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Carlo C Gomez Jan 16
Looking back at life brings on a shiver:
landmarks and stygian fragments,
radiant corrosion.

Will my feet still carry me home?

The morning breaks,
turn the blue skies on!
we're committed now,
guided by a God few know.

On Earth the math is made up,
8 billion people
and 1,000 questions,
out here the days
are numbered differently.

But in the ether aura
there are silent obligations:
we're trading passengers midflight
--the jester and the acrobat inside the LEM,
Marco Polo on the rocketship,
we're eating the survival kit,
making postcards of the trip.

All spoils for survivors.
Post signs for a near perfect disaster.

You are on my mind.
You are in my heart.
Are you in my blood?
I would die for you.

If this is goodbye, remember,
these things happen...
Inspired by the "Earthrise" photograph taken from lunar orbit during the Apollo 8 mission.
~
Dweller on the threshold
It's now coming back
Earth moon transit
Losing contact

Heading for the door
Fuzz and timbre
Surrender in my hand
A final act of war

My last words travel far
Closer to the speed of sound
No time to bury
Mixed flags in the ground

The phantom facing me
Is no recovery
There are a thousand of me
And each one is disappointed

~
Carlo C Gomez Apr 2021
Starting from the Euphrates
wayfinding a trail toward Babylonia
to divert her waters

mapping her ancient towers
her eyes
her desires
her pudendum

egressing out of the bitter river
surrounding her temple

until enlightenment
glisters betwixt the frangible pages of her
Dialogue of Pessimism:
~
"Who is so tall as to ascend to heaven?
Who is so broad as to encompass the entire world?"

~
Inspired by Jamadhi Verse's poem 'Minor Melancholy' and the music she provided a link to:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4289300/minor-melancholy/
Carlo C Gomez Feb 2020
Ruler of the sheets
Sleep has its own zip code

Dreamland is the nightly
Wait and wonder
We all have membership to

But this has its limits

The boundaries belong
To another kingdom

One of fun and adventure

A place of equilibristic feats
And corporeal claims

It's a fair trade-off

Sometimes we count sheep
In the center

Other times we play games
On the perimeter
Carlo C Gomez May 2022
~
find your torch
light me up

brittle and cracked
I like feeling this incomplete

I hope the nightmares don't start
without me

but if they do
let them stir
as the crow flies away
on dangerous days

with a host of stars
fiery god-smacked
in the vast well of night

where I could play king
for an hour
to a wounded land

and a pair of queens
kept in high dudgeon
lest they sing

their burning song
in rich hues
and deep tones
painted on the warm
analog tableau
on my skin

distant
distillation
happiest when sad

with time and space, some
of the intricacies
can be airbrushed out

but I don’t think
imperfect love
can take too many fires
like that, because then
a renaissance heart
would certainly go black

~
Carlo C Gomez Apr 2020
Rumor has it Sir Walter Raleigh
Is on the chase once more
An expedition of sinking ships
Braziers burning fast upon the shore

Chumming with time's blood
Panning for fool's gold
Wave after wave of repercussion
The future so willfully sold

For one bowl of soup
Like Esau famished from the hunt
Turning to his artful brother
And offering him the forefront

Our crowned jewel in all her tattered
Finery cleaved to the heart
The fabled city forsook
By once trusted hands tearing her apart

Set out the coffins
Sing for us an elegy
In the surf of this funeral march
Be sure to separate corpses from algae
From the Fabrizio Frosini & Poets Unite Worldwide anthology, "A Disconsolate Planet: Poems on Climate Emergency."

Poem by Carlo C. Gomez.
Carlo C Gomez Oct 2022
I wrote to you in broad bold letters.
I wrote it on a tree.

You know the one, remember
—it called to us from the middle of the garden.

Sassafras: our secret token.

Winter's stillbirth is soon upon us,
and our placement in the sun in peril.

But I have whispered it all to stones
now ****** into the sea.

Remember the tree, and pray I live long enough to dream in its hollow.
Inspired by the disappearance of the Roanoke Colony in 1580's America.
Carlo C Gomez Aug 2020
The hill is alive

Marching soldier

Plugged into the hive

Follows the scent trail of the world before him

Winter is closing in

Food stores and Disney Plus

Take turns as kingpin

It's all about what's current

And holds a charge

Technological holdouts

Form an orderly line to the graveyard

The rest do their very best

To keep up with progress
Inspired by Philip K. ****'s short story, "The Electric Ant" (1969).
Carlo C Gomez May 12
I'm almost positive I heard them talking

Talking in their protective, yet complaining manner

They say, they only get to interact with the weak

They say, they're all too often held responsible for the bond between others

What's the matter with them?

