Ricardo wrote poetry with much flair
the literati later,were to declare
One hundred love sonnets we now see
and essay "Toward an Impure Poetry”
Plus the honour of a Nobel prize winner chair
An earthy palette
of hues,
blue-greens, and
muted tones of melancholia
safflower oil imparts a
blue period
colors made from
our terrestrial
fruit of flora
reflecting
depth of destitution
giving or receiving
the act of charity?
The girl lifts
their spirits
with humble offerings
collective souls
connect completely
moods moving,
welcoming warmth
of the broth soup’s
steamy ardent aroma,
awakening the dormant
and pitiful perils prolonged
sense of taste
A choice expounding
in what is seen
and unseen,
an elder’s mindful
symbiosis, steaming
savory clouds
of translucent
silvery solvents
from a slumped stance,
vigor spent
Adorable Dora went for a mani,
insisted of course on matching her dress.
How she felt magnificently dapper and regal
in her green velvet, walking high like noblesse.
Soon was it she remembered
that her closet was bare to the bone
and this was the only green
that she owned.
( Referring to Pablo Picasso's painting "Dora Maar with Green Fingernails" )
AP: Honorable Mention 2026, Honorable Mention 2026, Front Page Pick 2026
Oh dear, dear Dora, fragmented and bright,
A puzzle of planes in the shifting of light.
Green nails are daggers, sharp points on the page,
A geometric dance during the colorful age.
Your purple eye shadow, a block and smear,
Holds two eyes together, yet one’s never near.
One looks to the future, one stares at the past,
In a Cubist arrangement that’s destined to last.
With lipstick applied in a thick, waxy stroke,
Your mouth is a silence that never quite broke.
A triangle’s curve on a violet-stained lip,
As the lines of your spirit begin a courtship.
Oh, Muse of the angles, of squares and of sighs,
With a kaleidoscope burning in deep gold eyes.
You are broken and rebuilt, a masterpiece grand,
With that emerald flash of a segmented hand.
I lean toward her~
this woman split into colors
a woman rendered in angles,
her face divided as if emotion
had been dissected
and pinned onto the canvas.
Her green fingernails startle me,
soft as bruised mint,
as though she once touched something tender
and the tenderness stained her.
She sits with that stillness
women learn too early~
the stillness of being looked at
instead of being seen.
Inside those mismatched eyes
I sense a private weather,
a quiet storm she never named.
She was a photographer
who could coax truth from shadows,
a surrealist who bent the world
until it revealed its hidden pulse.
Yet, here she is,
held in the gravity of Picasso’s gaze,
her own brilliance dimmed
to the outline of his muse.
And still~
there is something in her posture,
a hint of sorrow and a small, steady refusal.
As if beneath the fractured planes
she is gathering herself back,
piece by luminous piece,
her green nails glowing faintly
like the first signs of a woman
stepping out of someone else’s shadow
and into her own light.
Big eyes that seek
A nose that knows
Better not speak
Better to pose
Shades of green
On dainty nails
Lips maybe pink
With muffled wails
1936 trying times
Women so unique
Guard their minds
In times bleed
Art of life
Hidden behind eyes
United by spies
Regimes that die
Withered fingers
Cannot play anymore;
I drown in nuanced shades of blue,
Not seeing, in my plight,
My strings, wound tight,
Suspending me
Like a puppet,
Tethered to life.
I in my tattered clothes,
Blue like sorrow,
Torn like the heart that hopes,
Unable to keep out the cold
Or cover the secrets I hold—
I am the man who mopes,
Holding my guitar close
As it whispers its chords
Whilst I, cross-legged, ponder
Life in rags and cardboards.
Back to the old routine:
Awash in blue,
This song’s for you:
Echoes of a gunshot;
The click of a trigger.
Captain of the Farthest Islands
living poem between my prose
that each one was exchanged for roses
with moonlight and roving mornings
You loved as few have loved
with the madness of sea and clear lyrics
the greatest poet that will remain in us
like him in the calm portrayed...
The island was light and your horizon
was a witness to your fate, luck
let me offer my verse back to you
Weather companion here awaits you
beyond this letter and this death
I follow your companion trace...!
PS translation AND adaptation from a poem OF Adele Carporal BY alkas poetry
What, in your own mind, you do think you lack,
Within thy sensational loneliness--
Truly energize luck and got your back,
To promote thy risk in times, coziness.
Then each and every of your lovely fear,
Creates the globe with an enormous home.
Surely, of a great deal, becomes so dear
A lorry pen drives where shining hearts roam...
May blank pages cease not-- thy gunny bag;
Supplying the pride of your heart with clues,
Pen punches so hard to raise the world's flag.
To place pleasing mags, setting minds amuse.
Your day of the year is of heritage;
Deifying your grace and works, great homage.
Life is creation
not a discovery
Distant horizons
the palette we choose
Painting and singing
loving and dreaming
Memory a servant
—time but a ruse
(Dreamsleep: July, 2022)
Captain of the most distant islands
living poem among my proses
that each one was exchanging for roses
with moonlight and wandering mornings
II
You loved as few have loved
with sea madness and clear lyrics
the greatest poet that will remain in us
as he in the calm portrayed...
III
The island was your light and your horizon
was a witness to your fate, luck
let my verse take you back
IV
Timemate here awaits you
beyond this letter and this death
I follow your companion brand...!
PS TRANSLATION/ADAPTATION OF THE POEM
SONNET OF THE POETISA ADELA CARPORAL
ARGENTINA FOR THE COLLECTION 1000
POEMS FOR PABLO NERUDA.
by alkas
Pablo’s Plight
Blinding color, third eye closed
Squared off chin and angled nose
Arms in the back, feet from head
An odd sight it must be said
Eyes are pared but rarely paired
Ears an afterthought uncared
Daring use of brush and paint
Never quite described as quaint
One boob here and two boobs there
Disjointed limbs evry’ where
Jumbled mess by child’s hand
Or mastered work, each stroke planned?
It all comes down to point of view
What you see is up to you
8th May, 2017
A fragrance, the tangy dagger
of plums down a road,
sugary kisses on teeth,
juices of life, seeping through fingers,
in sweet ripening flesh,
of meadows, haystacks, the hungry
hiding places in vast houses,
of long forgotten mattresses, wild green valley
glanced from aloft, through a secret window:
all of adolescence burns and drowns,
like a lamp dying down in rain.
***
February 21, 2017
I thought I was a poet
Until I read
What you wrote
But now I know
That I am just a shadow
Of a reflection
In a mirror
The abstracts of Pablo Picasso
I think his paintings are a fiasco.
For every one I see
They're always upside down to me.
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