“Welcome”
a robot effigy of painted aluminium
on its face a vestigial smile
chill, uncharismatic and instant,
voicing through it
like rasping metallic file,
a platinum echo, distant.
Its unmoving countenance
worn like a habit, a shiny mask, ill-fit
the smirk of a smile sewn on,
with crayon drawn on,
it did not move as if to prove
a robotic ability as ventriloquist.
I was transfixed
with words that keenly gnawed:
“You have been thawed.”
I looked around with icy perception,
with roving eye and no movement of limb,
where had I been?
As my body warmed and my limbs gained inflection,
so my mind was pierced with icicles of truth
of a previous existence and a distant youth.
It’s all coming back now,
it had worked somehow:
Cryogenics.
CONVOLUTED ESSENCE-:-
labyrinthine
exuberance
entangled
concerto
resonant
in MELANCHOLIC MEDLEY
derelict
embodiment
vestigial
cacophony
entropic
of DISHARMONIC SYMPHONY
reflective
echo
nonsensical
melody
aberrant
It's been a while since I've prayed for someone I don't know
A siren brought the mind afoot to somewhere I should go
'sif wakening vestigial impulse buried long ago
Sunk deep beneath incline that's keeping me from what's below
But something in our makeup made up by a stronger hand
Is there if we but care for care and follow it's command
For even when we scraped our knuckles 'cross a barren land
We somehow knew alone alone is not how we were planned
Written: August 07, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Mark Toney
***********
Corset of steel tightens—ratified pain,
Vestigial breath trapped in ischemia thrall.
The ductile hope failed to placate
This Pyrrhic ache, this woebegone gall.
A sojourn in the squalor of soul,
Where sylphlike dreams maunder, downcast.
Ogle the embers of the miraculous nexus—
A seraphic visage lost, quickly.
Vivacious once, now virile with woe,
Panacea tastes of pabulum, slipshod, and cold.
Tinkling memories coruscate as zeugma—
Bright, yet untoward, they never hold.
Quixotic penchant for connection,
Grasping too late the nebula beneath.
What puissance is this—this throe, this tumult—
When tulle-wrapped love meets a gyre of grief?
Ululation beneath pavonine skies,
Adumbrate every glance, every sigh.
Crimson weave keeps a skirt in place,
Valuable, stained, adorned, and slain.
I am empty of empathy
come sympathise with me
Cue the violins,
or just fiddle
like a bad-tempered Roman
Offer me hope:
bring flamboyant symbols,
cheap gold pendants with wings
Maybe a big gaudy
unflappable albatross
nothing too flash,
mind you!
Take my hand,
lead me towards the edge
it’s time to fledge
Sidle me onward,
watch as I waver
Try not be over-critical
of the albatross
He’s become a hanger-on,
too far gone
and addicted to flattery
If I drag you down
or appear inhumane,
it’s all secondary
I’m merely feeling depressed
by a pouch in my brain
A séance sensed
it was next of kin,
X-rays revealed tiny pleats,
masses of tissue within folds of skin
An exorcist said it’s
my vestigial twin
Google diagnosed
(Visual agnosia)
taking shape from within
Oh! And the indifferent
chatbot I confided in,
has begun self-harming!
"Do I still matter?" I lament, in quiet despair,
As kindred acquaintances vanish, dissolved in thin air.
Solitude clots the cistern, blocks my spirit's flow;
Collateral damage obscures the expansive panorama's glow.
Vision dims, and trembling hands do falter.
Crutches bear the weight of ceaseless alter.
As though a harlequin, encased in collodion's mournful woe,
A vestigial soul, defying ruin's throes.
Primitive dictums supplanted by the pragmatism of the age:
"Who cares?" imbibed in youth's cage.
The sickle and hammer, now relics of savage years,
Venomous words sealed in the vaults of my fears.
Futile is the grasp to decipher Braille's cryptic code—
The ramifications vast, yet still I brave the road.
Reclaiming the immutable verity of my existence,
Hope that today's conundrums will shape tomorrow's persistence.
"Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it." Quote By Rumi
___________________________________________
Several tears, one after the other.
A sob wave pulls me forward in a gossamer haze.
unable to breathe—shivering with inure fear.
Why do feelings spiral out of grasp and ravel?
or worry keeps raging through my mind?
consider a world devoid of vestigial musings.
Complete silence; I am gasping for air.
wheezing, heart pounding, lungs screaming.
for breath, I cling desperately to the blankets.
My most arcane emotions flow unnoticed.
