A Wily Brush
The world has become my canvas
Everyone's paths
conjuring patterns
Vain ventures
plenty vanities
concocting colors
As unflattering wills
arouses a wily brush
This world is a notating papyrus
Each monk and mockery
fusing a lucid ink
As Pain taunts pleasure
masking our actions
with blending colors
Different worlds are formed
Birthed by ephemeral words
ushering a cascade of thoughts
flaunting baskets
of friable dreams
fashioning the pen
a flickering fiend
flattering friends and foes
a slick ink
with a cloying unction
best
elegant, lavish
flattering, favoring, pleasing
gown, jewelry, rags, stains
unflattering, shaming, jarring
dowdy, ugly
worst
Feels like grumpy faces when I close my eyes.
Unflattering flour on an unflattering apron.
Sandpapered down thoughts.
Flies.
Feels like a garden filled with sand, and maybe creaking sounds.
As if there’s a ghost of a swingset.
Sticks in the grass, but some are alive.
Growling, chomping apple pie with teeth.
It’s all grandma’s house,
Weird bugs, sticks coming to life, torn up scarves.
The vases in the closet.
She used to live here by herself.
We had said for years the same pestering stuff.
Even the willow tree snapped at her.
The feeling is as familiar as gravel in her driveway almost flying into my eye.
I think 92 was it.
Feels like her apple pie spattering near my burning feet.
Flies.
The mellowed out wallpaper.
Hair.
It was the night before her 92nd birthday.
I said “92 is coming for you,” in my sleep sometimes.
Would wake up with flour in my eye.
A feeling like apple pie slobbering on me.
Feels like grumpy faces-
Not grandma’s but her childhood friend in my double vision.
She knows what there is, over there in the light…
Flies…
…eating a Juicy Apple Pie handmade by some stranger.
Unflattering Echoes
.for public domain
My echoes return
from barren canyon walls,
absent of the flattery,
I often seek from mirrors.
Was I maudlin over our breakup? For a minute.
If I think of you now, it’s like a slideshow of unflattering images.
At the time, my breakup buddies reminded me you were a bad
choice - like a brand of deodorant that gave me a rash or fashionable shoes that chafed, even after they were stretched.
“Ruca,” my girlfriends would say, “you’re shootin-terrible, they’re a million pork-swords in the sea.”
Finally, I pulled the trigger - double-tapped us.
At first, reminders of you, those siren whispers of nostalgia, were everywhere - like the moon - which, I just had to live with.
You passed from memory though, that’s how memory works. Events fade, like last week’s chemistry test, or yesterday’s lunch.
Now, if someone asks me, “Hey, remember, what’s his name, your big love from high school?”
I say “Nope.”
I chose to laugh, dance - and shoot birds at the moon.
.
.
Slang:
breakup buddies = friends who help you get over a breakup
ruca = girlfriend
shootin terrible = on a losing streak, not doing well, making bad choices
pork-swords = come on, think about it - it’s funny.
I like to walk beside the sea
I find that it relaxes me
That is, until I decide
To take a plunge into the tide
This comes after careful thought
(It's taken much longer than it ought)
It looks inviting but.... is the water icy?
I bet it is. Probably. Yes, definitely. Dicey.
I keep on dithering what to do
It's clouded over now and not so blue
Should I get in oh-so-slowly, bit by bit
Or just dive in and get it over with?
I don't want to look like I'm not brave
Stifling screams I wade into the waves
Now soaking wet and hair unflattering
I'm shivering and my teeth are chattering
I stagger out, puffed with pride
It was worth the angst and I survived
I remember the old saying now, and grin ...
'It's all right - once you're in'
My co-workers in the hallway are laughing
I rush out to listen; but I must have missed the punchline
They are trying hard to like each other, I can see that.
Motormouth is talking, so I slink back into my room.
Glad she doesn’t include me; for she never listens to anyone
I think this is the most unflattering trait a person can have.
Our God is bountiful because
He is the epitome of pious,
the paragon of virtue
and the abridgment of righteousness.
Rising from amidst the flame
of hope and unprecedented 'happiness'
a soul all too great
for we are his creatures
And he- our creation!
The 'unwavering' presence of Him
with his abode in our souls
his flattering and 'astounding' presence felt in every step
for we are his creatures
And he- our creation!
A guiding light...
The unflattering glimmer of hope
A life all along presiding under us...
beneath us....AMONG US!!!
for we are his creatures
And he- our creation!
Yes! He exists...not as one...
But as many...
Not Inside one!!
But inside millions!!
for we are his creatures
And he- our creation!
But yes he is the one...
The one and the only one!
Believe me....He is 'irreplaceable'
He is 'inevitable'!
But sure yes, we are his creatures
And he- our creation !
Well,
Our God is bountiful because
He is the One.
He is unparalleled!
