Ekphrastic Wrap inspired by Chinese painter Liu Maoshan’s La Friterie.
Written in 10 lines with 94 words with the rhyming scheme of aa bb cc dd ee
Credit for the photo goes to: http://pixdaus.com/files/items/pics/6/52/85652_03455f879e6bc09eec67c4a1e426af93_large.jpg
Please visit the Liu Maoshan’s page on: http://www.wanfung.com.cn/eng/tjysj_gh_show.asp?id=275
And a gallery page with clear display of Liu Maoshan’s work on: http://www.wanfung.com.cn/eng/tjysj_gh_zpxs.asp?id=275
Sadness & Loneliness in Color
Cream and beige loneliness cling on sadness in drab buildings,
buildings with windows holding drabness like its belongings
Belongings heavy with gloom spinning a grayish loom,
loom of desolation weaving threads of isolation that loom.
Loom of ghosts and haunted thoughts running in silence
silence that dawns reverence to break dissonance with silence.
Silence that falls on pavements with brackish pigments
pigments segmented with asphalt hues on walls with yellow pigments. Pigments from nostalgic mind figments of scattered leaves on Chinese Firs
Firs daubed in silver pigments to give light strokes showing fading firs
Much or Match
They will tell you:
friends are family
we choose ourselves.
I will tell you:
friends are either
much or a match.
Much in a bunch
gives hurt a punch
from friends in life’s crunch.
A much that burns
with love and care
with kindness so fair
with understanding
before being understood.
Match of disgrace
gives hurt a face
from fake friends in life’s crunch.
A match that burns:
respect with lies
success with envy
love with jealousy
and kindness with hurt.
Between much and match
are fires of desire and satire.
All hearts go down that gyre
until time lets truth transpire.
Much with loving desire
bids respect you can admire
from real friends showing life at its best..
Match with jealousy’s fire
bids disrespect and ire
from fake friends making life a test.
Take it from me:
let much light your match.
Keep those much because they match
but lose those matches like a boring klatch.
Hold on to much to light your fire
with dedication’s matching desire!
Who needs a match when you have a bunch
capable of giving life’s mishaps a punch?
Author’s Notes:
You may not have much friends or your friends may not have much but that bunch is all you need to give hurt and trials a punch. But you may also have many friends that burn your existence with waste and lies like a match. So why keep that bunch? Matches were made to set fires. Hence the poem : Much or Match.
Ships that Never Come
You look behind me
and see potential’s horizon.
But you don’t see
the ocean that divides us.
You look up to the sky
but I look under my feet.
You see clouds coming down
I see the ocean touching heaven.
You chase shadows
but you don’t know I cast them.
You pick up stones
I walk on them.
You go with the flow
a ship I watch from the shore.
You expect me to follow
that’s why I had to let go.
You live in the clouds
parsing stars with scars.
I see you like a farce
masquerading lies as stars.
We are worlds apart
parted by an ocean of thought.
When you arrive I leave
but when you leave I live.
You may be sure
about your ship.
But I am a shore
that’ll never let you anchor.
Some ships never come
because they were never welcome.
Yet many can’t tell
when they’re supposed to leave.
Author’s Notes:
This piece is about emotional and intellectual disconnection between a man and a woman in a relationship. The man sees himself a ship that the woman’s been waiting for all her life on the shore when in fact she sees him a ship that sailed long ago. They are both looking at the same scenery but they aren’t looking in the same direction. People don’t just drift apart, they simply shouldn’t have been together.
Rainbows without Sunshine
Tomorrow seems so grey with clouds so fey
clustered in a maddening fray dragging
souls to fates shaped by those who can stay
under a sky of dreams lost in circumstance raining
hurt and wait for hope’s rainbow to come shining.
Life is a meadow traversed in a bellow shay
bearing lupine smiles, and thistle cries dragging
hurt’s atrocious weeds that spill their whey
on love’s violets and care’s paintbrushes growing
wildly and sparsely dying in winter to live in spring.
Tomorrow is life’s sky overlooking mountains that play
under rainbows on life’s virid meadow showing
souls, that majesty in clay, can rise and have a say
if it can play dreams with actions under an overarching
rainbow even when skies rain and the sun isn’t shining!
