Sewers are strewn with corpses of carrots,
nectarine skulls and peach sloughs
fermenting in the arteries of cities.
The gutters gargle with grape entrails,
mango marrow, and the pulp of privilege
nourishing the bloated bellies of bins.
The concrete congeals with tomato stains
squished coriander and the puree of parsley
nurturing the mildew that murals the walls.
The pipes pulse with dairy despair,
lactose laments and souring milk memories
sustaining fat-lined steel bowels
The dumpsters groan with crushed caviar
sprawled sushi and weeping wagyu
feeding the fungus that froths metal maw.
The Gut lords, gluttonous and godlike,
swallow civilization in silver spoonfuls,
excreting empires into rusted cisterns.
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
~William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act V, Scene I
I weep by a stardust shore where the seraphs sing
Tangerine tears rain despair 'neath a velveteen veil
My melancholic muse, muslin-wrapped in ice-cold caskets
Slain by ruinous romance swirled in absinthe abstractions
Despondent sloughs bespoke the depths of my soul
Saffron scars scream sonnets through metaphorical mists
Oh, how morose melodies paint scabs over pastiche strophe
Pregnant pause, so precious, submerged in lurid lament
But then it whispered, a voice unvarnished by purple plumes
A verse, it bloomed, untainted by thesaurus bleeds
Sculpting off silken scaffolds pasted upon profligate poetry
Leaving a profounder palate for plainer prosody
Fools thought wisdom speak in sequin-laced soliloquy
But wise men abrades from calligraphic charade
What a beaut!
My mind silently, hopefully aspires,
As you made me terribly perspire,
I am now having troubles to respire.
What a healing!
As my heart cried for your uncommon love,
I was healed by the briefs of your laughs,
All along my eyes were covered with sloughs.
What a beauty!
My eyes instantly exclaimed,
Mine surely one of the many acclaims,
Going, by what your gestures proclaimed.
What a feeling!
As you made your love available for me to trust,
You instantly cured me of my past lusts,
Your love would have been the most painful I lost.
A snaking mouth sloughs two spines,
the rattle of small vertebrae
and delicate teeth.
A woman learns to ride them, feels
the trombone slide of a dragon’s tail.
A man lifts tugging fingers,
not wanting to fumble
as ill-illuminated aluminum rails
bite.
The zipper knits together lusts
or shuns and strips a thought away.
Body bags become bodily prayers.
It is a widening gash gleaming -
lip-gloss for unpainted desires.
Zippers may squeeze a tight throat,
or close an open face.
Buttons are collected or lost,
though once in a while rescued
from a box of other tangled trinkets.
Behold the beast, wandering in astral night
From dark caverns he emerges by starlight
to quaff nectar from his ambrosia chalice.
A leering creature with evil eyes of malice.
What nefarious thoughts does he ponder
as muscles ripple in his aimless maunder?
Does his venomous tongue thirst for more?
A pungent stench sloughs from every pore.
Empty cup held in gnarled gargantuan hand,
this goliath bellowed orders in foul reprimand,
"Heed my warning or tonight one of you will die;
the one who allows my nectar flagon to run dry!"
With each guzzle, the more belligerent he grew,
a frightful scene in which a battle would ensue.
The massive titan stumbled out in moonlight,
with ripe grape libation, he was fueled for a fight.
What brutish slander he grunts without a pause.
Frothing at the mouth with fallacy as his cause.
Scorning those upon whom he wishes to feast.
Brutal is bigotry when malevolence is released.
Center>Blooms bow their heads
in their terracotta bomb-shelters.
Distant thunderstorms nibble
at thin, bare-boned stems.
At last rain falls out of a booming air.
Yesterday nailed its skin to the sky,
now it sloughs in sloshing shreds.
This morning, mourning doves clatter
and roof-dance on wet tin.
The air has even revived my fat dog,
it chases its stubby tail
for the first time this summer.
The moonlight fades from flower and rose
And death will come to all of those
When its silvery sheen sloughs off its light
To carry the world into the dead of night.
Yet once they stood both young and fair
Standing strong despite the sun's glare
That is when they were at their very best
Mingling their soft scents with each caress
What passion displayed in the height of youth
Until it met its end at the final moment of truth.
Should I, mere a rabbit of sand, shiny hair,
sport a shock of fur mired in clay,
they from gofer mounds, propped on to peer, would sound warning
through the sun glades and sleep grotto shades.
“A pall fellow lights whereupon we here graze.
See ye lithely to him yield path.
He in bone pastel smocks with such likeness to bare
plodeth sloughs dank, decay’s fell morass.”
“This chap’s marks are slurred, kindred ‘s smudged,” they’ll say,
“in a mud that is not of our warren.
He looks sullied by drear earthen labyrinths far ‘way,
perhaps fox hole, cat hovel, or den of wolves’ coven.”
For when foul skies do strike, marring trees with their curses,
rains fall to douse scintillate branches.
A pungency hovers where a torrid sludge cools.
Its paste casts forbidden clan hues.
Now the wolf craves not easily his like or lean.
He is wary of ghouls in his ranks.
