Paint My Life
let me at least choose
the colors
red for love
blue for my sorrow
gray for my confusions
do not draw me in
bold strokes
for i was never brave
do give me crooked
lines
minimize the straight ones
my eyes are two moons
my feet are trees without roots
my face the sun
its rays my hair
my whole body
a driftwood
my moles be islands
my hands are branches
without leaves
praying to the sky
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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In Bold Strokes
now in bold strokes
i have drawn my jaw
front of the mirror
and you find it horrible
but it is my jaw
and none of the other
i put my beard like a
waterfall
making the sounds of
confusions
in bold strokes i draw
the face
of my manhood
and you want to have compromises
about my teeth
and tongue
some have to be pulled
and the tongue
is not that long enough
the terms are clear
if you disagree then there is no deal
if you insist
there is no us in this
it arrives at a decision
either you
or myself
and if you do not leave
i will
my feet are strong
my soles are thick.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Looking and going back...
there were layers of years.
you were on one of those layers. You are blue,
a line of blueness, in between those other colors,
You are always the silent kind of blue.
They skip you and find you one of those insignificant lines.
The years pad each other like the barks of a tree.
You are one of the bold strokes now. Time does it.
They you go back to that old layer. You were blue.
You make some squeezes, and etchings on those other lines.
They squeak like rats.
You tell them that once you were there and you were the blue line.
They fully remember. But there is no difference really.
Your thinking is misplaced. You think you are different now.
No, they didn't. You finally regret going back.
You retreat once again inside the room sit on the chair.
You are a blue line. You corrugate a little bit like a magnetic ecg line.
But it will not last. You are a straight line now.
You watch TV till midnight. There is nothing significant.
You are still a blue and straight line. That you have to accept as a fact.
You turn off the TV. A nice sleep is always a better alternative.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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For My Peers Who Made It Good In The Big City
it was with a sad heart that i left all of you
from that big city that promised to give me all the glitter
of the neon lights
an island of fame where my body
and my face shall take
the center of the stage
where i may wallow in the deafening
sound of clapping hands
and a shower of flowers
as i sing and dance
and be the star of all your
dreams and wishes
i am twisted
you all write me a letter
i am hardheaded
you condemn me for i broke the promise
of what i could have been
i choose the little town by the sea
where the waves all speak of sorrow
where the trees grow unprecedented and without pruning
the ugliness of their branches speak of ill-will and
pronounced unfashionably
nature's untrammeled simplicity
the newspapers speak of your breakthroughs
all your names in bold letters and colored
your cars and mansions your latest creations
your glory and victories
my day begins in silence and it ends in silence
i sleep with nightmares i talk my walks at midnights
how can i be so stupid? all the leaves ask me, and all the trees
when i begin to speak, run barefoot away from me
the eggs of little birds on the nest on branches falling and broken and wasted
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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At The Seaside, A Solitude
the seaside is peaceful
the sky is blue with white cumulus clouds hanging there
slowly they move and change shapes
like the air is painting and mixing the colors in space
gentle hues graceful strokes
the white sands extend to some miles
the coconut trees are like handshakes
their shadows restive and steady
i lay my body weary of the years
i look at all these lines and circles and spheres
i like to give up thinking and just be a spectator
i let them talk and i merely listen
the seaside, the seagull, the clouds, the coconut trees, the white sands,
the circles and spheres and lines extending
to nowhere.
i cover my eyes with a straw hat. I cease.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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What I Am To You
who are you?
i am not the sun
i do not have light
my hands are not
rays
do not worship me
do not look down
look at me straight in
my eyes
i cannot blind
you
i am a river
come, come to me
plunge in me
flow with me
in my own sorrow
do not stand there
and raise your hands
trying to reach me
i am not a cloud
i am a tree so
come, come, come to me
climb in my branches
pick my fruits
have some to eat
i am the kindness of the hill
the shade of the tired
traveler
do not create a distance
i am the grass
sit upon me
lay your body
i am soft and i am cool
make yourself comfortable.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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No Tree Can Stand Tall Without Roots Spread!
