Varnished Poems | Examples

Murky Mists of Narcissists Trysts

Varnished Tech Titans
Tattered totems tarnished
Viral tribal bible spiral
Tainted talismans taunted
Cash cows flaunted
Gerontocracy trumps democracy
Theocracy stumps hypocrisy
Autocracy dumps diplomacy
Haunted schism prism
Vaunted Fat Cats
Enigma?…just
Dogma & Stigma
Tit for Tats
Martian Martial law
Doff your hats
To techno-*wats
And petro-*rats
Deplore or Encore?
Poor Planet in flux
All about the bucks
Ersatz Fat Cats
Well More is More!

Wokery, no just jiggery pokery

Febrile Fog obfuscates palimpsest varnished promises..

Naysayers hoodwinked... deluded players peeling layers..denuded..

Deafening din of our chagrin...

Espoused by rabbles roused by mandarins’ sins..

Tarnished...pampered pilferers pickpocketing public purses...

Deploring the warring cacophony of citizens curses.. 

Ignoring the boring nagging nadir of nurses...

Corporate castles built without stilts on hourglass sands..

Placards versus lanyards.. 

Culprits preach parsimony from privileged pulpits..

Civic critics.. protests...pyrrhric..?

No tut tuts..relax…gluts of tax cuts for property sluts..

Licentious larcenists..lust for boom then bust..

Lavishly lacing our lives with lies..

Yet the more we holler...hanker..

Murky truths get darker...muckier.. starker..danker..

Avaricious arsonists torching our cries of why...

Leave us lolloping in a regret & forget.. leaking latrine...

Reeking of what could & should have been..

Autumn Leaves

The floral foliage of Fall fuels my pen to flow
Nature's carmine carnage is a crimson condition to watch
Russet quills of the trees float down in myriad shades
Amber leaves levitating like flying embers
Auburn arrows gliding to meet the earth
Soft sepia smiles sent down from the Shepherd above
Burnished varnished tree-bits travelling back to the ground
Crumbling orange smidgens creating crunchy cracklings
Brown bracts brave enough to bed with the soil
Gamboge hues gamboling like golden glowing gems
Lurid leaflets leaving their last lucid legacy
Before they turn into les feuilles mortes

The engagement

On Saturday the fifth, I will meet my bride.
By side of alter, and then decide.
If I should flee, or marry thee. 
You may think me cruel, or ungentle of man.
But she’s the type, to toll a man.
By cost and affect, because she can.
By Sunday sixth, she will be Mrs or amiss.
But me a Mister, regardless of this. 
Her name in tarnish,  but mine varnished still.
As a gentleman untamed, unmarried and with will. 
It will be my choice, whether we rejoice.
Or my plan, that I leave her in abandon.
On Friday fourth, I get a jolt.
A letter brought forth, has me revolt.
Miss will not see you on Saturday.
She’s decided against, the matrimony. 
How dare she, I gasp!
To leave such a man, not at the alter
But by, the pen of hand.

Scarlet French Kisses

Long for the tender tormenting touch of her slips, a vermillion vice of the abyssal depths that lay within the merest brush of her breath, a zephyr's caress that set aflame the parched arid landscapes of my wasteland as sighs hollow echoes whispered promises grew, the inferno of my longing raged, a maelstrom of need that threatened to consume all reason, all restraint in the swirling crimson vortex of those velvets, the boundaries of our recurrent reality grew tenuous, and the tyranny of the flesh held sway as the flexuous uncharted curves of your caress became the acid test of my resolve, dissolving the fragile, varnished veneer of self control, as the confinement of thy desires began to dissolve like gossamer under the scorching waxen sun of ardent, copious passion.

As we entwined, visceral privilege awoke, like hydras flourishing in some foresworn elixir, every casual respite yawned vacant, sucked into the vampiric vortices of intolerably testy discontent. 

How provoking, this postponement of unbound reciprocity, tongue just grazing the tips of those plush velvet onyx lips, while catalyzing inveigling suspense

Time

"Seize the day, then let it go" - Marty Rubin. 

I capture the first chirp of the bird in admiration.
My heart merges with it. My hands fold in adoration.
The color-changing beams of the morning sun, like prisms, spread
Varnished Verses from my heart, like waterfalls, flow ahead.
The mist dip mesmerizes. The clement breeze caresses.
The untimely rain cools. Thunder, as though throat-blocked, hisses.
Amidst decomposing mango-neem-jack leaves, banyans sprout.
Amidst the sun’s hide-and-seek, shades shred their tinges throughout.
Each bloom tells me tales. Each bee and fly mimes a moral.
Thoughts, words, and deeds, like meadows, seem flowerily aural.
I see soul in each grain. Each drop of water brims with life.
Doesn't here, between good and evil, creep a constant strife?
Like lilies of the field and birds of the air, I feel free.
Why, about an imaginary act, should I worry?
Each split second of an hour has a universe within.
I know that failing to feel this fact within is a sin.

- Jukebox -

                              Jukebox plays your hit song
                                  Jackpot for just a dime
                                   Jewel in shiny chrome
                                   Juicy colors varnished
                              Joyful tones and rhythm swings
                                  Jive boogie social dance
                                 Journey; the speed of light

Gossamer Snare

In pale dawn light, when dew drops glisten,
I listen to a chorus of larks as they chatter.
Scattered about my garden, lilies are in bloom.
Perfumed petals varnished by the fulgent sun.
Spun, is a tangled web between the leaves,
as a busy spider weaves a gossamer snare.



