Short Drabness Poems

Atomized Rainbow

Sun
creeping
through
foggy
atomized
rainbow
arch

daring
horizon’s
idle drabness

awaken
sweet brush

breathe
pigments
ecstasy
upon
joys
waking
world


6/27/2015

submitted to – Waltzing with color – Poetry contest
sponsor – Kim Merryman...

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Sheila was blowsy, frowsy, frumpish, dowdy.
matching her unkempt messy, sloppy abode.
gone to seed, meanies said in a nasty way.
we kids saw through Sheila’s shabby drabness.
she was entertaining and fun, and she liked children.
best of all, she had a good heart and terrific stories.
meanies could not even dream of this personality for themselves....

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STILL LIFE

They had drained away slowly
sound of hammers,
smell of fresh cut lumber,
voices of hope, chatter of children,
sweet aroma of fresh tilled fertile soil.

Children grown up,
parents grown old,
land grown tired and dry.
All that remains is
the drabness of parched wood
bleeding color on still life fields.


John G. Lawless
4/12/2015...

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When you’re near me, the sky is no longer blue.
You’re the pink lenses I see the world through.

When you leave me, you take away your spell.
The drabness returns, making me want to yell.

Looking out the window, your ghost is all I see.
Strangers are standing where you used to be.

There’s nothing I can do, but to endure my pain.
This poem is not an elegy, and we’ll meet again....

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When you’re near me, 
the sky is no longer blue.
You’re the pink lenses
I see the world through.

When you leave me,
you take away your spell.
The drabness returns, 
making me want to yell.

Looking out the window, 
your ghost is all I see.
Strangers are standing 
where you used to be.

There’s nothing I can do, 
but to endure my pain.
This poem is not an elegy, 
and we’ll meet again....

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In a restaurant 
Elvis hung on a wall
Slightly crooked –
-nostalgic sepia,
Trademark pompadour.

His far away gaze
Staring blankly
Out at nowhere,
Through a window
At the drabness beyond.
 
In the background
“Always on my mind”,
Plays quietly behind the scenes -
- while a midday sun
Trickles colour into Elvis.

I leave after coffee
And take a walk 
Down lonely street,
Where I will search for
Elvis in heartbreak hotel -
- I need to tell him
How much I miss him....

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To a learned philosopher
Or to a logical thinker
The gesture of this lone lady
Wrapping linens around this tree
Might look like a modern madness
Or drabness rooted on slackness...
Only one with a heart love-filled
Could feel her longing unfulfilled
Bearing children; rearing gladly
Owing barrenness, stilled sadly
She, hence, prays to this banyan tree
Age-old sign of fertility
To make her life absolute whole 
And fill with gladness, her sad soul…


31 January 2022...

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Did I tell you of my season -
Easily where I'd rather be
All this snow without a reason
Dead leaves I would prefer to see
Only madness lives in hoar frost
For whiteness saturates the brain
Who would ask how much the door cost
Inside of which you found such pain
Nothing but drabness fills our eyes
Though once of crimson and of gold
Even gloom will fill the sun rise
Rather than laugh we'll dread the cold

9/6/2017
For contest Acrostic for Fall or Winter for Janice Canerdy...

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