Sergeant Pepper

Silent asps hiss in shade

Sands of age shifting shape

Copper-head bolts to strike

Flitting hare hugs four bites

Kissing doves lost in haze

Sergeant Pepper singing grace

For Wordle 10

El Amor - Nuevo Dia

Mexican Sunrise by Adam Romanowicz

Los colores rosa

Dawn’s blushing colors

La salida del sol

La gracia

   of grace

   taste like the first kiss

   of a beautiful woman

Tiernos labios de un beso suave

Pan fresco de aroma

   serving the fusion of fresh bread with melting butter and honey.

La fusión de la mantequilla caliente y miel

...

El amor

The love

Nuevo día

New day

For One Stop Poetry: Sunday Photo Challenge

Crazy Days

How can I paint a self portrait

Lookin’ out my door these days?

I can’t remember smiles I had,

Now lost haze of craze.

Today is off its chain,

A maid with lazy ways.

How can I paint a self portrait,

In a crazy day like this?

Trains crashin’ off warped tracks,

People travelin’ to damn fast,

OPEC gas hikes kickin’ ass,

D.C. hidin’ all the facts,

It’s a crazy tinted day,

In a mushroom kind of way.

How can I paint a self portrait in a crazy world like this?

How can I frame my life inside a crazy world like this?

How can a smile and a hungry child exist in oil as one?

In all this crazy haze,

Imposter’s dressed in gray.

I can’t paint a self portrait,

Inside a world like this.

Unless I go abstract and scream

With cubes and strokes of black.

Picasso’s comin’ back

With vengeance in his hat.

Trains crashin’ off warped tracks,

People travelin’ to damn fast,

OPEC gas hikes kickin’ ass,

D.C. hidin’ all the facts,

It’s a crazy tinted day,

In a mushroom kind of way.

I won’t paint a self portrait,

Inside a world like this.

I lay my brushes down and grab

A hammer, nail, and spade.

It’ a crazy kind of day,

I think it’s time to pray,

In a serious kind of way.

Not a time for self portraits,

In a crazy world like this

For One Stop Poetry; Saturday Celebration

Self Portrait

Antonio Mancini

The Sun

Commotion of self

Skirmishes with doubt

Institutionalized pastels

Zapped dark

Bold strokes

Chiaroscuro

The Moon

Cello vomits

Porridge and bread

Entertaining pedestrians

Contradictory notes

Flat then sharp

Frustrating interpretations

Explorations of id

Undress my conflicts

Of self portrait

(For One Shot Poetry Week 51)

Proofs of Life

Charles Vest

Stardust serpents shy from light

Sacred etches spark old fright

Stories tangled in temple vines

Gossamer clouds slit moon sky

Threads of bone limp from sight

Proofs of life fade in night

Stardust serpents spark old fright

Sacred etches shy from light

Stories tangled slit moon sky

Gossamer clouds in temple vines

Threads of bone fade in night

Proofs of life limp from sight

For Wordle 9

Cloud Trees

Cloud trees release their fruit to the wind

  a hundred feet above

  in fields of eternal blue.

Clouds are birthed in this grove.

My tears alone water these giants;

  until,

  that is,

  my sorrow runs dry.

But

  do sorrows ever run dry

  this side of  blue sky,

  this underside of clouds,

  where rain falls

  and orange mist rusts red bicycles?

I’d like to move to the sun fruit forest,

  but pay is better here;

  more job security,

  and I am alone

  to create cloud sounds for blue skies,

  and those who live downwind.

I need my trees;

  I’m afraid to leave,

  and the valley needs rain.

For Poetry Potluck

My Andela

Our love was the real art

She torments me

In each city

Every house I play

She leaves her mark

For me to see

Even in Melbourne

Upside down

Ironic

She’s so smart

Our love was the real art

I left

She has a voice

She sprays in screams from pleading eyes

To change the way people bleed

If you listen

She whispers

I sold her out

We had a mission

But I had dreams to read

Our love was the real art

I left

In Prague

My bohemian princess

Her eyes still ignite

My passion

Now hid by my wallet

And silent

Mute and dumb

Blind to …

Our love was the real art

I left

In Prague

For gold

She has a voice

Even in Melbourne

Upside down

Don’t forget me she sings

Don’t forget

She’ll remind me again in Montreal

She’ll be painted on my door

Our love was the real art

I left

In Prague

For Gold

My Andela

My Andela

My truth

My soul

Note:  Andela in Czech means: Messenger from God

(For One Shoot Sunday. Prompt is graffiti. At One Stop Poetry)

