Sometimes I sit and I ponder.
I ponder about my lacquered erudition.
I ponder about my varnished rectitude.
I ponder about my penning acquiescence.
The insipid tedium of my veins questions my oblivion to a stupor so stark to the glorification of my solitude.
I ponder its adjacent to the extolment of my void.
The seething flame sanctifies the feigning rot of my lungs as I inhale the melancholy of your lips.
Something so soothing.
Something so soaring.
Something so laboriously stinging.
I desire for the salvation of sin;
To tattoo your words on my tongue.
To swallow my decay in your blood.
To fuse your disparity on my webs.
I sit and I ponder.
Am I so inured to the metal of these bars, I distort the culpable intimacy of still yet existing in one?
And thereafter, I ponder whether my silver ashes will ever dare to utter the sinister sacrilege of my syllables.
A curse that’s worse than the pandemic
Greedier populist verse became totemic
No halt of their catapult assault systemic
Seedier social media game now endemic
Whether it be some chanting panting cleric
Will ration all compassion not really angelic
Always decanting another ranting hysteric
Doubts planting the enchanting evangelic
Oligarchy malarkey their tarnished polemic
Climate fires rage but won’t call the medic
Derails with varnished tales any academic
Preening demeaning all left leaning satiric
Dystopian & myopian totally Machiavellic
We burn they’re still lippy well it’s generic
With their heinous intravenous hypodermic
Even if taciturn with boring name like Derek
Yearn for return of hippy trippy psychedelic
Not dippy all learn nature can be mesmeric
Don’t spurn love soars above stratospheric
venture past steep clay hills to situate the honeycombed vale
with hands swaying beneath green satin cloaks in our banana patch
fingers yellow varnished by a tropical sun will set sail
bunches bound for markets in towns we've known, before monkey gangs snatch
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!
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..
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
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.
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
"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 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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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