Written: July 02, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Nette Onclaud
********************
The mirror convulses and shakes
when my cold breathing breaks,
a sliver of dark light I see —
slicing through the silver glare.
Steals my peace, traps my sanity.
Shadow's edges with bright colors flare
panic's claw, carves its narrow line —
within this confining frame.
I reflect on the face that once was mine,
Unsure who changed the rules of the game.
When Napoleon declared the French parliament defunct,
representatives beat him up. A couple hundred miles away,
Beethoven scribbled over his own dedication to Napoleon,
whom he had supposed to be a champion of liberty.
As climbing the greasy pole goes,
this wasn't exactly polished.
He was roughed-up - by politicos!
Can't blame them: no-one likes being abolished
(for sure, not these ego-bloated shysters!)
What else? Oh, in a paroxysm of rage,
an eccentric Kapellmeister
gouged a hole in a music page.
For all his smiling talk of ease and glee
(tomorrow), his eloquent implorings,
this moment always comes.
The pipes get drowned by drums.
The sleek ship of self-regard, so sleazily,
drifts free of its decent moorings.
A poet exposes scenes to explore new horizons
unfolding under expansive or confining domes
We slow it down, decelerate, discern
unveiling are a fable's morals and concerns
taking pause to commune with fauna and elm
serenely does nature speak throughout her realm
our phrases linger with new colors
hues vibrant encompass as skylines
our dimensions broaden anew
sentences chosen carefully carry more import
with words nuanced, renewed
with a more sentient bite
with emotions more candid
abashedly bare, a despair founded
with paroxysm of catharsis we quill
weeping of our dormant essence shaken to life
confessions deepening, plunging in thought
letting the afflatus of passion flow
I Am Anaya
quill & inkwell love
11/14/25
At the risk of coming off turgid
I offer this tale esoteric
Hoping it’s not found insipid
Nor causes one to be apoplectic
But rather received with alacrity
Without the need for paroxysm
My word there’ll be no chicanery
And avoidance of anachronism
Far from being sesquipedalian
Nor need for any razzmatazz
The tale of the slubberdegullion
Who thought himself full with pizzazz
Though being so supercilious
His affect stirred only dudgeon
Any good was so very fugacious
From this untoward tatterdemalion
Yet still he persisted a mumpsimus
If you will, and worse a panjandrum
So aggravating and rumbustious
Redeeming qualities not a modicum
An unquestioned snollygoster
Given to being quite vagary
An ill-reputed hugger-mugger
And a voice of such cacophony
But I see that you are insouciant
And consider my warning malarkey
Since you wish to be recalcitrant
My apologies for being persnickety
I end my tale of the rapscallion
Without further ado or rigmarole
Avoiding becoming ultracrepidarian
I have met my supererogatory parole
I wonder, Little Eddie, hypnotized,
can it be true you felt no pain at all?
Ten years of age, a figure formed too small,
and that poor Roadster, a gift you so prized…
How could your brother have so despised
your car? to pop its tires,—and on the wall—
smash it, scratch it, do everything to maul
that toy.—Is it true, you weren’t agonized?
Though Harry promised hypnotism,?he quickly realized, putting you in trances,
that he could trash you—as he had your car.
and soon, he stuck mom’s hat pin way too far.—
To cover up his tracks, he took his chances—
his lie: epileptic paroxysm.
(to Peter Straub)
seraphs, in eager anticipation,
collectively hold their breath
for the m o m e n t of truth...
shy young love, they root for
at last, their virgin k i s s;
a paroxysm of cheers erupt.
Lay me down in a field of barbed wire,
I’ll fulfill your noxious fantasy;
It is mine too;
Let the messenger speak,
The broken arrows on your letter
I assure you were received;
Now lay me down;
Pierce me the way you want to;
Let the scratches bleed me;
Mingling with our scarlet telepathy
desire marries us by blood oath;
Forever miscible;
Let your latent paroxysm indulge,
I assure you it’s rough healing;
Meant to rupture false rapture;
Lay me not onto petals
but barbed wire, this is noxious;
Your message is my fantasy too.