Sky Hole

James Rosenquist

My arm stretched through a dark hole in night skies

Shocked colors - red flowers - twin eyes - alive

Aqua streaks - splash bold - bare exposed - star light

Complex - explosions - hope mirrors - birth life

I saw within dark holes - spectrums of blue

Palettes of memories - of morning’s moist dew

I could’ve been sucked in -

But pulled love back through

The dark hole couldn’t hold you, the colors are proof

Red flower’s - - twin eyes

Aqua streaks - - splash bold

Complex - - explosions

Birthed spectrums - - I hold

My arm stretched through - - a dark hole - - in night skies

For Friday Poetically with Brian Miller at One Stop Poetry

Calloway Brown

Calloway Brown is an old salt with a new flavor,

  he sits alone on a summer bluff of the Arkansas River

    watching rafters drop and weave beyond his rock.

A Bronco’s cap crowns his receding gray haired head,

  a burnished brass cross dangles ‘round a reddish weather-beaten neck,

    Calloway Brown is an old salt with a new flavor.

Prayers always leak from his lips between smiles,

  he loves squeals of joy, but squints from screams of fear,

    watching rafters drop and weave beyond his rock.

A Ranger tattoo in bluish ink decorates his right scarred shoulder,

  bitten by a broken beer bottle on the bottom of the brownish bubbling river,

    Calloway Brown is an old salt with a new flavor.

He thought he tasted hell saving that girl with the whitish swim shoes;

  he surely would not have spotted her in the brown swirling depths of the           

    Arkansas River if not for their contrasting brighteness.

He remembers and mumbles, “Amen,”

  flashes of summer when he was lost

    watching rafters drop and weave beyond his rock.

 

As a younger man in creased khaki service pants and brown boots,

  curses hurled at the irritating rafters,

    but a Spirit-led visit to the brimstone bottom of the Arkansas River saved 

      his own life too.

Calloway Brown is an old salt with a new flavor,

Watching rafters drop and weave beyond his rock.

Note:  For Poets United Thursday Think Tank #54

Just a Man

Picasso

Rocks in my shoe
A thorn in my hand
Wind blowin' in my face
I'm just a man

Walkin' round mountain high
Watchin' eagles fly on by
Bears growl by my side
I'm just a man

I'm just a man
I'm just a man
I'm just a man
I am

Got a poem on my tongue
Pierced words for lost love
Your face stains my brain
Blue eyes blink insane

Miserable
I'm just a man

Runnin' way
I'm just a man

I'm just a man so plain
I'm just a man in pain

_____
NOTE:  A recoring of this poem in song is located at the bottom of this poetry section.
_____
Special Thanks to Don Ross for guitar music @Candyrat / Goby Fish Music/ Don Ross 2010
_____

This is for Poets Rally 46.

Love in the Scent (Reprise)

Mother:

Morning comes with heavy humid breath,
scorching horizon’s hills with red warning fire;
northerly breezes carry the scent of death
marching to the drumbeat of Yankee desire.

Mother:

I smell your sweet potato pie when I close my eyes;
brief seconds remembering kisses on my cheek
before I’d go to the fields where I’d try
to fill daddy's’s worn out shoes and seek
work to help ease your burden and blistered feet.

Mother:

I hear your prayers and I weep
because I know I must die and not cheat
reasons I carry the Rebel flag and cry
the rebel yell to help stem the invading blue tide
from flooding our land and your garden of greens.
I could care less about the “Southern” dream,
or slaves, I just protect my daddy’s bride; my

Mother:

Dawn’s final day has winked
Daddy’s waving,
Blood from your womb pools at my knees,
And I savor the love in the scent of your sweet potato pie.

For One Shot Wednesday – Week Fifty

Unexpected

Slipping on June sidewalks and falling

Through thin ice in

My life of

Fingers holding on for all they are worth

For Carry on Tuesday #109

Momma's Prayer

You invertebrate

Posin’ in some fancy exoskeleton that ain’t yours

I’m no conchologist

So don’t think I won’t out you

Yes I know the words

You scumopod scavenger

My boy’s a marine biologist

I put him through school

You were doin’ time

A dime plus

Remember

What you hidin’

You shouldn’t come near the beach if you scared

I know who you are

You ain’t changed

That colorful little shell

Doesn’t hide your smell

Darkness has no spine

If you real

Squirm out

But don’t be playin’ MY boy for his shells

Quit usung what ain’t yours

Be gone

I can forgive

But I can’t turn my eye to your shell game

You leave on out with the next tide

And go back to the depths you crawled out of

I’ll be prayin’

I can do that

Maybe you can find a spine

And stand tall like a man should

But until that day

Leave before I forget I went to church Sunday

Amen

For Magpie Tales #69

Rain Check

Sarah Joncas

I’m not in the mood for alluring

Or enchanting this evening

Or stories of devious torsos contorted in sensuous twists of flesh

I don’t want my fantasy wish to come true

Especially involving the lotus position

And its kinship with other bold and strange offers of seduction

I am actually inspiring some other bed sharing activity

SLEEP

I’m tired

My job is sucking life out a drop at a time

But can I get a rain check?

