Ischia

“Porto d’Ischia” – Artist Unknown – From pinterest.com

outpost of Aragon

pirates and princes

prevailed among

graben and horst

heirs to the tribes

of a volcanic race

perpetual summer

engulfed by blue

indigo waters of

haphazard history

settling itself in this

modern millennium

loath to abandon its

deep-rooted tangle

of cultures imbuing

its vigorous worship

of timeless antiquity

Savage Statecraft

“Anger” by Alsath

devolved and deranged
once loyal opposition
all red claws and fangs

Bipolarity

Artwork from pinterest,com

 

pears and persimmons

freshen the tongue

with their disparate flesh

feeding opposite moods

to bicameral mouths

of a suppliant mind

veering taste between

sweet and astringent

expectant of only

a certain uncertainty

 

 

Tranquility

“Stairway to Paradise” from fr.forwallpaper.com

break the fast
of a serenade night
set the tile-laid table
al fresco beneath
an Italian made sun
seaside terrace
of soft ancient stone
Roman columns and urns
dressed in blossoms
distinct with a tincture
resplending the morning
of Mediterraneum

such is a day
worth remembering
rich with tranquility
deaf to the din
of the rest of the world
a day in a place
of a time when
two lovers may savor
a sensory rhapsody
heartbeats in phase with
the lilt of cool waves
rolling home

Hearken

“Abstract Soldier” by Greg Pitts

soldier hearken
give battledress ear
to indelible truths
be alive to the death
all about you hear
murmuring deep from
below troubled ground
dripping caverns that
drain blooded soil
into pools of creation
primordium fluids of
earth calling spirits
to home swirling
mortal red sacrifice
into her molten gold
core casting trophies
and armaments
medals of patriots
oaths and hard victories
up into continents
raising green mountains
and heaving blue seas
making over new life
out of death never
flagging successions her
beating heart pulsing
its wax and wane
phasing of peacetime
and war blended essence
of history annals in
broad rolling overlap
waves when the quiet
and crash of the calm
and the chaos appear
indistinguishable
and while you in your
fealty and flesh are
forever remembered
you sadly will find you
are not always honored

This Old House

“Old House” by Daryl Urig

creaks in the rafters
squeaks in the floor
the nearing hereafter
the wolf at the door

not for the timid
these ambient groans
wrack and ruin too vivid
too many old bones

no walls stand forever
the roof admits rain
giving up its endeavor
defeated by pain

Conflagration

“Racing with Fire” by Andrea Banjac

 

orange flames cleave the darkness
strike blind Zarathustra
who stumbles and trips over mountains
dislodging the holiest peaks
crashing heavily down
to the dead and defiled desert floor
where jeweled scimitars buried
slain scions of Xerxes
illegitimate hordes now ignite false jihad
from cold ashes of prophets and peacocks
misled to their misliterations
by cowardly eyes and dull heretic minds
these the true infidels
arsonists cursing all sleep
till they burn down the world

False Color

“The Summer Moonlight” by Tom Thomson

in dark of the night
colors covet their secrets
the moon in its arc
disingenuous lamplight
slyly preserves the conceit

Regression

Image by ohpopsi

 

there are days I’m too old for the world

when it outspins the pace of my stride

and I find that my forward moves backward

living more in the past than the present

perceiving my future as memories

of days when I ran and will run yet again

at the speed of the racing equator

when values I held and will hold yet again

made ethical guideposts reliable

Resurrection

“Sunrise in the Harbor” by Leonid Afremov

dawn is the hour
mosaic of morning
the rising time