¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ I believed ¦¦¦ moonlight
could change me if ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦
I moved my head
on the pillow, ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦
¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦
¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦
I wanted beauty, ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦
¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦ my body thinner,
my ¦¦¦¦ face paler.
I moonbathed
¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦
But the moon's unsmiling stare
kept me awake. Mornings,
I was flushed and cross.
¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ on dark nights of deep sleep
¦¦¦¦ I dreamed ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦
and woke rested, ¦¦¦ if not beautiful,
filled with some other power.
(Blackout of The Well by Denise Levertov)
The call of the sea
I walk alone
Amid the crowds
Of unsmiling grim-faced people
And dream of turning into a white bird
And fly away
From the noise surrounding me
I hear in my heart
The call of the sea
Quiet under the moonlight
I want to see each star
Shining in the night sky
And know peace
Even as cars rush by
In their hurry to get nowhere
I ask myself
If there is a magic word I can learn
To turn myself into a white bird
Flying over a sea
Bathed in silver moonlight
Spontaneity 2-28-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Spontaneity
Arthritic inertia,
Absent of the Prime Mover,
Bursts into astral fireflies of serendipity
Coloring outside deliberate
Past ebony links in tangerine comets
In outbursts of the unplanned ad-lib
Flicks of incandescent glory
And slivers of glee,
Like dolphins leaping or whales breaching
Into the spontaneous’ ephemeral sparkle,
Ignite gusts of rumbling grace
Rushing past anxious spirals,
Sneaking past solemn's gates,
In explosions of uncontained whimsy -
As springs of roiling combustions
Split life draining millstones,
And rock musty routines that shuffle
Bathing the unsmiling dower dirge
With thunder dancing across sullen waters
To christen spontaneity’s godchild
With new robes of unrehearsed mirth
And a dedicated named -
Laughter!
her mean-spiritedness detonates
unsmiling green eyes that narrow
and expose the crannies and
cubbies of her harsh mouth
amplifying sounds
of rage in her
honey tones,
sickly
sweet
Twenty one was the year it took-
To being unraveled like a book.
And all those footsteps that once were woven.
Become random patterns as my past is stolen.
When I was unsmiling and small.
The future would feel like a cliff that I was destined to fall.
But now that path that was once sad and unspoken-
Has crumbled as the clock in my head was broken.
And all the fumbles and all the falls-
That seemed like mistakes turn into endless waterfalls.
The Out-Going Treasurer had me briefed
But through the released records I still leafed,
Just in case a thing was tightly overlooked
And I some tomorrow hatefully booked
Over some books I had barefacedly cooked
And some missing one million or thereabouts
I should kindly explain its whereabouts…
The one hitting about The Handed Over
And one lousily taking them over:
Before a week’s swiveling of the chair, A Police Land Rover,
If one had happened to be lucky with Army Range Rover;
For unsmiling cops that shall in your office hover…
Always, while taking over from A Treasurer,
Try to be about one or two things surer.
Night follows day in bitter hungry monotony,
as wane laughter dies upon parched lips,
and ignorant innocence is trampled underfoot
at every corner of the decadent deserted plain.
Homeless bulimic children unsmiling, subdued, thirsty
seek dilapidated dug-in shelters devoid of nourishing food.
Employment inexistent, as the rich grow richer,
the poor poorer. Death is not far away. Famine reigns.
This is today's nightmare as vultures fly above
ready to prey on dead children’s carcasses below.
But I am headstrong and will not give up.
For I'm sure someday there will be
a reckoning, a purge, where judgment triumphs.
Then as years roll by, we will return to till the land,
our laughter will increase, our food becomes abundant,
our minds will return to sanity.
And all my wishes will come true.
Love grows with humility and respect.
But that's another story, another age.
Even when she laughs, she’s sad
her smile does not reach her tired eyes
deep within her heart, pain spreads, she feels so bad
life was never her friend, it betrayed her, she cries
She has completely forgotten her fieriness
gone is her smile, her happy mask, her frank cheeriness
look around, death surrounds her, she’s lost in soul weariness
Lonely, she saunters mid trees to find a way out
birds give her company, the grave’s her hideout
here, her unheard tears can shout
She weeps, she cries behind smiles, but she’s not mad
it is not her fault that whoever she loves, dies
her desolate life’s filled with dreariness
she’s broken, yet strong…penning away all doubt.
