lanterns
bags, sand, votives
lit votives on sand in bags
luminarias line walkways
lighting the Christ child's way
Mother of Turquoise magic, rules Halloween
in valleys, meadows, alleys, walkways and places unseen
She is not often spotted, because she is truly shy
If you get a glimpse of this beauty, you also might die
She is a powerful sorceress, she has tricks up and down
Magical from her head to her knees, even her gown
Turquoise is her secret, she manipulates it to cast huge spells
She hides out in the land where the wild cat dwells
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They travel without maps—only
the rhythm of the walkways
and coffee stains on edges of napkins.
They carry crumpled metaphors
in their pockets that they
snatched mid-flight from passing trains,
each stanza a temporary shelter.
They trade sonnets for soup
in dimly lit diners, syllables simmering
next to weak broth. Their ink stains
the borrowed pages of the world~
never owning, always belonging.
Emotion will overcome,
The one we have while crossing Yellowstone Park,
With two loyal friends,
Walking on walkways above the bubbling
from Mammoth Spring,
The one we have using a defibrillator to see a heart
Beat again,
Emotion will win, the one we have when looking at the stars
shining in the selfish night,
The one we have while detailing the lights sparkle on the other side of the bay,
That one emotion while listening to a cantata by Bach, while facing the sea,
The faith in God transcending our souls, our spirits,
The emotion one has when thinking about our mom loosing her ideals
staying in bed,
the emotion will overcome,
The one we have as a passenger, at each takeoff or landing of a Boeing 747,
That emotion while admiring a painting of Monet or Botticelli,
That one by reading our travel book about Brazil,
That of the child discovering his gifts under the Christmas tree,
the emotion will win,
That of the tourist from Brest, discovering for the first time
Manhattan,
or photographing whales off the coast of Cape Code,
The one of the teacher looking into the eyes of a eleventh grader,
Emotion will conquer, or the world will perish.
The undergarments rustled with sound nearby
Yellowed and stained from the year gone by
Beginning final travel
Drifting in the wind
Outlines left on walkways and cement
Changing canopies reducing shade
Raked piles
Smells of fall
As the undergarments rustled nearby
In the conjugal life’s complex topography,
vowed to traverse to the end together
within the sacred institution of matrimony,
the path may bifurcate where distrust dust gathers.
Marking the legal dissolution of marriage,
the partners once embraced by love and commitment,
walk divergent walkways through the emotional corridor,
away from incompatibility, for they grow apart over time.
The common course splits with the conflicting mindsets,
plunging into whirlpool of emotional challenges,
bears testimony to how the convivial chord
of conjugal harmony the impaired sentiments crumble.
In the lonely search for the way out of despair
psychic positivity leads to personal growth,
offering the opportunity of new beginnings,
helping to rise from the ruins of the past.
Self-esteemed prudence is a guide to navigate
the new reality through the terrain of self-regulating life,
and curve out an independent course to move on,
for the night ends, a new sun rises in another dawn.
some level of falling from grace happens in slab city
its twisted humanity
when kindness stops being nornal
when green crusaders are dismissed, unseen
like burying waste in landfill
city of slab-stick
where we live normal lives within shuttered malls
affluence superimposed on poverty
can anything mellow us
with nature clotted under sprawl
here
within plated walls
breeding, feeding, receding
unable to bend the city to one's own wishing
to carry on with things just as they are
slabs pinned to the ceiling of mind
sometimes shutters open
to sun-dappled streaks on slab walkways
what are we to make of the dandelion in the crack?
a dark energy blooming between comfort and chaos
maybe we can piggyback on the hope of others
when small acts radiate
like children who empty their piggy-banks to charity
or laugh in summers of safe places
towers girdle the city
midst what we crave for but can't always name
in our stash of consumer baubles
urges like a swollen river
our weak stock options that never find a ladder
in the meantime we tread on - hungrily
For you, who must remain in Asphodel,
We weep for you, who have forever fell.
Yet we, who lost the moment, gained all time.
In falling, do we hope that others climb.
