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EssEss Sep 2021
Italy's Capri admirably fits the bill as an enchanted island,
Nestled in the Bay of Naples, it's apt to call it wonderland,
It is famous as a coastal resort and a celebrated beauty spot,
Little wonder of it being touristy and a location often sought

The isle is seriously beautiful, sans any blemish in its splendor,
So little room for any shortcoming, chances of which are slender,
Breathtaking views from any angle makes Capri appear so scenic,
Futile to draw comparison to any other isle that is so panoramic

Capri is known as the isle of the sirens in Greek mythology,
It has very little to do though with any aspect of theology,
Long considered a preserve of celebrities and the super-rich,
The small precipitous island is a must-visit travel agent's sales pitch

Accessible only by ferry or hydrofoil from Naples and its surrounds,
The idyllic isle with sheer cliffs and dazzling seascapes visually astounds,
Steep cliffs rise majestically from an almost impossibly blue sea,
That the isle has that tangible deluxe feel, is for all to see

The island has a mythical charm with its jaw-dropping natural beauty,
Stunning landscapes from rocky caves to the horizon's edge lend to the popularity,
Shimmering sea views, secluded grottos lure visitors in droves to be on board,
Amazing cuisine, world-class shopping are bells and whistles; lest you get bored

Blue Grotto is an oceanic cave at the water's edge with an opening to the sea,
Optical effects created by sunlight bouncing on the cave walls, is a sight to see,
Water lit turquoise hues from below, by the sun, creates a magical atmosphere,
Shimmering cobalt-blue light images beckons us to a virtual optical stratosphere

Through the water on the floor of the cave, Roman remains are clearly visible,
Supposedly used as a bathing place by Emperor Tiberius, a reason nigh plausible,
This lagoon was probably a Roman villa with statues decorating the whole floor,
Other entrances to the grotto were created to improve irrigation, per Greek folklore

Capri's standout are three rocky peaks emerging from the azure blue water,
Called the Faraglioni, the limestone stacks are discernible to any spotter,
Formed by erosion, separated by water thro' collapse of solid land mass,
Emerging as steep rocks rising out of the sea, surprisingly not as a morass

La Piazzetta, aka chiazza, is a bustling diminutive square in the heart of Capri,
Table settings of the handful of cafes are meant for one to be carefree,
The colorful clock tower chimes every quarter hour throughout the day,
With thronging crowds at all times, little surprise why the place holds sway

Post ferry drop-off at Marina Grande, a road trip from Capri to Anacapri is a must,
Brace yourselves for a 3-km. stretch of hairpin bends en route in the mini bus,
On the slopes of Mount Solaro and at a higher elevation than Capri,
The more authentic side of the island and less crowded, is Anacapri

Piazza Vittoria in Anacapri town is the bustling bus stop square where one alights,
Sauntering thro' colorful bougainvillea, geranium festooned lanes is sheer delight,
Behold a mix of Neapolitan tailor shops, artisan shoemakers and souvenir shops,
Enjoy the aerial whiff of the town's lemon groves pervading everywhere, nonstop

Museum of Villa San Michele is a building articulating at various levels,
Ancient artifacts, Roman paving, marble columns are sights that revel,
An elevated garden with granite Sphinx and Greek tomb is a perfect setting,
For a sweeping view of the Bay of Naples below, that looks so enchanting

Continuing downhill, the Church of Santa Sofia is the pride of the town,
The adjoining Piazza Armando Diaz bustling with activity is a place of its own,
Locals chatting and reading newspapers presents such a wonderful sight,
Seated on hand painted majolica benches, as if conveying life is so bright

A visit to Capri is incomplete without tasting the famed Caprese salad,
The taste is so exquisite that one tends to break into a ballad,
Tomatoes, milky mozzarella, aromatic basil leaves are the sole ingredients,
A drizzle of sharply flavored olive oil does little to serve as an impediment

Restaurants abound the lanes with crowds' incessant chatter,
Panino Caprese being made in a jiffy is no laughing matter,
So popular is the salad that it can be found on every menu,
Strolling along past excited visitors, makes for the perfect milieu

