The calendar date, red-inked into alpine
white vellum: a blood-letting, a quilled line.
Old ducks [politically incorrect] featherless,
waddling like myself, fall neatly into line.
"It is time," I say to my left-brain, my right-
hand, "to auto write a poem in couplet line."
In my excitement I look toward newborn
paper and begin reworking the previous line.
My face soften, my fingers relax. Another
deception blotted off the eternal timeline.
Time marches on ... or, onward and upward!
"Upward?" the poet asks. "Oh, what a line!"
The bare branches were shaking,
twigs rattled like ill-fitting teeth.
I thought:
'any moment now
the coal black lumpiness of them
will break a bough,
and all tumble down or up,
creating sky-slides of avian tumult'.
They jousted at each other,
clattering their sharp quilled feathers
like angry Black Knights.
The very air shook as they bounced,
up and down
imitating hooligans on a drunken spree -
rowdy 'caws' assaulting all ears.
Then,
in a sudden spray of alarmed confusion
they scattered, wheeling away,
in every direction.
From behind a thick-glass window,
someone must have muttered:
Shoo!
Like an avian roosting when his cawing has spilled,
I mourn in grief as this shadowed night grows cold
Crushed and grieving from promises unfulfilled
Sorrow burgeons my heart, in bitterness enfold
like unspun wool on a distaff or a poem not quilled
I am overwhelmed with fear; somberly weeping
beneath my rowan tree. In dour thoughts, I dwell
Wisps of silver moonlight cross the sky, sweeping,
signaling hope in darkness, as if it were a death knell
In my den, I feel protected; sanctuary of safe-keeping
My troubled eyes are in search of benevolence anew
For faith and courage instead of such dismal dread
How I long to take flight, trading grey skies for blue
to locate a paradise where happiness can be spread
sharing a drink of wassail; fruited ale of sweet brew
I shall swiftly soar among shining stars at great height
Fluttering my wings on journeyed path of poetic volition
Never again to be lost and alone on any mawkish night
No shadows holding me in their melancholy perdition
for I've learned how to ignite flames of lambent light
Written: March 09, 2024 For Charlotte Puddifoot Contest
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
with serendipitous moans—ocean lulls
It's russet embers
ignite her soul's quilled longings
she flies to bloomy sky-scape
last sigh of waning twilight
chirpy mirth—katydid sounds
waves of
soft silk canzone
to whispering crimson
of ephemeral serenade
waves of arid shadows— ebb in
blurring haze of lingering longing
besotted in spumy scatters sighing
In epicede of hushed Elysian quiddity
quixotic susurrus—shorebirds' sapidity
horizon in cinereous ululation of Peacocks
rainbows and sylphlike threnody
my heart too, mirths... waiting
for you to return to me—in spring
renascent wings wings of crimson
gold and plums of purples!
Kingfisher! Sculpturally shaped! Beam with a bold bright beak!
How splendidly your soft-strong somatic symmetry shines!
Awesome is the charm of your topaz eyes and rainbow quill.
Wondrous are your feet, tail, and poised plumage pattern designs.
Symbol of swiftness, prosperity, and agility
Fortune, patience, and abundance abide in your esse
Compassion, courtesy, and creative felicity
With each weather, season, and circumstance, you acquiesce
With paramountcy and persistence, you pitchpole from perch.
Which vaulter in this universe could fulfill such a feat?
Blue and orange! Moving motionless, like a sage, in search
Do you swingeingly oversee the lands-oceans-waves meet?
Infirm in form, you conform to any storm and transform
Is such nature, as though inborn, quilled as a human norm?
"How to Touch the Lips of an Eclipse"
calamity, the heart rushes in
up against a wall of thorns
and the one removed watches it all
Love comes in little steps small,
or the opposite, thick fast floods
that break the walls
drowning,
you drown,
in the best drowning of all
time stands back
adjusts its hands
dials in time with the Sun
pulls you in closer
like you're the tide
and the other, your shore
yet Love stands back,
barefeet, feeling
the sands of time
moving underneath
surmising the deep
afraid of it all
and Love, stands back
watches and waits
for the Moon to rise
how to touch
the lips
of an eclipse
waiting for some
rouge command,
the curves of a kiss
rippling like waves
across a waist
caressing the time it takes
dragging the delicious
birdsong quilled against
a body like Love
the words unheard
invisible
written on a page
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
Quaint multi coloured bird
Quilled feathers exotic
Quiffed plumage quite unique
Quintessence of beauty
Queen like, monogamous
Quavering mating call
Quixotic, soon extinct
"Mockingbird"
What sayst thou?
Now, here you sit and I speak to you
through strange keys revolutionary,
poetry what is thy purpose for? A mirror wall?