Author’s Notes:
A cinquain written in 127 words with the rhyme scheme of ababb in 3 stanzas one for the sky, one for the meadow and one for the mountains.
Inspired by a photo from artist and photographer Candace Diar depicting Colorado’s Wild flowers:
Old & New Peers
Filter, filter, makes you a trendsetter
hiding the fact that you’re much older.
Sticker and glitter to show you matter
lest you be called a bitter critter.
Slangs, hashtags and comments
define events and moments.
Followers to buy or sell components
otherwise lifetime opponents.
Freedom of speech and gender
to unleash chaos for a new world order.
Because misconduct is the way to be proper,
In a time where being real is harder.
Real issues thrown away like used tissues.
Who needs solutions when we can sell problems?
Why stand together when you can divide and conquer?
Judging is thinking because talking is listening.
New generations claim to know better
because the old ways are no longer
Now that the truth is out of order.
And so we filter pictures creating monsters
because problems create believers
because ideas are dangerous and liars are winners
because politicians have worshipers.
of hashtags and opinions shared as stickers.
Who can afford to snooze when nobody wants losers?
According to the new diction: New generation
are masses in competition choosing a mission
focused on a life based on recognition
even if it leads to self destruction or omission.
With an ideology of indecision
advocating mass incognition,
perversion and corruption define recognition.
Original is a sin in a world of have been.
It doesn’t matter what you’ve seen
because change now comes from a bin
where death and silence are akin
and emotion is a matter of skin
where the truth is a bubble popped by a pin
we call how to be in and stay in.
So cheers, here’s to your fears
having the loudest jeers.
Keep your filters, I have my leers.
You have your eyes, I have my ears.
I guess old and new can’t be peers.
#newage #newgeneration #socialmedia #realissues #life #truth #reality #violence #lifematters #division
Candlelit Ice Rinks
Deep in a cagey cradle
it beats pumping endlessly.
Sometimes it pumps
enough to overflow in words.
Sometimes it skips
a beat killing cries.
You can run out
of paper or ink
trying to be heard out.
Or you could die out
like frost on an ice rink.
Dark or bright
heavy or light
hearts and pens
define right or plight.
Poems are hearts’
desolate skating rink.
Sometimes leaving marks
on moments of fire or ice.
Passion is a candle
burning elusively.
It seeps in cracks
pushing or stopping words
in tracks like small sips
halted by gulps or hiccups.
So let your poems handle
your passions loosely.
Pen your works
as per moments
of cares or hurts.
Like all arts, poetry hurts.
Akhal Teke Autumn
She canters freedom like wind
Gallops wilderness like fire
And into metallic dreams
She blazes banter with reverence-
Only to chute through life’s greenbrier-
letting seasons mark her deviance!
As she gaits, bittersweet love is dinned
with a shako of loss and a whimsical rouleau!
She caulks impressions from semblance-
Halting anguish with mystic desire!
Denying cant from reinters is a gyre-
she perfectly forms as she trots!
In her cremello eyes is a mundane escape
from all that is eidolon and bemire!
Waiting for her rider, she dismounts-
popinjays with utmost countenance!
Mettlesome is her autumn full of satire!
Tequila lit Akhal Teke you sire-
Autumn’s passions so Bordeaux-
For your love’s winter pines
my heart with perseverance
overcome with awe and surefire!
Author’s Notes:
Akhal Teke(Turkmenistan Stallion): A horse is the projection of peoples’ dreams about themselves – strong, powerful, beautiful – and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence
Magician’s Ombre
He trumps with masculine beginnings
under Mercury’s will to command
Renegados: heart, mind, and soul
He is skill’s regal teacher
playing will’s red suit
against a black intellect.
His motive is untainted innocence
draping red passion and experience
unto humans’ conscious existence.
He belts his waist- a divine bridge
for both worlds: spirit and human
manifesting desires into reality.
Eternity is his tiara shining
over elements of an alchemist table
fit for a banquet for three players.
Wearing mismatched red and white lilies
for slippers of majesty: good and evil
He leaves you plagued with creativity.
Drinking a cup of emotional fulfillment
filled with imagination and beauty.
He will dance you to productivity.
