabs, corals and clams I met,
moistened windy breeze over sea I felt,
pleasant pretty charms to make me rich.
Overwhelming beauty of sea, I visualized,
on depth of emotion I was mesmerized,
too small was my existence, I just realized,
appealing to any one or each.
Where the sky drifts into the sea
Vastness, wideness, enchanted me,
so ridiculous my quark-type identity,
Eternal Divinity to reach?
“Let all thy joys be as the month of May, And all thy days be as a marriage day."
- Thomas Tusser
Potency of a May Marriage
Moistened with red, white and blue, May showers.
Patriotism hitched with joyful tin cans.
Waves, like salutes, admire sailors’ flowers.
Plucky roses set sail with nuptial plans.
Warmed, as if Cezanne’s tulips upon cheeks.
They’re at the peak of a Spring storm’s blessing.
Entwined, as if on a trellis, love speaks.
Potent, tender-hearted, two souls pressing.
The impact, of each raindrop on the glass,
Harbors the couple’s immemorial brass.
On that morose rainy evening, my room was full of fragrance of moistened
jasmine coming from my garden mesmerizing us. Both of us were aware : this was our last
meeting. We were sinking in deep dolour. With gracious gait you walked away in hesitant mood.
While stepping slow, you threw a modest momentary glance with your natural elegance, but
didn’t speak a single syllable. Suppressing your feelings, you turned your face just once and
walked away. I’m not sure, whether I noticed a tear drop glistening at corner of your eyes.
I couldn't guess what you tried to speak something at time of adieu.
your silence to mourn
forever with redolence ~
of rain - soaked jasmine…..
If the Rainman would concur, I would take all my days cloudy and
all my moments as this sodden one, but to my chagrin he does not.
Things come upon me near the moistened river. The water in the air
takes me back to a Styrofoam cup of juicy minnow bait on a drizzly day.
Countless coconuts swirl down this smelly tributary. They don’t
about each other or about why the tide takes them there it pleases.
You can’t tell me that they do not think like us, or maybe they don’t.
Either way they cannot know the sacredness of watching a ballet
of synchronized raindrops from beneath the water’s surface.
Submitted by Gary Baldwin (Jan 21, 2026)
for the Let it Rain Poetry Contest
I feel foreboding in the air -
my hands, my jaw, my shoulders clenched,
and then, it pelts my exposed hair,
and though I'm feeling wet and drenched,
our thirsty soil will soon be quenched
as sprouting seeds bring the land's rebirth,
and I'll smell the freshly moistened earth.
Haunting voices from deep under
forest dreams alive with
birds and water cascades
Emerald reservoirs of moistened earth
sprinkled fantasies at the
cusp of morning bliss
A splash of dusk across the
meadows of my quiet mind
oh what a precious find
Trees that hold their secrets
deep within the crook
of an old enchanted fortress
Mermaid songs by chill of Autumn
right before the snow arrives
white dipped paper butterflies
Stirring the senses with mysterious breath
pure mystique
captivated by the essence of this moment
I just am...
our moistened eyes
fed by lies sob
sunrise brings smiles
Summer like an eagle has swooped down
Under its tearing claws, the Earth shrieks and groans
Days and nights breathe out the stench of dribbling sweat.
Roads rage and roofs steam like an overly heated pan.
The midday Sun flares right overhead,
Spitting fumes and fire all around.
The Earth lies scorched under its burning breath.
An oven pre heated, hot enough to grill and bake.
Rivers and streams pant in wild unrest
Canals and cisterns lie distraught
Dry leaves in whirlwind swirl around.
Fallowed lands yawn with mouths wide agape
From the woods, rise coils of sooty smoke,
As the dried undergrowth burns in the forest fire,
Sucking the last vestiges of grass and green.
The flames of fire dance in wild ecstasy.
Alas! The self same summer has barged into me
Burning outright all my unsung songs.
In my ears, echo the rustle of dried up thoughts,
Which waggle round me like disembodied spirits.
How I lament the loss of my lovely rhymes,
As the ink in my pen also is drying up.
Oh! I wish it were moistened by the waters of Helicon
And like a stream, trickle down into the paper I hold!
«A little plant underneath.»
I thought.
Moistened
And in bloom.
Among the trees and roots.
Chocolate cream-covered cherries
Sweetens my sweet tooth sweetly
I moisten moistened morsels
But, somewhat indiscreetly
Naughty niblets now nestle
I nibble nice and neatly
Chocolate creams and cherry dreams
My sweet tooth spiced completely
I awoke from a dream --
well, let me start again:
My thought was that I had
awakened. Yet, I rose quite
mistily -- with ghastly figures
hanging in the air, moving
to and fro, in possessed manner.
Swat at them, I could not. My
arms would not lift, my hands
seeming porcelain objects. Residue
stillness, long after the model
had expired, and the artist had eaten
his last moistened bread meal.
The volume of Poe, lie open
on the bedstead, where it had been
wearily placed, just before my
dozing. Strange, the last page read had
been altered...and the name highlighted
for death, was now my own. Could
this deranged volume and I have
mysteriously, mystically changed
realities? My name began
to burn, uplift from the page, the savage
apparitions swarming to tear hungrily at the
fleeing image. My soul drowning in drool.
Fragrant rose petals
Streaked in trickling rivulets
Of shy, tearful zest;
But more poignant your red lips
Moistened by the cooling air.
-------------------------------------
Curtains partly drawn
I waited till the frost came;
Still you had not come.
The guiding candle I lit
Left in my lonely window.
-------------------------------------
Hunters silver Moon,
Touching down on the hills brow,
Deserts the Heavens.
His callous indifference
Could almost equal your own.
-------------------------------------
But tell my friend, you must have moved a lot.
Oh sure, I’ve been in a constant journey:
To a beggar for a few biscuits bought,
With a child thrilled as if with a trophy,
On pilgrimage, or in some wishing wells,
In temples, helping with a layman’s faith,
A rupee coin many a tall wall scales,
In constant motion, often out of breath,
And still, my life was truly well its worth
As measured by how useful really is,
High birth nor ever large acres of girth…
The note’s eyes were nigh moistened hearing this.
As I woke, thoughts took me to my childhood--
What pennies and pies could give-- thrill so good!
_____________________
Sonnet | 29.07.2025 | money, journey
Note: Pennies and pies: a rupee then had 64 old paisa, and each of which fetched three pies, and they all ran a long distance for me, every single pie was valued, which today even a rupee fails to fetch. Today’s paisa (all the hundred of them) is accounted for only by accountants on paper. Two-thousand rupee note no more in currency.
The curved fondle of an embrace
within the moistened kindle
of an evening's oiled lamp...
the splendor of your lubricious mouth
waking all that can be desired
knowing now this potion whiffs alchemy:
Dare I blink bewitched by
a caress of such pleasure
drip by drip , my being drawn
to relish that glide
of a nape pulsing through starlit glow
waxed by sweet grease of our shadows--
that in twilight's enchantment
- your ardor releases what's tame.
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.