Today in my slower world
I watched a Golden-ringed Dragonfly
dancing in the garden: it rose and
Swooped, nearly touching my hair,
Then off again, teasing in its proximity.
In this new, dawdling world
Where time has become petrified,
I amble, maybe sit for a while,
And stop to watch dragonflies.
Breathing, imbibing my environment.
I feel the sun as it beats onto my face.
My pace is slower, more leisurely somehow.
Gratitude grows strongly, nurtured by
The water of experience, and unhurried
by the passage of time.
Now in the late summer of my life,
The leaves are slowly adopting an autumnal hue.
Edges tinged with amber, yet glorious
In their transformation. Marking the transportation
To fall with the splendor of maturity .
The Golden-ringed dragonfly dances still,
And I celebrate the ability to focus on this moment,
So precious and one of so many previously missed.
He swoops and lands briefly on an autumn leaf
Camouflaged but splendid in his magnificence.
Double yellow lines
I sit inside a massive fog of nothingness
plays on my imaginary piano using one finger
a ditty, sun outside, sun inside, sun only sun
I feel massively and supremely untalented
Now that the amalgamation of writers, poets
dancers, trampoline ladies, and painters that
lived inside of me, has turned into a block
immovable zero
I look at a black dot ringed by a grey cloud
If I stare at this long enough, the cloud might
disappear, only it is not, it turns into a dervish
The amalgamation has fractured, and I sit on
a rowing boat on a green sea, watching gulls
white as angels fly upward into a hole in
a void, at last, there is silence, and I'm at ease
With my vastly incompetent self
They laid their gold
on a tray the color of midnight,
fingers ringed in stones
that caught the candlelight like captive suns.
Outside,
a boy with a patched sleeve
watched frost stitch lace
across the bakery window.
His breath bloomed and vanished,
a ghost repeating itself.
The men inside
spoke of progress —
steel rivers,
glass towers that drink the clouds,
oceans combed for oil.
A gull’s cry cut through the smoke.
It smelled of salt,
of a shore too far to see,
where waves still bow
to no one.
And somewhere between the clink of coins
and the rattle of the boy’s thin cough,
the truth waited —
patient as winter,
sharp as the wind
slipping under the door.
The illusion
In a small park ringed by gloomy trees near where the factories used to be, was the bust of a man on a splint
made of bronze, a mesen, she liked to use words like
that in a desperate world of poverty, tinned sardines
in olive oil and mackerel in tomato sauce
The Mesen who owned the factories had created this
park for his workers, where they could sit and relax on Saturday afternoons.
The whole day on Sundays, otherwise the park shuts
during weekdays; that made sense, one could not have workers there on days of work
A boy climbed the fence and drowned in a dam of algae
The park, among damp factory walls, was eradicated.
The foul-smelling factories disappeared as well; the time
had changed, people could buy cheaper tinned stuff from Portugal
When pockets of oil deep under the North Sea
A country was suddenly rich, and people built modern housing where the factories stood.
No one in a town like ours talks about the good old days.
Amidst the clouds in my head
I stood on the edge of the cliff
I shouted one last time
Yet no one arrived
My heart filled with grief
I was about to take a step back
When a voice ringed in my ears
The sweet voice I was used to hear
She sat in the front row
Her chocolate brown skin reminded me of the earth
She glanced at me once perhaps she was shy
An introvert I thought
Later I found out the similarities we shared
We were bonded my friendship
And the rest lies in history
She was there with me
In times of joy and sadness
Her free self
That I watched from close
When I was nervous or so was she
we held hands tightly
I wish to continue such a friendship
That will always remain a part of me
River makes its final clunk
Between
Hills
Rolling boulders like turtle shells
Empty of their mouths and hearts
River bent
Flailing legs and neck
No longer reflects
The sun and moon
From water’s absence down its back.
Turns her terrible brittle head
From me
Teeth gnashing on the spools of willow
To her memory
When mud was forest
Footsteps
Croaking with frogs and dazzled with dragonflies
Ringed in a halo of cold fog.
We are dying
Together
Not angels nor even demons
But conquering visitors from a desert
Who brought nothing but the leech of desert
With us
Covering the entire Earth with insatiable thirst
And hunger
Kings and Queens for a day
Destroyers
Of those ceremony drums
Of gods and plants animals and language
When we lived as One
Gift
Strummed through the harp of gratitude.
Now, I seek a forgiving signal
From perhaps a divine wave
Coming from the dying Mother
This way
You poor skinless fool
The fire shall burn behind you
The entire Earth and its people
Which is all the things that flutter
Crawl walk and sing
"An empty bowl
With a spoon beside you."
I Tried to Unlearn
……. his name , his face, his memory
but each morning they kept resurfacing;
rubber ringed feelings that would not sink
no matter how hard I pushed down.
So I journeyed to places
that had rooted our relationship:
The park where the broad-shouldered oak
unwrapped delicacies of intimate memories
then leaning in much closer
it shared a consolatory shadow.
The river that coiled past
churned up affectionate thoughts
then rippled onwards to twist back
with a scornful smirk that made fun of me.
The café where he teased
about expressoing our shared ideas
and consolidating coffee compatibility.
Then on the butterfly wings of symmetry
our relationship seemed to fly to new heights
but was I another Icarus on a solo flight?
