The Intoned Discourses

Once, upon a bed of clay,
A famed conjurer shed his lore
To all who hung on all his stay;
So burst the catch on time’s first door.

Twice, on a floor of straw,
A star shone through meek stable walls
And bathed the month, indebted, in awe
Dissolving dreams in kindling stalls.

Many the hour, on a mat of rush,
Words washed over prone on rude witness
And damaged the news that societies push,
To warrant vessels riven and shiftless.

But the message that those words conferred
Held a convoluted essence of truth -
That image breaks and thoughts disturb
And reach into our soul, our youth.

Inside Movement

The shadows clash.
Emptiness rings
in the silence
like a staircase
echoing
in an abandoned home.
Never will the quenched still life return
to the inane black hole
of Freud-and-lief it used to be,
remaining instead
with the 800-pound gorilla
in the next upbeat
current loft
downtown situation.

Figure of Speech

Loose
end
of
study.

Purpose

Character
of
a
story.

Integrity

Definition
of
a
poem.

By Lutisha Rena Corbin


African Violet

Seems like 100 years has passed
Velvety flesh has evolved into wrinkles
Black and beautiful . . . as rich as cocoa
Ancestry of our Motherland, but now a native of the
Land of Liberty
Long shimmering locks . . . sparkles with specks of grey
African Violet
Glancing through her looking glass
The windows of the soul reveal years of
Intellect . . . abstractions of ethnic unions . . .
When she walks, she strides with grace from
Years of performing the Juba dance . . .
Silk wrappings atop her head balanced with
Perfect precision . . . clothed in a luxurious
Afghan which holds rich hues of heritage . . .
Seems like 100 years has passed . . .
African Lady, Black Woman, African Violet . . .

Spirited Applause

Little roses haunt
The horizon tension pales
With groomed ghost petals



Beautiful Loser

Evening out summer is all odds - like heat!
Evening out odds is like summer - all heat!!

by Ryan Swan


In the Incessant Wandering of My Way

In shame's sweet embrace,
I have shed all my dignity;
Within the torrent of humanity,
I slay the dragons of remorse.
Through all of my foolish misadventures,
I gaze long after the ebbing tides of the past,
Singing life's song, which ends in tears.
I walk this path prescribed to me,
Swept away in the current of fear.
I struggle to stay afloat;
Hindsight becomes my crutch.
Lost in the forest of pain,
I use apathy as the morphine for my soul.
Shadowed by failure,
Haunted by loss, scarred with pity,
I am mocked by the plebes of the world,
And in the incessant wandering of my way,
Standing inexorably at the fields of time,
I have come to the sad conclusion,
Dead men dance no longer.

Dulcimer Heights

Warble Christian gentry
On a jury 'gainst your near,
Startle stuck and plenty
From the vices they hold dear.
Wear a sprig of daisy
In your best-dressed button-holes
As you settle down the verdict
For the paisley den of souls.

Suddenly Siren


Salacious tendencies
Sliding trenchantly down a
Slippery surface,
Superficiality
Surfeiting in a
Slick jacuzzi
Spillover
Sparkling
Subtle
Sud scraps
Subsidized by
Scylla.




Zest and Vigour


Zeroed in on Dr.
Zhiivago's theme, the
Zipperfront entrance to
Zorba's house re-
zembles a stretch
zany
zebra-striped
Zippo lighter. Sha-
zam!

The Primed Sense of Ethics


The wellspring of science shimmers and dances

Borrows its soul in the field that advances

Shakes of the vestiges eschewing starflakes

Still keeping fleet iotas rippling with chances.

Before it diffuses and just disappears

The fountain of matter dissects the years

Confirming the emergent vocabulary reterming

An obsolete atomic structure slung in arrears.

The fathoms of logic penetrate the purist landscape

Fashion apotheosis of life as it takes shape

Falls across the prostrate mosaic that calls

To the essence germinating from the proverbial grape.

Priority arises, divides into pairs

Divergent arguments fragment into split hairs

Salvaged decision is rescued beyond ravaged

Cost and affected relative repairs.





