Soldier/Cook

It is just past five
and I have woken up my boyfriend,
who’s rummaging through another of
his endless cache of duffel bags
for the gym ensemble required
for his PT test.
Every second day
of every drill weekend,
he dons this,
after having intoned
“But I don’t want to play soldier today.”
Yet, when he returns home tonight, exhausted,
he’ll still make dinner for us
and I’ll clean up the chaos of his culinary creation.

For every year of his life –
ever since his Korean-born mother stood a four-year old Ron at the kitchen stove
and instructed him to watch, Ron has been a cook more than anything else – soldier, student, helicoptor pilot, behaviorist.

He holds me close,
assures me,
“You got this,”
then grabs his army backpack.
Before trying to grab a few minutes sleep,
I pour a glass of cold water.

We’re both tired this morning.

Woman in Black (begone)

Poem 22

Woman in Black

Someone’s lover

dressed in black

temptress

seductress

weaver of dark magic

begone from my sight

your dangling charms prove nothing more than shams

I see beyond in this crowded room

An aura of disguise and malign

you are nothing more than a dark mystery

playing

with human curiosity

 

Portrait of a Poetess

Hair, pinned up tight

Binding, curls unyielding

Like words, bound in dictionaries

 

Linked chains

Weigh heavy

On weary shoulders

Unabridged; worldly worries

She carries

 

Herself, with style and grace

No loss for words

Draped in the velvety meaning

Robes of soft, but solid black

Grounding the energy

That attacks

 

She reaches for stability

From earths, hard grown

Wood lacquered, like her tongue

 

Turning, slightly slipping

Left, but right

Cleverly hiding falter

In her painted posture

 

 

Old School Wisdom

 

Ms Angelou called them rainbows. You know the kind of person that touches your soul.  The brave one not afraid to say hello ask how you doing how’s so and so

Crazy how we keep stepping forward but ain’t got enough sense to get up and go Remember positivity can be contagious so spread some around to all you know live  yes love too of course laugh do you..  but do you dare to be a rainbow bridge

Madame X

Sargent’s Madame X is not just a socialite,

she is rather the embodiment of French aristocracy.

 

Pale as moonlight,

poised, brimming with dignity;

her crown is an ode to the huntress.

 

And yet, her dark and dangerously low-cut dress,

the accentuated curves

sing of a sweet and suggestive mystery.

 

She is at once formidable and submissive,

the tempest and tranquility.

Madame X (prompt 22)

Madame X, an oil portrait by American artist

John Singer Sargent, portrays the cool, patrician hauteur

of a wife of a wealthy man who herself

came up from nothing.

Her face reflects uncertainty

as if she can only spare but moment for the portrait

and must leave soon. She leans nonchalantly

on a single, round wooden table. The background

is without ornamentation or drape.

Her arm is painted suggestively in a shapely, sinuous line,

a flow mirrored by her tiny waist and hourglass form.

Her black satin gown with fitted pleats and folds

Enhances her hips, with a heart shaped neckline

Of black velvet plunged daringly low for the period,

highlighting her milky white skin. The tiny gold and pearl

shoulder straps subtley represent her fragility.

Even her auburn hair is simple and unadorned. It is worn up,

but close to her head, and it appears to have been cut.

Curls sneak out along her neckline.

No lush Victorian pompadours or jewels or diamond tiaras

Distract from her beauty. She is a young mother,

wishing she could be with her children. Perhaps her head

is turned so she can hear them better, but perhaps

it is a small vanity to show off her lovely profile.

 

Hour 22: Dirigibles Do Battle

Bang! Bang! Boom! Bombastic
Thirteen gunners packing powder
Bombshells trip the light fantastic
Launching loud and landing louder

Spray of splinters, hail of shrapnel
Cut the ropes! Repel the grapnel!
Those triumphant send their foe to plummet
Blooming red and black on blanched summit

HOUR11

 

I feel alive!

 

I feel alive and colourful!

So alive when listening

to what you send me!

Awesome piece

the one I just got!

And a new one too.

I never listened to

this piece and I found

it so full of joy and hope!

It’s so happy, that one

would say that it was

composed after a war

to celebrate peace

and life itself!

And how gleeful

to see the sea behind,

to hear the waves mumble

and to feel that life is colourful

and so full of spiritual gifts!

Viva la musica!!!

 

Hour 22 Lady in Black Ekphrastic poem

22 2017 Ekphrastic poem

Lady in Black
by Paul Robert Sanford

Style and elegance trump comfort in her pose
head turned sharply to the side to show her chiseled profile.
Wasp waisted from wearing iron corsets
which over time move the woman’s internal organs permanently.
With an impact on childbirth unknown to me.

One hand tightly and uncomfortably grips the table
to support the pose.

Note that she is thoroughly draped
but her fine white shoulders are exposed and the bodice dips across her bosom.

Although the pose seems elegant, the upper body is curiously detached from the lower,
giving a stiff rigid feel to the pose,
almost as though the flesh had been painted separately and the fabric lower parts filled in later
with all their shiny and elaborate folds and shadings.

Look closely at the unnatural pose of the right arm compared to the staight and unstraibned left.
The head is also turned in a way that might easily be uncomfortable, but elegance demands the pose.
The hair, piled on top of the head, is represented by the painter in a more haphazard manner
than the detailed shadings of the fabric, once again giving the feeling that we have
two paintings, possibly even by two different artists.