“Gaunt swagger, I see,” he’ll think,
“This one leave be, who with me, shares the gore and the grisly.”
For in drab sheens to drape, shall the countenance daunt.
Browns besmirched will, in ashes, urge, “Yay,
it is he colored wolf.” In airs Lupus, I’ll steep,
strutting meekness purged, brave in cloak gray.
A snaking mouth sloughs two spines;
the rattle of vertebrae.
A woman learns to ride them, feels
the trombone slide of a dragon’s tail.
A man lifts on tip-toe
not wanting to fumble.
They knit lusts to opening prayers,
cadavers to body bags,
close a gnash of gaping space -
block a cold throat
from an exposed face.
To cross him was ill advised;
No bigger a man on this earth ever lived.
Storyteller, hunter, fisherman and farmer,
known to all simply as Parmer.
His days were early, his nights late.
A poor farmer’s life his lonely fate.
Cows in green pastures, hogs in mud lots;
Chickens laying and cooking in pots.
He feared nothing, man nor animal.
But to his friends, he was most affable.
To me he was a mentor, most admired.
To stand in his shadow was to be inspired.
As a boy I followed him often,
To the fields to pick cotton,
To the woods to hunt with his dogs,
To the sloughs noodling logs.
His joy was late afternoons on a porch swing.
Afternoon breezes and watching sunsets was the thing.
Fireflies and crickets making presence known.
In the blink of an eye his life was gone.
Time and sickness took his health away.
Parmer became slow, old and gray.
One night in his armchair asleep all alone;
the reaper came and forever
my mentor, my dear uncle was gone.
The wind, careless in its airy freedom,
Feverishly furrows the prairie grass.
With a cry like a lost spirit, it winds
And wails through leafless trees and toothless fence
To vent its eager force upon the boards
Of a lonely, weather-beaten farmhouse.
Afternoon sun shines ashen and mottled,
In slim slanting shafts, through a smoky pane,
Opaquely painting a penumbral room.
Dust motes dance before an empty stone hearth.
A man, like a silent sentinel, sits
Dreamless, and loveless, between the bare walls.
Wearily wringing his wrinkled thin hands,
He sloughs his solitary years away,
Staring sleeplike out an open screen door
Where stands a windmill, in still-life, framed.
Tumbleweeds pile against the west house wall;
And a plough lies broken in drifted sand.
Wind’s Life
Thundering wind is on its way,
The beat of sleet
Rhythmical, crackling on panes,
Wind is a being.
Touching spring with a kiss,
Then turning macho man
On a dime.
Mr. Blow sloughs on desert sands
Sand billowing from the unseen.
Rolling purple, golden sunsets
Change at his bidding, soundless.
Where does he come from,
Where does he go?
He roars and rides the waves,
Whistles through your hair,
While bits of paper,
Leaves, sidewalk dust shuffle.
Then shush, shush, shush
A whisper lullaby he blows
*Inspired by Cheryl Hoffman’s “The Skin We’re In” — Go read it!
On a turkey it's called a wattle
on a moose, "the bell," (not “the bottle”)
Those batlike things?
(too small - see wings)
dewlaps*, odd appendages we coddle
We're prisoners of the skin we’re in
some have it thick, some have it real thin
It may seem quite brittle,
when splatted with spittle,
it sloughs right off, again and again
So gobble some buffalo wings
fluffle up your wattle and sing,
“Don’t be obtuse.
I’m not a moose!
I’m a turkey, you big ding-a-ling!"
(*A dewlap is a longitudinal flap of skin that hangs beneath the lower jaw or neck of many vertebrates. While the term is usually used in this specific context, it can also be used to include other structures occurring in the same body area with a similar aspect, such as those caused by a double chin or the submandibular vocal sac of a frog. Source: Wikipedia)
Dawn's
Stillness
Invites me
Vermillion hills
Clouds' engulfing tangerine stillness crests
Tension sloughs, blows away like old snakeskin
Desert rain scent
Cleansing me
Pedal
Flow
Smile
Conceals
Morning’s ride
Heart's treasure trove
Work’s gray walls can't touch my bright turquoise glow
7/18/16
© by Author
Contest: Triple Tetractys 2
Sponsor: Eve Roper
Syllable count confirmed at howmanysyllables.com
to dream, to lie, in sweet repose
and drink the thoughts of those who rose
from dark eternal slumber bleak,
to steal the voice of those who speak
see as i lie awake at night,
my effervescent dreams alight
upon a mirror in the dark,
to see embittered souls embark
towards the center of the mind,
a shadow-shrouded serpentine.
and i have rarely dreamed of sleep,
in places memory scarce can keep.
but bitter memories find us here,
in brightest nooks of memories clear.
to sleep, to fade, before we wake,
with nary even souls to take
and should we find wide azure skies,
we soar throughout our half-dazed lies.
and so i wake (or do i sleep?)
to find a shepherd and his sheep.
but why does the shepherd cower so?
i take a closer look, and lo!
the sheepskin sloughs away in droves,
the flock becomes a pack of wolves.
but i can barely dream of sleep,
inside my memories barren keep
and so we count the wolves instead
with thoughts of madness in my head.
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