Written: July 17, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: X F Lacasse
******************
From the anvil of solar eclipse flame ~
Sunsmith struck with a mallet lit by light
Blows hump the sky ablaze by molten might—
a yellow nepenthe for summer's shame!
Sapphire sea warbles hymns amid her name
cy(press) woods rostrum by a hedge of white—
shades turned long as time that denied the night ~
Below straw frame—time seems to be the same.
She wafts the fruit till flesh begins to burst!
unbuttoning the orchards one by one —
her breath is spice, her (kiss) an early thirst ~
a blaze baptized in laughter, sweat, and sun
Yet 'neath her crown, a melancholy hides—
a knowing nod to how the sear subsides?
Categories:
rostrum, analogy, summer,
Form: Sonnet
wonders of the night
the queen stands on the rostrum
haloed with glory
June 13, 2023.
Categories:
rostrum, moon, nature,
Form: Haiku
Amulet graced by gems
clad for stratum prow
tawny glyphs
margin of witticism
& quagmire
extravagant dictum
trivialize shores trails
summer ousted
& waves of wrangles
sundered the ocean
& swapped my spirit
in crimson burst
swirl to scatter
In demolishing ruins
& twilight crumble
slump of man
glittering Phoenix fire trail
scribble a cyan-xantos rhyme.
bore a shallow rostrum
defective soothsayer
haunts dreams?
hilltops & both
oceans & skies
cyclone of emotions
&
lethargic sadness
soul storm mulling.
5TH Place Contest winner
Written: July 19, 2022
A BRIAN STRAND PREMIERE CHOICE Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
Categories:
rostrum, analogy, dedication, humanity, inspirational,
Form: Free verse
With the sunlight glinting on your cheeks and your satiny hair blowing in the breeze
The way you move, work things out, and the joy in your radiant smile makes me seize
With every step, with every move with every glance, you make me believe
There is a lot within you that needs air to breathe, but inside it you merely keep
Just let it all release because it’s time for it to be free, to be free
The intellect present in those very exquisite eyes I can’t deny
You have much potential that I can’t possibly lie
You have to spread out your wings with your aim towards the sky
Oh, dear, you can fly, high and high
Those hardworking hands that seem never to rest
That innovative brain with numerous ideas on the nest
Keep things flowing and surely you would be the one on the rostrum desk
Just believe in yourself and believe you would be there
You would shine and glare
Just take the first step and set yourself on a new stream
Life will hug you with the things that once seemed impossible
Categories:
rostrum, adventure, appreciation, beautiful, cheer
Form: Free verse
Heavy with thoughts that abort sleep
My mind goes on a pilgrimage to the sky
The view from above makes heaven cry
The earth is plagued with despotic souls
And altars of different creeds are soaked
With the blood of innocent worshippers
Spilled in mortal conflict in defence of God
Their ancestors did not serve and who
They have no knowledge of
But claim monopoly over
So, they seek to invoke lightening and
Draw rain of misfortune upon all
Who will not beseech Divinity as they do
Or believe their half-borrowed beliefs
That deify robed beings on the rostrum
And abhor supplication made in solitude
And broadcast water offered the thirsty
Or rags put on the backs of the destitute
In concealing their sumptuous abstinence
Their faces resemble those of mourners
They profess compassion but will drive
Seared iron through penitent reprobates
Declaring them undeserving of mercy
Intoxicated in pious conceit
They seek to cause pain because
They possess the power to hurt
I too have read from the books they wield
The letters do not preach hate for neighbour
Categories:
rostrum, devotion, religion, religious, wisdom,
Form: Free verse
A book that I plucked
from an antiquity of books
filled my nostrils
with a smell that I will always know
and always love.
This love cannot be explained,
but neither could any indifference.
At the back of the hall,
distant from and opposite to
the comical speaker's rostrum,
behind rows of chairs filled
with the attentive and the obliged
and the hands raised in angst
to express righteousness
and cleverness
(look at me ! hear me !),
I, too, would be righteous
and clever some day
(wasn't that clever ?),
but those dusty old books !