No lyrical ariose tunes to soothe my spirit.
in the lack of an auric metaphor
How would my day be lacking canorous poetry?
Clangor skin was covered in spiked tears.
Fingers rub my chimera, and eyes ensue.
Without poetry to calm, my anguish will burst
Without the cooling verses, I was crestfallen
Without a voice to express, how would I wish?
If artists believe that clay may depict furtive views,
Poets prefer paper and ink to immortalize their muse.
This heart is on lockdown,
I am caught in a time loop
Re-living the same routine day after day,
Stuck between a hard place and a vestigial virus,
So I numb the pain to the thought of meeting you after this,
My quarantine goddess
I have made a mask out of the sleeves of your heart..I trust you will keep me safe,
You have gathered sticks to make a place tender for our love to grow,
This we share belongs to the sky,
It knows no limits
And now I’m caught in the web of your nest
So sanitize and stay with me
I wish to see how this story will end,
I love you shuga!
Some find relief in solitary confinement
And others cherish the thought of being alone
I am but a weary soul craving for cessation and realignment
Waiting for greater powers to break this vestigial bone
Some are inclined to love and prosper
Relinquished control begets their duty to forget
I am built to loathe and falter
Borrowed time yields unreason; forever in sorrow’s debt
Some seek higher meaning in reason’s domain
Pity is the holder of divine understanding
I am a blemish that marks a desolate plane
Debasement is my steadfast tool for disbanding
Solace rests in a certainty embraced by one and all
To the place from which we came and from which we must depart
Eternal silence take stead and imbue my place of fall
Reprieve me of my ambling spirit and wandering heart
I stare at darkness for the street lights to open.
The silence is a salve for my senses, reeling
with fantasies an eerie stillness has woven
into a noise in my mind that keeps vibrating.
Moments from my life play an off-key symphony,
which turns into a roar locked in a mad wild dream,
a force field that sucks me into its company,
I want to come up for air and let out a scream.
The moon rises and casts somber shadows in grey,
vestigial thoughts of lost pleasures shatter all poise.
They hover loose in mid-air goading me to flee
into the hush of pre-dawn that scatters night’s noise.
Sunlight suffuses the sky’s washed-out blue, to stave
off foreboding murmurs from the dark, to their grave.
Jjote010921
your heart becomes
a vestigial organ
providing only a weak,
faltering beat
for you to march your mind to
your head emits
a strange thick mist
your eyes can barely
make their way through
and you stumble along
not knowing where or why
on this sick thick overgrown path
you’re hoping takes you somewhere high
The tail of a beaver, bill of a duck
yet they pull it off with honor and pluck
made with spare parts
they capture our hearts
with DNA tests that read WTF
©8/31/2018
for Any Animal Or Creature Limerick Poetry Contest
I took my grandson to the barbershop today . Tonight is prom night so very special i must say.
As I sat and looked around expressionless faces was all that could be found. All about gazing into their iPhones and androids it was engough to pop a hemorrhoid.
O tempora o mores as Cicero would say is this what our world has become today.
The ability to converse has become almost remedial. One day i fear our tongues will become vestigial.
When I close my eyes you come crawling
stirring up my soul
diving in my dreams
delving thru my seams
Flutter my butterfly with vestigial wings
let me chase after you
where the catail do sing
Fly over hilltops seduced by the sea
slip off to the sunshine
and visions of me
Enter my pasture where waters run deep
place your wings upon my shoulders
and let yesterday's sleep
In my home amidst the bucolic pine trees
My time spent at home is so fugacious.
Autumn has come to my halcyon garden.
Ephemeral summer has said her good-byes.
Migrating birds from Alaska, harbingers of fall,
Consume the vestigial of summer's ripe fruits.
Redolent pines welcome the crisp clean air
Penumbra in the setting sun as they keep vigil.
In my inglenook, I curl up with a poetry book
Which brings me such sempiternal happiness.
© Connie Marcum Wong
Note: This poem is dedicated to my oldest
daughter who lives amidst the pine trees
above the Russian river in northern California
mountain home. I wrote this for a challenge.
Poetry Challenge words
1) Bucolic means In a lovely rural setting
2) Fugacious means Fleeting
3) Ephemeral means Short-lived
4) Halcyon means Happy, sunny, care-free
5) Harbinger means Messenger with news of the future
6) Inglenook means A cozy nook by the hearth
7) Penumbra means A half-shadow
8) Redolent means Fragrant
9) Vestigial means In trace amounts
10) Sempiternal means Eternal
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