Short Dust Covered Poems

my son's first picture --
a dust-covered rocker 
by the window...

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Sink full of dishes 
dust covered coffee table 
nights of loneliness...

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artwork on sidewalks
colored chalk broken in pieces
chalk dust covered hands...

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atop dust-covered clapboard
hanging sheets washed virgin white
wind-borne absolution encircled
she sang life's aria

distant sailor smiled


Written: 26 December 2020...

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No point in a phone when you're no longer known
And the sound of alone... is a dialling tone



6 October 2021 Extracted from ‘Cast Aside’
For Contest: Your Best Rhyming Couplet 3
Sponsor: L Milton Hankins...

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carnival -- indoors
instead of outdoors -- has a 
stifling air to it

silk wearing psychic --
mouth with an overbite -- tells
the future glibly

basketball game -- hoops
too small for tossing -- gives a
large dust-covered prize...

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Sadly
He watched the old barn
Wither, fade, weep
Forgotten by time.
Neglect
A dereliction of youth
Seeking the future
Forgetting the past.
The old harnesses cracked
Tools bent by gravity’s inertia
Dust covered dreams
Wilting in silence
As an old man
Watches...

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Dust covered webs clinging to longevity
oily dirt floors aching to feel the sun
hanging pull string lights swing
eerie shadows a-dance on coal blackened wood
creaking boards arthritic lament
stone walls weeping in the dark
 

©10/10/2019

Goosebumps Poetry Contest...

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I shift my mind
through the wild trajectories
of life
I often feel I have turned the corner
refusing to the titterings of despair
I cannot hold back the spring
the snowman is no more
I must welcome summer
and hear the voices chattering
of travellers tales
from their dust bone journeys...

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Maybe – I wonder – just maybe – could there ever be

A way to ever find in space those famous candy bars?

Rocky, cold, red-dust covered is the planet with 1/3 our gravity.

Someday perhaps we’ll bring those chocolate bars with us to Mars!



For Line Gauthier's Bite Size Poem No14 Poetry Contest...

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Empty chair,
                                                in a silent room,
                                                  dust covered,
                                                   abandoned.
                                     Ghosts of times past remember,
                                              days of yesteryear.

7/20/12...

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dust.
tiny snow drifts.
come.
fall across these memories.
banish them from my sight.
change their vivid technicolor,
to solemn grey daguerrotype.
let me FORGET.
i can't bear the sight,
so cover them in dead skin cells,
dust mites,
dusty science things.
let them go,
lock them in a silent mausoleum.
some things are better forgotten,
some things best left to the past.
dust covered relics,
left to moulder....

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It is a quiet room
Not designed for
But morphed into
A place of reflection.

Too old to hunt
I am left with my “trophies”
Dust covered mementos
Of an eager youth
Embracing the inherent danger
Facing the unknown
Daring to stare down the herd
Single out the prize
and wait
for the perfect moment
to click
send to cart.

Thus, I now sit
In my Amazon Trophy Room
Surrounded by…..


John G. Lawless
©12/14/2022...

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With lilting tongue and glittering eye, the Celtic potter chortles by.
His clay-browned hands delicately placing, kiln God's on shelves and window facings.

Minute figures of Sun and Moon, mystical men with beard and rune;
sheep wandering on grassy hills, all on clay placards for windowsills.

And tossed about through roof and rafter hung, pink and purple, from pilasters,
were all the glorious flowers' of Spring, saved, dust covered, on dangling strings....

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More and more
its like a big-box-store
with what had been worn
(whether tattered or torn)
never given to the poor.
There's only rising prices
more and more.

While the making of beautiful
paintings or hours spent doing
needlecraft is tossed on piles
in frames
as detritus with no names
anymore.

Dust covered glassware
competes with sofa springs
for space on the floor
as other days bring fresh donations
of creations
to discard
more and more....

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A “PAPA” coffee cup
Not quite as old as
Those who gave it to me.
An old metal stapler,
Part fastener, part weapon.
27 pencils which
Can never be found when needed.
Notes, scribbled cursive
The hieroglyphics of the elderly.
A seven and one half pound,
Dust covered, Dictionary/Thesaurus
A Poetry for Dummies manual
A collection of “mystery folders”
That I am afraid to open
An heirloom collection
Of paper clips
The scent of bacon
And pancakes….
Gotta go....

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In cage, box and vault,
behind the well locked door;
he held his earthly treasurers,
counted by the score.

Dust covered purple amethysts,
lice laced parrot maws,
aged harem beauties;
lay on cushions bout the floor.

Each once had shone like starlight,
within the earthen core,
and danced or flown in far off lands,
which were their homes no more.

All tawdry now, decline their fate,
decay hung in the air,
but on he sat in darkness;
pondering his precious fare....

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