For Wordle 8, The Sunday Whirl

My Kingdom

I am the emperor

Iceberg cold

I survive

Like a king

Ruling alone

Ordering myself about

I have total control

All power

I am the man

The ruler of my domain

Who needs you

I don’t cry for Argentina

Stay there all you want

I am not insane

I have my castle of ice

My throne of blue

Look at my cathedral

When I speak my own voice returns in fading waves of subjection

I march to the beat of my own heart

I will not apologize

Even at forty below zero

Some say I cried this castle with frozen tears

But they lie

And it’ll be off with their heads

When I find them

I did not cry

This is my home

I am the emperor

My kingdom is pride

For Jingles Poetry Potluck

With What Remains

Josh Summers

With what remains

I kneel in dirt, so dusty, so dry, so creek-bed-dead

I cry

I breathe in ash, so cinder, so charred, so colorless gray

I pray

I bleed

With what remains

Drops of blood splash

On barren earth in time with my wristwatch

Tick

Parched pale land swallows each red

Drip

A thirst never quenched, a glut with no

Quit

I plead

With what remains

______

I fled

Yesterday

Rotting in a pine box

So much

In the past

I knelt on gold, so bright, so bold, so filthy rich cold

I lied

I drank fine wine, so dry, so smooth, so sate with pride

I died

Like a loosed leaf

Dried

I saw what remained of me

In a creek bed

Dead

______

I plead from what is left

Mercy … God … please

Forgive

Grant another step

Consume time survived

Like a seed

In your garden of life

And if I bloom in spring

Let my reflection

Be

Your face

With what remains

Of me

In You

For Sunday Scribblings #271 "The next step" and Poetry Pantry #53

Maybe Tonight

Oscar Burriel

Sleepy eyes blink slower

The lower I sink

Below layers

Of silk

As whirling ceiling fans

Twirl

Circular cool air

Chill my head

In the center

Of our bed

I whisper prayers

Silent cares

Yawn an amen

And sigh your name

Again and again

Until I fade

Away

In deserts dry

I dream and drift

In the fracture

Of another day missed

Without your lips

Moist kiss

Lazer-like

Dawn rays

Trace

Once more

Your cool pillow

Without your face

In sight

Maybe tonight

Whispers

Maybe

Tonight

For One Single Impression Prompt 172 "Long For" And for Poetry Pantry 53

I Still Breathe



Rob Hanson photo



Dust and rust and cobwebs sewn

Antique phone molds workshop wall

I still work and want to talk

But techno growth stole my soul

Hidden deep in cellar dank

Missing sheep in old folks home

I still breathe and want to talk

Lay alone in darkened room

Sunrise dawns and sunset fades

Stray light beams sneak in each day

I still hope and want to play

But grandkids use new iPods

Dust and rust and cobwebs sewn

Antique phones wear mold that's grown

I still breathe and beg to try

But new ring tones let me die

Buried deep in cellar’s cry

Missing sheep in old folk’s home

…

…

For One Shot Poetry Sunday Photo and Poetry Pantry #53

Dream Seed

Swollen face summer

Shredded shoulders wrong color

Shed blood feeds dream seed

For Haiku Heights #47 prompt slavery

Inky Spin (Wordle 7)

Sarah Joncas

Inky Spin is a rock star

Gaudy

Unafraid

Not so common in a suburbia kind of way

Sexy and famous in darkened arenas

Yet

Her arms scared with bites of purple blaze

To help her lyrical intercourse with the stage

Gaudy and unafraid

Inky rocks

Her latest single was called, “Undulate”

She had no idea what it meant

But loved the way it sound sung sultry

While she undulated under spotlight’s glaze

Gaudy and unafraid

BUT

There’ve been murmurs from her entourage

Inky’s lost her mind and cries when she’s alone

Her moral compass spins uncontrolled

Chambered in the dark abyss of echoed fading cheers

Inky Spin was a Rock Star

Gaudy

Afraid

So very common in a meteorite kind of way

Beware (Carry on tuesday)(Revised, I shouldn't be allowed to write late at night)

Thomas C. Fedro

Beware of eyes glow red in dark,

Of cries of wolves with howling bark,

Thoughts of scamps wearing dresses tight,

That blind your mind from morning light,

Come away from asp's sweet perfume,

In hidden dens of darkened rooms,

The dawn comes quick to bathe your mind,

Night is plotting to steal your rhyme.