They're the ones full of chemistry

They're the ones who can escape scott free

While I have to stay inside and act positive about it

Just once I'd like to not be in the middle of everything
Carlo C Gomez Mar 2020
Who will quarantine the clouds?

Or close down the snow?

Who will prevent the rain
from assembling?

Or tell the wind to breath
through a mask?
Carlo C Gomez Jan 2020
Your fine eyes and lively wit
first caught his attention,
your light, lush figure
he discerned upon closer inspection.

You then had the audacity
to speak your mind,
to tell your unwanted suitor
where to go.

Nonetheless, what did he find?
A young lady brimming
with charm and intelligence,
a country girl of unrivaled specialness.

And hither came his letter,
an eye-opening missive,
a charitable benediction
that proved redemptive.

Here your prejudice began to be
worked on for the better,
its constant hold relenting
until it unfettered altogether.

His agony of rejection
soon warred against his pride,
his ardency for you
could not be denied.

A chance encounter
and you were
at once astonished
at what your heart did reveal,

his intense stare warmed your cheeks,
his kind words
and acts of goodness
then sealed the deal.

You could love no other.
And in this blissful denouement
you agreed to become his wife and lover.
Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy, Mistress of Pemberley...
To the remarkable writer Jane Austen and the wonderful 1995 BBC mini-series "Pride & Prejudice." Kudos to Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, forever the best Darcy and Elizabeth!
Carlo C Gomez Nov 2019
I wonder what monsters
believe are lurking
under their own beds at night

Maybe you or me?
Carlo C Gomez May 2020
I see waves
and candy-filled holidays
I see beach *****
and florescent seafoam
I see barely clad soccer moms
playing in the surf
with their children
I see Humbert
eyeing the teenage girls
I see the beauty
of an Asian sun
I see bikini ties come undone
I see predilection
and his friend, ignorance
I see the same social distancing
by the color of one's skin
I see newfound paranoia
I see the old pleasure
and pain
I see a broken whole
in a mere afternoon walk
on the shore

Welcome to
the empirical sand

What you see
is what you get
BLT's continued challenge- to write a poem using the Merriam- Webster word of the day, empirical.
Carlo C Gomez Jun 2020
Filmed entirely on dislocation
(of time & space)

Strictly facetious & fictitious

Angelo Badalamenti
Julee Cruise
and Kyle MacLachlan
as donut filled with hallucinogens

The taller trees take issue
with certain twin
lumberjack dwarfs

Cue the jazz saxophone
&
tavern cadaver waltz
with Audrey

"I guess it means there's trouble
until the robins come"
because Isabella Rossellini
is crazy naked
on the neighbor's lawn
...again

And Laura Palmer
looks better dead
then she ever did alive

or so sings the nightingale

What more can be expected
from a guy who grew up
with pet sidewalks
and talking paper bags?

In memory of
Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times)
BLT's continued challenge - to write a poem using the Merriam-Webster word of the day, fictitious.
Carlo C Gomez Mar 2023
step right in
where commodity and fiction
are deliberately blurred,

electrostatic dust collector,
after-shower body air-driers,
a spatially disconnected
from the world roll-on wife
complete with a dining table
that sinks into the floor;
don't tell her she's an android;
just don't.

she is captured
and ever ready,
she was a stenographer
but quite unsteady,
her mouth a spark of vowels
when her far off places
are aroused.

repeat this soothing motto — space, place, memory.

outside is scenographic sensation:
lightology. unbreathed air. porcelain skin.

she's the soft electric assurance
of a better life — the life which rests on device alone — a strong, sweet poison which infects the blood.

she is "the light of any home"...
Carlo C Gomez Jan 2020
In the clearing
where lambs graze
our daughters also
walk at their leisure
toward school
...
there are no fences here
the shepherds allegedly
keep watch in the darkest of hours
but when steps from
an intersecting path
lunge forth as
the unsuspecting wolf
a twisted creature
upon our precious girls
these herdsmen are
certifiably blind and mute
neglectful staffs
striking the air
...
listen closely now
to the gathering winds
their transformation is actually
echoes of our own children's
eternal cries
For Lauren McCluskey

Lauren Jennifer McCluskey, 21 years old, a beautiful young woman in all respects, was murdered on the University of Utah campus on October 22, 2018. The Lauren McCluskey Foundation was established to ensure that her light will continue to shine. The Lauren McCluskey Foundation honors Lauren’s legacy by supporting charitable work in the following areas:

Campus safety. Funding for research and education programs to keep our daughters safe.

