June Poetry Challenge: Poem-A-Week (your style!)

On a lonely Summer night....
Warm and feeling light:
I chanced upon this challenge
It led to poetic flight ✈️

Should I write a Haiku?
Or a limerick.....I might....
Thinking...musing.....wondering
My various desires started to fight...

'I wanna' write.....'
Growled a Poet in my mind
Another slapped him tight!?
"Keep Silence , moron...."

I ended up writing this
Activity suppressed all desire
It was sheer perfect Bliss
Now I put down Pen : to retire...........
 
un aubade en juin*

und sieh, das Morgengrauen, am Ende dieser Nacht,
mit blutger Gier und elend Krach, ist Finsternis erwacht


deep in his pocket, this scribbled tongue
of endless mornings returned before dawn
bends and cracks another new fold
on this bed side untouched and cold
for- now she sleeps -ever felt wrong
cause last nights in heaven never go on
boots laced tight escape his Bonjour

a final turn on the squealing spring
finds, both wide-eyed, the arousing wench
her reflection's untimely uncovered
focus on him, shan't he be bothered
to see, moreover, why isn't she, everything
this mirror-man cannot be, the same french
perfectly echoed, ça va?

drawn by these foreign lines
rain and wind washed ashore
the past, again, decades on
they play the same old song
all along this beach, mines
my heart, as fathers before
went to sea sans retour

to a new breed of men grown
in a tightly vassaled land
promising new golden toys
and spoons for the boys
all-readied to be thrown
against castles in the sand
my wave bids au revoir

*I can't help it, like history repeating itself, the bitter tone survived every revision
 
Étude for a Quiet Afternoon

Women are cellos, fellows bows.
—John Updike: A Month of Sundays


It seems odd to nestle
her curves between my knees
rather than the reverse,

but I do love to stroke
her sinews arco, thrill
to the rich low moan

of her voice as she sings,
sweetly or throatily,
and watch her finish herself

delicately pizzicato.
 
So I posted this one on TikTok (my first ever posting on there, by the way). It's the first time in a long time I've done this. This is me off the cuff, composing on the fly. There are things that, if it were more polished, I would change, but I like it.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLKhW82w/
 
Once, I was bit, by a man with a terrible byte
A nibble here, a nibble there
Byte after byte, the seduction of an infinite loop
Forever, he said, true forever, but he was false
As they all are, in time
In time, cruel time, the kilobytes, the killer bytes
Became megabytes, became gigabytes, became -
What even is an exabyte?
I long for the nytes when a single bight was all...
 
At arm’s length


There are reasons, myriad,
Why you must stay there.
Yes, I know,
I offered to help you,
But in so do,
You are killing me.
You are truly
A vampire of the soul.
You suck out what is good,
You provide nothing in return,
And you’re oblivious.
No, it’s not that I am needy.
That is your purview,
Your domain, that which you survey,
Cluelessly, to the decay,
The rot, the mold, the stink.
When I help those
Who wish to be helped,
Those who wish change,
Who will it with their might,
Who have given up
On their old way,
They just need to be pointed
In the right direction.
You? You’re unconvinced.
There is no way but yours.
And your way of doing things
Which has brought you to this.
You ask for help,
Claim that you want it,
And then won’t do as we have done.
Is there supposed to be
A bolt from the heavens
With Your Name on it???
What the mother fuck???
Oh, that’s it!!!
You never got the point, did you?
Life on Planet Earth
Is
Not
All About You . . . .
 
The Emperor has No Clothes

Embodiment overturns the rules of time
there is no Zebra cooking in his kitchen

a rendering over tea leaves
he is—a poem over board

a poem never refinding wonder
I wonder will it ever be found

The Emperor has No Clothes
 
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They are drunk on money
The trickle down
from obscenity to grubbing
soul-sellers
They cry
righteous wounded victims
of illusory injustice
while shitting
on the helpless
They are drunk on money
and piss as they lie
and lie as they piss
a stream of eloquent toxicity
 
Southwest


There’s something to the southwest.
The old white horse
Would go to that end
Of the pasture,
Alone,
And he’d stand quietly
And look off in that direction,
At the piece of land
Across the road that
Divided our place there.
At the new parcel.
He’d do this every day.
Perhaps it’s more accurate
To say that I saw him do this
Most days.
He’d look at something
Yet nothing was there,
Or was there?
Maybe it’s the Next Direction of Travel.
The sun sets there.
He usually would look that way
In the morning
With the sun at his back.
So I got so, when I could,
I would go and stand with him.
He’d acknowledge me
And then resume his
Southwesting.
One morning, it was clear
What he was looking at.
Ten very small deer
Were passing through
On that side of the road.
He looked at me as to say,
“See, I told you.
Either you cannot hear
Or you do not listen.”