And who could forget God's hand ?
It thrust earthword,
its sword gleamed
a split second before cleaving
a wicked man in two,
skull to groin,
a dusty old book
among dusty old books,
explored with petrified daring
by fingers so tiny they're forgotten.
A platoon of books competing,
all to be explored in turn,
some more readily than others,
all old, all dusty, all so rich in scent,
none to be forgotten,
never to be forgotten.
5th July 2020
Categories:
rostrum, memory,
Form: Free verse
Once Sariputra has paid a visit to the UN meeting.
- Social justice remains an elusive dream for poor people around the world, - the first speaker said.
- Besides economic efficiency, side effects, funding mechanisms and political feasibility that can be taken into account, - the second one underlined.
- To us, social justice is about the emancipation of men and women, - the third specified.
- Social justice for all Indonesian people is symbolized by the gold and white paddy and cotton plant, - the fourth speaker described it in a pretty metaphorical way.
- It is time to call world by its true name: social justice, - the fifth stated.
When the sixth one, a serious, bearded man, headed to the rostrum, Sariputra got bored with looking at them.
«There is neither dream, nor poor and reach, nor economics, nor side effects, nor efficiency and feasibility, nor emancipation, nor men and women, nor Indonesia, nor gold and white paddy, nor cotton, nor world, nor social justice», - Sariputra thought and, taking a yawn, went to the Maltsevsky market where, they say, a blind man was given a knitted shawl.
Categories:
rostrum, humor, philosophy,
Form: Narrative
Dotard Trumpery used to disgust the "ery" excrescence ending his surname,
for apocope he approached Megan Trump and poached her maiden name,
to which Joshua Trump, her son naming after her, dare no longer lay claim,
because from then on he was reduced to campus bullies' fair game.
Pretending to be placatory, Dotard Trumpery had to invite
Joshua Trump to the Slayer-Of-The-Union site.
Trumpery, standing on his rock-and-roll rostrum, spieled song and dance,
Trump, seated off his opposite nostrum, cast ahead no glance;
Trumpery, haranguing high, may presume to be contagious,
Trump, lolling low, just continued to be contumacious;
Trumpery, in skittish stance, legs to prance,
Trump, in stolid trance, his head askance;
Trumpery, right hot, opened his mouth to smear shutters with sputter soars,
Trump, left cold, shut his eyes lest they be crisscrossed by sordid sores.
Impersonating Trump, Trumpery violated Trump's right of name;
Impugned due to Trumpery,Trumpp suffered long dark campus time.
trumpery blatherskite.
Categories:
rostrum, abuse, slam,
Form: Prose Poetry
from the dust and din of the ancient Roman world,
calling to people of good faith everywhere,
to make imperialist, unjust war no more.
...
But only the West's warmongers
and profiteers hold the rostrum today...
Those same "shoddy thieves and assassins", indeed.
Instigators, and the mistaken, pretending their very best to
not be making wars of mere choice, pretending to not be
making wars for mere barbaric, unholy profit, in a
total absence of any direct, existential need for,
and consequent right to make, war.
Categories:
rostrum, philosophy, religion, symbolism,
Form: Prose Poetry
Title: Unsettled Gain
A letter from moon came with hopeful
Scattering calm and peace for earth’s human beings
Opening window I found smile in face of the moon
Demanding surety of peace not only keeping words
Rays of the sun whipped encircling rostrum
Stop such non physical matter address, next
Bombs and bullets are today’s religion
Why you aren't understanding phases of human beings!
People say, hear, religion emerged from cowardice
Stop to allure me O sun, as you are your burn
You, cannot bring mild gentle numbness
Which requires through dialogue, peace, born
No, brother religion is gain of knowledge
To bring in rest for unsolicited mind and kind
To bring harness of unity and justification
I know more than you because bright reigns religion
A culture of natural brother hood accepting other dues
A pure science of trust and perfection at least to meet God in heart
Which enables to proclaim realisation of heaven or destination
Farther beyond human beings’ knowledge.
