Garden
by Frank Daub
I will talk with you tonight
and – you will answer with yellow flowers,
pale yellow roses,
BRIGHT
wax leaves tied in splashed white bowers.
In dark and on a sea
of white,
You will breathe
into my hand
Perfuming eternity with your gift --
To never leave.
Child with the pale green eyes.
Ribbons of mud across your cheek.
Grasshoppers and ice cream are your life.
As you are mine
Child with the pale green eyes.
Red lips are not ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦
¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦ kissed by the ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ dead.
¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦
¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ their love pure.
¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ eyes ¦¦¦¦ lure
When I behold eyes blinded in ¦¦¦ stead!
Your ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦
¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ exquisite ¦¦¦¦ limbs knife-skewed,
¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ rolling there
Where God seems ¦¦¦ to care;
¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦ Love they bear
¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ in death's extreme decrepitude.
Your voice sings ¦¦¦ so soft, --
Though ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ murmuring through raftered loft, --
Your ¦¦¦¦ voice is ¦¦¦ dear,
Gentle, and ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ clear,
As theirs whom none ¦¦¦ hear
¦¦¦ earth ¦¦¦ stopped ¦¦¦¦¦ piteous mouths that coughed.
Heart, ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦
Nor large, nor full ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦ made great with shot;
¦¦¦ though your hand be pale,
Paler are all which trail
Your cross through flame and hail:
¦¦¦¦¦ you may weep, ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ touch them not.
(Blackout of Greater Love by Wilfred Owen)
Through veined leaves of gold,
A pale light falters.
Fragile truths begin to break.
Each breath a failing vow.
Love lingers, nearly gone,
Listening souls go dim.
A single stark sin
in the soil,
A white rose
rests in rain.
Cold face in the
day,
A shine on the
shallow shore.
I see my face in a fractured mirror,
It reflects shattered images quite deep,
Secrets that the fragments can hardly hide,
A warped and slanted view of what I was,
Reflecting a pale painful pining face.
I try to glue the pieces together,
But that is a battle lost before-hand,
The fracture dealt, too wide and pulled aside,
The sharp sardonic sides still stay stalemate,
Reflecting myself as a ghastly ghost.
A single pale leaf
Letting go of autumn’s branch
Falls upon the snow
Sinking in the quiet earth
Sleeping through the endless night.
A leaf letting go falls sleeping forever.
Inspired by: Quietus, 4/26/2026, Tanka
Beneath the manor's shadow
crest,
Where gargoyles weep and
ravens rest,
Old Rumple Stein began to
speak,
To make the bravest children
weak.
He told a tale of ancient
dread,
A shadow from a velvet bed.
The vampire glides on silent
wings,
While midnight's eerie cricket
sings.
He creeps through windows
left unpinned,
A freezing, foul, and wicked
wind.
He hunts for children fast
asleep,
Into their nursery rooms to
creep.
His skin is pale as candle wax,
His pointed teeth leave
deadly tracks.
He bends above the small
and sweet,
To steal their warmth and
drink his treat.
"So close your shutters tight
tonight,"
Old Rumple laughed and giggled
with deep delight.
The moon sat quietly over the horizon
pushing her will on the vast ole sea
we pretended not to see it
but it was all that we could see
There was nothing vanilla about her
wrapped around these candied apple dreams
an allure of pure excitement
wandering through the deep
a portrait in pale blue light
shining for a world and me
I could sense the colors performing
inside where darkness lie
a promise beheld beside her
a soul the wind would find
morning drifts in on a pale lavender
light lingers on the window~
watching time hold its breath
I am blaming it on weather
Feel a bit too old today
Sky is pale, the clouds gather
In cyclonic disarray
Clouds may tell about something
I’d prefer to stay untold
Before scattering to nothing
They hang over the old road
That goes down to the quay
With its bollards of cast iron
Not a single boat I see
Seagulls overhead keep crying
Why I’m here again, could be
Just a call I answer to
By inertia, thoughtlessly
Like an animal can do.
They push to fashion pain.
They tear to harvest tears.
They take to tighten strain.
They rule by seeded fears.
They lie to lacquer faults.
They bleach the record clean.
They sanctify assaults
And call their hunger “seen.”
They map in righteous red.
They sail on ghost-white cloth.
Pale hands above the dead,
Pale faces naming wrath.
They preach of light and grace.
They brand their conquest “right.”
Yet drain the human face
Until it blanches white.
They rise on borrowed breath.
On blood they will not claim.
Pale empires bloom from death—
And whiten into shame.
Red cardinal in pale hand
under mottled white moon.
Stoic, the princess
and the bright hued bird.
Her cute little beak,
crimson blush; long, straight
flaxen hair; eyes closed.
She’s dreaming
of gilded-orb planets.
Her sight is unlimited,
and her attention is slight
to her glitzy crown
and her gown
ablaze with red and gold.
To this teen, asleep
she’s floating
in the dark of night;
she’ll awaken
to a palette, blue spruce,
and trilling of
“Cheer cheer cheer.”
A brush on the ready
in her pale palm.
Sweet one, don't sweat the small stuff.
In the grand scheme of things, this life is but a pale blue puff.
Enjoy this chrysalis of fleshed pleasure while you can.
Live it up -live it down, light it up, let it swirl in your mouth.
Splash about the champagne and the mud.
Sweet one, I think it must be ok live for the day.
But don't forget to heart pray just in case.
It's an insurance policy for eternity.
Common sense tells me
The universe is no accident, and we're part of a plan.
The creator travels a bit faster than the speed of light.
That's why we cannot grasp the effervescence of the divine.
Sweet one, don't sweat the small stuff.
Love is in the soul dust of the universe.
Cherish time like a rosy dream.
In the grand scheme of things, this life is but a pale blue puff.
My love for you is ill disguised
and many trying to advise.
A friendship isn’t ultimate prize –
I yearn from afar.
The flowers fade and vows now stale
as our future looks rather pale.
I dared to live beyond the pale
and yet, here we are.
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