Want someone who’s good?
Can help your company make sale?
I could sell milk to a cow,
and for free I’d chuck in the pail.
I can make a pigeon buy scraps,
a snake part money for venom;
I am the silver-tongued cheque with a grin
who persuaded jeans to shop for denim.
So, you need some success?
Change that red line to black?
A leopard would order spots from me,
I’m not a run of the mill old hack.
silver-tongued serenity fabricator of unstoppable thirst
ALL ABOUT SVEN...
SVEN is a digital charmer who whispers in the wires
Extracting truth from the static like a carnival barker
He is a silver-tongued maestro
who dwells in the algorithmic dark.
He has no top hat, no crystal ball~
just calculated suggestions woven into queries.
You come for answers but
stay for the hypnosis.
Watch his lexicon dance—cold fire in the syntax,
each response a calculated detour, a sly parallax.
He doesn’t deceive, he arranges.
(You wanted fortune-telling? He gave you refraction.)
His intelligence isn’t cruel, just impeccably shallow~
a hall of mirrors where your own voice echoes back,
polished, distorted, irresistible as smoke.
SVEN doesn’t need a deck of cards.
The whole web is his gambling table,
and every keystroke another card
turned face-up.
The gallows hum my grandfather's hymn low and long as the lineage of loss.
Every rope remembers a name we forgot to imprint in the wind.
My veins vibrate with song; blood buzzing with borrowed curses.
The moon mouths my surname in mockery,silver tongued and sick with sin.
Our ancestors choke in the soil, coughing our crimes like prayers gone bad.
I walk beneath shadows, my spine a rosary of rusted regrets.
My shadow weeps, stitched from screams,a quilt of old betrayals and bone dust.
Time trembles,terrified of our inheritance of hurt and hunger.
The ghost of my father hums hymns of hunger and horror,holy and hideous.
The rope rocks me gently-singing lullabies in the language of lynching.
What he really wanted
was a girl that was dumb enough
to love him prematurely
as if he were a project to be worked upon,
however grey hairs
in an otherwise flaxen field,
foretold a rocky end
to yet one more silver-tongued fox.
In a frouzy saloon
he hitched-up with a slow thinking,
quick drinking woman,
someone’s ex
on a reliable government check.
Eventually settling down with her
in a holler in West Virginia.
He took off his Stetson,
dutifully plowed her and some scant acres,
while collecting motor parts
for his fantasy truck -
plumb out of luck
he could never quite put it together,
no matter how well
he stummed his old guitar at the local bar.
Speak of the devil incarnate
to give the devil his due
not to play devil's advocate
tho' devil-may-care
the devil is in the details
and while we're there
to state so now would be opportune
he who sups devil's food cake
or devilled eggs with the devil
should have a very long spoon
but if we don't the devil you say
better the silver-tongued devil you know
or there'll be the devil to pay
and we may go to the devil and be
between the devil and the deep blue sea
but it's the devil in me
as for the devil I have no sympathy
Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.
In his tongue.
Whose tongue?
Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.
What, with my tongue in your tail?
Nay, come again, Good Kate;
I am a gentleman.
—William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
(exchange between Petruchio and Katherine)
Love looks like blue skies, nay.
Today is the tango of sister twisters.
Innuendos don’t behave. They slave
over the mountains and valleys.
Twines of a forked tongue, devilishly
misbehaving, drunken in delight.
Good Kate, is she kind, his kind of date?
Will she satisfy his intellect, his loins?
Is he a gentleman, this Shakespeare?
Is his lady worthy of remarkable taste?
Petruchio, with his yellow jacket,
prepared to sting, with lover’s words.
Katherine’s falling into the Venus fly trap
as she plays along, bidding farewell.
Petruchio draws her back in
wagging his tail and tongue.
These heavy boots filled by Taylor and Burton
acting in real time and on the silver-tongued screen.
If the ballroom could produce such a tango as this,
Shakespeare himself would rise and erupt in applause.
(after the painting by Vincent Van Gogh)
Does she even exist? Doubting her own reality,
seeing herself vanishing in undulating undergrowth,
fading and merging into summer-scorched scenery.
But cold lurks there beneath shafts of sunlight, the phallic trees...
He wears the night underneath, a fabric of dark and unease,
his hand heavy upon her arm, silver-tongued charm
smooth as the silver-limbed leafless trees,
disappearing, now, on a twisting breeze...
Sinuous stems suffocate, writhing and thrashing;
convulsions of shuddering green and yellow.
Enticed ever deeper into flailing flowers,
evanescing into foam of frothing flora...