Where visions unseen speak and reply contritely
black and white pedestrians robed in all their colours
walking now through their other realms?
“sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
and often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
and every fair from fair sometimes declines,
by chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;”
nightingales and mockingbirds all feathery poets in night-flight quilled
Nightingale, Nightingale thy eternal summer shall not fade, nor fail,
shining loudly, blessed revelry held in the loving hearts of pages whispering,
“Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May” …
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
Trailing naked toes, hat low peaked
fingers laced abaft head and sun,
white-water gently threading through
the webbed keel of one foot.
The sky is blasting blue,
splotching louder blobs of cobalt
around a midday solar blaze.
Even the river billows,
heaps uplifted ripples into crests.
An old man rests
his skiff rolling rhythmically
to a tune
the wind whispers
through reed quilled banks.
He smiles beneath a broad brim,
wonders how long further this journey
can flow onward
without a braced rudder,
nor clinched knuckles
upon an implacable steerage.
He wallows in his ease,
allows the world to float on,
to find its own effortless,
unhindered way.
picture perfect words
lightly quilled on clean canvas
portrait of my craft
Dreams of feathers,
hang from peacocks naught.
Ones lips are sealed.
the other always open.
Twins,
and both have pointed ears.
One can not but help to hear.
Standing upright a marble blue veined face.
The breasts of the one,
serpents around come out in the open, forever hidden.
All their faces suckle cold nipples pointed like spears.
None borne forth have warm milk suckled.
Slender candle tipped the likes of which
pulled in pulled out.
The sucbus is
running out our tounge against whomever will.
Thinking that you spoke but never have.
Masks between fires cold desire.
Quilled ink pink feather tipped black pierced.
Breasts would again be full but emptied are.
Dark moody blues are turning white
now black against between each falling star.
That which never was but now it is be still.
Contrast never lost the blind have always have seen.
This dream to one by all whom hide inside,
revealed to none but call to him in sleep i hide inside.
Long ago a star twinkled
Across the ocean blue
It pierced my heart so
Recklessly I fell in love with you
Stranger from afar
Ghostly and unknown
Words that trapped my soul
Tethered and unworn
Madness and fury
Passion and pleasure
Quilled words on paper
Better than treasure
Love poems and sonnets
Reeling my heart in
Dastardly poetic symphony
Nymphomania and sin
Trapped in your ink
Propelled by your quill
Forgotten odyssey’s
Still give me a chill
Moonbeams of madness
Two shadows as one
On the ships bulkhead
Having some fun.
I think I have a mild cold!
Big deal~ complaining daily, a habit of the old.
But I suffer from much gratitude.and if I dare write
a poem about true reality, it's labeled as bad as having
a strong, negative attitude?
Some here, never read the Bard, not even of his
Romeo and his beloved, Juliet?
Wherein, Shakespeare actually spoke of death.
He did not write in iflowery platitudes!
Some hide in poems, pretty, and run like deer from
anything that touches the soul.
Each night, their empty, soulless, eyes are black and
empty as a piece of coal.
Life is not a laughing carousel, on which we are
condemned to pen with smiles till Hell.
A poet can write whatever, they choose, I say,
and not be condemned to a positive-oriented,
doomed, quilled-padded cell!
Be you, always!
5/17/2021
~1~
Queen Poetess
"Queen Poetess?".thou doth makest me laugh!
I have finally quilled a poem this summer morning, at long last!
To thee, a link, with friendship, shall rapidly fly,
Across the magic, mystical technological sky.
The Queen and her pet, doth with health and happiness shine.
So grateful you are a dear and close friend of mine.
Now get thee to thy gifted quill and waiting pen.
Author your poetry, to bring bounteous joy to both women and men!
With royal love and happiness,
Queen Poetess and ^*^
Notes. This was written in jest, answering an email to a poet friend here.
Hilarious, the poet called me "Queen Poetess,"when I do not in anyway, think
I am that....Pangie 8/13/2020.
I have no big head nor arrogance. I consider myself your equal,inmy own way.
August 13, 2020
11:30pm PST
'Twas long before a Shakespeare play was quilled,
the fifth and sixth of deadly sins would prey
then dance with pride as innocence was spilled
upon the pyre where dastard evil plays.
The wicked toil around their witch's brew
of lies perceived as truths among their ilk
to spill the sloppy swill like gluttoned shrews
and cool its burning sting with sour milk.
The lust for power's fruit within their grasp
as greed consumed already slothen minds
too faint for God to hear when last they gasp,
too late to save a soul so ill entwined.
Though history repeats these truthful stings
it seems to barely slow the march of kings.
(This is an English Sonnet)
Listed under Rhyme for submittal to Nina's contest
Oct 13, 2019
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