I hit the spot.
I marked it with a dot.
It's my spot—
An 'X' ringed.
A bullseye claimed,
filled with jet black ink—
Not a blot with rough edges that seep out,
but one with a sharp outer perimeter.
It's a point pretending it has a yard of space around it,
on its own plot of land, casting no shadows.
I shift a bit; neighbors start crowding in.
"Stop Right There!"
"It's my spot you're on!"
I feel the canvas moving under my spot,
or is it all the jostling moving me — page, plot and all?
Now I'm bouncing in a crowded jumping castle.
Dots blurring into one another.
Stippled footprints mark where spots once stood;
touching down elsewhere — here, there, otherwise.
I've lost the plot; I've lost my spot.
Just another orphaned dot,
set adrift, looking for a margin to belong in.
on a slate, forever being wiped clean.
I clamp down and dig in my heels.
Crampons bite into the ice floe.
Punctuation halts the slide,
puts its foot down—
my comma sheds its tail, and holds.
My heart bloomed from footsteps of the lonely
where their blossoms scent drifts slowly aloft
when sweet perfume was theirs and theirs only
in my secret garden of love so soft
where a wishing well was ringed with flowers
and love filled hunger deep with perfection
when our time was not days nor years but hours
as my heart bloomed with fragrant affection
this secret garden of promised lovers
has kept the shadows secret from these days
when flowers bloomed in decadent colors
and love became a winding flowered maze
Where only the lonely could leave a trace
And my garden became a restful place
crystal cluster scintillate on etheric arm silvery
throned in centre I sit pert alert
observing galaxies glitter gloriously at golden gate
silent stars circling dance luminosities, flawlessly
ordained with eternal breath echoing eerie
I shake ringed jewels from cobalt space ~
A tapestry of fire, woven through the night,
Each thread a world, a beacon burning bright.
Mercury, swift and nimble, dances close to the sun,
A silvered droplet, forever on the run.
Venus, veiled in mystery, a pearl of jade,
Her surface scorching, secrets yet to be laid.
Earth, our blue marble, a jewel in the void,
With oceans sapphire, where life has been deployed.
Mars, a rusty warrior, his colors fade to red,
A whisper of water, where once rivers flowed and bled.
Jupiter, a king, with swirling storms unseen,
A giant's gaze, forever on the scene.
Saturn, ringed with ice, a crown of diamond light,
His moons a dance, in endless, starlit flight.
Uranus, tipped on his side, a frozen turquoise sphere,
A tilted world, where whispers of ice pierce the ear.
Neptune, a cerulean dream, distant and serene,
His winds a fury, a tempest unseen.
And Pluto, banished king, a dwarf in the deep,
Where darkness reigns, and secrets forever sleep.
Each world a story, a canvas painted bold,
From fiery sun to frozen cold.
A symphony of planets, in the cosmic grand design,
A universe of wonder, where knowledge intertwines.
*
Star
weary
sorrow tears
Zillions flicker
dimming lightened gifts
bloodblack diamonds spinning
Flames flash skies into near night
Cosmic scales—fallen world's despairs
Dark-Star reaps ringed scarlet horizons
shooting star dissipating downward
Jaded stones form constellations
best poet’s mouth is silenced
Ashy smoke rising scents
Black gold dominance
Savoir-faire sage
from its dust
evokes
Zen
_/\_
Midnight Lullaby
by Michael R. Burch
I.
A measureless rhythm rules the night—
few have heard it,
but I have shared it,
and its secret is mine.
To put it into words
is as to extract the sweetness from honey
and must be done as gently
as a butterfly cleans its wings.
But when it is captured, it is gone again;
its usefulness is only
that it lulls to sleep.
II.
So sleep, my love, to the cadence of night,
to the moans of the moonlit hills'
bass chorus of frogs, while the deep valleys fill
with the nightjar’s shrill, cryptic trills.
But I will not sleep this night, nor any …
how can I—when my dreams
are always of your perfect face
ringed by soft whorls of fretted lace,
framed by your tear-drenched pillowcase?
"Midnight Lullaby" has been set to music by the award-winning New Zealand composer David Hamilton.
Bashed by Basho
by Michael R. Burch
He came to me like an early birdie
and said, “My, my, you are REALLY wordy!”
Keywords/Tags: lullaby, lullabies, music, musical, song, child, children, childhood, baby, babies, midnight, night, rhythm, sleep
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?
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