I stood on edge of stream
crystal clear and cobbled,
with stones jagged and rough,
smooth flat and rounded.
How could this rumbled jumble
or rocks and gravel have got there?
Which stone was tossed and thrown?
Which was skipped there by tiny hands
trying for eight skips or more?
Which was placed strategically in
a row of stepping stones for dry-feet
to cross the stream to the other side?
Which stones slid and bounced there,
from way upstream, carried by
the last raging snow-melt torrent?
My path through life has similar
ups and downs, with slips and slides,
rocks and gravel, all rumbled
and jumbled together.
With the legacies of the ways I've found to
skip, step and slide,
to reach my milestones in the
sinuous stream of life,
riddled with scattered stones.
It is summer,
and the umbrella men
are selling hotdogs.
A good-looking priest
enters Saint Pat's,
gangly girls giggle,
then make the sign of the cross.
Thursday is All-You-Can-Eat pizza day,
the joints will be too crowded,
the slices rushed out, slapped down
way to early or late.
Office workers flock
from the second floors of everywhere,
huddle shoulder to shoulder,
to spread rumors,
then return to gaze at desktop
computer games
or TikTok –
**** is a compensatory privilege
of the under paid.
The year hurries on,
rats scurry behind neon facades.
Downtown is slip-sliding,
it used to be a place to get noticed,
a gated area for outdoor passions.
Modest ladies now
hold the hem of their skirts down,
and not because
of any up-lifting wind.
Dope is in the air,
thieves hustle to get their share.
Tourists meander dazed,
as the stark exposure of the city
tramples over them.
Winter bites its chill tongue.
Come December’s last glittering moments,
that glass ball will hang by
the thinnest of threads.
~~~~~~~~~~~
(new edit)
It is summer,
and the umbrella men
are selling hotdogs.
A good-looking priest
enters Saint Pat's,
gangly young ladies giggle,
make the sign of the cross.
Thursday is AllYouCanEat pizza day
the joint will be too crowded, too poky,
the pizza rushed out, slapped and pasted.
Office workers, those that take medicinal weed,
come flocking from the second floors
of nowhere,
shoulder to shoulder,
they huddle to spread
petty scandals and rumors,
then return to stare at desktop computer games.
**** is the privilege of the underachievers.
Downtown is slip-sliding,
it used to be a place to be noticed,
a sex-gated area for outdoor passions.
Now the females
hold the hem of their skirts down,
and not because of the wind.
Dope is in the air.
Thieves scrabble and push,
dazed by the easy abundance.
Tourists duck and shelter
under dead teachers' desktops.
Come December,
the glass ball will hang by a thin fingertip.
At the night when the shadows fall
It’s you I remember in my all
Nothing then seems so long ago
As we dance again in our lover’s concerto
Just thinking out loud and sliding away
I wake and you are in and around me
Is this how love was meant to find me
Pray these moments won’t leave me now
Not knowing the when why what where or how
Just thinking out loud and sliding away.
© Paul Warren Poetry
if you are finicky or squeamish at all
do not crawl under that locked bathroom stall.
You never know what you will find on the ugly floor
crusty dried feces and urine, other awful stuff galore
if you are the one who locked it and slid out of the way
know that we custodians kind of despise you today.
Even if push or pull, your door doesn't open.
Because your door is sliding type.
I'll try to open your door next time.
So please wait until then.
What can’t be forgiven
must be forgotten
Memory the catalyst
for sorrow and pain
The future endemic
its danger befalls us
Salvation escaping
—reluctant to change
(Dreamsleep: January, 2023)
vertiginous in a virulent cityscape
gagging on gritty gray gloom
luckless in a loveless race
at the bottom of a solipsistic sinkhole
(\\\\?!?!----!?!?\\\\)
exhausted by lucent losses
lying low & flying blindly behind
sliding back into Whateverland
where dust confronts the futile frontier
Stale milk sky,
traffic is trawling for any surfacing light.
Rubber squeaks on the smeared blacktops.
No hills to climb in this part of town
we are flat earth
and mostly just tilted into our daydreams.