So the past that I had plucked at
offered no signs of warning, no signals of regret;
sadly the present, the here and now,
yields no guidance on how to….. forget.
Ian Souter
Before the guns and bombs were made
the clubs and fists were swung
names for numbers now we trade
the senseless turned all numb
crumbled blocks broken down
create, destroy, rebuild
a three ringed circus paints a town
the crop gives up its yield
when fields demark a hospital
operations carry hope
what's kept for some is lost for all
descent, a slippery slope
the yoke is held on common ground
the round encasement smoked
logic is stuck on what was found
when starched and staunch men spoke
to quote with quaint eloquence
will mask whose fate was sealed
an absence of benevolence
when truths have been revealed.
The queen has all the power
while foot soldiers goad the king
though he maybe important
the church ahead of hymn
as too crusading bishops
diagonally move to sing
the knights gallant in battle
before a fall within
the castle's rabble- rousers
encircled squares are ringed
battles meant to topple towers
to where the fight was hinged
the territory taken
with patience wearing thin
when black on white is shaken
who turns the tide to win?
It is her body by God, so they say,
But by man and by rite, she belongs to him.
The contract, black and white swirls, binding,
signed in ink that bleeds into chains.
He takes her as he pleases.
The decision is not hers to make.
Face buried, held by the ringed hand,
pressed into the pillow to smother resistance.
His knees split her legs, forcing them wide.
Fingers, wet with spit, force entry,
preparing her body for what she does not want.
Her muffled squeaks, please, no more—
trapped beneath the weight of an uncaring predator.
His release. Her shame.
The spot of blood staining the sheets,
a mark not of love, not of union,
but of violence written into law.
She will abide.
She will cry later.
She will wake, stretch sore limbs,
and pretend she was not taken in the night.
He owns her.
She knows.
And so does the world that does nothing.
The vows were a noose.
The wedding bed, a tomb.
And the law—
the law calls it his right.
And history will remember the cowards.
Covid was a piece of driftwood in our psychic stream
a dress rehearsal for the landslide in our dream.
An appetizer before the seven-course rapture.
It is written in our coffee ringed bibles
these prophecies cannot be undone.
We are caught up in the current of
one global currency and economy
Armies are aligning aside the river Styx.
Around the dome of the rock.
Pieces of the temple are gathering
The antichrist will proclaim he's God
demanding all bow down to his whim.
Some will be sated and seduced
donning the number of the damned
Some will shimmer in unbowed faith
and be saved by the blood of the lamb.
In the mists of the giant bark beneath
rise old growth saplings out of crag and earth,
where tumbles an ancient evergreen leaf
from that marvel of great and splendid girth.
That footing seed, that pod, that budding shoot
to spread its shedding crown in fulsome yield,
when ringed trunk buttressed by conifer root
in furrowed skin wraps its tubular shield.
High on sky perch over forest thickets
the sylvan canopy the clouds do climb -
to fell, to log, to mill into pickets
and trusses tempers not this heart of mine.
It does me good (those sap bathed arms bended)
to see your mighty scaffold extended.
Written: May 1992
Bound by the curse arise from inception,
Tethered was my fate,with this ruthless salvation_
Despair got this hand through the reality' shade;
Despite being apoplectic your glint never fades..
Redirected were your sights, only on this influence
While the rumbling glares got healed through your calm incandescence_
"Hey god", if you can feel the sanity of my heart!
Then confront this query of mine, why keep us apart?
A voice filled with allurance, ringed through them,
Out of his sympathy,his words commenced_
Distanced by your fate,will reunite through love;
On that eccentric night your souls will descend
Let life be witness,when hands annex above.
The thread with you bound by will come to an end..
Along with the compromises,the pact had been made
They both did agree with what the god said,
Point off the window the child interrogates-
Mom, can you tell me why the moonlight fades?
Mother answered,"That's what we call a lunar Eclipse!",
In which those two bodies meet defying the nemesis.
The roaches keep launching attacks
then scurrying back into Satan's dirty crack
covering their backs with the children of Gaza.
Launch then hide- launch then hide
when they lose ground,
they call for a ceasefire.
Understand, there can never be peace
when these hell hounds are unleashed.
Nobody in this three ringed regime
mentions the hostages anymore
nobody remembers October 7
or September 11
let alone the holocaust.
Short term memory problems
for those with long term limits.
Nobody dares to put the bullseye on Iran
who has the real blood on their hands.
Billions of U.S. dollars fund the attacks of these ogres
whose soul do they own....asking for a friend.
Lay waste to the Persian oilfields
parch their treasure chests
maybe then peace can prevail
then the Bedouins of heaven
and the children of Christ can rest.
I think we're heading down
the plutonium throat of Armageddon.
Velvet red roses stand
cheek to cheek
with daisy faces, ringed
in petal fringes,
sweetly scented
by creamy bubbles
of double jonquil popcorn blooms
beside a starburst
yellow chrysanthemum,
and long leaves
squeezed between.
Below, their stem-straws blur
in the ribbed glass jar,
looped with a satin orange bow
for your 97 years
we must farewell soon.
The loved ones are visiting,
bringing flowers, hugs, reminiscences
for you, last of your generation -
two brothers, two sisters.
I don't want to say, 'Goodbye'.
Let's have a few more days,
or weeks, or months,
just for keeping company,
like the flower bunch.
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