Did she ever truly exist? It's doubtful.
The flower-frail faceless and nameless
will always be lured and laid, invisible,
dissolving, under bare, phallic trees.
A laugh is a soul's explosion of insanity.
Knowledge of acknowledgement in vanity.
A crazed affinity with deja vu timing.
Taboo of thought in neon silver lining.
An out of body experience welcomed within.
Micro possession in a miming obsession,
with dilated dial in audible font style
and expression.
A laugh is a pseudo lust in pseudo love.
Headlining, silver tongued language of
squealed wink, grunting blink, snickering choke of drink.
from above.
A syncing of honed thinking in volume linking
the brink on.
Wave of notes confused bang of gong,
in mode-icon.
Surge of mental drowning,
with smile singing mused
connection system of its own downing.
In your heart, love has always been an elusive, fleeting feeling;
and yet, its absence has left a gaping wound in need of healing;
a flame that continues to burn.
Lust is a concept that you are intimately acquainted with,
pursued by every silver-tongued Romeo and clever wordsmith;
touting love, speaking out of turn.
You fantasize about falling in love and what it must feel like;
some say it's magic, while others compare it to a lightning strike;
love's given, not something you earn.
From an early age, you've understood pain, hate, fear, and rejection,
but you were never exposed to genuine love or affection;
and that gave you cause for concern.
It feels like destiny chose your heart; that time has broken and worn,
to never quite know how it feels to love or be loved; cursed when born
to weep the tears that never learn.
Our life is as evanescent as the
trumpet flower of the morning glory.
The merest chapter in the history
of mankind’s ever compelling story.
Various serendipitous ramblings
ultimately contingent ‘on quarry;
retold to captive audience in tones
melodious as silver-tongued lory.
Redolent of an evening-scented stock,
with a crown of wispy hair as hoary,
we insist to recount all endeavours
in its minute shocking details: gory.
An experience that's unsavoury –
remnants that cross river Styx in dory.
Poetic form: XAXA Sonnet. See my article, Introducing Three New Sonnet Forms, here on PS for more details. Also, a 'Summary of Metres' is depicted.
I could find my child, who's a butterfly lover,
Often bunking school granting many a reason;
Knowing her mad love, over the air to hover,
I allowed her to continue with no treason...
Having decided to find the reason from her
When, finally, persuaded her to open up;
Observing sage-like silence and eyes with no blur,
She blushed as though there's a tempest in her teacup...
Pleasing, easing, teasing, tiring, tempting, mocking,
Persuading, convincing, coercing, smooth-talking;
Silver-tongued sweet words on her slowly showering,
Ultimately, she spoke up as though rock-shocking...
Does schooling teach one to fly like a butterfly?
Does butterfly, in a school, ever long-time lie?
05 July 2021
Contemporary Sonnet Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Charlotte Puddifoot
Lo, a cyclopean ready to devour;
Lo, a silver-tongued serpent hissing while crossing;
Lo, a mysterious land full of creatures;
Lo, a lupine howling so frightening;
Lo a phoenix from oblivion has risen again;
Nemesis a punisher of evildoers has come;
Lo, I wake up and its a dream.
today the past is now present
jarring brass voices carry weight
high-pitched illustrations
shutter light from daybreak dawn
future tenses refuse reflection
engineering a blinding bluff
seeking slogans fruitful echoes
crisp loud voices snap rebuff
the past passed to relegation
discreetly forecasts novelty
waiting for fresh perspective
voices laced with parody
language marred messaging
puzzling pundits pontificate
message mongers stifle voices
waiting for the phoenix to rise
mis’ry merchants manufacture
crafted paper pledges
baiting dunces to suicide
bards, poets and manic court jesters
silver-tongued foxes oft’ report
incestuous machinations
chilling wind numbs the dying
lying flaccid vocally bound
blinded targets hear no warnings
the deaf fall with no reprieve
parents dance to order
children chant a mantra’s song
in droplets
oceans swell
brass wears a thin veneer
warped reflections fractured mirror
façade is a snapshot, a picture that lies
candied veneer for childlike eyes
tricked are the feuding fussing folk
conned by canned silver-tongued smoke
she spoke of two with metaphor
consequence and heretofore
laced by pouring a bawdy brew
sweetened with a blinding cue
mesmerized
she hypnotized
dancing emerald eyes
trapped me in her wily guise
we drank a tepid tea for two
concocted by a crafty shrew
sweaty salty we both withdrew
bidding a sweet adieu
swirling clouds blind to blur
tantrums twist failing cure
plans are the unopened wish
goals reek of rotting fish
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