Corner shops are damp and derelict
or heaving with low class crime.
Shadows pounce if you drop a dime.
Its a crawl through a gauntlet
no one runs here unless they flee.
The car radio is set to Fox News
we haven't seen a fox hereabout in years
only concrete cemeteries,
islands of amnesia
sprinkled with stone angels,
hidey-holes
where daytime hookers gather
to pray for better weather.
Rose and crimson-hued petals look ethereal
In the pouring chromatic wizardry darkness
Golden silken colors are included in the boreal
Every red drop of a vivid array, cut starkness.
In the pouring chromatic wizardry darkness.
Rejuvenating the gaze of magnificent seawater
Every red drop of a vivid array, cut starkness
In the thriving watery depths of Angel's wonder.
Rejuvenating the gaze of magnificent seawater
A chaotic labyrinth destroyed goals and dreams
In the thriving watery depths of Angel's wonder
Empty deserts with no sign of sentient streams.
A chaotic labyrinth destroyed goals and dreams
On an ocean floor, shadows split up Eden's soil
Empty deserts with no sign of sentient streams
In celestial, no mycelia weakness in dazzle voile.
On an ocean floor, shadows split up Eden's soil
Golden silken colors are included in the boreal
In celestial, no mycelia weakness in dazzle voile
Rose and crimson-hued petals look ethereal.
Written: May 08, 2022
Sliding my door open
Peeking in through to see if you’ll be coming through
My heart beats beyond racing beats
My eyes wide open to see you through the door of my sliding door
Moments of touch and soft caress of love
Brazenly drive my heart towards you
Waiting for you to come through my sliding door moment
The first three pitches: just outside. Pitch four:
right at the knees - "Steerike!", the umpire calls.
I wait to get the pitch I'm hoping for…
The next toss: high and tight... a base on balls.
I take my lead. I check the signs and frown -
he throws, I dive, dirt in my eyes - the worst!
The batter squares to bunt and lays one down -
a gem! I slide, they throw him out at first.
I get a bigger lead at second base -
my 3rd base coach gives signs without a word.
My fingers twitch, the pitcher deals, I race
like Rickey sliding head first, I steal third.
Long fly - I tag and slide under the mitt…
we score the winning run without a hit!
// Hats off to Rickey Henderson, all-time stolen base leader. With home
runs dominating the sport today, I thought I'd go 'old school' and pay a
tribute to 'small ball' from days of yore. They call it 'manufacturing a run'
when a team can score without the benefit of a hit. Many thanks to
Gershon Wolf for challenging me to write my first baseball sonnet! //
written 18 Oct 2020
When velvet night throbs with moonglow ,
our language of whispers speaks about a new time--
and in-between stillness, lines unravel
into charmed musings: In this place,
I allow this gift of warm anticipation
to open my soul’s voice marking ardor's pledge,
a fateful roam along new trails, uncertain
yet enticed : Somehow, rosy morn abides
bringing a thrill on our pressed lips
this tender quiver from one caress
slip-slides down, down through our veins
as we greet the beginnings of our bond,
until joyful sighs burst with daybreak and mist...
where velvet eyes explore a different realm.
Falling Poetry Contest, Kai Michael Neumann
5/26/2020
I was born here
along the salty waters of the Atlantic
where wind and rain, ice and snow
are blown out to the ocean depths.
I watched the sunrise
when I was still a child
cooling my toes in the sands on the shore
warming my face in the sun as it rose on the horizon.
I lived the days in quiet, peaceful solitude
until you, and then
it was the two of us
walking the shoreline eyeing the sea.
We walked and talked of dreams
full of the plans for living
and live, we did well those fifty years
always as one, together.
Tonight, as sunset slides in on the tides
I walk alone, missing you
sitting on the driftwood that floated in
I am called to the edge.
The world and all its troubles slip away
buffeted by tidal waves and whale song
I see life goes on
as the soul rests calm, longing for the sea.
for Chantelle Anne Cooke's Slipping Soul Sunset
4/25/20
freezing rain warning
tomorrow everywhere ice
slip sliding along
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