Dream
palms sprout,
wetted by sweat.
Like an eternal rainbow
in the sand, Dubai entices
the world. It’s not a mirage over
the dunes, but a stunning truth of
the spectacular opulence. The culture
mixing in the palette of desert with tints and
shades of all continents is sublime. Our forefathers
with hopes flying like falcons voyaged across the vast
risk on the Fat Boat. No land is worthless. Oil transformed
the arid lives. Philanthropic passion abounds in the petrol poetry.
This warm city is pregnant with promises. The expatriates with diverse
dispositions and complexions are cozy in the emirate’s benevolent heart.
First published in The Literary Hatchet.
I have been here, I’ve been there,
over yonder up and down.
Been back home and been long gone,
been nowhere but been around.
I’ve traveled for a far piece,
just a hop, skip and a jump.
I climbed clear up to the top,
hit rock bottom with a thump.
I’ve journeyed and I’ve traversed,
arrived here and went that way.
Headed out, trekked, and jetted,
fixin’ to go there someday.
Went when the Spirit moved me,
only if the creek don’t rise.
I’ll head out your way sometime,
if I make it be surprised.
I’ve voyaged, gadded about,
tramped, stomped, and drifted around.
Been where the sun did not shine,
just the other side of town.
I’ve flown over the rainbow,
the other side of the track.
I’ve crossed against the traffic,
walked away and not looked back.
Always marched to my own drum,
I’ve strolled down the avenue.
Danced, pranced, and pirouetted,
I’ve had nothing left to lose.
Where I’m bound, where I’m going,
don’t ask me ‘cause I can’t tell.
Some say I’m bound for Heaven,
others swear it’s straight to Hell.
I had success,power and wealth
but then
unrest made me its pen
Unease,dis-ease unravelled
thoughts in my mind
shalom,I could not find
I searched,re-searched
voyaged I know not where
yet
trust and faith found me there
Questions ebbed
doubts flowed 'ere I made my plea
He heard,and now I see
shore leave
The ship, in the bay, had a load of grain from the fertile soil
of Ukraine, loaded in Odesa, and sent on its way across the Black Sea.
In the Dardanelles, a stop for inspections to see if the ship had
gods other than grain, not on the manifest.
She voyaged the Mediterranean to the Strait of Gibraltar, turned
sharply, starboard, up the coast of Portugal and anchored in Cascais.
Some of the crew was going ashore, shopping and drinking a few beers
as they waited for the launch on the larboard of the ship.
The ship was due to be unloaded in Lisbon on Monday, where other
crew members could go ashore and see the sight of the great city.
The lot, god’s will, for a seaman to be eternally outsider, passing
through, but only at home on the high seas.
This will be the fortuitous night
When her restless spirit fully takes flight
In all four winds that fail to slow
Under the waning reflective moonlight.
They met under the delight of Luna’s soft glow
Swimming bare in warm waters amid a lovely meadow
In a déjà vu frolic touched only by heart’s desire
Somewhere behind the blind and beyond the unknown below
The dying embers of life within her prior
On the days with the loudest silence stood by her
Echoing in yesterday, no longer sleeping in the nowhere void
For her shadow now glows in his path’s fire
Tempted by winter’s falling breath enjoyed
Chilling her delicate skin, the intimate waiting thus destroyed
The whirling wind dies in a mid-dance farewell
An autumn flame becomes a lover’s grave to avoid
The fettered couple will soon be set free from their harrowed cell
A once-lost saga of starlight’s only voyaged hell
She has been swept away in death’s lingering dance
With a last glance in his direction, the end of her silenced knell
Young Connor he voyaged The Nile
By sailing a live crocodile
The beastie went SNAP!
And swallowed the chap!
Oh well, it was fun for a while.
A Scotsman voyaged through the highlands
Thickly covered with lush, purple heather
Kilt adorned and bare, his regions nether
Feeling breezy on this, a grand endeavor
He trekked across enjoying balmy weather
Heather gray sky and ben blend together
Through the loch did wet his boots of leather
The effort causing removal of his sweater
Warm with heather yarns the colours speckle
He laid it on the hillside and rested, however
Off in the purple heather shrub was a new treasure
A lass holding a bouquet of aforementioned heathers
Whether or not she knew, she blushed behind her freckles
And when she saw him, the meeting was a pleasure
Her laugh as soft and light as a floating feather
They grew a love that no one could deem to measure
Happily ever after, and of course, her name was...Gertrude
He is not hiding in the woods,
Waiting for us to take a walk-through,
There are no doorways
through the trees that lead to Him,
He’s not enveloped by their boughs.
He is not standing on the mountain,
Desiring us to climb up to Him,
Bearing the strains of the climb,
Finding a place for each foot.
He is not coming with the waves of the sea,
Thundering and roaring,
Crashing on the seashore,
Intermittently and abruptly.
He is not hiding in the sun,
Voyaged millions of miles away,
He is not standing on the moon,
Waiting for an escape flight to Him.
He is not cloaked by the sheet of the night,
Embellished with dazzling lights,
He is not coming in our dreams,
At the dead of the night.
