parched was the highway of hope
starved, the pathway of promise
drained was the river of riches
stained, the empire’s new robe
reeking of sweat, enervated muscles
peeking at failure, ghostwriter’s orbs
plagued with penury, artistic lament
beacon of timelessness, the wind rustles
As the clock ticks and the bells ring
We're caught in the middle of a storm uncertain what tomorrow might bring.
The mundane feels heavy, the routine feels off;
Like a wave so strong you can't shake it off.
The packed halls reeking of a new stress,
Leaving us all stranded looking for a way out of the mess.
The future stands there dim and colored gray,
Appearing so far yet just a few rings away.
The splendor of his mad mischief
fell asunder in Minab,
tarnishing his campaign beyond repair.
All malice is unleashed with a touch of morbidity.
His bombing campaign is sudden, fierce, swallows whole neighborhoods in seconds,
yet far below a just war, and a travesty of truth.
Nothing but unjust war reeking through the emperor's clothes.
Solution is just peace.
Alejandro kicked the door open.
His step-daughter was huddled on her bed,
weeping and trembling with fear.
There was no pity in him,
his heart cold as an iceberg,
his whole being reeking of alcohol.
Gabrielle dreaded her ordeal
but could not utter one sound.
"One shout from you and I'll kill you."
She knew he meant it as she stared
into his red rimmed hard eyes.
Downstairs his wife sat placidly
in front of the television,
watching the latest episode
of Desperate Housewives.
Dare to dream Ashes nightmares it seems reawoken
Token words spoken after scares & flares teams broken
Dafter peacocking then rocking no blocking just shocking
Mocking laughter of the ghost of Christmas future knocking
Host boast from coast to coast toast as England roast
Boiling..recoiling..toiling & broiling this is our last post
Our iridescent flaming proper copper haired laird
Incandescent flairs no taming his despairs we all shared
Luminescent cares blaming Bazball heirs ill prepared scared
Stoic brawler our defiant mauler on a leaking reeking trawler
Too reliant on our brilliant defiant resilient glowering giant
Big Ben set up camp crippled by his men again & ripples of cramp
Overpowering pain courses through every vein towering skipper & champ
Heart on his sleeve…makes us believe in a reprieve heroic Firestarter
Immensity of intensity.. O Captain my Captain..our smarter martyr
I do not scream when it starts.
Just walk barefoot into the forest,
where birch trees bend down to me like elder women,
and the moss knows all of their names.
All of them from my season’s past,
haunting me, scolding me, reminding me of their sacrifices.
Breaking open my flesh, cracking the cavity of my chest,
where all of my rotten fairy tales drip out in despair.
My grief has learned to follow close behind
before it ever learned how to run away.
It lingers behind like steam from a broken kettle,
silent but always seeping through the cracks of my wreckage.
I used to call him father.
Now, he’s just a ghost.
One that carries the reeking of December’s air into my home,
the sound of creaking branches under his lumbering weight.
What holds the echoes of his every scream,
his touch that bruises every soft fruit it touches.
The ghost doesn’t speak.
He caresses my shoulders when I forget him,
pinches my skin when I smile too hard,
leaves my breath in frost every night.
Only yesterday
our world was whole, unbroken
now only echoes
mock laughter in hollow rooms
reeking of spent candle smoke
Memories don't die
they bloom in night's quietude
spiraling from dust
as petals sorrow-scented
you cannot see, smell or touch
The sweetest daydreams
stitch joy into rags of loss
undone, rewoven
they yearn for a tomorrow
built from shadows of the past
Yesterday haunts us
ghost-like in a gentle mask
it cannot discard
for time cannot be unwound
until we grieve its outcome
Nostalgia writes lines
for bitter songs cued to play
songs of deja vu
whether we like it or not
summoned from our broken past
Seems like yesterday,
the lantern was fluttering
echoes lingering
as dusk folded over us
to reset the clock's cold hands
In ghostly white of midnight as
sky- shadows trace gossamer streaks ,
I become a recluse,
losing tracks of stars' grave hues
and the flavor of meadows
in snow grows bitter...the bronze gate
reeking of metal cold, again --frozen
like my rusty, numb thoughts.
Must I remember
how they were slain? The wails come
to haunt those Godforsaken eves
when the lane flooded groaning voices,
ramming our old grills from darn
collision of cars--- in a flash.
And now, dim clouds reflect frozen
bodies of kin like grief stricken portraits ,
pale as folded , bloodied sheets...
and I turn away from this mashed
scene on a vintage gate, grating
flesh in drills of shock
...my recluse core, seething
' Leave me alone...'