And though we lost our little lot of Earth,
We wish upon it all a grander birth.
Though life is for the living, not the dead,
Your lives our dreams, when we are gone to bed.
For the dreams of fallen fighters
Are the walkways of our world:
Be they heroes, be they blighters,
We’re the fabric they unfurled.
How much to those departed do we owe,
Whose bloods and brains didst build the world we know!
For sunlight rolled from off their learned tongue!
For ancient are the thoughts, forever young.
We paid no slavish homage to the past,
Nor failed to lend our glory to our day.
Take then our best, and nothing more need last,
And let thy beacon cast a brilliant ray.
We live as long as you recall our name.
We held the torch, and now we pass the flame.
I walked in to the four bed rooms, four baths
of my daughter’s house with big living room,
dining room, washing room, back and front yards,
master bedroom with bath and walk-in closets.
Painted with rustic color of gray, in medium tone
outside and light tone inside, the color motif of the
interior design showing on the wall pictures and on
the vases with different synthetic plants and flowers.
Although they do not emanate floral or sweet scent,
the orchid plant utterly exhibits an illusion of blossom.
The backyard landscaping the previous owner had
done is stunning, quite lush with safe walkways.
A modern landscape or timeless landscape with the
feel of stillness and the view of the glorious sunset.
My pondering in silence was abruptly cut off by the
sound of the automatic sprinkler’s swirling water.
The bus, the bus was waiting for me
Waiting, and yet I still didn’t want it to come
The steps were too steep, and the kids were always screaming or laughing
The wheels were always covered in mud, but how?
They never ventured off the road to school and home again
Why, why are the windows tinted so much
That only outwards you can see, can tell if they are staring
I always try to sit alone, but the seats are always taken eventually
They always whisper behind me, and I always listen as best as is good
The seats always embody a scar or stain, never to fade
The walkways are always full of bags, you have to trek carefully
I don’t like the bus, and I don’t think it likes me
. for public domain
Sometimes my shadow, more inviting than me,
a dark apparition on city walkways,
catches the passing cast down eye,
more so than the benched shadow caster nearby.
The shadow invites no one to speak,
to open one's self for others to seek
fruitful conversation, or just a hello.
It offers a glimpse, and then on you go.
So I wave, and the shadow conveys the greeting,
to pass on some lightness in moments so fleeting
they are often forgotten as soon as they fall,
but better a shadow, than nothing at all.
acorns and leaves
make up his mind too
as foliage entwines ours
like bridges,
like walkways,
camouflaged in an
every-day of solitude;
these berries may not last;
his thought runs deeper
- deities of the core,
the spirits would say -
to old log fires
by weathered stone,
you, his old flame, share
but only when you think
we're thirsty, that is
Her warm-eyed glow, how the more
Inviting, love-starved, dined on.
Romantic night cafe's.
From where my own, streets apart
And yearly distant, mists up.
Lights, lamped, lone walkways.
A meadow of roses...awash in colors, from pale pink to deepest crimson,
lavender, pale yellow tinged in pink, to coral, silver and bronze.
With brick walkways that capture dappled sunlight, and are rinsed with rain.
Perfumed air of roses, in morning's mist, casting a spell of enchantment.
May 1, 2023
for "Rose Meadow Poetry Contest"
by Julia Ward
Songs watered
Given chance to grow
Flourished beyond years
Lingering feeling
It's never over
Floral aroma
Oklahoma
Rooted possibility
Unraveling divinity
Time to synthesize
Oh gentle muse
Release your muffled hum
Sing forbidden hymns
To light the garden
Lyrics hold open wounds
Bleeding butterflies
Leading path
Sing a new sunrise
Monarchs melody
Enriches the soil
Tangled roots gift
Cherished harmony
Delicate petals detach
Rhythmic sways send soul signals
Rehearsed heartbeat cultivates cresendo
Nourishing bountiful harvest
A progression so infectious
Pollinators whistle through walkways
Our meadow,
Deemed choir
Echoes our bloom
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