When appears the winged goddess Nix
to cast her noctilucent spell
on every creature of the night,
in a sudden hush, fall on the land
a sweet shield of calm and timelessness.
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Categories:
noctilucent, night, peace, time,
Form: Free verse
Come to Now, brothers, and how!
Firewood after dark.
Compliments, O sacred cow!
Fling and flicker stark.
Could be, O my sages.
Riddles wrought in rhyme.
Time, bequeath thy ages!
Prime o'er Soul? Sublime.
Tapping on the clipboard?
Fingernail or pen?
Dragon, will ye guard thy hoard?
Fennel, fire, and fen...
Oblique? Carelessness, critique?
Frequency, catch flame!
Will the strong succor the weak?
If they want food, claim.
Catch up on thy sleep? Dig deep.
Cross the boneyard? Creep.
Preparation! Want to weep?
Stack behind the heap!
Present in the moment?
It's better that ye be.
Rebellions to foment?
Sink foemen in the sea.
Wind, rattle the weathervane!
Let the boy explain?
Yes, before we toss in main!
After a spring rain!
Educate for poppies?
Dreamers, why wile away?
Fish for gold or crappies?
O for, some sunny day.
Fright or plight? Best be polite?
Doom and dynamite!
Gods of death, thy dun delight!
Lone in line of sight...
Categories:
noctilucent, devotion,
Form: Rhyme
Storm
in the noctilucent ether
above our spinning fire
the mist born drift of open air
weaves a crystal net
ice and vapor reaching
down towards us
as we on this cluttered hill
dig and dig
our stony halos heavy with desire
nimbus pages fold across
the cyan wishing void
our changing history written
in volcanic ash
the fire legend of a future
come to pass
each bright atom a chorus of hope and fear
then the cumulous surrender
thunderous reply
and we're washed in pure simplicity
Goddess of Wisdom
wrap us in
your perfect stratospheric shroud
Categories:
noctilucent, humanity, introspection, metaphor, symbolism,
Form: Free verse
AUTUMN Cotton wood - A Haiku
~noctilucent fall
a leafy cotton wood stalks
summers autumn tree
12/3/21
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2021©
Categories:
noctilucent, analogy, appreciation, tree,
Form: Haiku
MISS JULY
Vitamin-D shot —
Temperate, she’s not!
She’s cool and she’s hot.
Miss July, her gold complexion shirks shade.
Possession of yacht —
Lease was a long shot.
Time reflects in knots —
The noctilucent cloud waves, sunlight sprayed.
Buds eternal thought:
Untrimmed moon garden sought.
At zenith, Vega spots
Delphinus the dolphin — East heaven played.
8/2/2019
A Summer's Day Redo Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Michelle Faulkner
Categories:
noctilucent, summer,
Form: Verse
King - A Haiku
noctilucent boys
A Persian, friendly king flies
in spite of the friend
enemies scatter
as the children over throw
kingdoms come down hard
in spite of the fiends
as the children over throw
the kingdom comes down
5/11/19
written by James Edward Lee Sr.
Categories:
noctilucent, analogy, anxiety, children, war,
Form: Haiku
Wending her way westward, wafted on whispering wings
Sailing serenely southward, slithering past secluded scenes
Nudging northward, noticing narrow, noctilucent moonbeams
Edging effortlessly eastward, entering ecstasy's eerie baleen...
Grace dillied and dallied, then dithered and doodled and dozed
Could Heaven's Handiwork save her? ~ Neither angels nor seraphs know
Categories:
noctilucent, angel, destiny, fantasy, heaven,
Form: Alliteration
The clouds have collided as do bumper cars careened,
Aimed to smash each other into molten smithereens.
Seven hundred and seventy miles per hour they go,
Breaking the boundaries of what sound vibrates below.
Supersonic plasmic bolts blast betwixt the gaseous slaughter,
Of ionized particles parlayed in stratus strung pools of water.
In noctilucent litany the benumbing bombed booms of nimbus lightning,
Shakes the horizon in zapping hums the brontophobes find frightening.
For Mjolnir has struck the cloud's anvil with a might of the Norse,
Whose platinum horseshoes smack the sky with thunderous force.
Categories:
noctilucent, nature,
Form: Couplet