Friendly digits
I ache for robots
I know my longing
For a poet who is longing
For a poet who doesnt know the highest intellectual esteem
To study the artist
Is supreme
The emotional side
About which they dont care
For me is poignant
So why did they stop to stare
Study that human
Crazy as we are
And go out to eat
How bizzarre
I sit and stare beyond what's there, besides
"The oval window, a portal to another dimension".
It drags the moon's eclipse off the sun's circle
to show an ellipse with twin foci, in two dimensions not one.
The tension woven into its shape shrouds a duality,
a flip-flop state, steeped in,
and reeking with ambivalence.
An oval coracle holding on,
rocking in choppy seas.
Therein lies a worm hole,
where logic warps to both sides, here and now, together,
where light bends, twists refracts to an oval rainbow,
where time stands still, then back-tracks
to before, to way, way back when,
and on to now and then.
An oval belies uncertainty,
spiraling like sand,
down in an hour-glass
down the plug-hole, down into the sink below,
collected in an oval coracle,
an egg yet to hatch.
Mother, father are weeping
Because the heavens didn’t send their heart a soul
The wind, their house is breaking
And the morning is very cold
Outside they find
With the earth in the sky
That their sound is not here
Nor is it nearby
There's a train screaming angels to lower their heads
And a cold concrete block reeking of death
When no one was there
When no one was sent
A crowd turned desire
Now all has been spent
There's a stone in the morning summer air
And a clock that is ticking everywhere
A heart that is beating alone and cold
And a sound of weeping taking hold
Mother, father are weeping
Because the heavens didn’t send their heart a soul
The wind, their house is breaking
And the morning is very cold
And outside lay bones of those before
The soil is crying with them all
And the sky opens up for one last look
But looks away for it mistook
That the two were still alive.
Febrile Fog obfuscates palimpsest varnished promises..
Naysayers hoodwinked... deluded players peeling layers..denuded..
Deafening din of our chagrin...
Espoused by rabbles roused by mandarins’ sins..
Tarnished...pampered pilferers pickpocketing public purses...
Deploring the warring cacophony of citizens curses..
Ignoring the boring nagging nadir of nurses...
Corporate castles built without stilts on hourglass sands..
Placards versus lanyards..
Culprits preach parsimony from privileged pulpits..
Civic critics.. protests...pyrrhric..?
No tut tuts..relax…gluts of tax cuts for property sluts..
Licentious larcenists..lust for boom then bust..
Lavishly lacing our lives with lies..
Yet the more we holler...hanker..
Murky truths get darker...muckier.. starker..danker..
Avaricious arsonists torching our cries of why...
Leave us lolloping in a regret & forget.. leaking latrine...
Reeking of what could & should have been..
A Poem by Any Other Name…Should Smell Like a Poem
I ran out of time
to post my lines.
So, as I compose
I hold my nose.
Acrid alliteratives,
malodorous odes,
musty metaphors,
putrid pantoums,
reeking rhymes,
stinky stanzas,
smelly sagas,
obfuscate our olfactory organs.
So, as you read this poem
pour a stiff bourbon
and do your postmortem!
Near the edge of democracy’s garden
sprouted the Tree of Misinformation,
quickly growing into the largest tree
with leafy branches broad and long and tall.
Though toxic was its eye-catching fruit,
many ate the deceptive apples
that clouded their minds
and blinded their eyes.
They could not even perceive
the clear, self-evident truth
that a deceitful serpent
had slyly seduced them.
Fanatically following the swindler,
angrily amplifying audacious lies,
they spread wide more tainted seeds
throughout the lush fertile garden.
Will the garden wither into wastelands
littered in reeking, rotting fruit and minds,
while the people perish
not understanding why?
(This poem was inspired by the not-nearly-so-dark Oct. 8, 2024 Frank & Earnest cartoon by Bob Thaves as well as the equally dark Garden of Eden story in Genesis 2 and darker-still political events. See also my poems “How Would Jesus Vote?” and “The 2023rd Psalm.”
A crimson sky, where embers dance and swirl,
A landscape cracked, a world of endless fire,
Where sulfurous fumes choke, and shadows hurl,
And screams of agony forever conspire.
The air is thick with ash, a choking haze,
A stench of burning flesh, a reeking blight,
Where molten rock, in ceaseless, fiery blaze,
Consumes the damned, in endless, dark, cold night.
No solace found, no respite from the pain,
No comfort in the endless, burning pyre,
Just endless torment, a maddening refrain,
A skin ablaze, a heart consumed by fire.
The tortured souls, their bodies contorted, writhe,
In agony eternal, forever damned,
Their voices rise, in endless, burning scythe,
A symphony of pain, a gruesome, burning band.
No hope remains, no solace in the gloom,
Just endless suffering, a burning, endless tomb.
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