Hear the soft pitter patter dancing off the roof?
A cleansing rain plummets the drain, offering
up its truth..
It sloshes streets and people's feet as it
clears the atmosphere.
Umbrellas swoosh, windshield wipers whoosh,
and life is slower here..
Melancholia
Sometimes my soul aches, in the morning light
Dappled as it arrives through the curtains
My dad says it’s a beautiful day and, indeed,
I perceive it as beautiful..trees, people
But something cold runs through my blue veins
As I inspect my wrists to make sure they’re mine
I find my eyes unsure of where to settle
Glazed over like a foggy mirror
Seeing but not seeing
I ask them not to take my picture,
For behind my eyes water sloshes around
As if in a glass, threatening to pour over
Choking out words for people, all alive in conversation
I feel I am peeking in at their world, mute
As it rolls by in laughter and togetherness
As the sun comes up and falls away again
I walk down the road that has become a desert
And I keep walking, watching, waiting
For the next mirage that I can try to hold onto
~For Craig Cornish’s Contest “Anatomy of Melancholy”
Ah, Spring: each laden cloud more rain delivers,
that soaks our clothes and in our new shoes sloshes.
Our streets blockaded thanks to pregnant rivers,
with mud tracked in the house from kids' galoshes.
Ah, weeds: the bane of ev'ry gardener!
Unwanted life that fouls our garden's bliss.
Dear mother nature, we must pardon her
for her green demons turning Spring amiss.
Ah, noise: new Vernal life creates a riot
as crickets, birds, and frogs return to form.
It makes one long for Winter's tranquil quiet -
not all is calm when days grow long and warm.
Come March, not all is magically renewed -
with rain and weeds and noise, Spring's downright rude!
written 30 Jan 2023
Time sloshes back and forth.
A rubber flipper
once lost off the Normandy coast,
briefly surfaces.
Off the Bognor Regis coast
one sand-encrusted flip-flop floats by,
it escaped years ago.
There are krill
nibbling at my floating mind.
I may have to snorkel
further
before the sun comes up -
the jellyfish
are stealing my stuff again.
© a day ago
Fantasia has fabulous songs
This movie is a novelty
Converts feelings in secrecy
My sad soul feels that she belongs
Sweet musical notes come to life
Fast images that come and go
Chamber of sweetness don’t you know
Eliminating so much strife
Fantasia allows souls to sing
Violins elevate me high
Joyful angels give happy sigh
Imagine on musical wing
A crashing cymbal; things get dark.
Mickey Mouse wizard is asleep.
Bucket sloshes water too deep.
Flute like sound of a meadowlark.
A flower’s whirling petticoat.
Lovely sweet notes given by harp.
Orchestra keeps this music sharp.
Disney’s film, my own antidote.
Breath of Fresh Air
She is a breath of fresh air
The kind you don’t meet every day
Her long and graceful fingers are filled with (bling)
From the men who loved her before.
She is the kind that makes you blush with a glance.
Her beauty surpasses that of an intricate sunrise.
She speaks the truth and does not (blabber)
About unimportant and mundane things
She drinks of life and (slurps) as she swallows from its cup!
Unadulterated laughter fills the room when she muses.
A (drizzle) of joy fills all the dark places and dispels all fears
Like a gradual but steady waterfall,
It (sloshes) into the next week.
Once you have met her…
You will never be the same.
She is a woman who can make you feel
A million emotions by one encounter
She will steal your heart
And put it in her pocket
In case she may need it one day!
So, breathe her in and never forget her face.
Written November 9, 2021
For Onomatopoeia Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Emile Pinet
(ps. underlining and bold did not paste when formatting to poetry soup so words used are in brackets)
sincere apologies
The sea is a wild feast -
my heart in breast beating.
The sea, a hungry beast,
tug of war competing.
My feet dissolve in its wake.
I wade out to meet the waves.
Ebb and flow of friendship.
Salty air above my waist.
The wind sloshes my lips.
My cheeks, a blush sunbake.
I dive into the sublime sea.
Turquoise eyes of treachery
allow my vivacity and glee;
kindness swashed with brevity.
Breathless - make no mistake,
I listen to mermaids’ environs,
avoid pitfalls’ overconfidence,
cover ears, stave off sirens,
not greedy for DL opulence.*
Finless and feckless mistake,
if I find myself too far from shore,
arms and foam in dosido,
afraid and pleasured by the roar -
in fearful pretense, I’m paddling slow.
For the dorsal fin of ship, I ache.
Calypso music distracts on deck.
I leave my lover far below unchecked.
Climbing like a pirate to wreck
the captain’s safety, the sea at my neck.
Drowned in seaweed silk; bound and awake.