It is with a heavy heart that you ferry back to mainland at the trip's end,
While enjoying the panoramic stunning views again, as if there's no end,
It is not without reason that Capri's famed "cliff beauty" is so majestic,
The only describable feeling of the experience is that it is "ecstatic"!
Travel poetry
Tearani C Apr 2012
A lady bug crawled across my dreams today,
I thought it was odd, being so cold out and all.
Sways in and out of consciousness, oblivion
In and out of this light I’ve been living in.
On the big ball I’m living on, spinning with.
I’m a broken insomniac packed with adrenaline.
Sirens blaring and dead eyes staring in my head,
So loud here trapped beneath everything
A dull thrumming gentle humming,
So loud the soul of my shoe vibrates,
To the bad vibes of thier raw hate.
Simple centering while I meditate.
Tell myself there is a thing to call a happy place.
Pieced to pieces fabricated memories,
Like a puzzle missing pieces.
But I fell asleep today, long before
Four in the morning like a normal human.
Sanity came to the ushered sound of gentle snoring.
And a lady bug crawled across my dreams today,
For some reason it made me think of you.
And the soft sway that’s your way,
I thought you were here but I woke
**** choke the tears **** them
And your gone. you are the best dream,
Best one lately anyway when I miss you like this.
Best I have ever had and a common thief
Of my sleeping dreams
Scaring my eyes open for so long
I finally start to see a common theme
Remember that lady bug that ran across
My memories.
Seeing you would easily sooth me back to sleep
And until then i grin over silly things,
Like your wide eyes when a lady bug crawled
Up your knee.
Capri, I miss you.
Jimmy King Aug 2013
Yesterday
I saw someone
Texting
During a documentary
About Syria
And I wrote
A lot of poems
About it
But today,
Sitting here,
Sipping
At my Capri Sun,
I don't feel
Like there's any less
Justification
For me
To be at
The center
Of my poems
Than that person
Texting so
Here's a poem
About me
kirk Feb 2016
Oh Annette Tidy, I would love to lick your ****
Show me that you like it, you **** loving ****
******* pulled beyond your hole, while kneeling like a mutt
Legs apart so far and wide, I don't want your ******* shut

Spread you cheeks across my face and open your hole wide
Pelvic thrusting on my tongue, while I'm slipping it inside
The taste of it is magical, when tongue and *** collide
I can lick your ***** too , but I'll let you decide

It's okay if your a *****, when it's ***** and bums to pluck
A Furry ***** is alright, it's still so good to ****
Soiled ******* I don't mind, they make my cockerel cluck
A touch of romance is quite fine, but so is a good ****

Oh Annette Tidy let me knock on your back door
You can show me your intentions, you filthy ******* *****
I doesn't matter that we're strangers, because our *** is raw
If your like the phone box says, then what are you waiting for?

So come on now get naked, and I will do the same
let me have your **** hole and a **** ******* game
According to the writings your a filthy kind of dame
I've read that your an **** ****, so your be glad I came

Oh Annette Tidy, I am on a real *** hunt
I would be so happy, if your proper ***** ****
Whether your a posh girl, or just a ******* munt
You need to get your knickers off, and I'll give it a punt

I'll be grabbing onto your ****, and It would be devine
Vigorous ******* may result, in hearing your **** whine
If your a cheater that's okay, it really is quite fine
As long as your cheating with me, and you are ******* mine

So push your **** upon me, let my **** slide in
I'd **** without a rubber sheaf, it's better on bare skin
I'm sure that you'll enjoy it, when your sitting on my pin
And **** old Dennis Richmond, cos I don't give a **** about him

Oh Annette Tidy, I fancy a real good ****
I am really hoping, your a ***** ******* ****
It doesn't matter if your good looking, or a dried up hag
***** lips are free to flutter, when I **** your fleshy flag

**** ******* is so good, what a fantastic feeling
The tightness squeezing on my rod, that's what I find appealing
Doing **** would be great, bent over or just kneeling
An ******* that is spread wide, is really quite revealing

So when my **** is hard enough I would stuff it in your ***
Fingers up your ***** and your ******* under thumb
A frigging is in order, because I want to feel your ***
******* in your tight hole, I would really give it some

Oh Annette tidy, let us have some ****** fun
Let me see you naked, and I will ***** your hot cross bun
I also like a wet ****, but these things must be done
For you squirt me with your juice, just like a Capri Sun

I hope that you like big *****, cos I have a nine inch ****
Because I'm not hung like those fellows, who are in Hong Kong
So I won't put it all in, in case it is too long
But if you want the whole lot, I'll make sure that it says strong

Are you such an **** *****, well I don't really know
You could be a real ***** ****, or just an average joe
If your not that kind of girl, then somewhere else I'll go
Because I'm looking to get ******, and a **** and blow

You maybe such a nice girl, and you get home by ten
So you might not be interested, in ridding my big ben
I'm sure there's **** ladies, who'd like playing in my pen
A **** time they can have, if I went round to their den

Are writings on walls true, you don't have to sit there idly
If you want an arrangement, I could ******* every Friday
Unless you are a nice girl, and your a bit like Heidi
And your up in the mountains thinking . . . . Oh Annette Tidy!
When beauty grows too great to bear
How shall I ease me of its ache,
For beauty more than bitterness
Makes the heart break.

