Written: August, 22, 2026, for this Week's Poetry Challenge: No Letter E
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Autumn walks, a vagabond in gold,
gamboling in gossip,
rinsing last growth
from trunks with song hush.
A crown of ivy and wilt,
a bold tomboy with worn charm,
rushing through cloudlands
as Icarian murmur—
gauzy, mournful, godly.
Calyx cracks,
stalks twist
fronds scour air with art,
all a glyph of adios.
Sky foam grows thick—
gassy, gaudy,
a cosmic curse of color and closure.
Birds hiss through mist
as urging ghosts.
Not an idyll of gods,
a labyrinth of motion,
a slow waltz,
as foolish visions fall into dusk.
Still, in loss of sun's glow, joy stays—
a holy cornucopia of final acts.
A tonic of rot,
a song of parting.
Autumn bows to nobody
a smash of vanity, a pliant mouth of hours,
gamboling past grand norms with talky charm.
At Autumn's call, folks prowl past,
pluck catharsis from vast hush,
sip sap of shift from that odd cup.
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Man reacts to rain in a variety of ways often finding a fault with it. When the season's rain is late in coming, he is no longer choosy and wants it just to rain in what so way. Yet, when it rains enough, he tends to become somewhat hard to please and fussy. However, this ghazal, set in an Anapaest meter, has its own idea what it can be truly called rain.
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What wets all my within I call rain,
What makes her envy green I call rain.
I’ve seen rains cleanse and scour all around,
What makes her a teen queen I call rain.
Rain may make the rivers overflow,
What lets me her heart win I call rain.
Rain may make her all wet from without,
What can make her heart keen, I call rain.
Rain can turn deserts to oasis,
If love seeds sprout therein, I call rain.
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Happenings | 05.07.2026 | green, heart, love, rain, Ghazal
I dodge the mirror like it’s coming to get me
I lay around like something will change
I curse my frame and do not eat
then I mess it all up again
I spark one up as a way of releasing
then wonder why I feel the same
I’ve never been the jester type, I lose most every game
and how I tower, splutter and scour
putting in my two pence when the bill has been paid
Yet when I yearn for a different shape, different pastime, different state, every drop of me dries up
every lump, with it every bump, is part of my mosaic
every thorn has its rose, there’s a darkness behind every pose
Imperfect is my perfect; it’s me everyone knows
Yes, I bare all my emotions
I can be short, I can form oceans
I get things wrong, sometimes more than right
I don’t foresee with perfect sight
But I’ll be there when things feel off, when you’re drowning and it all just stops
I’ll prove myself when you’re not sure
when I fall down I’ll find another door
Imperfect is my perfect and will be for ever more
Do poets hunt?
Trapping words in their nets
Plucking the best
Throwing the rest
With a kiss for later
Do they scour the seas?
With ravenous eyes
Only to drown in meter waves
Do they climb the highest peaks?
Race through buttercup vales
Pass a thousand souls
Who pick at their scabs?
That weep blood for rhyme
Until they are scarred
Will time test
Show favour to a vacant mind
When dry words choke
The most eager smith
Until the rain returns
And stanzas flow like rivers
The poet reborn
And everything in the world is right once more
faeries guard the gate to Nirvana Valley
looking like models from Fashion Row Alley
their magic discourages evil hearts from wanting to stay
Feelings of repulsion compels them to run away
the faeries do not have to do anything except be.
Their goodness and kind souls scour people you see
how do you get them to leave? To vanish? To go?
the wee ones and children do not ask; they know.
3.6.5, the number of days gone by.
And despite my issues, here I remain.
Am I hardy?? Or have the Fate`s decreed.
That here. On this sad, spinning, wreck of rock.
I wait my turn, in long line of decay.
As my good days, intersperse with the bad.
Until in due course, my number is called.
And, only too well I know, the reaper.
With his hollowed frame, this indifferent.
Creeper, stands daunting, and ever alert.
Ready to process his latest recruits.
Drafting them into his deathly legions.
Who shall scour the earth in growing number.
`Till all are enveloped, and man's race run.
Walls protect you as you move,
I’ve built them too high to scour.
Leading with survival instinct
demands the thickest of skin.
Flattened ears always on guard
lowering my gaze won’t happen.
Open range feels like freedom
without risking vulnerable parts.
Envious of those built to shield
rare are those called sheepdogs.
Wild doesn’t mean being obvious,
a quiet strategy is what it takes.
Labeled by image not by action
lacerates straight through reality.