8/30/2021
*DL - Davy’s Locker
March winds direct the weather vane
April showers water wheat and grain
May flowers grow on the lane
The mud splashes the mud sloshes
Kids wear raincoats and galoshes
Down the hill water washes
A newborn calf will join the herd
A nest is built by mama bird
A toddler says her first word
Green are the leaves upon the tree
Yellow’s the color of a bee
Spring roses are just for me
Written for Contest: Attention to Detail
Sponsor:Rob Levasseur
01/16/2021
moored in glade and rill
resting in claggy stodge
boggy green and juicy with rain
my walk sloshes with plunger feet
Mire of the Northern Rain Forest
May 16, 2020
Brians Choice G Poetry Contest
September 8, 2020
Rithimus Divisa 5 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Gregory Barden
Spring buds
Bursting
Like popcorn stuck on sticks
Raising my perspective to
Gallivant
In knee-high tickle grass
Nested
In the strew of stony rocks
Festooned
With sphagnum and lichen
Frothed with droplets
Of glistening crystal lather
Moored in glade and rill
Plundered in claggy stodge
Boggy green and juicy with rain
The jaunt sloshes with plunger feet
Air raids above
Signal
Whirring wispy winged ghosts
Bombers
Buzzzzzzzzzing
Skitting overhead
Barely black shadow fellows
Intent in reaching their target
Synced and signaled
Like flittering naked poltergeists
Aiming for a sticky sweet meal
Arms, legs ankles and necks
Covered or not
Stabbed with little mercy
In the trove of
Spring Buds
So Alive!
May 16, 2020
A sparkler with long little lashes,
this soaring star
...this twinkle twinkle little star.*
She ladles gravy
at the mini soup kitchen,
her teeny tiny wings clapping.
This fairy, a card shark,
deals out ham, turkey and tofu,
and sloshes cranberry out of a tin can.
At twilight she sings and fairy dust flies.
The cornucopia of November sneezes goodbye.
10/21/2019
November Twinkle Fairy Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Caren Krutsinger
*Twinkle Twinkle Little Star originally a poem written by Jane Taylor
I'm de-boned, on my back, sun-dazed,
green water slipping under ribs.
I circle a mandala of light behind my eyes.
Pals slip through rings of sparkling sunshine.
Pale limbs dive through slowly spinning water
while time sloshes back and forth.
A skinny black girl, her torso submerged,
long neck holding her head up
like a swimming Anhinga.
A chubby white boy gulping the sky
as he doggy-paddles around me.
My body feels tugged by cosmic sluice gates.
I could tell the girl how wonderful she is
but my skull is an open hatch.
I could befriend the boy for life,
but we inhabit rival schools in a ferocious town,
and my skull is an open hatch,
For years they were reflections in my eye,
now my mind struggles to float there -
it sinks too deep in a far distant pond.
Dawn, and my bed comes ashore,
dripping fog-laden fronds.
I feed my mind
manna of minced shark
and Barracuda.
I dislike tuna,
so I make a tuna sandwich;
wet foaming waves,
aqueous globs of salty oils,
some mayo. I must be waterlogged
by sea-dreams.
The day swims around aimlessly,
time sloshes.
A rubber flipper
once lost off the Normandy coast,
briefly surfaces;
one sand-encrusted flip-flop floats by.
I may have to snorkel
if I am ever going to see
the sun go down.
Dawn, and my bed comes ashore,
dripping fog-laden fronds.
I feed my mind
manna of minced shark
and Barracuda.
I dislike tuna,
so I make a tuna sandwich;
wet foaming waves,
aqueous globs of salty oils,
some mayo. I must be waterlogged
by sea-dreams.
The day swims around aimlessly,
time sloshes.
A rubber flipper
once lost off the Normandy coast,
briefly surfaces;
one sand-encrusted flip-flop floats by.
I may have to snorkel
if I am ever going to see
the sun go down.
and now, colour blots whitewash on blanched wall; yesterday distanced from today’s gale—on the facade, from where, towards the end, faced face down time’s row in anticlockwise retrogression; the beginning from the end ends in the beginning, with each footprint laced—crowned in blue daisies, we giggled out “Oh! My God” as fleets of golden butterflies twinkled in broad daylight... I recall—a cyclone had begun, wafted us aloof
one deadwood
makes no woodland
terracotta shrub
and the struggle continues—like shadows in blank places and distant church bell gongs in the eclipse of our eyes like the moon and sun in a miniature wedding day—an endless abyss submerges the hollow of a burning ring with a gully wind rush through the needle’s eye as we dig deeper into dark secrets of our cardinal sins; apple's taste becomes acrid, putrid strawberry on coiled lips, whiffs of death scented coarse roses, stowed underneath sloshes of salt-waterfalls
wooden chest
bullets from her razor lips
words bank
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