Amateur athletics. Financial assistance for student and youth Track & Field athletes.

Animal welfare. Building on the success of Lauren McCluskey’s Cat Wing, support for animal shelters and other programs.

www.laurenmccluskey.org
Carlo C Gomez Mar 21
Evening is on the take
The sun herself senses it
Her heat is slipping away
Eclipsed by cold, arctic tendrils
Rilling through the fragile geography
Earth is a strong fighter though
Able to restore itself in serene defiance
Light she brings to keep night in its place
Written for the challenge to write an acrostic poem to the word Ethereal, using the word serene somewhere in the poem by Mrs. Timetable.

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5012875/ethereal-acrostic/
Carlo C Gomez Mar 2024
~
In the days of Jupiter
during the age of
lovely intimate things

the abundant rain giving life
to a lactating mother

bloodletting
cloudburst

her magic ocean
and incipient seabright moon
together at the center of creation

~
Carlo C Gomez Nov 2020
I am daylight
of a dissolving stay
in Paris
looking over
wrought-iron dreams
peering through
baroque and promises
at the ransom note
written on
a sleeping **** sunbather's
****-cheeks
where it reads:
"...our marriage
was nothing more
than a foxhole to you.
"
~
Carlo C Gomez Jun 2020
Janus-faced, she sits in her
Sinister bathing tub
Cleansing herself from
Fallen lovers

The very ones
She devised subtle ends to
Lest they should claim
Her heart for a kingdom

Vandals of her plumage
Whom she allowed
To drink from her stream
Once or twice

A god of vengeance sent her
A message in a bottle today
To prove the origin of her flow
And remind her that time is

Fly-by-night
Carlo C Gomez Mar 20
Insatiable colored eyes
— inveigle, beguile —
let me tempt you a while.

Between first light
and the breezy part of afternoon
it will dawn upon you soon.

This was an encounter
of convenience
— solicitor's propinquity —
the price paid was your obedience.

Your independence day
tossed your children away,
into deep dark waters of misery
we were immersed.
Carlo C Gomez Feb 2020
Today I tried
to file a restraining order
against coronavirus
and found out
i'm not the only one
it's stalking
Carlo C Gomez Sep 2024
calm seas, restless lungs

breathe it in
the mournful breath is out there

skin is numb

the words are too

holding still
hidden under the tongue

holding
hidden

one more dies before he gets there
(what did the letter say...?)

holding
hidden

what did it say...?
Carlo C Gomez Feb 2020
the bantering of rain
the insinuation it might snow
the mirage of moonglade
the mountain drink
the desert thirst

everything
resolves with flowers

a withered realm
a crestfallen kingdom
their copper queen withdrawing
from the bitter harvest
in the spirit of Persephone

everything
dissolves into flowers
Carlo C Gomez Jan 2020
I love you I need you I want to do all sorts of things for you to you with you and only you
Carlo C Gomez Jan 2023
keep the photographs
the city is overexposed again

take more walks in the nearby woods
the world we knew as children

watch out for frogs and detonators
mind the wires

new aerial boundaries at dawn
no one steps inside by choice

adapt to the proper order
and no sleeping under tables

the reflection tower is a good place to start
tourist trap, a certain approximate

bring the thing under the couch
in case of an unexpected visitor

more nightmares cut out of the newspaper
what is an Astra 600?

three different hat sizes
Hannie says yes to ménage à trois

the joy in discovery
the joy in forgetting

like God without a compass
not a lot, just forever
The Oversteegen sisters and friend Hannie Schaft worked to sabotage the **** military presence in the Netherlands. They used dynamite to disable bridges and railroad tracks. Additionally, they aided Jewish children by smuggling them out of the country or helping them escape concentration camps.

The Oversteegens and Schaft also lured German soldiers to the woods under the pretense of a romantic overture and then killed them. Freddie would approach the soldiers in taverns and bars and ask them to "go for a stroll" in the forest.
Carlo C Gomez Dec 2019
Dead cities
Living souls
Gates keep within
As much as without
Carlo C Gomez May 2020
uyeasound
cloudberry
batholith
dreamville
inner places of bijou

stone and mortar
of the exiguous me
wants the sweetest suspire
the complete rapture
to be within the maze
of you
BLT's new challenge- to write a poem using the Merriam- Webster word of the day, exiguous.
Carlo C Gomez Dec 2019
She sneezes like she pleases
Suddenly
Without warning
And all over the place
Carlo C Gomez Oct 2019
When it comes to time,
many of us are fair-weathered friends.

