Our home was lit with autumn's spicy scent.
Now spent are the forms that had something to hold:
votive molds, photo frames, vases.... forsaken.
The form within my breast, too, is forsaken,
no longer pressed against your Old Spice scent.
Once, we had each other to hold....
Now memories are the substance we hold.
Your sloughed skin dust is not yet forsaken;
a whiff remains of seasonal clove scent....
Forsaken spiderwebs hold your signature scent.
10-20-23
a little birdie told him
that his owner had sold him
the warning he sloughed
alas, he was stuffed
and nothing said consoled him
In a split second, life can be snuffed
Unforeseen events cause misery
Why this is so, ‘tis a great mystery
Of such our lives are suitably stuffed
None of us should ever be bluffed
Accidents are main features of history.
In a split second,
The role of accidents is often sloughed
We are victims of information trickery,
Believing what we hear becomes primary
Facetiously, going through life chuffed,
In a split second.
(R a) b b a a b R a b b a R)
Written October 1, 2022
[Rondine, a form I learned
from writings of Jeff Kyser]
An antique store’s the perfect place
To browse among the shelves
And see the past through objects
People sloughed off of themselves.
From dolls to clothes to dishes,
Chairs and glassware, mirrors, books,
The rooms are stacked with memories
Whichever way one looks.
Each item once held meaning
For the owner, likely dead,
Or living in a place with
Much less cluttering instead.
The browsers mostly look
But sometimes dig inside for cash
To cart home new-found treasure,
Once somebody else’s trash.
Each piece of greenery falls to mildew.
On wood, a harsh fungus echoes sinew.
Agony squirmed and sloughed in my body
Then, all tumble, I grieve and feel guilty.
Glare from sunlight is gentler than rougher
Neither full nor snares my kindness, ever.
In this skirmish, there is a yearly brawl.
Yet, Vivid lights will no longer dazzle.
My feet will at last splash out all I've done.
Assume strolling on a once lush and shone.
The thrills strike my spirit and shred the core.
And then sing the fall in calm voice ashore.
You adorn your womb and lure us each year.
Yet, the loathsome frost's weep I overhear.
Written: December 11, 2021
1st place contest winner.
Sonnet's Salutation Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: William Kekaula
St. Lawrence river in the spring
when a lake makes the ocean its' dream
shallow ice and sand bend the wind
the twigs begin to twitch and spin
sandwiched like a water gin
buds burn through the fragile skin
never is there amendment
sloughed grained signals silently sent
as vast white feathers float to shore.
The marbled cat sat in the hall
a baleful eye on a marbled ball.
Not even that could lighten his mood
so he wandered off to find some food,
which he sniffed and licked and sniffed some more,
then sloughed his claws on the kitchen door,
then arched his back and gave a stretch
and coughed and hacked a hair ball wretch,
then licked his ass and licked his paws,
wiped his ears then a long, still pause,
as though an idea had entered his head,
then wandered off to find a nice, soft bed
to rest his bones for an hour or two,
for life is tiresome when there’s nothing to do
but lick and eat and stretch and all that,
when you’re a pampered, lazy, marmalade cat.
Blooms in their terracotta bomb-shelters,
bow their heads, but now
a distant thunderstorm nibbles
at my bare-boned flower bed.
The heat has crushed the clouds at last.
Rain falls out of a booming air.
Yesterday nailed its dry skin to the sky,
later it sloughed in sloshing shreds.
This morning, mourning doves clatter,
and roof-dance.
The air even revives my fat dog,
who now chases a stubby tail
for the first time this summer.
Well Played
I’m older now
Older than I thought
I would ever be
My life began in
Black and white, then
Exploded into electric
Crayola vivid colors that
Ripped away the veils
Turned me on to the
Sublime infection called music
And all the sensory goodies
Flew at my waiting young face
With Cat four hurricane force
Bosche’s Garden of Earthly Delights
Was more a lifestyle than an
Incredible oil on canvas and
Sometime during that amazing
full tilt boogie I learned to
Deep dive inside and began
To tell myself the unadorned truth
Watching as layer after layer of
Cumbersome story sloughed off
And my choices took on a softer
Texture more temperate, less wild
Yes I’m older now
Older than I thought
I would ever be but
I’ve never been more at home
living in my skin...