Every seed sends roots first,
Finding for soil and ground
where it can stand firm and tall,
stand firm and tall if roots go
deep,
Spread wide to find The sap! single cell that carry life,
Give life to cells and tissues,
Shoot, barks, branches and
leaves,
feed the leaves exposing leaves
to light, Visible tree stands on exposed
roots, not roots visible, Man made boundaries, fence and
compound,
Can't prevent or limit roots or
branches,
Sometimes absorbing soil here,
Branch will extent to neighbouring house,
How one can limit the nature,
or confine growing tree to
narrow circle drawn by man?
So is every life on Earth!
Mankind is like forest of different trees,
Yet all roots of autotrophic trees
deep in the soil,
Only parasitic have those roots,
pierce other tree's heart! Dive deep into yourself,
O man! Can you survive without
Your roots?
know how you are here,
Is it the mortal parent brought
you here, Or your fate,
Only be grateful to their love and
care forever!
poem by Ramdas Bhandarkar
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Samuel Gardner
I who kept the greenhouse,
Lover of trees and flowers,
Oft in life saw this umbrageous elm,
Measuring its generous branches with my eye,
And listened to its rejoicing leaves
Lovingly patting each other
With sweet aeolian whispers.
And well they might:
For the roots had grown so wide and deep
That the soil of the hill could not withhold
Aught of its virtue, enriched by rain,
And warmed by the sun;
But yielded it all to the thrifty roots,
Through which it was drawn and whirled to the trunk,
And thence to the branches, and into the leaves,
Wherefrom the breeze took life and sang.
Now I, an under-tenant of the earth, can see
That the branches of a tree
Spread no wider than its roots.
And how shall the soul of a man
Be larger than the life he has lived?
poem by Edgar Lee Masters
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The Free Restless Spirit
there are people ahead of us
and who enjoy their own fame who like to teach us
how to make frames
that there are desired shapes of words
with their own colors and tones
and like light we ought to mix them
to their own
precise delight
when i was new i had always been clumsy
because i always want to think like them
each hour i command my hands to take their
own shapes of fingers
there are always desired sizes and colors and tones
and for years
i have lived in so much restraint that i finally discern
that i am not free
because i must live the way i ought to be like by them
too suffocating
like i am covering my head with
a helmet
so as not to harm myself
from their preconceived accidents
my voice thinned out and my hands
became moles
then too tired to take their commands
i escaped
into the mountains
and i learned the language of the birds and the trees
the songs of the wind and wilderness
my arms become rivers and my feet mountains
my hair the forest and my eyes the sun and moon
my breath is the wind
this is what freedom does
this is the fruit restlessness
this is the poem that you are reading now.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Bareng Tunu Bigal
perhaps, yes perhaps
perchance,
life is a basket full of surprises
this you must know,
discern some more
what life is willing to give and yet
you refuse
inside your hands are the invisible daisies
they grow even without roots
and bloom even
without suns and moons
it is their nature to curl and grow
leaves
and spread their petals and show
the colors
of the wind, the ones that you have not
seen yet
even when awake.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Sonnet of Love
We stand on the ground
upon a turning page
brandishing like a banner in the wind.
Here in the branch of land
and the debris of its flipping leaves
and the page
that in its lines
absorbs the ink of our fate
the book that from the green ink of our phase
prints the unsettling song of its departures
with the words that
they seize hands to serenade
And to tune
the golden grove of our chests
when they burst in their love
and the white flutter of our wings
grafting
in the dove of our hearts
The graft like the rose's red sonnet of blooming!
Like the sonnet of colors when they surrender to your eyes!
and the worship of leaves
in temple of the stems!
Like the sonnet of sun ridge
on the hackle of our hands
Like the nest of lights on branches of our faith
Like the sonnet of borderless regions
and remote lands
The sonnet of reborn paths
and the womb of the passages
that is brimming of the rays of sunshine
poem by Hammadh Zareer
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Sprinkle Your Love
The glazing sunshine
Afternoon
Under that tree
Tree with dry leaves
Visible roots
Dry earth
Give me water
To drink
And sprinkle your love
On the bareness of my heart
The sky and some patches of white clouds
I stretch
Hold my hands
The hands dry like the branches of that tree
Hold my hands
For these hands
May grow some leaves
And fruits
Like the hope
I have
From the tree
My love
Do not despair
There is blood
Still running in my veins
poem by Sadiqullah Khan
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The Sweping Sound Early Morning
early morning the sound of sweeping the street
catches your attention,
you have just taken a bath, undergoing the
require cleansing of the body, combing the hair,
checking the nails for dirt, trimming your mustache,
wiping the wet portions of your body,
perfuming the side of the ears and the hands,
it is a ritual, it is like cleaning the body to give
the impression that you have also cleaned your soul
praying, talking to yourself, grasping for any message
from your dream last night, listening to the voice of God,
your conscience whispering what to do for the day
you take the last button, look at yourself in the mirror,
you take the deep breath, open the window, and then
face a new day. It is still you, along with you, talking to yourself.