In one brief moment we can save it
then turn right around and **** it.

Still, time is a thief,
so I guess we're even.
Carlo C Gomez Mar 2024
~
So where did you go?
Where in daydream tarnation are we?
     If only you could see my exodus
     and relent

Where are you now?
Matters of blood and connection
forming at the mouth
we are the fabrication
      --an image apart from ourselves

To break is something sacred
in the Morse code of brake lights
     through time stained windows
     through a thousand contractions
the dead are getting younger

If only you could see me
walk into the blackness
not to build a fire
       but melt, wander, disappear
       and relent
       relent
       relent

~
Carlo C Gomez Nov 2024
What the birds overheard

From death to passwords

Migrated to tract housing

Became postage on a slow moving envelope

Somehow ended up as a flag on the moon
~
Tonight underneath debris
Family foreclosure
...
Heaven's legs dawn through window
Offer artificial hope
...
Employee to love
Dressed for escape
...
Pleasure town angel
A multi-color pretty thing
...
Mom questions way
Daughter drives to parties
...
Empty lips talk
**** reflection patterns
...
Death inside mom and dad
Beautifully cold skin
...
War god kiss
Midnight blue people (at dinner table)
...
Young shadows flower
Final stars fire
...
Money born cloud
Raining on remnants of family
...
Is there nothing
Left to mortgage?

~
Carlo C Gomez Mar 2024
~
I.
Killing Mary Poppins
with a spoonful of sugar,
the sugar from the medicine
on the other side of town,
the town called Silent Hedges
And A Bit Of Fluff.


II.
Only a display model,
her name is Marmalade;
skin white like the moon,
she wears her ****** stranger dress;
one of her sisters is dying,
the other never lived;
God is a far off concept,
the fuchsia colored ball on
an overhead power grid
points her way to salvation.


III.
Morning became something else:
bright decline,
cold things start to burn,
tragic saxophone
among the beckoning,
everything's a symptom:
tax exiles, imperialists,
girls talking nitrous
--mouths full of soil,
Virginia Reel around the fountain
(do-si-do),
ready to buy up impossibles
as the dominoes fall.


IV.
Memory is a chemical
to the girl who cried champagne,
like ceiling stars
during the prodigal summer,
she played the game
on all fours,
and found a drawer
full of quarantine polaroids,
some with blood in her mouth,
others, of rain on her birthday.

~
Carlo C Gomez Oct 2019
Grace under pressure

She is pyrotechnics, feux d'artifice

Her northern light due south
Where the wind dies

There's trouble then

She swings in
Emotive orbit

Her hang time sabotaged
By lack of resistance

She is free-fall

Every last documented entry
Every bit of her composition
--The fabric of her

They fall from Grace
And onto the floor of new imaginings

What used to fit
Neatly into a box
Is presently a bitter pill to swallow

Down the hyperventilation
Shaft she goes

Where she lands nobody knows
Carlo C Gomez Sep 2022
~
Moving beyond the sun
to where our minds
are a fraction behind us,
believing they've found
the other-side.

I am glass shattered by redemption,
and I am now the shadow
of a mirrored divinity,
for somewhere out there
is a god resembling my face,
and its nakedness stares me down.

Raising eyebrows at the moon
as if this is love's culprit,
yet, opening arms and minds welcome
the thereupon lust as if
some devoted era:
bow and arrow shapes
of you and me,
falling out of love without travail,
but of constant ease.

I look better in black and white
than in vulnerability,
my exploitation of
private earth looms casual,
though I'm well aware
of the vibrations it sends.

Manipulators of love and war
were all we really wanted to be,
cheating destiny
by falling for the future.

And from this side of our mind
the sun was always cold,
just a vague old relic in a fresh grave:
a princess ruling among
the ruins of past decisions,
and happily she gives
a stagnant kiss of consequence.

Recommitted wind breaks
through, like turning, burning
pages desperate to speak.

But I'd rather that her white lies
take me now, than a waking grasp
or a skirmishing wave
terrorize me,
as this black [media] plagued sun's
desecrated heart bleeds
and recalls to mind
the coming blasphemy.