He is within us and around us,
He is everywhere and at all places,
A mystery that can’t be unfolded,
A puzzle that can’t be solved.
August 24, 2022.
Where is God Hiding Poetry Contest,
Unseeking Seeker.
she had a burning desire; an egocentric thrill.
a need to disrupt the constancy of her life,
to dramatically dissociate from conformity,
and become the sole dweller of her universe.
one that rebels it's place in the cosmos.
she was already remote from the others,
outrageously imposing and other-worldly,
she accentuated perfect idiosyncrasy.
for her icy mantle that created fog halos,
she carried a core imbued with a fever.
she fanned the flame to burn into an inferno,
until she shifted her life into full retrograde,
bridging together the divides of her nature,
she activated her freedom and individuality;
a woman of color in a monotonous crowd.
with life's impermanence cruelly threatening,
she manifested every energy in abundance,
channeled her soul's sacred wavelength,
hauled her dreams into subliminal orbit,
for she had one chance to envision her self.
voyaged into a black hole of introspection.
unaffected by forces that oscillate around her,
she dismantled every negative tendency,
and like a celestial body as eccentric as Uranus,
she awakened her own cosmic rhythm.
The Dawn
I have voyaged far, crossed many oceans
I have seen the unseen, the grotesque.
We are cable of, but I have also met kind
people, I never sank into the abyss of cynicism.
I have seen flowers no botanist has, but I keep
it, a secret the nameless will be hidden.
I rejoice, for I have found my modest me
obliquely I was not here nor there confused.
as semi-transparent waiters passing my table
erased me from their memories.
As in days before the virus
We voyaged free as air
Til rulers sought to confine us
In penned and muzzled care
Now with freedom at hand
Yet with caution, unmanned
We steal out cross the land
So let’s fly once more
As in days before
29 September
Quietus
*Image of Childhood Memories by WordPress.
On the Good Ship Bubble-Pop
Bubbles, see-throughs, delicate floats,
of voyaged sailless boats,
her captain gauge the air around,
blue cast where none e'er drown,
farther distance -- misspoke, rising,
shapeless bows devising,
now turned admiral, sees her fleet,
eyes rounded sterns complete,
some sway starboard, others go port,
she ventures drafts to sort,
she waits till all had left her view,
ere scuttling added crew,
lifts her makeshift pier container,
blows whistle, no-brainer,
toneless wizardry expresses,
anew fleet progresses,
dreams to be, part of the magic,
fit in spheres? a tough trick!
2021 September 23
*1st Place*
rhyme me rhyme me a poem
~~Eve Roper: Judged 2021 October 05
*RZ checked
Picture #2
The darkened ship voyaged on
For 50 years alone voyaging along
The ship looked after itself on this journey
While its cargo of passengers were sleeping care-free
For the earth was long behind them
As they left the Solar System’s end
The first interstellar travellers they travelled onwards
Relying on the ship to find a new home with its own rewards
So into uncharted regions they flew
The stars and planets the only background too
Then during this endless night
Another spaceship encountered them in a routine flight
The aliens on this craft took them into their ship
Then to their world to decide what to do with it
As it was the first time they were seen
These earth man who slept in their silver ship that gleaned
And so the decision was made
By the supreme one who had said
These beings aren’t a part of us
So they were killed without a fuss.
© Paul Warren Poetry
Green Oasis in the midst of burning sands.
Milk ed Maidens in garb of headdress band.
Soaked in milk and butters cream.
Supple like the grass, taught like the reed.
Come back to me, fall back to your
Leige.
The dry hollowed Papyrus unlocks
the Sundials mystery.
Tells not the tale of my voyaged seventh sea.
Sarcophagus be damned.
I will procure the scarab from the Genie,
the Cyclops, Jason,
or whomever holds the Goldening,
that was fleeced from me.
I will take my birthright
from their blooding hands.
As the Nile bleeds
onto the fertile crescent lands.
See it in your Astronomy.
Canopic jar it with your gland.
The Sphinx's eyes gleam and Sirius,
it shines for me.
By God's own hand.
Our ancestors… though they lived,
Their lives had a closed curtain, leading to the greatest of all mysteries:
The universe itself.
No one really saw it, and even if they did,
No one had courage to explore that sealed universe.
Yet one man, a name unknown,
Plucked up his courage to open that barrier and see through.
Though only little, only a speck,
He took out a chain… linking us to our past, and us to the future.
So, all mankind stepped forward,
Pouring their sweat to open up that curtain.
Though their names are endless, we know a few:
Those who dared to use the unlocked part of the secret,
And plunge deeper, in.
Newton, Faraday, Einstein, Rutherford, Harvey, and more…
Those whose names we celebrate.
Those who found the metabolisms of life,
The chemistry behind it, and the physics of space-time.
No one really knows how large the secret universe is.
Nor we know how much has been discovered.
The whole universe we live in… a great secret.
But I daresay that we’ve voyaged a great deal, though it does not seem so.
And that to find the meaning of a secret, is to plunge deeper still.
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