He eats from a pentacle of brilliance
molded for perfection, baked in patience-
to serve you excellence and practicality.
Armed with the sword of mental clarity
his judgments are sound and canny
with ideas so profound with relativity.
He is master of illusion and duality
a shaman and a charlatan prodigy-
who’s game only for the witty!
Author’s Notes:
Tarot cards have been associated with card games all over Europe mainly the 3 player game “Ombre” of Spanish origin- known as well as Renegado”. This poem discusses the traits, personalities and behavior of the tarot card ” the Magician” as part of a reading and the personality of the zodiac sign or person it is associated with.
Love and War
Love a child with tantrums
makes demands that are costly.
Like a child taking a stride
wearing your mind
in its little feet for a feat!
Before you know it
the fire around you is lit.
You find yourself waging war
on its behalf and eager to enlist
for proxy wars that may exist.
Love a child with tantrums
plays pretend around family.
Like a child it hides behind
you as you face canons so snide
not knowing defeat is your only treat.
Before you know it
you no longer fit
anywhere except out the door
of loved ones for whom you slit
your wrist as they vanish like mist.
Love a child with tantrums
builds and destroys family.
Like a child it will leave your side
and refuse you if you backslide.
So watch your step and mind your feet.
Without you knowing it
you will get hit
with words that score
your value as per a list
tweaked with blame for a twist.
Love a child with tantrums
never plays fair around family.
Like a child it will deny you’ve tried
and bid you farewell saying you pried.
It’ll run you over like an ironed pleat.
Before you know it
you will be called a dimwit
for choosing love over war.
Do you get the gist
of Love and War’s whist?
Author’s Notes:
Inspired by: Sting- This War https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsPnF2EawxM
They say All is Fair in Love & War. Love between two people is a messy business but love among family is way messier. You tend to protect and defend and support family but these gestures are sometimes the cause for families to dissolve. Many times the saying: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” is a reality. This is when you realize that it’s hard to watch someone you love outside behind a glass window but sometimes it’s great because that’s the most you can get close.
Stem Gem Schlemm
Put them anywhere and they will grow
into anything you want them to be.
Whether you are gunning for cancer
cells or growing new limbs!
They call them stem cells
because life stems from them.
Put your heart on anything and it will flow
with passion opening doors like a key.
Whether you are after danger
or fostering love or making sacrifices.
They call it a heart because life holds
unto it like a chord for rhythm.
Hearts’ dynamics stow
fit or misfit attitudes for free.
Whether in severe anger
or one sided compromises.
Qalb in Arabic or heart comes
from the verb “yaqlib” as in flips.
Hearts are thereby a stem gem.
So safeguard your cord from envy’s blow
Mind your heart’s beat from pity.
Such keen cleat can fetter
the art of beat and feat with regrets.
Beat for what’s right with right moves
but choose your feat for the right reasons!
Don’t atrophy your cord with confusion’s hem.
It’s easy to lose tomorrow
with circumstance’s eye.
For when trials’ lenses blur
truth’s lights;
Value’s aqueous humor leaks
out of self respect’s Schlemm.
Author’s Notes:
Inspired by : Lindsey Stirling’s Hold My Heart, youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCTWBHP6lV0
The first Chord is for rhythm of vitality the second cord is for the etymology of the word heart which comes from the EU word Kord to indicate lifeline= cord.
Schlemm: a circular canal lying in the substance of the sclerocorneal junction of the eye and draining the aqueous humor from the anterior chamber into the veins draining the eyeball — called also Schlemm’s canal, sinus venosus sclerae.
Bio: Pasithea is an impressionist poet who dabbles in art and poetry. She enjoys writing about life and her experiences from different perspectives. She believes in art in poetry as in exploring art to emphasize its role in juicing creativity out of a quill. She enjoys writing poetry in symbolism laced with philosophy and psychology. Combined with varied styles and topics, her motto will always be: poetry is a passionate expression kindled by an impression unlimited by public conviction. To catch more of her work follow her on Instagram @pasitheachan or twitter @pasitheachan and on Ello @ello.co/pasitheaanimalibera where you can find more of her historical fiction and mythological or cultural short stories.
Fevers of the Mind 