Now while I watch the dreaming sea
With isles like flowers against her breast,
Only one voice in all the world
Could give me rest.
When beauty grows too great to bear
   How shall I ease me of its ache,
For beauty more than bitterness
   Makes the heart break.

Now while I watch the dreaming sea
   With isles like flowers against her breast,
Only one voice in all the world
   Could give me rest.
judy smith Sep 2015
It’s been a summer of love for many pairs in the Aspen area who chose to tie the knot near home or with a destination wedding such as these six couples below.

Natasha Lucero and Mike Conklin of Carbondale pinpointed Puerto Aventuras, Mexico, for their May 2 wedding at Hacienda del Mar Resort. Surrounded by nearly 100 friends and family members, they celebrated in the sun with a beach wedding. Though they lead an active lifestyle filled with lots of CrossFit workouts and semi-strict diets, they decided upon a decadent wedding cake (opting for one made of donut holes in lieu of something more traditional). For their honeymoon, the happy couple stayed in Mexico at an all-inclusive resort just down the road from the wedding.

Kelly Ann McColm and Daniel Conal McCarthy of Aspen chose a mountain wedding for their June 6 event. The ceremony was on the wedding deck at the top of Aspen Mountain with a reception in the beautifully decorated Sundeck. Kelly Ann’s favorite part about the wedding was the weather. “All four seasons in an hour! We started up the gondola with rain, got to the top of Ajax with snow and as I came out to walk down the aisle, the clouds parted and the sun came out for a beautiful summer sunset. The McCarthys are beach-bound for their honeymoon with a trip to Bora Bora.

Lori Augustine and Bill Small of Aspen tied the knot on June 14 on Aspen Mountain. They and their guests enjoyed beautiful summer weather for the ceremony at 11,212 feet. They’ve just set off for a honeymoon through Europe, spending the month of September in Venice, Milan, Lake Como, Capri, Positano, Rome, Tuscany, Monaco and St. Tropez.


Molly Elizabeth Eckrich and Charles Barclay Dodge of Aspen exchanged vows amidst friends and family on June 26. The Snowmass Chapel performed the ceremony in the John Denver Sanctuary in Old Snowmass. The bride noted, “We were the first wedding out there and I hope more people will use it because it was the most perfect setting.” Their reception took place at Tempranillo in Basalt. And their long awaited honeymoon will be spent in St. Bart’s and Cuba in November.

Katie Kowalski and Mickey Krentz of Aspen were married on a beautiful summer afternoon at Aspen Center for Environmental Studies at Rock Bottom Ranch near Emma on Aug. 8. “We supported a farm to table dinner there last year and both knew instantly, that is where we wanted to get married,” the bride noted. “It represented out love of the outdoors and love for good, local food, in a relaxed and beautiful setting. The atmosphere the day of our wedding couldn’t have been more perfect with the roosters crowing, ducks waddling, pigs lounging, the warm glow of the sun.” Next spring, they’ll honeymoon in Italy and France.

Maggi Whitmer and Ryan Thompson of Aspen tied the knot on Aug. 15 at Elk Camp in Snowmass under clear blue skies. “We loved being one of the first weddings in this location,” explained the bride. “Ryan and I both grew up in the valley and are passionate about skiing so having it on the mountain with chairlifts in the backdrop was special.” Sparklers, a food truck and the gondola were all little details that made it especially unique. For their honeymoon, they’re heading to Croatia and Italy in October.

read more:www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-perth

www.marieaustralia.com/vintage-formal-dresses
we have everything and we have nothing
and some men do it in churches
and some men do it by tearing butterflies
in half
and some men do it in Palm Springs
laying it into butterblondes
with Cadillac souls
Cadillacs and butterflies
nothing and everything,
the face melting down to the last puff
in a cellar in Corpus Christi.
there's something for the touts, the nuns,
the grocery clerks and you . . .
something at 8 a.m., something in the library
something in the river,
everything and nothing.
in the slaughterhouse it comes running along
the ceiling on a hook, and you swing it --
one
two
three
and then you've got it, $200 worth of dead
meat, its bones against your bones
something and nothing.
it's always early enough to die and
it's always too late,
and the drill of blood in the basin white
it tells you nothing at all
and the gravediggers playing poker over
5 a.m. coffee, waiting for the grass
to dismiss the frost . . .
they tell you nothing at all.

