Echoes of summons ring on.
With them a sonorous clamour for painted lines.
The rim of night stretches and holds fast to
a colossal nocturne hung on furs-and-clouds walls,
and a concentric image of life rotates on
edges of weak silver.
Long-dead poets campaign openly for verses –
among them Wordsworth and Eliot –
each putting a swagger to his arrogant gait of lines,
sauntering towards a nest of whited papers.
Initiation signs, nebulous, line the torso of night,
and are etched deeply into the black bosom
of distant whiffs of ceremonies, like faint
stars of a tumultuous galaxy.
Sun Conures
Brazilian blue bliss
from hot savannah rise these
squealing screechers then
land so near me peering through
whited eye rings warily.
A white out
A snow bomb
Homes snow blanketed
Whited sepulchres
Cars abandoned
Stuck in snowdrifts
An arm sticking stiffly out
Above its embedded body
Deep in its shroud of snow
The wind howling and keening
The banshee's delight in its kill
With the thaw
will come the count
. for public domain
I did not trust my feelings,
their value nor their worth,
I buried them for years to come,
six feet beneath the Earth.
Thought would rule unruly days,
axioms my savior,
steering me through whited water,
guiding my behavior.
Exhumed now in my waning years,
feelings long unlived,
mending what I now fear most,
a half full life half lived.
You ask indignantly, why must I go there —
mucking around ... bumping up the sound
You say I’m just trying to be a troublemaker,
and you place a sure bet
that trouble is all I’m gonna get
If I keep playing the race card,
playing the race card
Keep using the black spade,
digging up dirt in the legal courtyard
But, I must use the race card,
use that black spade card
Getting to the hidden truth buried deep is hard
What have we got to lose, we were told
It was a hard speech,
` given what my people is owed
We lost everything:
our native home,
our native tongue
Our God-given name
Whited bones of human degradation
lay in this cemetery of history
Beneath that rotting soil,
somewhere lay my stolen heritage
For truth’s sake, I must know where it’s hid
So I went and searched —
Behind a plantation house of cards,
buried beneath the slave quarters ...
my race to the truth has led me there
Why must I go there?
If you were holding the same
losing, marked card I’ve held,
would you then care?
Who am I really?
Lover , sinner , saint?
The outward faces that we show,
are only coats of paint.
Everyone goes about the expected way,
and plays their little games,
never realizing , that they all spread the pain.
The ones we thought that loved us best,
tell the most vicious lies.
And all the time they hide behind
a mask of perfect smiles.
A world full of glossies , and whitened bright veneers
passing by those they deem less worthy,
and causing them to fear.
Left with wondering what we did,
to make them feel such disdain?
People we once trusted,
now just turn the other way.
False friends , and broken vessels,
is all there is to say.
Whited sepulchers on the outside,
inside death and decay.
I wrote a letter just last week
I went and bought a stamp.
Tongue cut on the envelope
and awful writer's cramp.
My handwriting was, let's say, 'quaint'
no flourishes, no fuss
but looked like it was written
on my lap on a moving bus.
Speeling mistakes all whited out
like a carpet of fresh snow
and ink smudges similar to
a pair of fighting crows.
Aunty praised my poor effort
and was grateful that I sent it,
and where I'd scribbled 'lots of love'
she knew I really meant it x
Consistency was never a word for dad.
He was like a painter’s wheel with squares whited out
so nothing ever flowed quite the way it should.
In fact, there was something foreboding
about the concept of color coordination
and alphabetical order
that he always seemed to avoid.
Things have never been in constant pattern
nor have we ever viewed a schedule in our house.
I can’t even list how many times
we’ve been just barely late.
Someone once said my dad wasn’t a good one
because he doesn’t always lay down rules
or make us stay in on school nights.
“There’s no sense of order! Children need a sense of order.”
But there is something no one understands
and that’s that even though it isn’t perfect
and there are things that could improve,
There’s consistency in where it lacks.
And we wouldn’t change him for the world.
by Sarah Rosendahl
Whited again by a wintery mix
on this cold and bleak February morn;
it’s been nice, then again we get this
and we wonder how much more is in store.
We find it best to be content
as our fretting won’t change a thing.
Warmer days soon enough will be sent
and we’ll bask in the warmth spring brings.
As for the days that yet remain to us
of sleeping and white painted lands,
we’ll enjoy these days and learn to trust
that all good things come from God’s Hand.
Sketched on a napkin
Frizzy hair and a stressed face
Her pencil is like her tongue
Rushing to keep pace
With an ever expanding mind
And waist
Ideas once lost are hard to find
She supposes she could stop
Though she's never tried
She thinks, and dreams, and sighs
All those tears she cried
Have dried as ink smudges
Her smiles become doodles that are all tie-died
Crop top
Wearing
Rearing
Gearing
Characture of her true self
Colorful cartoon
With all the speech balloons whited out
She'll start again once she burns the rough draft
It will be evident too
much in our sober
confidences,
Trusting all we needed
and to our little yatch
turns,
Making room for so much
creativity and learned
respect,
Grace for tommorrow
and our hope's needed
leaps to be in reality's
endform,
The signs are true...thus
the times were hard.
Above earth's schemes to
life,
Placing mysteries in little
"Salient-Natural-Things"
that came-by to salute a-
halloo and
balloo,
Pacingly..Here is what we
call thinking Old eyes...Still
thinking...
"Salient Minds"....Reality
linkings,
A Dreamy Phase...A
Dreamy Phrase...A Sinking
Haze,
This dreamy paraphrase.
Lets "Rock" on Basses
and Sambas,
Lets lighten on Cymbals
and the Guitars,
Lets level on "JAZZ and
SALSA",
Lets happen to travel on
pure white Dragons and
More,
The fumes of the
Lotus...Say while travelling
along with salient minds
along the banks
of Tommorrow in whited
yatchs and more,
Jack's bean stalk and
sundry linkings,
Cleanliness another fitting.
Burlesque marionettes, steeped follies –
Evanescent entertainment in fused opal.
Reptilian gutters, shadow footfalls –
Abandoned imprints in disabled technology.
Muted tales, plasmic letters –
Kindergarten lessons learned twice and forgotten.
The shards and drops trailing behind,
Indifferent time thieves gloating in a rhyme.
The wisps of chuckles posing on lace marquisettes,
A mirage goddess tangible in august fantasies.
The frayed end of silk entwined in knives,
A form-fitting desire in a jewelry display.
Gagged imagination, whited-out lies –
Apathetic daggers beating prestissimo.
Mobbed conviction, medallion protest –
Hourglass thrones on the brink of borderline.
Redundant rewind, limestone tacks –
Bed-side doves accompanying clichés.
Forfeit touchés versus placebo elixirs,
Intimidation volleys in overtime stare-and-run.
The murmur of annihilated atomic presents,
A circus ring muzzle sale reserved for mimes.
The static election floating past star-gazers,
A slogan stamped on the seal of eternity.