Written: August 27, 2026. This Week's Poetry Challenge: The Color Blue
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Blue is the color heaven cannot keep —
it spills and settles into every deep:
the iris, the bruise of morning, the folded hill,
the sap, the vein, the daydream, the last will.
Lapis and ultramarine and indigo —
the solemn alchemy that dyes the soul aglow
cobalt, the jeweled breath that fills the pole
where the bright water pauses, deep and whole.
It is the hue of distances, and hush,
of all that recedes and never lands;
the blue-veined longing in the evening stand,
the sapphire murmur of the mountain's blush.
Blue is the grief the glad sky must impart —
the wound of clarity, the rinsed, the clear:
for blue is the color of the lonely heart
that, being infinite, is always near.
First breath, washed for light,
Last breath, rinsed of all life's dust -
Begrimed in between.
Last Wish
Take me back one last time
to that upper bunk beneath
the roof, in that cabin on the
campground by the river.
Let me lie in the dark and hear
the storm approach, and listen
to the distant thunder, knowing
that the wind and rain will come.
The first few drops fall wide apart
upon the metal roof like acorns
in my memory. Straight into my
trembling, youthful heart.
“ Be still! It’s almost here!”
A rush, and then “Crescendo”!
An avalanche of rain up on the roof,
drowning out everything but joy.
And then, when Heaven’s bucket
has emptied, those last few drops
fade until all that remains falls from
the trees. One now, one then, to silence.
Lying there in the darkness, a freshness
in the air, I know. The rain has rinsed
the cabins, the trees, the earth and
washed the doubt from my heart.
Just to keep up with a new style, while the Sand man sticks to a plan to hence understand the sentence one tense to be rinsed as the Grinch defends his tent in a pinch despite its foul rotten odor of a stench mouthed one voter who was NOT that dense in past present and future tense hence the bench warrant quarantine latrine screaming beanie baby trading card retarded jarred smarties party past time hardly hardy bartering shotgun runtime bubble covered in Nick at night slime time grime crockery stole bike spike Lymes disease treaty spiked seizer sky high geyser lightning bolt jolt soda colt cold shouldered boulder scolded holding smoldering diamond ring rugged bug-eyed smuggler tug of war tare of a care bare share holder folder to be both bad and bolder like gold oil and drugs with extra hugs and butt plugs underneath the rugs for the fuzz buzzing love jugs whatever that was or wasn’t but not my cousin nuzzling the guzzled puzzling Charlie Sheen screaming ice cream machine that feeds a team and the b team both green beans and brings the fiends back to their gene’s roots and boot scooting things... Let us see what else life brings. The Time is NOW! POW!!!
DIRTY RICE
-----------------
Datiraisu
-----------------
El Stingy Pig
-----------------
8 cups of cooked rice
(toasted and browned in olive oil, and in chicken broth cooked al dente)
2 cups of meat from pork neckbone
1 cup of cooked chicken livers( grounded fine)
1 cup of browned grounded beef
stir fry unseasoned until mixed
set aside
1 cup of minced onion
4 Tablespoons of minced garlic
2/3 cups of diced green peppers
1/2 cup of diced celery
5 tablespoons of grated ca
add 3 cups of canned kidney beans (rinsed)rrot
sautee til peppers are softened.
set aside
---------------
in a pan brown 1 cup of pork sauage
remove the meat
measure 5 T of grease
5 T of flour brown a roux,
1 cup of veggie stock
2 tablespoons of chilli powder
1 T paprika
1 T dried Basil
1 T dried Oregano
2 T Cayeene Pepper
and sauage meat.
mix in rice and beans
toss
and serve!
blue hush spreads
over open fields~
cedar breath,
distant cows,
sun breaking through ragged clouds,
sky rinsed clean again.
Stars like jeans
are made to fade
their blues bleed out
in the wash-up,
in the burn-out,
in their legacies of
spin cycle routines.
But the twinkling glitter
in their burnout flares,
falls like rain
from shooting stars
in shimmering showers,
that cling on tight,
like the curse
of forever chemicals.
No one can ever scrub them clean
from party clothes
washed all alone,
by themeselves,
rinsed and spun,
rinsed and spun,
in washing machine
cycle routines.
So these spun-out,
hang out, party clothes,
are stored shrouded in plastic
to stop the glitter's spread
in the wardrobe,
in the armoire's bottom draws,
to dim the legend’s
endearing stain of
faded fame.
Stars like jeans
are made to fade
the blues bleed out
in the wash-up
in the burn-out,
in their legacies of
spin cycle routines.
Early gold elevates the Taj Mahal Restaurant.
Sun-rinsed beams bedeck its frontage.
The low strip mall is not yet awake,
yet it basks; it glows golden
through every light-enthroned window,
bejeweled signage floats
above a light laundered concrete
and new-washed litter.
For a few clear moments
the shop-worn facades glittered
in vivid auric rays
I saw it all through a windshield,
I saw a kind of heaven
take a selfie through a once tacky lens.