In time, the alpha horse
Started to go with him
And they’d stand staring,
Be beckoned.
Pondering . . . .

The white horse died last year
In April. And the alpha
Died in July.
White horse is buried
West, across the road
And Alpha on the East.
I planted a post at the alpha’s grave.
For them both, really.
And I painted it
And then stood and stared.
Southwest. Where else?
How long? I have no idea.
But there is much to do.
Always much to do
Between the considerings
Of Things Southwest.
 
The gray sky leans on the isolated, bare tree.
A cool breeze, futile in funneling its warmth away,
Moves on to rattle the branches
Of its loud siblings,
Voracious larvae feast upon their bitter leaves.
Underneath, estranged Mother Earth
Awaits in silence,
Still yearning for the gentle thud
Of its blessed fruit on her back.
 
Just Another Evening Out
at the Local Five-Star Dungeon


The concierge must get his tipping
Before we proceed to our stripping.
My love's tied to the cross
(Made of brass, and embossed)
Then I settle down into her whipping.

She moans, both with pain and desire.
The room's comfortably lit by a fire
Stoked with lovely aged oak—
The wainscoting's bespoke
As befits one Sir Stephen, esquire.

I pause to give her a quick breather
and sip some absinthe mixed with ether.
She prefers her drug plain,
Simply swirled with champagne
As it isn't as bitter, but sweeter.

In time, when our lust had been deadened
And her exquisite thighs were quite reddened,
We had reached all our goals:
The valet brought our Rolls,
Thus departing our debonair heaven.
 
Temptation

Her eyes sparkled,
her smile glistened.
Her voice, so sultry,
as he often listened.

Her skin, he imagined,
soft and warm,
Oh how he longed
for her feminine form.

Often near him,
yet so far away.
He resisted temptation
nearly every day.

In meetings and workshops,
and business trips too
Opportunities rose,
but what could he do?

His family he loved,
and they’re waiting at home.
His wife and two kids,
and a dog with a bone.

One day in the kitchen,
she brushed up against him.
The heat from his loins
it rose up from within.

His hands reached out,
to grasp at her hips,
He could already taste
the sweet off her lips.

“So sorry,” she said,
“So clumsy of me.”
“Not at all,” he replied.
“My pleasure indeed.”

She made a fresh tea,
and scurried back to her desk.
Once again, for a while,
her temptation will rest.
 
she sits
two buttons
release reveal
her white slip
underneath

oh mortified
years ago
she would
never show
her white slip

two pins
I find
shaking hands
fabric secure
underneath

restaurant visit
gingerly sit
never revealing
her white slip
underneath
 
Backwater Blues

Bessie Smith owns the song.
but Irma steals my heart
with a voice that carries anguish
and resignation. She lived
that song and isn't that
the blues?

When the levees broke
and everything was lost,
people stood on their roofs
amid rising water, no power,
death in the swirling maelstrom
below, and they held up signs--

HELP US.THIS IS AMERICA

and still no one came, not
until over 1,000 were dead,
so many more displaced.

I sat in my dry house
1,000 miles away watching
the horror unfold, crying
because yes this is America,
and another bit of my innocence
floated away and drowned.
 
Bad Wiring

When I can really listen to you
As you tell me your tale of woe,
You share with me what scares you
What makes you feel bad
What keeps you awake when
You desperately need sleep.
Oh, I know,
How well indeed I know.
The funny bit is,
it’s always seems to boil down to
Not getting what we want.
Living it is how I know.
We get pieces of us broken
When we’re too young to know
And we carry that shit with us
As long as we’re unaware.
Oftentimes, we’re scared to look
To pull back the veil,perhaps
To reveal the cause of pain,
Or worse still, to see The Truth.
I looked at mine
and I got better,
To see my Broken in my thinking,
My bad wiring, dented metal,
My pet resentments and fears,
Terrified of unknown tomorrow
And hating pieces of my past.
To see these for what they really are.
So when I hear you in your discomfort
Your hopelessness and confusion,
I first want muchly to assure you,
Been there, done that, ain’t goin’ back.
Not if I can help it.
But part of my new way of thinking
To keep my head out of my ass,
I have to listen to you to hear you,
To let you know that I have felt
The things that rob your sanity,
That delicate and precious thing
Which when lacked steals our peace,
That peace I find when you tell me
About your tribulations,
and I let you in on mine.
Come, with me. Let’s walk.
Let’s do something different,
Holding our faces to the light,
Even if for this moment
We are not capable to see.
 
sniffles flowing tears
weeping at work
i didn't understand

she told
her 18 year old son
left today
for the Navy

ahh her child
was becoming
a man

poor momma
couldn't focus
they let her
go home

in my heart
i grieved
thanked her
son for
his sacrifice
:heart:
 
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