07.19.2021
For Constance La France's "Writing Prompt - Fragmented Spaces" contest
First, a phone that insistently rang,
Soon, a voice that croakily sang,
Then, a door that did as insistently bang
And a steely chain that knew how to clang…
Next, a calmly approaching unsmiling gang,
Face to face with him, they should hang
And relaxed the bastard watch against the pangs
From their boa-constrictor-mimicking ropes with cobra’s fangs…
And it was to be a torture fully intended;
Its former arranged duration evilly extended,
Victim’s final lifeless body made to lie supine,
As just that to any onlooker should be fine!
Woman who doesn't have
fear of cockroach ...
man who supports
well the pain ...
Nervous to become silent,
shy to be super speaker ...
serious to smile,
unsmiling have
loose laughter ...
Listen to the snake chirp ...
Cow coughing and ox flying,
christened horse attend
the mass,
battle horse
to fight...
Jaguar do
the nails,
mooing bullfrog,
ancient cock command ...
marie antoinette and dandelions ~pouf~ faced the blade unsmiling
They are looking out tiny boxes
traveling toward the city from the suburbs
wearing tennis shoes on their tired feet
Many have left their dress shoes at work
Some stop at a gym on the way,
these are the high brows who do not punch in
It is Chicago, nineteen ninety-six
My husband is in one of these jam trains
looking out his tiny box, as trees and cows fly by
Upon arrival, the gritty of the city meets them
Gray concrete is their first welcome mat
They are careful to not fall into the trenches
Some race by, but most march as robots
staying in order until they reach Union Station
People stop being human here
The stores are expensive, so most cannot shop
Their lunch sandwiches are tucked into hot baggies
inside the briefcase they hold onto as they march
a line of unsmiling creatures
who have left their mommy and daddy cap forty miles out
being an employee or an employer, less than human now
Get me a matchstick
And the rogue over there quickly pick.
Or you fetch me smoker’s lighter,
Whose flame is assuredly brighter,
Pouring me out some petrol
From our jeep long on patrol…
Jungle Justice is beginning to itch like lust,
Last week’s, a badgering must!
The fair-play funded by fire
And aided by vindictive tyre:
An impatient crowd’s justice,
Permitting no armistice:
Rather like our dirty street,
Every burnt body, a nice treat!
Still rubber trying to locate?
Or what it should cost calculate?
Please, let me have a bundle of unsmiling ropes
That should dash an escapee’s lurking hopes,
With this ridding our society of a bandit…
They’re real Trial Judges within our ambit.
No sooner are their wigs worn
Than The Hardened confessions are born:
His true identities peeping back at you,
Their impossible hideout proving to be true.
Old timers freely recalling their first operation,
A neat fingering of even the day of digression
But now to them no show of leniency
Nor our determined hands control their proficiency.
Coal hearted caretaker
never could accept or give love
has a collection of wounded women
placed them in his half-dead heart museum.
He painted over one with his oil-colored tongue.
Stuffed her into a silent taxidermy bird.
He turned some into paper mâché mobiles.
Fingered them into a sad sort of yellowing.
They, void of any hope, were left for dead.
Forever spinning in the end of his selfish head.
Others sit hollow-eyed, clay pot women.
Left on a dusty shelf, chipped and rotting.
Mostly from disrespect and neglect.
Another is in the foyer for the unsmiling,
Colossal bronze busts, monuments to this volcanic prick of destruction.
The final conquest was glass blown.
He melted her spirit into a glowing poem.
A masterpiece born from a seed of sadism.
Hung it in a forgotten corner of his mind.
Framed it in his blood and karmic dust...
Someday he'll have to pay back these endless debts.
And become a forgotten etching in a derelict museum.
Unsmiling gray wisp fingers drift and bore
A helical ridge around the vast sky;
Down abutting poignant horizon floor.
Alga blooms a huffy infectious cry.
A tree hollow bears nestling hanging high.
Lively songbird-swallows touched by the stir
Swift cry, swell and disappear till late by-
Passing hours of summer ruffling shower.
In a warm sleeping bag in a small tent,
Newlyweds lounge engaged with sweet hush sound
And lambent flame. Could not be better spent,
To wake with the morning dawn bodies wound.
In the open, they lie there, on their camp site,
Beneath the infinite clear twilight night.
written on 4/7/2020
Ambient Music N/A Serenity- In Scenes Of Mother Nature -Chantelle Anne Cooke Yes 4/9/2020 4:12:00 PM
N/A , Judged on 5/6/2020 for the contest
"Serenity In Scenes Of Mother Nature"
N-A Re-Run 8 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: John Hamilton
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