I forgot
Far away from the sun's prying rays
Shadowed reflection.
Weave a starlight web.
It shines at the atomic level.
With an apocalyptic unit.
Label, explore eternal fate.
Scattered electrons and protons.
Connected with the fairy fire spirit.
Our true humanistic art.
Have the same flow.
Cosmological poetry from infinity
It's frustrating.
Not all are sitting.
Near the hearth.
Mumbles and gestures.
Observing the light trail
Well then.
Some are decreasing.
Deep thought of syntax!
It happened suddenly.
You know they are stars
Obsolete.
Written: June 27, 2022
A buzzing cacophony
A paroxysm of colors
An unending well
A fly zooming about in circles
Thoughts swarmed by twirls and whirls
Still my mouth yearns another
A velvet drop to soothe
No one left to bother
Stole another bottle
Still my mouth yearns another
Running these tips across my shoulder
Sending shivers of excitement
Tilt the point down the flesh
Tear and let it run amok
I shriek not in horror
As I drown in all the flavor
Yet something is chasing me
Something I don't understand
As I gulped once again
It comes crashing at my head
Something sharp is tearing me
Hurry and fix me
Pass me the sew
As I ran the needle all the cotton won't hold
A broken teddy bear is left hanging
As I am thrown away
I've come to think again
I shouldn't wish for much
I shouldn't have done that
I should've known better
Heh, what does anyone know?
I only wanted to be whole
Her anguish blasted...
It was a
Wild paroxysm!
The tempest ends...
Relief quickly follows. Exhausted. Calm.
Now, she sleeps.
Written 17th October 2021
For the Lune (mixed pair) Poetry Contest
Sponsor: William Kekaula
Broken Wing
Poignant letter torn by the force of a hand in anger
Accuses and it wounds unfounded fraudulent emotions
Shadow in fragments crying with neither sound nor motion
Yearn to extinguish the paroxysm of enmity and retribution
Love mend broken wing then gently soar to overpower
A harbinger of ravaging heartaches and misfortunes
Penned: 07/12/2016
5:20 a.m.
West palm Beach
Florida USA
Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night,
They came, greedy and insatiable white creatures,
Cloaked in prim pretense,
Every curve of their features seemed to express a fine arrogant acrimony and harsh truculence.
Expectation darkened into anxiety,
A thousand unutterable fears bore irresistible despotism over our thoughts,
Men, ladies and children collapsed into a dreary and hysterical depression,
Leaving us drowned in the deep reticence of the colonial sea.
As arbitrary as a cyclone and as killing as a pestilence,
With a sweet voice caroling like a gold-caged nightingale,
They looted our abundant resources,
And abolished many of our African customs and traditions.
They enslaved us!
Underdeveloped us!
And reduced us to nothing.
Gleams of sunlight, bewildered like ourselves, struggled, surprised, through the mist and disappeared,
Half choked by a rising paroxysm of rage,
The hollow ring of their fundamental nothingness were defined,
With the blood in our eyes, matchets, bows and arrows and diplomacy,
Then the fight and chase began!
The first was a wee bird
How clear the glass
Its thud was loudly heard
Rendered it to the earthen grass…
The second was the pig, squealing
Yielding its life in a blood-letting, crass
Still heard inside, the porky-pealing…
Swollen turtle mommy was to shed
Ocean tears before her eggs boiled - unappealing
Mealy-mouthed slurping of yolk-sloppy dread
Even now, such distaste, recoils…
The chicken heads chopped-dead
Headless guillotine shudders, roil
In an abrupt death paroxysm
Next, after panic-eyed goats, humans
Gunning for the body-soul schism…
(1/8/2020 Inspired by the contest: how death has affected you
Regal 2001 Commodore 2960; DMS)
Paroxysm of the pupil
Blind eye opens to dawn
Brightness quadruples
Crimson-tangerine brawn
11/29/2019
Hit me with an Epi-Pen Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Maureen McGreavy
Love
Ardent, boundless
Caring, empowering, promising,
Paroxysm, veridicality, Anhedonia, ephemeral
Trivializing, evading, weakening,
Tristful, lorn
Indifference
Sub Categories
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