Fettered Rise

Image by © Chris Galford.

Darkness

Begets salvation.

–

Closed eyes embrace

Wide-spaced longing,

Riveted in fire like

Old angels lacquered

With the doubt—

–

The weight,

They will come to call it,

It lies heavy on the backs

That would toil clouds

To submission.

–

Naked passions

Circumvent the sense of it,

Armani dreams, Gucci heart

Wing-tipped longing stands

Fleshy and forgotten.

–

Icarus saw this

Falling.

* My latest work for One Shoot Sunday. Based on the images I provided this week when I graffiti’d One Stop. Yes, that’s right – my travels around Lansing have yielded a great deal of graffiti photos, and this week we decided to plaster this little offering of rebel-art up for all you fellow poets to pour over. So have a look, see what catches your fancy, and enjoy!

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Stooped Celebration

"The Bootmaker," image property of Rob Hanson.

Stooped celebration

Thread by thread

Stringing out the walkers

Life of leather—

Toiling at the standing grace

Of other souls.

 

Breaths ride the strands,

Divinity locked in rasping labor;

Noon passes stained glass

With a smile—

the hands know but the one song,

they cannot sing it with regret.

* My latest work for One Shoot Sunday. Based on the prompt from my interview this week with HDR photographer Rob Hanson. Be sure to check back in next week as well, for part two of the interview and more of Mr. Hanson’s lovely work.

Cover Up

Image by and copyright Walter Parada.

Red rivers ride

fluttering flags.

A smile and a hand, freely offered

belie the tip—

it’s not a stick you know

that I’ll stick you with,

not a dream doused with dreamers.

God or Man

the mortar drips

beneath the marble—

just a dab of purity to hide

stained hands,

strawberry walls—

Humanity

drifting.

* A piece for this week’s edition of One Shoot Sunday. This week features an interview I had with the talented Californian photographer Walter Parada. I was very grateful for the images he chose to share with us, as I find them all to be absolutely striking, from his landscapes to his portraits, and on to the image featured above.

Just thoughts

Photo by (and copywrite) Greg Laychak.

It is a long hall we walk,

Reflections of decisions

Hung in windows,

Rain-spattered and sun struck

The stains of time rolling down

Like tears, never wept

In the dawning

When other voices rang

Rhythm, rhyme, reduced

Where they set us yet to roam.

Everything is painted now—

Just thoughts.

Inspired by @ChasingTao!

Reverent crystal—

The eyes look through it darkly

Raindrop hopes in green.

Silence smoothes visions.

Lapping at the sea, he bears

Life upon his tongue.

* My short submissions to this week’s edition of the One Shoot Sunday Photo Prompt, featuring a picture from One Stop’s old friend, ChasingTao. Not only am I interviewing this week though, I’m also hosting, as Dustus is out and about in New York City, along with Moondustwriter and Brian Miller, for the Shorty Awards. Be sure to put on the live stream at the Shorty Awards’ website tomorrow to see if One Stop takes home an award for the arts!

Time Covers All

By Iquanyin Moon, for One Shoot Sunday.

I cannot see you anymore.

 

It ends in solitude,

The salient serration of your survival

Severed all trace of tactile touch—

I reached for you and you recoiled till

Whispers on the lovers’ trail

Turned it all to desert and to dust—

You went alone into the waste.

 

You are naked to me,

Wind-blown wraith wreathed in

Dust—blow, ye wind blow, for you

Are nothing, breaths and breathing

Touch upon the earth and fade away—

Just footsteps sifting in the sand

And Time.

 

Time covers all.

*This poem is a response to the latest of One Stop Poetry’s Sunday Picture Prompt challenges. This week’s featured picture was provided by i-Phoneographer Iquanyin Moon, who I interviewed for this week’s One Shoot Sunday. Check out her wonderful work, her insights, and some great poetry…

A Waking in a Kiss

 

By Lisa Michelle Arhontidis

A waking in a kiss

Cold lips in black light,

There is a life here that does not sleep

Between the sheets of memory, wrapped

She beckons and I heed, this endless

Obsession of souls, commands:

Drink these lips.

* Photography by Lisa Michelle Arhontidis, from her gorgeous photos and interview I conducted with her, as featured on One Stop Poetry.