Early morning,
new, deep, snow
sunlit in the Garden,
covering the lonely woods.
Suddenly descending,
a mourning dove flutters,
roosts in the Tree.
There in a mere few moments:
another mourning dove returning,
perching, restless, cooing:
Cold, heedless solitude
sloughed off,
like the needless snow
the doves shake from their feathers.
a quire or two,
or three, may be
uncharterd
uncounted
discounted, maybe
tablets
stone shards
heavy slabs of me
rain soaked reams
sloughed off of me
shoulders of clay
unweighted may be
separate from morass
the mass of me
plunged heavy and sunk
in a literary sea
of words great men
spoke to me
I look for words
so meanings i'll see
and write, and write,
and write, maybe
so inner thoughts
so quiet may be.
03/06/2017
The edges of my heart have sloughed
From the immersion in your drama
This might not have a good endpoint
I want to stop imagining your eulogy
See my sister as I saw her once
See that there was good in her
She was tough and fragile and cruel and kind
I say goodbye to you every day
Are you still here?
Nautdah
Nautdah, they called you,
In your real life they named you,
When you knew yourself,
When you lived out on the unforgiving plains.
As Nautdah, Comanche captive,
You Became Comanche;
Leaving behind the girl
Who was Cynthia Parker
Sloughed off like an ill-fitted skin.
You gave birth
To their greatest leader, Quanah
In a field of wildflowers on the Texas plain;
Forsook your language and embraced
That century of blood and pain
For the sake of a people who's way was dying
Even as you butchered bison on the endless sea of grass.
They recaptured you and made you a monument to what their wildness
Had made of you:
A woman of the Elements, a woman who would not be cowed
By the conventions of her time;
A woman who would never cease
Trying to return to the people to whom she really belonged,
To the people who belonged to the Sky, the Earth, the Wild Horses.
Before Quanah died, having lived with his feet in both Worlds,
He arranged to have your bones interred near his,
Where the two of you could lie together
To dream of wildflowers, and Freedom.
A rippling of shivered skin
Convulsing tides of sweat
Induced spasms of chaotic
Visions of cataclysmic madness
Choking down pharmaceutical
Faith in medicinal fists, full
Of killers
Of pain
Where writhing in torsions of hotness
Lapse fleetingly into delicious
Snatches of delusional sleep and
Dream; among corpses of influenza victims
Laid bare by blinding
Headaches splitting
Muscle mucus into
Coughing fits of
Laughter why me
To peel apart the cocoon
Of a drug sloughed illness
Where the silhouette of humanity
Sings your recovery
Over a beaten body
28 August 2014
Fancy Light - A collaboration
Fancy Light - Dr Ram -
Fancy Light (COLLAB) Dr Ram
by~ DR RAM:
Once her tumbled hair was bright with flame
That her eyes sapphire with twinkling stars
And her lips were never to be missed to kiss.
She accepted a man who offered her bounty
Knowing there was a beast in him though.
She thought he is a changed man now
And he has sloughed off the skin he wore.
As the time passed when her beauty faded......
by~ POET D:
She became one again, no longer a pair
Two strangers all over again,
Walking a path alone in her hall way.
Pleasure in the dark * alone * tonight!
A beast she became in her own world
Wakening to the morning bells of Spring
Unchained from a bounty without promise
Removing all doubt, the milk on her face begun to gain color.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I have reposted the poem a collaboration between me and P.D
sometime in Sept.2011. I dedicate my part of the poem to you sweet Linda.
First Place win
Contest: That's All Folks by P.D.
A Collaboration with * P.D.
Fifth Place win in the contest:
~MY COLLABORATION CONTEST~
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