Sometimes it comes on red: the animal
is angry and astonished, tasting blood,
or orange, like a sunset you can taste,
the light as rich as butter on your tongue,
or sometimes yellow: the attic’s plastic ball
so sunny once, so sticky now with flyspecks.
It comes on green sometimes: you feel the plash
of frigid streams that feed the earliest ferns,
or blue: the moody sea that smells of brine
and octopus and moans against the shore,
and sometimes purple, like an embarrassed king
remembering incense in his moonlit room.
Sometimes an incandescent passion blends
the molten splinters into one blank ray.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, Nature’s spree, your artistic scene exceeds!
Quaint the plash of paints upon the frilly bloom
hued with sunrise splash in skies as night recedes,
lush your brush, alive with rays and pinkish plume.
Artsy petals feed her fashionista needs
draped in shades of goddess dawn, not moony gloom.
O, jealous moon, remember jasmine’s ardor.
Flaunt, rose of Sharon, posed beyond the arbor.
Susan Ashley
September 26, 2022
~ Second Place ~
Premiere Contest: 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 20
Sponsor: Mark Toney
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: Ottava Rima Poetry Contest
Sponsor: L Milton Hankins
*rhyme scheme: a-b-a-b-a-b-c-c
*syllables verified: PoetrySoup; 11 syllables per line
*rhymes verified: rhymezone.com
*plash: noun; a gentle splash, verb; to splash gently
*Photo: WilsonBrosGardens.com
Lampion in your heart
Evening moon far away
Landwinds blow aroma
From your singing practice
Titlark coming dancing
Outside rhythmic drizzling
After the rainbow
You threw the letter
And said- Tonight's gift
There I found life's hope
Starry night's greeting
Dark chocolate
Bitter coffee
gramophone songs
recital verse
Alone home
smiling plash
Time without
Carnal
Desire
Love
26.09.2020 Chattogram
It must have happened in the night.
In the backyard, a pair of men’s shoes.
They loll now,
mouths agape and concussed.
Crows are pecking at the shoelaces.
Rain-fish splash into the uppers
bobble and plash inside leather throats.
The shoes have gained weight since dawn,
They’re water-logged by the drenching.
They cannot now be carried off
by small wet dogs, or ground hogs.
Were they abandoned,
or is this a more sinister augury?
I imagine two pale feet,
awaiting to be discovered
in another part of town.
I confess these fears to the officer;
he assures me these feelings
are quite normal.
Bites of frost fierce;
iced words did pierce
flushed flesh, soft soul
chilled as you stole
youth of my life,
long lived your wife.
We wed; blissed days
blest till your craze.
Mid-age, your mess
lust for me less,
as thrills I gave
you now don’t crave.
My angst for naught
in knots of fraught
tight twist my mind,
your grit does grind
strewn tears from eyes
pain’s gems your prize
plash at your feet
my dirge does beat.
Our love I mourn
my rose your thorn,
once in sweet bloom
lies’ stench does doom.
Sprung from spouse cage
red town's your stage
to soothe your doubts
raise hell, nude bouts...
go chase young things
can’t stop your flings
we’re done, I know ~
snowed neath cold woe.
When every **** goes plash
it wants to make a splash.
Volodymyr Knyr
2017
My Contst Pom
‘Josh Kibosh’ who has only small-scale splash cash
looks for a young woman’s copious plash stash
when his hogwash commands dosh
Josh’s gluttonous slosh habits turn posh
so Madam transforms flash in his pan into pulp-mash
08th October 2016
Formed by drops of water,
widens and deepens as I rubs and scours,
eating and borings my way through the landscape,
meandering with hardly any visible movement,
flow freely, coursing my way through the mountains
and ploughing a valley of my own.
I cut runs over rocks, no forcing and no holding back
wind through the landscapes like strips of matte and glossy ribbon
plunged down in a long waterfall,
plash into several rocky pools on my way to the sea,
create a place to sit and think of romance and the beauty of nature
follow me and you will find the sea.
COTTAGE IN THE WOODS
It’s hazy
A scrim tints all shades the same – like the
Washed-yellow flowers fronting a shallow pond –
Making ghostly the cozy, little cottage beyond,
Which rises from the rushes and wild cover,
Nearly hidden by jack pine
And so dense – one, the foremost, in sad decline.
I pause, delay, to pick some wayward blooms,
Grown curious what lay within the cottage rooms
Oh, it’s a summer thing this soulful bliss,
Thatched roof and potted-window muse,
Snow White and dwarfs, a true love’s kiss
A sudden, fishy plash, though, disturbs my reverie -
The weedy pond, all ripples reflection -
The whole become some cubist fantasy
In a drizzle, droplets drip;
Hair will frizzle, make-up slip.
Streets will glisten, raincoats bead;
Wipers work the lowest speed.
Rain that’s steady slashes down;
Puddles plash and insects drown.
Folks’ umbrellas bump and clash;
Headlights blind you, bold and brash.
Pouring cloudbursts crash and soak;
Running dashes they provoke.
Awnings are in short supply;
People race indoors to dry.
Even though we need the rain,
When it falls, we oft complain.
Still, we’re lucky, as things go –
Any rain’s preferred to snow!
GOING HOME
How sweet to be swept by the tide
At last from this ocean earth-wide
And soon on the horizon to comb
For the mist-wrapped mountains of home.
Women mending nets, men at their ropes
Know we are coming, our cargo their hopes.
To hear their words, see their faces my heart beats
With the steady thrum of the breeze in the sheets.
My soul is worn and I cannot speak.
Snap of canvas and the halyard’s creak
Recall those endless days of fatigue -
But tell me we are closer league by league.
From salt-spawned days without number
The easy sway of the timbers
And the dip and plash of the prow
Are bringing me home from the brine now.
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