You are brave, and now ready to face the demands of the brand new day.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Cascades
thoughts cascade
and the sound of your words make the
cascading sound of the rushing waters
a river
a flood
a rage that goes into the sea
taking everything: driftwood, pebbles, sand,
leaves, houses and even lives and islands
emotions like magma and lava flowing
from volcanic eruption
and then everything calms down, you see the shapes
solidifying
rage of rocks and cliffs in gray and silver colors
you see yourself
a mountain of rock facing the sea
breeze blows and cools off
a rage
and then some seeds fall and grow and become grasses
and trees
too green for your anticipation
and then
there is peace and
tranquility and a house that you start building
a woman
a wife and some children a
name, a father a family
a pillar of hope and a vision of the new sun
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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How Is It That I Am Now So Softly Awakened
How is it that I am now so softly awakened,
My leaves shaken down with music?—
Darling, I love you.
It is not your mouth, for I have known mouths before,—
Though your mouth is more alive than roses,
Roses singing softly
To green leaves after rain.
It is not your eyes, for I have dived often in eyes,—
Though your eyes, even in the yellow glare of footlights,
Are windows into eternal dusk.
Nor is it the live white flashing of your feet,
Nor your gay hands, catching at motes in the spotlight;
Nor the abrupt thick music of your laughter,
When, against the hideous backdrop,
With all its crudities brilliantly lighted,
Suddenly you catch sight of your alarming shadow,
Whirling and contracting.
How is it, then, that I am so keenly aware,
So sensitive to the surges of the wind, or the light,
Heaving silently under blue seas of air?—
Darling, I love you, I am immersed in you.
It is not the unraveled night-time of your hair,—
Though I grow drunk when you press it upon my face:
And though when you gloss its length with a golden brush
I am strings that tremble under a bow.
It was that night I saw you dancing,
The whirl and impalpable float of your garment,
Your throat lifted, your face aglow
(Like waterlilies in moonlight were your knees).
It was that night I heard you singing
In the green-room after your dance was over,
Faint and uneven through the thickness of walls.
(How shall I come to you through the dullness of walls,
Thrusting aside the hands of bitter opinion?)
It was that afternoon, early in June,
When, tired with a sleepless night, and my act performed,
Feeling as stale as streets,
We met under dropping boughs, and you smiled to me:
And we sat by a watery surface of clouds and sky.
I hear only the susurration of intimate leaves;
The stealthy gliding of branches upon slow air.
I see only the point of your chin in sunlight;
And the sinister blue of sunlight on your hair.
The sunlight settles downward upon us in silence.
Now we thrust up through grass blades and encounter,
Pushing white hands amid the green.
Your face flowers whitely among cold leaves.
Soil clings to you, bark falls from you,
You rouse and stretch upward, exhaling earth, inhaling sky,
I touch you, and we drift off together like moons.
Earth dips from under.
We are alone in an immensity of sunlight,
Specks in an infinite golden radiance,
Whirled and tossed upon silent cataracts and torrents.
Give me your hand darling! We float downward.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Image
The girl in the mirror stared back at me.
Unflinching.
Eyes blood shot.
Cheeks stained with tears and sweat.
Her hands dangled weakly, swollen
and splattered with blood.
Matted hair sprung from her head and the black circles
made her eyes seem all the more sunken. Desperate.
She was small. Shriveled.
All hope sucked from her soul and left a scar
across her gray face like a tree branch
reaching for the sun but anchored by the abandoned
body of a young girl whose heart
had long ago stopped beating.
the fallen soldier of a country whose world
had fought against it. A country of Purity.
And this girl raised a cut and bruised arm
and lifted the mask from her face. Hesitantly.
The scars faded.
They left tiny white lines on my arms and face.
And my eyes cleared;
Hope glistening from them
and making my skin glow.
My hair curled softly.
My hands healed and were cleansed.
A slight pink stain rested on my fingers
My flesh was watered back to life.
