The scarlet art of the sapphire sky of my halcyon heart
sparkled with sequined glow of the lone moon leaning low.
I tried tempted to touch your topaz sheen tinted unseen,
but you didn’t stay, slowly sauntered away out of my view
from my silky sky I shaped for you with pure joy for sure.
From the dark domain of dismantled dainty rainbow arc
strong storm surged with snapped shards of slashing scorn,
shattered my sublime sky while stowing in dispersed debris pile.
I couldn’t foresee how to dredge the drowned dreams free
from deep despair before destined day to depart came my way.
I shoved the splinters of my shattered soul on the sly,
turned them into a single white rose, residing in my heart close.
When on the run you returned to my garden under sensual sun
its fragrance fine floated with the pure passion of mine divine.
When in your sweet smile the curl of its pristine petals I saw un-furl
I knew the onset spark of the new beginning it’d memorably mark.
A runner plagued
by endless thirst,
tried all manner of things
to end the curse.
A camel bag or bottle
slowed his pace.
His yen for simple,
lasting relief, became a race -
Relentless!
Seeing smooth pebbles
in the bed of a stream,
he took a pea-sized one;
stowing it under his tongue.
His saliva flowed;
his thirst was gone, up-aweigh!
Until the bump, the trip;
the slip from tongue -
Breathless!
Overnight, they could read each other's minds.
They were embarrassed and retreated.
Almost immediately, the streets were nearly empty.
Inside their homes. The people hid, stowing away in bedrooms.
The homeless, perverts, and streetwalkers were the only ones that went public.
Their intentions were always straightforward and obvious
For a long time, they knew themselves and what everyone was thinking.
Over time, some got closer to God.
Others drifted even further into the scrub of life.
Some went mad.
Hanging themselves on the most private parts of their minds.
How many railroad ties will it take to get from here to where I'm going. Aimlessly rolling along the tracks without noticing the boxcars of baggage I'd been stowing.
So I slowly started sifting through forgotten freight as my rebuild picked up steam. Piecing myself back together with my updated route now clearly seen. It took grinding my gears to become aware that it's better to swap in hope for fears.
Eventually I'll find my way to where I am supposed to be. But for now I'll just ride the rails with my engine running wide open and free.
Somewhere the snooty scholars of the world
quietly locked inside their dusty hall
Under the dim light of a candle’s flame
decide which label to put upon us all
I see them now with my book in their hand
yelling to destroy this before it grows
Crying to the world “stop this idiot”
he who disregards every rule of prose
Running around their dusty libraries
Banging their cymbals of fear and alarm
stowing me away on some hidden shelf
before I can do anyone some harm
To all those so-called experts of the world
who will stand upon their soapbox and cry
That I am a con for not following their rules
I tell you that I do apologize
Perhaps it’s true, I am a foolish man
to think this qualifies as poetry
I do not know your rules of form and rhyme
to write the way you tell me it should be
If you’re the kind that cares about such things
you might be right to call this a farce
because I don’t use proper form and rhyme
but to you I say “kiss my ****”
Maybe when it comes time to place this book
back upon those dusty forgotten shelves
Someone who reads these words will find courage
to be the poet that thinks for themselves
Grandpa Francesco Proia,
from Caserta, Italia,
a clever stowaway
in the bowels of the ship
bringing him to Ellis Island,
Feb. 4, 1905.
Gruff ways,
often snarling a guttural “Huh,”
a lack of English,
never-ending hand gestures,
made me fearful of him.
But awestruck I was
with the romantic notion
of his stowing away.
Bootlegging homemade vino
during Prohibition – another
plus as he captured my imagination as
un farabutto – a scoundrel, a reprobate.
Add in his being a coal mine boss
in Marianna, Pennsylvania,
and I had a genuine hero.
How many other children
claimed such details about their grandpas?
Never telling anyone
of my naïve admiration for him,
family loyalty prevented me
from bragging about him.
Living to just a few days short
of his “hunnert” birthday,
I loved and admired him to the end.
Even when the ship’s manifest
I discovered for La Lorraine
listed him as a passenger
in steerage, not a stowaway.
The undertaker anticipates a better day
His plans include some needed lawnmowing,
He winds up two ne'er-do-wells stowing
Without resources their expenses to pay
The mere cost for a proper putting-away,
While his grass continues to grow knee high
As he waits for a moneyed man to die
Someone to keep his creditors at bay,
Such a day does make for sleepless nights
Hoping for the best, needing the worse
To make the payment on his brand new hearse.
