I searched in vain for inspiration.
I even climbed the sacred Parnassus
Where all the muses reside.
I danced with them
Engaged in endless discourse.
All in vain.
Then I resigned to my fate.
Oh Pythagoras? How I refused
Ever to believe in your metempsychosis?
Alas that meritocracy should be reborn
Reborn to write again,
Reborn from darkness and void
Reborn to mock myself again.
With a splash of painted words,
Disjointed, without sense.
A sickly morbid earthling
Fed on the slums and dregs of earth,
Pampered on deadly drugs.,
Only to be haunted by a thousand empty dreams.
Now I solely scribble:
A mass of oddly disjointed lines,
Words upon words, a phantasmagoria of nonsense,
While ashes fall upon the yellow pages
Scented with nicotine of stale cigars.
My words of love are just flowing out
An unending stream of passion
You've reentered my life of ups and downs
My joy is no longer rationed
A most fortunate soul to say the least
So many have felt this euphoria
Almost too much for my poor heart to take
It's literally phantasmagoria
Before I pass on if there's any love justice
I'll caress you one more time
And feel the warmth of your tender soul
To know that feeling divine
At the risk of repeating it too many times
I'll love you to the ends of the earth
This feeling inside to the depth of my soul
Can't describe how much it's worth
A sky denuded of stars
Is just like a garden devoid of blossoms.
Even when the night sky goes aloof too,
I close my eyes
And enter into a profound colloquy
With the phosphenes of my eyes.
These flickering phosphenes spring up at once
Presenting a phantasmagoria of various hues of blues.
How well have these phosphenes deciphered
That I possess a weakness for tranquility!
They pirouette incessantly
Displaying a multitude of shapes and forms,
As if essaying their utmost
To impart their solicitude to me,
To attend to my unvoiced revelations,
Scouring away the feeling of loneliness.
A constant ringing in the ear.
It is completely insane.
Unrelenting and frightening.
I hope that it will leave soon.
are you aware of the adage?
Ear ringing refers to evoking around you.
Sparks that are dying, creating an abyss.
Casting life shades out of existence.
Loops pursue delight as their goal.
Bound to combine matters eternally.
Love soared to a hypersonic speed.
Written: December 11, 2022
Cynthia moves for me in veiled slopes,
silver drops dance on her tender petals.
Memories bloom from tesseract in ropes,
Cynthia moves for me in veiled slopes.
Oh Luna! I long to kiss starry hopes
on scarlet waves before Aurora settles.
Cynthia moves for me in veiled slopes,
silver drops dance on her tender petals.
November 5, 2020
Pick-A-Title, Vol 24 - Triolet - Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Title Chosen: Phantasmagoria
In dreamscape teeming with mirage
this soul an unwilling captive,
afloat with black moon's entourage
In dreamscape teeming with mirage
through a strangely bizarre collage--
wake me O real hours active
In dreamscape teeming with mirage...
this soul an unwilling captive!
))
Pick-A-Title, Vol 24- Triolet-Contest
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh 11/02/2020
As amber eve paints ochre skies
Her lips I kissed, turn ruby rose
And dreams of heart my passion vies
As amber eve paints ochre skies
When romance gleams in lovers’ eyes
It’s me she picks the moon well knows
As amber eve paints ochre skies
Her lips I kissed, turn ruby rose
October 29, 2020
Placed 1st: Pick-A-Title, Vol 24- Triolet - Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Title chosen: Phantasmagoria
Eight syllables per line (howmanysyllables.com)
Images of death enshroud me
Blackness closes in, I stumble
Silent shadows overcrowd me
Images of death enshroud me
Chasms of dark reflections cloud me
Ebony mirages jumble
Images of death enshroud me
Blackness closes in, I stumble
10.27.2020
Title: Phantasmagoria
For Edward Ibeh's "Pick-a-Title: Vol.24, Triolet" contest
The sky reflects the broken bodies laid out.
Blood soaked field and severed heads skewered on pikes.
Racing forth towards fallen comrades with a shout.
The sky reflects the broken bodies laid out.
Impaled into the chest, blood flowed there is no doubt.
Haunted Night terrors, squeezing heart-rending pain strikes.
The sky reflects the broken bodies laid out.
Blood soaked field and severed heads skewered on pikes.
10/25/202
Dark shadows cast by trees at night-
as wind gives life to limbs that scare,
so oft can stir such inner fright.
