Patient is the seductive moon,
Veiled in a black gossamer veil,
Clouds grip the night
Evoking an emotional imagination.
Singing in silence, kindred stars
Light up in an impressionist dance
In the infinite serene heavens.
The stage under its feet,
A reflection of itself.
Untidy, cold, resonant, sonorous sounds
Of the sea and briny air roll inland.
Calm waves silently creep,
Leaving a slight silvery spume
Over the golden-tanned sand,
Then slowly drawing a breath,
Taking it back into its dark,
Moonlit glow, turquoise depth.
The seductive moon smiles
In the pleasure it gives.
Written: May 25, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Silent One
2nd place contest winner
*************************
Quote: "Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” — By Rumi ( With my honest wishes of a long and healthy life— Very Happy Birthday.
The moon still glows—an alabaster flame,
memory’s mirror, never the same.
Spume drifts, shimmering and bright,
not shadowy, but limpid light.
You watch sunsets and softly muse—
Do you fade, or do you fuse?
Their shades shroud loss and gain,
a peculiar parity of pleasure and pain.
Lessons grasped don’t be acrimonious,
regrets mollified primarily harmonious.
Time’s conundrum teaches clear—
Delicate days are a deep fear.
To your tender time, you’d tell and attire,
Beware quixotry, yet seize the desire.
Do not anathemize your fall—
Failure’s anodyne heals all.
Though tristful shadows at times prowl,
still you liaise with joy, still you howl.
Twilight or dawn, the soul’s refrain—
amaranthine light will remain.
Actually this poem is a Sestet form sort of
The sunset is enjoyed alone
Through the blinds in my room
The glorious sunset radiates a tone
That through silhouetted pines spume
Those red to magenta colors, my soul fills.
The sunset makes my day, also my spirit stills
There are no crashing Hebridean waves here,
just flat acres of cornfields and country roads,
only farmed earth and red barns.
This mist drowned morning
the sky has offered its own sea,
it carries a saline memory
of spray and spume.
Here in my suburban garden
North, South, East and West
are one.
Blooms are now sea anemones
the hedgerow a reef,
a familiar tree line is a gray cliff face.
For a long moment
I gaze from a Scottish shore,
but then a kitchen radio is turned on,
a truck blasts its air-horn, a child shouts.
A blotting gust of wind scatters
all before it. Ohio quickly repaints itself.
Somewhere in a cornfield
a rabbit sniffs a passing sky-wave,
it may have shrugged,
hard to tell, but I assume it did.
I don't endorse 'going with flow'
for of course you never know
if the current will funnel
you down the drain
the tubes or flume
through the tunnel
toward the spume
to where you end up
in the sewer below
so as I'm in no rush to gush
or feel completely flushed
here and now I do avow
for me the bowl on the whole
is a non-starter a definite no-go
Written June 5, 2025, for contest: Etheree Of Your Heart - Sponsor: Ink Empress
Syllable count verified: www.howmanysyllables.com
*****************
Breeze
broadcasts
charming pace
beats of the breeze
girls with clumsy legs
scrutinize for snail beads —
to the seamless sapphire sky
amid the swarm of silky clouds,
sculpt morphs into cobalt-hued visor
spume tails hover from peaks with cyclic bliss
winsome enthusiasm in our core swathes —
storm hooves herald the dawn of high tide
enshrines recall of past paths roved
rings rhythm of earned respite care
in sound and unspoilt place —
weaving whimsy waves
soothes my spirit.
drawn gold sky,
soul glint
stream
.
NO
then hang me
Yahweh
left mine eyne open
to
indulge this sight
One uv His Most Fantastic Creations
and i'm sharing
with
the Gift mine Blessed
PHUK
the fine uv this purty
ticklez the Atlantic's spume
wit
hern hip's limb'z digits
not 'ware uv ‘mine’ think's
“tickle”
or
hind mine
the spurious who
wait for mine reach
uv
hern
Ancient Latin 'cipher
"nubile"
i mustn’t
worship
,)
but damn
Snap
Low evening rain.
Do the trees weep, or does the sky?
Gray margins swirl.
Yesterday the sun was a brightness,
on the wrists of small boys.