`
“In the craft of a rhyme, there’s no loss in the time”
Sitting at my desk, gray walls, unflattering
as the fluorescent lighting brings boredom
to the page as I challenge myself to write
“In this cubicle I stay, among all forms of gray”
Free verse or rhyme, it matters not
if that thread of inspiration isn’t woven
into my thoughts as I struggle for a theme
“With words come a cost, if thoughts are found lost”
Love is the standard for me, regardless of form,
through dawning horizons and moonbeam quivers,
my footsteps lead into the vast display
“Come morning or night, my heart tends to write”
And again I find, that merely the thought of you,
your beauty, your smile, your kiss embraces me so
that my pen finds its way to the page happily
“Your love forever keeps me warm, no matter what my chosen form”
11/27/19
Written for : The Free Verse vs Structured poetry contest
Sponsored by: Line Gauthier
Your influence and attitude
intense at best rude
nasty blunt unflattering
unaware without a clue
Treat me a slave or possession
each day this way progressing
heated behaviour with aggression
giving orders I must press on
As though you’ve power and control
you walk in front behind I stroll
words you speak always cold
stare expecting eyes scold
A gradual change unwinds
I’m different over time
you question why
I say goodbye
And you tell people I changed
became someone strange
different and deranged
now keeping long range
Always blaming others
factually never you
went from being brothers
to someone I once knew
What God See’s, Is Who I Am
Written: by Tom Wright
4/2/2018
Mornings capture the reflection of truth,
When at the mirrors image I quietly stare.
I acknowledge this is my fountain of youth,
Unshaved face, old scars and graying hair;
Our mirror is unflattering in its report,
It reveals nothing I consider to be a sham.
While a smudge might, my image, distort,
The image is a reflection of the man I am.
God is aware of each miniscule imperfection,
What HE sees is much deeper than ever I can.
But it fails to influence or cause HIS deflection,
Though imperfect, HE still loves me, the man.
Skimming through paragraphs,
I seem to stretch time and shrink my attention
Underlining words I can't grasp
With my limited span of concentration,
Creating art I can't explain
Stick men and asymmetrical shapes,
Spiralling into mazes and dotted lines
Lost in an alphabet jungle.
Encircling page numbers,
Decorating the margins with unflattering flowers,
Marking pages with , blue, pink, fluorescent ink, washing them dry
And awfully bright, missing out on the 'fatality rate' mentioned.
Little wings sprouting from a wavering mind, flying away from topics of discussion.
Dragging my imaginary feet across events in memory;
faces and voices muffled and in disarray
Eyes still glued to statistics and rates,
But seeing ten thousand flickery lights ;
dreams of glitter and starry nights.
Thoughts then seem like little bubbles,
helping me procrastinate much longer.
A finger snap would sound like a rifle shot at this point,
Shattering the world I made,
And awareness rising from rubbles,
Would speak for itself, about things I cannot evade.
I apologize at any unintentional
flagitious, egregious,
deleterious et cetera and
atrocious (asper wording),
which accidental faux pas
toward an allpoetry participant
named skypriceireland, who brand
did me with
crookedly unflattering feedback,
and practically demand
did, an explanation,
which hoop fully
clarifies intended feedback,
thus aye expand
utmost sincerity and perceives
how my anger got fanned
when purposeful intent grand
lee and roundly surmising
if the Jesse (un-named child) referenced
in the poem played
an influential invisible hand
as the whims of children
can be so inventive
absent any parental oversight
to inveigle being baited
from kiddie make believe island
a desired outcome, rather
exclaim with com manned
double delight at such un-planned
Hi Yo Silver braying ejaculation,
thus upon this
expostulation I stand.
I stand outside pacing black bard sitting on lines of grateful destruction,
Photos of lake mass grace me trapped like snow ball cage,
Died as the sky glimmer cold in April,
Looking on dark tosh of the wend,
Hearing plans bleeding the sky envious to is wake,
Dead evergreen bristles fall leaving no sound but echoes of the future,
No sleep stay to dusk smoke a cigarette next to bed springs and garbage,
Walk three thousand meters down Cedar Street, can hear residence of Spanish Trace unflattering me,
Ease in the Ford dealership – feeling warmth and peace of mind the world sometimes is good give sighs of true humanity in the Blix of the small countryside,
Liberty supply the drug I need, empty as the cold heart that it sends by - gracefully I had attain funds for my dirty habits,
Receive my change - a penny more given to me by mistake or through laziness more than less I will not care,
Talk of the world feel as revelations is among us, walking beep in are live the for hours men are ready to wake the beast, God is the true weaker of the new world no man knows the time of true deliverance,
Take the three thousand meters in full silent nest
A Perfect Day Never Ends (or, If Chloe was a Poet)
The lazy breeze swoops in through the grassy lawn, tickles our necks,
barely a whisper; sitting back-to-back,
we exchange ideas for your next photo.
Chiaroscuro, maybe, of the canopy; an unbroken shadow.
I don't know. I dabble.
But I write great titles.
"A Perfect Day Never Ends."
Yours is the greatest of gifts; I only spin words.
But today we are not sparring with our chosen mediums
(An unflattering candid; a stinging poem!),
today we are looking for the feathers of bluebirds
for your scrapbook documentation of "The Birds of Oregon."
No wonder I write the titles.
We go back to the movie room, where you trade your skinny jeans for shorts
and we watch Donnie Darko in low light.
We do not care for the time of night.
In the soft glow of Donnie's school scene,
I turn to you to expound my theory,
but you are already asleep.
The poet in me smiles.
What photography and poetry share
is the elusive moment we often only capture
in our memories, fragile as the wings of butterflies.
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