When I returned later,
the litter was just litter,
shopping carts dripped above cloudy puddles.
The Taj Mahal was open, and already
sinking into a lunch-time special.
We draw a line across time sand,
I let go of your trembling hand.
You open window on new land,
learn to dry your tear.
Our roads diverge in bleak terrain,
I walk mine rinsed in wistful rain,
each step remembers shared old pain,
and yet here we are.
Your foibles,
the characteristically odd ways
of your individual life appearance,
its mannerisms
your behavioral peculiarities,
and picadilloes,
will all fall away by and by.
What eventually will be left
is this alien species that bears your name.
You have died a thousand times already,
every feature of your character
has been replaced or modified
many times.
Your physicality
rinsed and recycled through
an ever-turning time machine.
Even now, the way you walk, and talk
is at the mercy and behest of a universal tide
and its shifting dunes.
The dead confirm the dead,
what never lived must pass away,
it was all a game of death
that soon will lead to the everlasting,
but not yet,
all is a work in progress,
until then
the Universe of All That Is
experiences itself as
you,
you playing hide and seek
with what you truly are.
Rock salted fields hard-by thwacking sea's
shorelines of wave-shaved boulders
a fluidity that mimics an oceans alien speech.
The fractured artifacts of tribal migrations
roll in the surf as grains of an ancient sand,
there are hints and a sense of raw faiths,
of the obscure paint of submerged visages,
facets only visible
through the eroded lens of a former doom.
On these shifting margins,
insipient nations as naked as any roaming wind
declined amidst their own young bones,
laying down to wither away in exhausted camps.
Rinsed by a ceaseless ebb and flow,
the stonewashed threads of the bygone
suggest landscaped formations
of humanity.
We have seen the rise and fall of the scattered,
their cultures a supposition of burnt offerings,
yet we should also
confess to a towering significance:
one that we estranged settlers
will eventually leave as a jigsaw of watermarks,
or as further innocent signs
of our own barbaric existence.
Newspapers once were fine, I am convinced.
Since Nixon left the stage to newbie Newsom,
each time I went to open one, I winced.
The policies of Hillary? No chance!
They’ll tell you where her hair is cut and rinsed,
the salsa classes where she goes to dance!
What stock investments will I need to go for,
If Trump gives way, one day, to J.D. Vance?
The papers teach me more about his sofa!
My interest inevitably ebbs.
The suavest slingback and the latest loafer
do not enthral me. Even less, celebs!
Some starlet’s Oscar outfit, voted ‘gruesome’?
What do I care? The same for wifi, webs,
or if some actress has enhanced her bosom.
(In Rome, a small plaque on a wall shows
how high the river rose in 1872.)
It says a lot, this little marble line.
The river (Rome’s life-giver), prone to flood,
could raise, erase: the rhythm of Proserpine,
of summer, winter, it’s the beat of blood.
What are we, then, we humans? So much krill,
to flourish and then wither? Nothing more?
Accretions crowding every Quirinal Hill,
but rinsed away like Ephesus, Elsinore?
A tremor pulverised the gems of Giotto.
We labour, learn and languish – then we’re dead.
Achievement? Summed up by the Ponte Rotto.
Try grasping, with your educated head
(encapsulated in this modest motto)
that rivers rise and fall. What’s then been said?
Shadows bruise the heart
unspoken glares slice like glass
trust begins to tear
regret taints shared memories
future burdened by sorrow
Fists unfurl at last
fury melting with the pain
scars rinsed of their ash
the past cannot be undone
yet its chains begin to fall
Mercy a wellspring
cool water for parched spirits
grace flows without price
shame dissolves in calmness pools
a hand lifts the heart again
Yet some sip like thieves
their mouths stained with hollow vows
err and forgive vain
cheapening grace with excess
pardons traded for tokens
Grace is a blacksmith,
burning what clings and corrodes,
tempering the will
its forgiveness shapes reforms
the heart forged to rise anew
Frayed threads rewoven
with fabric scarred yet shining
stronger for the mend
green shoots rise within the cracks
the bond tempered with resolve
I butter the toast as if it were a pardon,
its crust breaking under my knife
like a sealed envelope.
The coffee is bitter ink,
a confession cooling in its cup.
I swallow it fast,
as if speed could trick the executioner.
When I buy myself flowers
I imagine them lining a witness box:
petals trembling,
each one swearing I once existed.
I take long baths,
the water climbing like hours,
the body softening, rehearsing its exit.
Every errand feels ceremonial:
the grocer weighing apples,
the cashier stamping receipts—
as if recording my presence
before the page turns blank.
I buy the trinket, the sugared cake,
because why shouldn’t the condemned
glitter a little,
lick the spoon clean?
The hours leer,
their faces blindfolded.
Any minute the rope could tighten—
a phone could ring with pardon.
So I go on feeding myself,
scraping honey from the jar,
gilding my throat
for the last song or the first acquittal,
as though I might vanish mid-bite,
or else be called back,
my name suddenly rinsed clean
from the record.
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