Dark shadows cast by trees at night
morph images- let thoughts incite
unwanted feelings of despair;
dark shadows cast by trees at night-
as wind gives life to limbs that scare.
The mind plays games and creates fear,
as tree-limb shadows writhe around
like eerie snakes, entwined, austere.
The mind plays games and creates fear,
while courage fades- truths disappear.
As steady moonbeams sweep the ground,
the mind plays games and creates fear-
as tree-limb shadows writhe around.
October 24, 2020
~1st Place~
Contest: Pick-A-Title, Vol 24 - Triolet- ABaAabAB
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Judged: 11/12/2020
Phantasmagoria (a shifting series of phantasms,
illusions, or deceptive appearances, as in a
dream or as created by the imagination).
dictionary.com
Projected on to a large screen
The gruesome shape of evil’s face
A haunting form from Halloween.
Projected on to a large screen
A lantern cheats – don’t intervene
To stop the nightly ghoul’s forays
Projected on to a large screen
The gruesome shape of evil’s face.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Pick-A-Title, Vol 24 – Triolet Contest
Sponsored by Edward Ibeh
Chose: Title 2. Phantasmagoria
Placed 1st
© 20th October 2020
A phantom spreads shadows over the ground,
black in its entirety of shape.
Swallowing all semblance of a life
in the darkened path, he ne'er takes a break.
Bitingly, the dreary clouds open up with
an assault of sharpened swords of pouring rain,
soaking the ground in abject sorrow, like tears.
Cloaked in silence, a silhouette, opaque,
creeps slowly along in token steps.
Smoked whispers stream from his mouth, curling
through stagnant temptation in the air.
Distorted faces cackle in laughter,
taking wing in their descent to the ground.
Shivering bones scream in intangible pain.
Flames are sparked, alighting along their feet,
a voracious beast of faceless hunger,
devoured in grief. Vaporous shapes
stuck hanging mid-air in flight above
translucent prisms of volatile rainbows,
flickering into a darkened room
surrounding a solid black-draped alter.
Shadows clinging to the hallowed walls,
dripping with a stain of crimson red.
Brittle snaps and shrieks of brokenness
bending sharp through the shallow hallways.
Running fast down a stoned path,
trying to escape this nightmarish scene
where there's no one who hears your screams.
Whispers of secret dreams paint my thoughts
With a mirage of intimate hues, soft colors
Gentle ambers, warm and welcoming, snapshots
Whispers of secret dreams paint my thoughts
Dancing in shades of lavender, casting lots
Fantasies that whirl to and fro like watercolors
Whispers of secret dreams paint my thoughts
With a mirage of intimate hues, soft colors!
Pick-A-Title, Vol 24 - Triolet - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Edward Ibeh
I chose title 2. Phantasmagoria
October 19, 2020
I dream figments of imagination,
and fantasies phantasmagoria;
the visions of my mind's coloration !
I dream figments- of imagination,
dark illusions of this life's damnation;
yet, these phantasms bring euphoria !
I dream . . . figments of imagination;
and fantasies_ phantasmagoria !
_________________________
October 17, 2020
Poetry/Triolet/Phantasmagoria
Copyright Protected, ID 10-1295-831-17
All Rights Reserved, 2020, Constance La France
Written for the Standard contest, Pick-A-Title, Vol 24 - Triolet
sponsor, Edward Ibeh, Judged 11/12/20
Honorable Mention
Assaulting me! The darkness comes to be
in devil’s guise. Phantom haunts my mind;
in sleep paralysis I cannot flee -
insanity bleeding through ruined rind.
I’m humbled now and at your merciless
whims and words afflicting by your whipping
cruelty I’d endured and what of this -
stranglehold of fear that is so gripping.
The trauma it inflicts does overwhelm
in present as it did in madness past,
as Hypnos slips me blackened nightmare’s realm
my sanity becomes a lone outcast.
Stalking specter and there’s no protections,
I’m the victim with my mind in confines,
house of mirrors broken your reflections;
antagonistic mania still shines.
My life with you; you’re still inside my head,
though self-destruction chose as your fare-well.
Subconsciously you infiltrate with dread
as incubus revenge becomes my Hell.
Susan Ashley
September 23, 2018
*Hypnos: the ancient Greek god of sleep*
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