NOTE:  The prompt this week at Carry on Tuesday is the line, "Beware of thoughts that come in the night."  I used each word to start a sentence.

Captain Cobb (3 word wednesday)

Note:  The prompts for 3 word wednesday were Alter, Fond and Tranquil; HOWEVER I thought FOND read FOUND and I am not going to re-write this :).  So I'll be two-thirds on topic. lol.

____________________________________________________________________________

Laura Barbosa

Captain Cobb:  Neptune's Revenge

Drunken song of missing sailors disturb the tranquil sea,

The fog of night its darkness damp sinks hope they will be found,

Hope is weighed with anchor low on ocean’s rocky floor,

No lantern lit or captain’s wit can alter future gore.

The pirates’ skiff, a creeping crypt of killers, floats a stern,

It won’t be long; there’ll be no song from sailors lost at sea,

Their treasure chest of golden coin will sail with Captain Cobb,

Tranquil corpses found afloat won’t alter pirates’ greed.

Captain Cobb will sail away with treasure not his own,

But Neptune’s might and anger flamed will alter plans of foul,

A giant wave from tranquil seas will swamp the pirates’ ship,

The gold will sink on Cobb’s wet grave by no man to be found.

Moon's Eye (magpie 68)

What do you mean the moon can’t see me or who I want to see?

Someone stole the moon’s eye?

How can that be?

How will I know Gigi and I are still connected?

I encourage myself every night with those words.

Old fashioned?

We don’t need the moon’s eye anymore?

Of course I don’t have internet, picture phones, or any other fancy gizmo.

I never needed them.

Are you telling me technology overtook faith?

I’ve always had that saying; the comfort knowing the same eye that saw me could see my Gigi and vice-versa.

Who stole it?

Venus?

How could a planet steal another planet’s moon eye?

Jealousy?

Venus thought it would be a more appropriate place for the eye?

I can’t see Venus like I can the moon.

No I’m not going to buy electronic gadgetry when I have a perfectly worded poem to use.

Now who is looking into this crime?

No one?

Out of our hands?

Its cosmic law and we have no jurisdiction?

And they ruled we have Micrapple Technology and don’t need it anyway?

How insane.

What good is the moon now?

Tides!

Who need tides when I can’t see my Gigi through the eye of the moon?

We meet on the beach.  I scattered her ashes in the ocean.

I’m not crying.

Have you ever seen the moonlight glimmer off a still ocean night?

The peace it brings?

The moon kept us in touch.

I see the moon,

The moon can see Venus,

And Venus, the bright morning star,

Can see who I want to see,

During certain seasons of the year,

That is.

Foxglove White (one shot wednesday)

I am in the mood for a cup of tea

Sleep’s been mocking

Nights have been long

Even in spring’s corner of the year

Foxglove White is the finest brew

For longest rest

I yearn for

Rest

I yearn for

Refuge

My heart’s weak

Takes breaks between beats

Voice and vision taunt

Sanity bleeds

Grief’s cutting lashes

A child laughs

Under green trees over green grasses

Swings in warmth

Below a deceitful sun

Joyfully singing near

Too near

Foolishly near

Where my Foxglove White

Still grows

The poisonous plant

Remains

For one reason

Alone

I am in the mood

For a cup

Of its tea

I cover my ears

With trembling hands

Under blue moon light

Her final song

Stabs like knives

Over

And over

And over

Each night

I’m so tired

So very tired

I don’t believe

In green anymore

The sun’s a liar

I want to savor the flavor of Foxglove white

Before dawn birds take flight

I’ll sleep

Finally

My rest steeps in steam

For the final dream

But again

I can’t drink its pleasure

A breeze from the underside of green

Whispers

Please

Let the cup cool

And again

I can’t sip death’s release

I’m in the mood

But

You keep sitting next to me

Wanting me to believe

Once again

And

Each night I choose

Life

Not knowing why

Yet

One day

I’ll understand why you didn’t leave

The fragrance of your breeze

Why you hold my hand

Why you love me

Why you believe in me

Still

One day

I’ll thank you

One day

I will