Written September 8, 2022
I do not fear Death
It appears he fears me
I have sent him embossed invitations
bordered in black
bought the best bottle of wine
I could afford
lowered the lights
anxiously awaited his arrival
disappointed when there was
no knock on my door
spending the evening sitting in silence
stowing the wine away for another day
I don’t enjoy drinking alone
It continues to sit on the counter
in my kitchen unopened
He’s honored many others I know
with his presence
finding him so charming a gentleman
they abandoned everything
to run away with him
Maybe it’s because I’m not cool
like the other kids at school
used to say
when I would ask them over
to celebrate my birthday
Not a single classmate would show
to watch me blow out the candles
and attempt to guess my wish
(none of which ever came true)
I won’t force him to visit
as others have done
That seems rather rude
I’m sure he has far better things to do
I come across not knowing
Those things after the grass stops growing
Tether are those feelings up stowing
What am I beholding?
Jesus second coming
For is it selfish for me to pray
I want to be alive on that day
I want to be alive, in the presents of Christ
Want to be alive when Jesus ARRIVES
Jesus second coming, when He comes down to earth
4/27/21
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2021©
QUIET WORD VISION
No disturbance, alone in sheltered eyes torn darkness;
Peaceable releases stowing within the cool black darkness;
Free from sound of sleeping children on a crowded street;
Silents creeps zero nothingness;
Restrained in speech impeached;
Inactive;
Rested;
Inconspicuous;
Unobtrusive way;
Conciliation of affairs nothings hears, darkness in my inner ear?
For Contest: Word Vision
Sponsored by: Vernillion Scythe
A thing possessed by power desires exert
turns into an object inanimate and inert.
A life untainted and vibrant if captured
by the bloodstained clutch of lust tart
rolls like fallen beads, the string ruptured.
The senses drenched in acidic insolence
don’t repent for a moment the presence
in dismal heart the perennial obsession
of fostering desires in their grey essence,
decimating the spirit of their possession.
A body accessed by instincts of desire vile
existence is no longer animated, it’s futile.
The sunken piteous mind breaks asunder
at threshold of disgrace where disdains pile.
Where has sanity gone, times don’t ponder.
The conception called life adored and prized
a precious treasure to be preserved with pride.
When it wrecks to crumble in an object ravaged
the heart spawns hatred stowing love aside
and doesn’t find a place for the soul shamed.
September 22, 2017
Thoughts at the cusp of my breathe
begin and end with the ease of no darkness
but the gaze that only were to seethe
and pull away the warmth that I once harnessed
There was no crimson, or yerning
no signs of ill, but silence being softer still
no form of fracture could be seen burning
and the passion died with nothing, not even a shrill
though 'twas there; being deepened elsewhere
lies being spoken; promises broken
Passion built upon dead feeling
In love mending their hearts bleeding
She was from me, and he from his
removed from tortured ceilings
they envelope themselves with remiss
discarding what was for what will be
Leaving me stowing guilted feelings
With memories I'm ashamed of like dark dealings...
Blitsy Blobs
The buzzing bee on the bloom stowing away honey for blitsy blobs
January 26, 2016
Contest: Monoku #3
Sponsor: Poet Destroyer A
Long time ago in the old wild west
A hunter raised his gun, he was a
Round up cowboy, and shooting
Was his fun
He saw a fat wild turkey come
runnin out the scrub, he thought
of tasty vittals, and stomach full
of grub
The turkey turned towards him
and fixed him with its glare, its
proud red comb a hangin, before
its neck so fair
“Now mister I’ll admit, I am a tasty
Lunch, but if you keep on shootin,
You’ll prove my earnest hunch,”
That soon the scrub and prairies,
Where we so blithely roam, will
Quit of fur and feather, where
Buffalo did roam”
So thoughtfully the hunter, shocked
by what he’d seen, laid down his
hunting rifle, with turkey’s eye agleam
“Thank you Sir, you’ll not regret, the
stowing of your gun, there’s food and
grits aplenty, in store and salmon run.”
Remember how the bison, were slaughtered
For the train, and all them native Indian folk
Who lost the wild woods game
So keep your gun and bullets, defend your
Simple home, and leave the prairie creatures
To wander prairie home
And if you see his finery, running wild
By tree, remember he’s an emblem, of
Open land so free.
Apples ripen pink, hotly blushing,
though the ardent yellow sun grows faint;
blackbirds sucking soft honeyed sweetness.
like babies at breast, show no restraint.
Mellow ripeness splays rich-toned color;
the trees raise scarlet armed applause.
Red-brown and gray, small creatures hurry
stowing provisions for winter's pause.
Copyright, September 1, 2014
Faye Lanham Gibson
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