Categories:
rostrum, religion,
Form: Blank verse
Nature held a Beauty Pageant
Guess who was crowned a crest?
A flowery green meadow was the stage and rostrum
Watch who won the contest.
Well, the peacock from India was crowned beauty King
The bird of paradise from New Guinea became Beauty queen.
And last but not least was the Indian tiger, runner up
But care he for beauty that he might as well sup?
And what care any of them
for accolades, crown or cup?
Other contestants were the gorgeous leopards
and the flimsy beauteous butterflies
They'll be crowned
next time around.
For beauty tis rich in supplies.
But nature-lovers alone applauded the flamboyant winners
who gaily stood upon the flora
They did come out with 'flying colors'
Around them nature's beauty an aura.
Miss world bird of paradise yet unaware of her placing
The peacock endowed by God a crown
They might never know of this showcasing
At our staring, gawping, they might just frown!
Then there are those unsung unawarded yet perfect beauties
both among mortals and animals
who join no display contests nor pageants
yet are undeniably glamorous nonetheless
for beauty ain't exclusive
to önly beauty contestants.
Categories:
rostrum, animal, appreciation, beauty, creation,
Form: Tazkira
The invisible
throws a visible image
without a tether.
Do you see the god ?
Was a matter of faith ?
You tie a thread on the wall. Longing
finally reaches climax. Gravity
defies a flying dream.
You had erred, yet
failed to accept the guilt.
A scariest moment was,
when you entered the morph.
It was a U-turn. Robots
will dictate the polity. You
alight on a rostrum; like
a lovely pink swallow.
Satish Verma
Categories:
rostrum, art,
Form: ABC
It's back...
unsought...
that cold, wet lump
within the mind,
that Frost had known so well.
It bids me close my eyes
look at my hands--
then open them, repelled;
they do not sculpt as his,
nor dare to hold the clay.
His day enlightened yet
by suns still burning down
upon the coverlet of sod
that will not seal the eloquence
of his poetic grace.
It is I
who ill affords the privilege
of suffering--the light
beneath my stone,
the brightness of a legend
in my youth, the triumph
of the one who found in loss
poetic deity, who flashed
the image of his mind to me
behind the rostrum
on that day with JFK.
It is the gnarled earth he leaves
upon our pedestal,
to grope and turn,
and turn away, remembering
the wall, the woods, the whiteness
of the birches—
the man who loved the clay,
installed it in our consciousness
as one who used remembering
to guide his hands, his pen, and mine;
then I may close my eyes
and see.
~
Categories:
rostrum, tribute, day,
Form: Free verse
You were trampeling on a wasp,
when sprouts
were generating Escherichia.
Dirt. Romping around. How many
corpses were there ? Why can’t you
tell the exact figure ?
Under the carpet the shoes will
help. The need to jump from
the rostrum ? Was it not a banal show ?
The giggling girls threw a
cordon around the sheep. The
trembling flesh. Somebody walked
away with the chopped head.
Weeping. No the severed head
was laughing.
It was an open book.
How to make the beds on street,
and then lie naked.
Satish Verma
Categories:
rostrum, art,
Form: ABC
HOW I MANAGED not TO BE A DOC
You know something,
Me a thing, I think not worth than a farthing
was put in a college of Medicine.
Paternal honour intact was to be kept.
Heavy in heart and blurred in vision
When thought of those bespectacled sermons
On blood and urea, capillary and neuron.
I tugged at my mom, a deaf ear she gave.
Like a prep child, I crossed the day
For the doom to impend on my lovely day
On the calendar on the wall with landscapes gay.
Oh! All because my father loved me so.
On that day I stood on a rostrum
Feverish, next to a corpse bloated and grey
I was to say my name and greet the group.
But all I could choke out was a meek gibber.
I fell down with a thud,next to the corpse,
funny,all came running to the body lifeless,
for he was the specimen for one whole year.
The thing I knew next,
On my bed cozy I was
And I think I heard my father say,
Smiling,
‘Oh,It is all right my dear’!
Categories:
rostrum, education, funny, father, father,
Form: Light Verse
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