kaleidoscopic - it mutates hour to hour,
week to week, season to season
and day to night, when it is still and black
except for a pensive visage
whose glazed gaze peers back,
almost begging the question, "what"?!
I have no answers, only smudged thoughts;
leaves green and then fall, flowers bloom then wilt,
lives mix and meld - marry and mourn
midst a carousel of brown trucks
and their hurried drivers
- sirens and gawking and caring tears
through a lens of what we're made of
and will return to - quenched sand
this unshuttered sash reveals nothing
and everything
especially when it is still and black
and fragile
Categories:
unshuttered, life,
Form: Free verse
Light of silent moon swathed in a gray cloud
Spoke to me through the unshuttered blind,
And though I closed my eyes to shut it out
I could not leave the horrific scene behind,
Of shrill barking voices, the cold receptionist
Deciding who would live and who would die
In the deadly chambers of the foreboding camp,
Where it did no good for a prisoner to resist.
The account I read before I tried to sleep,
Told of one who watched his family disappear
Into the cavernous jaws of a hellish demise,
No time to question, no opportunity to weep.
Light of silent moon swathed in a gray cloud
Watching helplessly over the Auschwitz camp
Where is their God? The Protector of the Jews?
And still, they believed … for cryin’ out loud!
written January 22, 2022
Categories:
unshuttered, history, horror,
Form: Rhyme
In the dank night, windows ajar,
I look across at unshuttered rooms,
And see my neighbor quite by happenstance.
Her curtain flutters in the buoyant air.
I see her at her mirror hold a vial of scent—
Perchance I’ll see her daub a bit behind one ear,
The fragrance wafting through the courtyard
On the humid breeze, like a hushed voice
Praying out of sight. Ah, the tenacious folly
Of hope, to catch the last whispers of romance!
February 13, 2019
Note: This poem was written for John Hamilton's "Eight Word Poem Challenge - Bardenesque" contest. The eight words to be used were: wafting, daub, whispers, dank, flutters, perchance, folly, and happenstance. The requested form was free verse; the length: 10 to 40 lines; the subject, "a romantic encounter".
Categories:
unshuttered, dream, hope, lonely,
Form: Free verse
I don’t recall the day or date
or who stood forth and uttered.
They used a term we've called create,
when sunlight’s ray first was unshuttered.
The particulars became well known
of earth and sky and sea and cloud.
Forthwith hair plus skin and bone—
with skill by sacred hands endowed.
But despots came and seized control;
errant chaos settled in.
Sublime and simple rules it stole,
replacing them with hell and sin.
Heaven is now a thousand places;
all proclaimed as our reward.
Observe the monetary graces;
thus salvation is assured.
What if the scribes got some things wrong—
mixed up, misled on certain facts?
or added things that don’t belong,
perhaps assuming truth distracts.
We misinterpret what we hear;
our dogma soon begins to stink.
Fix it all—become a seer,
believing all that you might think.
But here is something you can try:
begin a voyage by letting go.
Send your mind toward the sky.
Find rebirth in afterglow.
Categories:
unshuttered, peace,
Form: Quatrain