Feral flourishes inside of silence
leaving chaos to bloom and grow.
On the run when I’m standing still,
what else did you expect from me?
Energy must eventually be expelled,
rather than remain inside to fester.
I'm playing a role,
Just part of a whole,
I roll with the flow,
Improvising as I go,
The star of my own show,
Growing an audience,
A claire audient experience,
Chance being the big event,
Getting bent and sent into chaos,
Entertaining an invisible mass,
A real class act in fact,
Tactfully assembled,
Resembling a fool as a tool,
In the school of life learning,
Earning my degree in duality,
An individual making decrees,
With a relationship to the trees,
The breeze flows through my lungs,
My tongue holds the power to devour,
I scour the land for a dollar,
Feeling the collar around my neck,
Checking for the chain again,
Maintaining the best I can,
Remaining true to the plan,
Commanding with intention,
My attention spanning all,
Falling right into place,
Ending the chase for money,
My Honey by my side,
Riding into the sunset,
Deciding the future we get.
Where blue skies appear, and planes in flight soar;
Remember my smile.
Where oceans rush in, and waves scour the shore;
Remember my laugh.
When sun rise comes and pastel colours dance;
Remember our joy.
When starry nights whisper in moonlight's trance;
Remember our hope.
Where green hills roll and mountains fill with snow;
Remember our hike.
Where boats harbour up, mmm, seagull or crow?
Remember your jokes.
When festive folk sound with carols and cheer;
Remember our first
When valentine's brings young love ever near;
Remember our kiss.
Where old church bells toll, and anthems delight;
Remember the faith.
Where the fridge lies empty, hope out of sight;
Remember the truth.
Oh darling, remember those days?
Oh darling, don't be upset.
Have faith in my healing,
I've not given up yet.
Poem a day
03.06.2026
(Written in advance for my beloved one).
A blush of robins,
scour the front lawn.
Says that spring is here,
and winter is gone.
Hey, Sally
I watch our daughters Rebecca
and Rachel browse so like you did.
They scour the stacks in a Rich-
mond book store, trailing big reads
for when they return to their com-
portable places. Home again,
feet up, tea cups steeping.
I came home from afternoon
office hours and found you stretched
out on the couch we bought in
the second-best store in Snowtown
and brought to Washpa. Your tea cup
was by your side and a cat curled
at your feet sleeping.
A significant novel, In-
dian or another latter-day
Dickens was tented half-way through
on your breast. I am filled with joy—
by daughters who continue
to scout out
great big books to accompany
tea cups steeping, cats sleeping,
on lazy afternoons.
O zenith, at the apex.
What lives within thy zone?
Zodiac, thy spell is hex!
Zero at the Bone!
Narrow fellow? Let's be mellow.
Mine and thine machine.
No use saying sweet hello?
Yellow, mix with green.
O anaconda empire!
In swampland, what to dread?
Circumstances! Guns for hire!
Butter without bread!
Flame immortal, writhe within!
Blanch my dreams, O Sin!
Deadly venom, scour my skin!
Vicious fight to win!
Lord of greatest house, titmouse?
Ran right up her blouse?
O for those who gasoline douse!
Sycophant and souse!
Young sir, who ought we deter?
Real world, fade to blur.
Mongrel, pedigrees. O cur:
Life goes in a whir.
Hummingbird, wings. O hornet, stings.
Sorcerer, thy rings.
Never mind nefarious things?
Nature's ding-a-lings.
Proofs for equations, elk? Eel?
Antelope, hope. Seal:
What to buy and what to steal?
Gods of death, thy deal...
Pigeons scour from high
Ailanthus strives with concrete
to blend greenery with stone
Streetlights announce dusk
as critters stalk ripe dumpsters
under a moonless night cloak
If Trump were to croak, say, by slipping on a slice of papaya,
how long before his ilk would see it as a heavenly sign and run it by a
biblical scholar who would then be given the imperative
to scour the Bible to come up with a plausible narrative
to prove that Trump's death was another example of a suffering messiah?
roots wrenched from the soil
tendrils ripped from trellis frames
I scour myself raw
clutching a fragile harvest
in my bare, cold, trembling hands
A knife slashes through
the bruises and bitter scars
etched deep in my skin
leaving only what still glows
and can sustain my hunger
steam clouds coil and writhe
from the pot of shattered parts
softened by the heat
rendered down, made pliable
enough to begin again
I devour this dish
a meal for my well-being
inflamed with spices
for renewal, bite by bite
to face tomorrow's trials
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