Seaside Draught


Drops align along the beach,
Much maligned their souls outreach
Ranked in short Orders of the Bath
Compounded maelstroms gripped in wrath.
Whet their soul a river be
To join flowing shire in ecstasy
At the foot of mountainside
In the crux of eventide,
Swirling in hypnotic ruse,
Flaming arrow’s shaft ensues
Upon the swelling sun running over
With sonnet chords and yielding clover.
Dulcet is the groan that perishes
Into the star-soaked deep minute still cherishes.





Facebook


Reigned rugged in prediction of frequency

Since the lightning first cracked,

A knob like an unlocked door handle

Gripping the attention

In a resolved

Issue of note,

Be it bank or mint,

To the full extent

Of an active

Culpable permission:

That sign of the times,

The box

At home . . .

The ruined,

The public domain –

The quixotic,

The channeled,

The trivial

Tube.





The Beat of the Wilow


The universe, as it billows,
The foremost of old willows,
Hosts no torpid peccadilloes
In its vast significance.
Smug jealousy yellows
The world as it mellows
In degrees and in fellows
A broadened expanse.
Tomorrow rings rueful
Though be it ever so truthful
To make a test of the beautiful
Or propose to supplant
The legends of the fruitful
Flowering and youthful
But bound not to be dutiful
And love’s liege to recant.
How the saucy willow plays softly
Remembering oftly
The lessons dealt loftily
Over the hill and above the dell.
The wind joins it huffily
The clouds treatise puffily
The wildflowers spread ruffly
Fragrance while they belle
Around a broad trunk
Faithful as a monk
Fateful as the young
Nestling in strong boughs.
The past of a treasure-filled junk
Glides within sight in a rain-filled hunk
While the sunlight splays beyond its rungs
As close as surfeiits will allow..

Marine Garden in the Shallows

Gauging the system
In a simple game of classic chess
Setting the rhythm
In a duel of matching quip for guess

Extending the range
Of genius intellect on a caustic stage
Lolling in the strange
Character sketch that dissolves onto a page

The stranded crucible
Hangs in the balance of the ebbing waves
That lap at eligible
Sands abandoned with doleful mermaid graves

And spread out wide
In loving round cycling sailors’ jargon
Cleansing the breach
And the clutching spiral glossy wind-strewn garden





Essence of Regret


Rosebuds live on an even plane

Gathered together in dozens

Full roses sit in the falling rain

With the turtledoves, their cousins.

Dreaded is the cresting ray

That falls from the scored domain

Of shimmering prisms’ lissome way

In step with seasons’ feign.

Open upon the laughing brook

A fluster of shooting stars retires

Unfettering Diana’s shady crook

And teasing Mused desires.




Soul Searching


Transforming the elite,

Foregoing the eclectic,

Thrilling as they cheat

And matching ‘hest for hectic

Idealistic youth

Living in the moment

Grappling ruth with truth

And whatever fills the torment

of the wandering moment.

Punished in a tangle,

Sorely treated wrong;

Least lame excuses dangle,

Chipped alchemies run strong.

Drams of remedy surface

Up from the clear blue soulscape

Stoking the narrow furnace

That festers at the nape

Within the reconstituting soulscape.

Guarden of Boding

Stricken by the look upon their face
Their face that tried to swallow their commands
That lived to shackle every errant trace
Of homesickness and to conquer the foreign hands.

The captors want to brand themselves as kind
To decimate world hunger and ignorance
With higher concerns and better axes to grind
The thought that sheer poverty has lost its grounds to chance.

Ripped are the photos of yesterday
Too painful to support the ailing dreams
Of a prepubescent bound to the addicted way
Of the robust life that westwardly streams.





Verdant Shades

Every stem off o' the green
Breathes a dying breath away,
Every blade adrift and mean
Loses force at last of day.
What the stakes portend anew
Worries sooths and sayers all;
When our fondest hopes we sue
Our sole wish ebbs there where we fall.





Tractable Figure of Speech

unseasoned essay
of jalousie
resounds.
a yielding temperament
retires.
what
forbidden fruit
aspires
to the meek-hearted rogue
who
transcends
his bounds
and rights his nerves
to that duty he serves?
May he be proud to be shown,
even roused,
wildly ruffed or rifely tufted
are we due to rue alone.