October 11, 2022  
Bitesize Poem No. 53
A contest by Line Gauthier

Early Times

Years 1 to 6
in the deep basement I grew up in
were a dark fairytale,
one I shall never tell to a child.

There were shoe-shod steps
that rained upon listless dreams.
The dank stank of in-dwelling rodents,
dug-in behind crumbling wallpaper.
Bare boards varnished with grey lights
creaked like old coffin lids.

It was not so bad, at least not until year 4,
only then did I have cause to wonder
about the green city park
nearby my head, and the blue sky
above it.
I suspected people walked there
just for the sake of walking.
Occasionally, distant laughter
seeped through the dispersal
of hovering grime.

I got to hankering, I got to thinking;
Mind-monsters imprisoned me.
Then on year 6
                      we moved.
Not having my own suitcase,
I stuffed those past years,
into my small form.

It took decades for those ghosts
to move somewhere else,
but i watched them go
one by one.

Mouse Hairs By Moonlight

Out-built, humped, and beached, breached by moonlight,
nothing comes out of an old barn unfound.

Engine oil, the fungal fur of time warped wood.
Weather-eaten iron coated by rusted smears.
mouse hairs that rise upon old horse leather.

The green metallic wine on tin cans
a devolved acropolis of tractor parts put aside
for a thousand nights to seek and hide.
Gaskets strewn where tangles bloom.

Nothing lingers long without leaving its print
nailed to the air.
Possum pelts patch-work timbers into skin-deep quilts.
Tobacco smoke and sweat, the turpentine film of the
once varnished, the once cherished.

Treasures bolted to a deathless sleep, well rubbed
tackle and tools harnessed now to a tumbled-down dust,
a sun-frayed flap of light slipping in and out
as if time could be fixed and torn shadows mended.

Mouse Hairs By Moonlight

Out-built, humped, and beached, breached by moonlight,
nothing comes out of an old barn unfound.

Engine oil, the fungal fur of time warped wood.
Weather-eaten iron coated by rusted smears.
mouse hairs that rise upon old horse leather.

The green metallic wine on tin cans
a devolved acropolis of tractor parts put aside
for a thousand nights to seek and hide.
Gaskets strewn where tangles bloom.

Nothing lingers long without leaving its print
nailed to the air.
Possum pelts patch-work timbers into skin-deep quilts.
Tobacco smoke and sweat, the turpentine film of the
once varnished, the once cherished.

Treasures bolted to a deathless sleep, well rubbed
tackle and tools harnessed now to a tumbled-down dust,
a sun-frayed flap of light slipping in and out
as if time could be fixed and torn shadows mended.

Last Soliloquy

I stand solitary on the stage
devoid of any set or fancy façade
only the Cabernet colored curtains
I used to stroke to alleviate my anxiety
soothed by the feeling under my fingers
of the smooth texture of the velvet 
The varnished boards beneath my feet 
creak as I peer out over the empty seats 
the last rows below the balcony
swallowed by shadows
the sound of my voice echoing 
off the old plaster walls of the auditorium 
torn down a decade ago to build a McDonald’s 
for culture can’t satisfy starving stomachs
I deliver my last soliloquy
recalling every line from memory 
after all these years
The sound of the final syllable fades
followed by silence 
sinking its serrated teeth into my psyche
like Nosferatu draining my dreams 
of what little lifeblood remains before I wake
but it’s better than boos

Do Those Who Have Never Caught a Star

Do those who have never caught a star
between finger and thumb
or loved through the pain
or let a mist tremble through open palm
or chiselled air in icicle blows
watching spiders slip
in golden dustbunnies glow
of monster silhouette
caused by sitting laundry pile
a burning light that
glances now an unidentified object flying
on the the varnished door
does the colour of my dark sky
affect effect
either aye there pronounced eye there -a Scottish phrase to save from pointing, yours
Wanna here a surreal joke
Well i didn't knock
always saying It to coulrophobics
Does that one make you nearly thin king
hear the fox hes closer than before
so adieu
A due i never paid

Road Sparkles

Driving on the way home
Road varnished from heavy rain and
sparkling as gemstones
from where the streetlights flicker.



~Re: "I miss you"

Liberum Divisa 7 Poetry Contest, Sponsored by: Gregory Richard Barden
Wed 8th September 2021

A Varnished House

The lake is surrounded 
by burnt-orange grass that bends.
The sparse light rain drops

make perfect circles 
on the glassy dark water.
They widen until 

they sleekly, slyly 
disappear. The lake mirrors 
the late afternoon: 

dried-apricot clouds 
from which peek a chilled soft blue,
a worn trodden campsite;

evergreen pine
needles soft as worn spandex
next to a shiny house.

And the sun-light shifts 
the early Autumn sky, steeped 
in the still-reaching

fingers of Summer.
This civil landscape is a captive 
of a watercolor,

from a nomadic 
palette. The varnished brown house..
a lumberjack..his ax,

a bronze age tool
for civilization. A stormy,
ancient wilderness.

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