And I smiled.
A weak, crooked sort of smile.
My teeth were not in their places
and a few were chipped,
but I loved the sight of that broken grin.
poem by Zoe Guillory
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Apprehension
before the rain
there was this gray cloud
it was that sad
it was before you cried
that sticks in my memory
the tweezers
those lines on the face
the twisting lips
the horror in the eyes
and then it rained
and the bridge collapsed
the waters rushed
bringing all the driftwood
and the boas.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Between Me and My Mirror
quatrain, ABAB
Mirror, mirror, the answer please
sound it with your softest voice.
I deal, dear Face, with expertise.
Ask on, I fear you'll not rejoice.
Mirror, are there gray hairs dancing
in among my blackest blacks?
Face, I see your foes advancing.
They're waving little silver plaques
in bold print, revealing loudly:
Gray hairs never, ever quit.
Gray is in, wear it proudly.
Lie not, dye not, give up, submit.
Mirror, mirror, the answer please
What are my best alternatives?
Face it, gray is not some disease
for treatment nor preventatives.
Glaring roots and ghastly color
will leave you appalled with regret
Let gray come, life could be duller
thank God, you're not bald, not yet.
poem by Reason A. Poteet
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Marx Ernst, The Ghost In The Abstractions Of Kandinsky
an old man leaning on a black pole,
a nude plump woman of the renaissance
inside a stomach,
a man with a big fan as face
his hands mere sketches of helplessness
pointing to the culprit on both sides
a black bird flies away
like a comma of a poem
they form a stress of a family portrait.
a hand is cut. the old man has no foot.
i shifted from the eyes of marx ernst
his eyes are shadows his hair clouds
his face a misty mountain
moving on to kandinsky he finished
life with the strokes of bright colors
and he titles it Fugue, a Black Mountain
to an Unknown Voice.
my first time to see them both.
i am stricken with the beautiful colors of happiness.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Christianus
How did thy human hand paint me better than God's love did give?
In brush strokes obscure and despondent colors mine soul does live
Thou art a God with human hand which create my heart's thorns crown
And in thy sorrows for my life sorrow we pensively brood we search down
Deep in the kingdom of God which no man rule but our soul, our will's king
We hear not just our own sorrow cry, but the angels of sorrow melancholy sing
Let the blood flow down thy face and the aureole of love's light seep in
Look at thy face and let thy soul purge, life's vain hope thy life's mortal sin.
Rome's power, Jewish law, I wear it scarlet in my sorrowful raiment; Rome's mocking cloak
The blood of the God's lamb and the blood of the earth's meek sweetly soak
My heart, my manhood, the imperfect man and all his sin did not know
That the love I give, the love I live, is the love I forever show
In this painting of God's man hands and despondent souls who despair in glow…
Touch my face and let tears flow into my heart, forever I live and forever I love, thine sorrow grow.
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Crooked Halo
Eyes to you, every hand I see. eyes to you, very heavy in my hands.
Eyes raised up to your hand, my arms diseased.
Eyes fall, eyes follow you, and Ill be,
Somethings not ready for...
My love for you. Ive been this space for you.
Our crooked halos and i, I fall to you again.
Some things i, some things Ive never been told.
Some things Ive never been told.
Your head to me, heavey as Im dropping down.
Son you raise it to me, as my feet, my feet they hit the ground.
All for you my hands are burning,
All for you my knees theyre hurting.
I push it down for, I push it down for, I push it down for,
Somethings not ready for...
My love to you. il be your, your space to you,
Your crooked halo, and I fall, and I fall to you again
Theres some things my friend, some things Ive never been told...
Some things Ive never been told.
Can you see that weve raced these lessons of our days,
Were better of here yeah, were better of dead.
These eyes follow you, my eyes follow you,
Do you remember in our days? , wont you let it go...
Can you see me my tired friend, theres something I need to tell you.
I guess I meant to give it to you a long, long road ago.
Its all for you my hands are beating,
Its all for you my mind, Ive needed you.
I fall to you again, and I fall to you again.
Theres somethings Ive never been told.
Theres somethings weve never shown.
Theres some lines Ive never told you.
Theres some times i, Ive never showed you.
Do you still need my time if I show it to you?
And do you still write it off every time I open to you?
I know its alright, I know its alright, I know its alright
song performed by by Candlebox
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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