~
Carlo C Gomez Jan 2020
I'm only following you
because I can't break out
of your gravitational pull
Carlo C Gomez Sep 2020
The cube, the sphere
and the triangle

Building blocks, visionary shapes
that brace wind, cut clouds

Industrial smoke goes against
the grain of architecture

Maybe we can find where
they breathe tomorrow in naturally

It will be opaque and after breakfast
arrested by cantilevered thoughts

A ripple in the calm
whirlpool above the falls

As Liliane enjoys swimming
in the **** and collecting modern art

By nightfall and before the uniting
there's a solemn dream to be had

Haunted fragments
within the libretto of a Shining Brow

The contents of Froebel gifts
form organic steps, and led us
Wright to the water's edge
For Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959)
Carlo C Gomez Feb 2020
Caught red-handed,
You reach for the first thing
Your grubby metacarpus can find,
Be it a sabre or quill.

You ****** and parry away
In your journal,
All in the hopes you might
Besmirch me,
And strike it rich
At the same time.

But like Dido, Queen of Carthage,
Your bags of gold
Contain only sand.

This is your hapless undoing,
Mr. Hamilton,
Despicably so.
Don't use me as a crutch,
Fall on your own sword!

Talk about a fair amount
Of revisionist's history,
But we'll save that for
Another day...

Suffice to say:
History is in the eyes of the beholder.
No need to correct me, I'm well aware the Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton duel was with pistols, not swords. Just thought I would take a little poetic license.
Carlo C Gomez Mar 2020
Dance with me
my darling
upon the balcony
in the moonlight
cheek-to-cheek

We can whisper about
the shrouded past with smiles
and promise each other
all sorts of pleasures
one last time

Just close your eyes
my love
ignore the sound
of the wrecking ball
and i will hold you tight

even if for only a moment longer...
Carlo C Gomez Dec 2019
My wife has eyes in the back of her head
So I got her into hats
Carlo C Gomez Mar 2021
~
On a clear day
I can see my sister

It's between six and seven o'clock
and a beautiful expanse of water, reflecting her cultivated shores

a nod, a smile,
through the vapor

castles in the air, ruling over
the available light

then in a moment, she's lost
half her height

and bent into arcades, like those
of a Roman aqueduct

evaporate before me she will

the fading of family, a returning
to cold white at the dawning
of an unfriendly expanse

~
Carlo C Gomez Nov 2021
See you everyday
haven't seen myself (in quite a spell)

my brain is
an abandoned building, a dry well

I traced your phone call
to some viral spiral

I'm connected to you
in a spider-like way

--webs, phobias and decay

the essence of life is
reproduction and mortality

see you everyday
in shivering downloaded depravity

your starry smiles
your synthetic ciphers

and I'm all alone again

this body is a safe house
this fear, a panic room

but the enemy within
is always right under my skin
Carlo C Gomez Aug 2023
~
Saturn Jupiter Mars,
three blind mice running
up the clock to find freedom.

starlight stairs in abyss,
cities of the interior ring
carry a dangerous cargo: citizens.

t-minus one/this is fear

I am no astronaut,
I'm a refugee, bleeding hands pressed
tight to the barbed-wired fence.

we play charades from the window,
lunar phases keening
in the tender light of these infant wars.

t-minus one/this is fear

farewell threshold on laudanum,
the grifted gift of the Joe Blakes
painted from memory.

the far off observation
telescoping my fear, leading me
to believe I'm hiding in plain view.
~
Carlo C Gomez Nov 2019
*** in the morning
Death in the afternoon
And it was dark

Milling about stacks
Of paperbacks and out of focus snapshots
Some of her in the shower

But pay heed
She's an iceberg
Warm her up on a bed of nails

Until she's a plaintive waterfall
And then tie her to the scaffolding
Of a clean well lighted place

What remains out of sight
Through omission
Through silence

Through childlike syntax
Shall float to the surface
In its own due time
To the master of the Iceberg Theory, Ernest Hemingway
Carlo C Gomez Jun 2020
He Waits for his wife
Sitting in her lawbreaking bra at the bar

These days she goes by
Kathleen

Something odd is brewing in the kitchen
Even the dog is howling

One mouthful is tempting
But better not swallow

Otherwise, it's a certain trip
To Little Red's recovery room
In response to Thomas Case's "Tom Waits Poem Challenge"
Carlo C Gomez Jul 2021
~
Somersaults
In the tall grass
Lutalica girl
In places on the run
Stretched out in her awakening
Removes the dress of her captivity
To introduce herself to those she loves
There's something deeply unknowable
And terrifying in the arrival of her liberty
Sprung forth out of the box
She started from

~
Lutalica: the part of your identity that doesn't fit into categories.
Carlo C Gomez Jul 2021
~
connected particles settling

as evidence

of the blissful graze

the brush with chemistry

the aftersome

and there the flashover

reframing time

by the warm places

one isolated touch sends you to

~
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