They played out a violent movie
a shrill mock savagery,
shouts of strife were merrily cast,
the fallen littering a sunny lawn.
Tonight, I hope the owls keep blinking.
The light dims so slow,
a pre-nocturnal spume
of dank air labors to rise.
A battle has been lost,
even the victorious are wounded
by a dreary weariness,
and now the heavens seep
through a shroud of tears.
One day I'll drive there.
On the way
I'll tell my wife about the Modoc woman,
who lived outside the city,
above a sea lion rookery.
She taught me a Klamath-Modoc prayer:
“I want you animals to know, open your eyes,
a hungry man has killed one of you.
One day we will find out
what happened to its spirit
then we will go meet with it,
for it was my brother.”
She rowed a boat on the spume
of the wild cove waves.
I knew her, she had the way of truth in her.
When I get to the Redwoods,
I'll visit her clapboard home.
Look for her twelve year old Ford truck,
her briny patch of hand-reared garden,
her small surf-riding boat.
The sheriff reported her, `missing in transit.'
Maybe she went off
with that son-of-a- jailbird
who had twice tried to kill her.
I'll take the back roads, getting lost
until we reach the ocean.
When we get to Crescent City,
we'll sit by the harbor and watch the sea lions
savoring their deep throated funk.
I'll tell my wife I love her,
and she will taste the salt of my words.
Tune perdendosi purple evening ebbs decipher
Out blotted skies swaddle boats’ cosy slumber
Burst fish femme fins, her brave roe survivors
Immense installation certifies cosmic number
Koi silk sway exhales eggs painless, float lazy
Overlapping orange spheres, sunshine daisies
Tadpole transforms, one prince among spume
Ad interim mermaid melody, in dusk dissolves
Injection unguent jelly, elusive musical neume
Lavender everlasting, ripe ova reptilian evolve
10th February
Mermaid Quite Contrary
The art was most masterful on the dark canvas.
The intricate designs, having rich color crispness.
Blending strokes together, shades creating expression
Giving way to natural warmth of self-expression.
Clouds floating across the fess azure sky
Like sailing ships over serene sea going by.
On a sunny afternoon two barefooted boys
Beachcomb the beach, numb to surf pounding noise.
Leaving footprints behind unaware of the world around
Them, ignoring the resonant sonorousness sounds
Of the sea, and inland cold air ruffled hair.
They stand on golden sand, slight spume unaware.
1/30/2024
Written: November 19, 2023
________________________________________
I must plunge into the seafloor.
Out into the abyss of water and starry sky.
I utterly crave a lofty vessel. As waves roll ashore,
And the insight of the stars from high.
The wind symphony and the vortex spin
Yet the pearl sail is shaking within.
A murky haze veils the ocean's surface.
And the onset of a dismal dawn stirs us.
I must plunge into the seafloor.
Owing to the beckoning of an ebbing wave,
An erratic and yet obvious call before.
That might not be waived.
I'd settle for a breezy day.
As cotton clouds glide across the sky.
Sputtering fog and billowing spume
And the squawking of seabirds, I presume.
I must plunge into the seafloor.
Onward to the wandering gypsy life.
Trillions of years elapsed, and it is still pure.
Where the wind acts as a sharpened knife
The only thing I require is an ascetic tale.
Expressed humorously by a gypsy peer.
Restful sleep and lovely dreams prevail.
Finished the drawn-out mystical cheer.
cool waves
crest golden sands
white spume tickles naked
toes, as I stroll in silence by
the shore
precious
memories of
family holidays
children flown the nest, now I walk
alone
Today, all is landscaped by mist.
North, South, East, and West
all are one floating sea.
The hedgerows are reefs,
a familiar tree-line
seems like a gray cliff face.
My own face
feels as if swept over
by a tidal spume.
Now a kitchen radio is turned on,
a truck blasts its air-horn, a child shouts,
and as if the sun were only now roused
to scatter ocean dreams
with a newly rinsed
and blotting wind.
As centuries pass
The seas advance
To take away the land.
Lost to the waves
The ancient graves
Reside below the sand.
Cliffs that crumble
Remains lay humble
Eroded by the brine.
The final tomb
To meet the spume
Clings to the shoreline.
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