we have everything and we have nothing --
days with glass edges and the impossible stink
of river moss -- worse than ****;
checkerboard days of moves and countermoves,
****** interest, with as much sense in defeat as
in victory; slow days like mules
******* it slagged and sullen and sun-glazed
up a road where a madman sits waiting among
bluejays and wrens netted in and ****** a flakey
grey.
good days too of wine and shouting, fights
in alleys, fat legs of women striving around
your bowels buried in moans,
the signs in bullrings like diamonds hollering
Mother Capri, violets coming out of the ground
telling you to forget the dead armies and the loves
that robbed you.
days when children say funny and brilliant things
like savages trying to send you a message through
their bodies while their bodies are still
alive enough to transmit and feel and run up
and down without locks and paychecks and
ideals and possessions and beetle-like
opinions.
days when you can cry all day long in
a green room with the door locked, days
when you can laugh at the breadman
because his legs are too long, days
of looking at hedges . . .

and nothing, and nothing, the days of
the bosses, yellow men
with bad breath and big feet, men
who look like frogs, hyenas, men who walk
as if melody had never been invented, men
who think it is intelligent to hire and fire and
profit, men with expensive wives they possess
like 60 acres of ground to be drilled
or shown-off or to be walled away from
the incompetent, men who'd **** you
because they're crazy and justify it because
it's the law, men who stand in front of
windows 30 feet wide and see nothing,
men with luxury yachts who can sail around
the world and yet never get out of their vest
pockets, men like snails, men like eels, men
like slugs, and not as good . . .
and nothing, getting your last paycheck
at a harbor, at a factory, at a hospital, at an
aircraft plant, at a penny arcade, at a
barbershop, at a job you didn't want
anyway.
income tax, sickness, servility, broken
arms, broken heads -- all the stuffing
come out like an old pillow.

we have everything and we have nothing.
some do it well enough for a while and
then give way. fame gets them or disgust
or age or lack of proper diet or ink
across the eyes or children in college
or new cars or broken backs while skiing
in Switzerland or new politics or new wives
or just natural change and decay --
the man you knew yesterday hooking
for ten rounds or drinking for three days and
three nights by the Sawtooth mountains now
just something under a sheet or a cross
or a stone or under an easy delusion,
or packing a bible or a golf bag or a
briefcase: how they go, how they go! -- all
the ones you thought would never go.

days like this. like your day today.
maybe the rain on the window trying to
get through to you. what do you see today?
what is it? where are you? the best
days are sometimes the first, sometimes
the middle and even sometimes the last.
the vacant lots are not bad, churches in
Europe on postcards are not bad. people in
wax museums frozen into their best sterility
are not bad, horrible but not bad. the
cannon, think of the cannon, and toast for
breakfast the coffee hot enough you
know your tongue is still there, three
geraniums outside a window, trying to be
red and trying to be pink and trying to be
geraniums, no wonder sometimes the women
cry, no wonder the mules don't want
to go up the hill. are you in a hotel room
in Detroit looking for a cigarette? one more
good day. a little bit of it. and as
the nurses come out of the building after
their shift, having had enough, eight nurses
with different names and different places
to go -- walking across the lawn, some of them
want cocoa and a paper, some of them want a
hot bath, some of them want a man, some
of them are hardly thinking at all. enough
and not enough. arcs and pilgrims, oranges
gutters, ferns, antibodies, boxes of
tissue paper.

in the most decent sometimes sun
there is the softsmoke feeling from urns
and the canned sound of old battleplanes
and if you go inside and run your finger
along the window ledge you'll find
dirt, maybe even earth.
and if you look out the window
there will be the day, and as you
get older you'll keep looking
keep looking
******* your ******* little
ah ah   no no   maybe

some do it naturally
some obscenely
everywhere.
Eric De Sousa Aug 2013
Once there was a straw...
sweet ridicule Apr 2015
lips become cherry red when I cry
and chasing cars hurts from my ears
                                                 down to my toes
because it was never wasting time

   I almost killed my jeep battery
(forgot to turn the lights off)
             drinking coffee to Iowa cornfields and a resurrected yearning
maybe I'll leave (I want to)
            --LA, Paris, Austria, Versailles, Rio, Carmel, Amsterdam, Mumbai--
I'm audacious and arrogant--much too proud of
                               my flaws
leaving would be easy: intoxicating
like caffeine
       stars
       fear
       laughing kisses
but staying means home and English and standing out like a sore thumb (a beautiful one) in public
            and the people I deeply love
                                      (and need) I can admit that now
so I'll watch the Capri Sun orange sunset
once again tonight
and try to intoxicate myself with
               cornfields, sassy 8th graders, my beautiful examples of true love, ADD, bashful boy,
                       and pieces of the world
  
                                                        ­              on my body
read read read
All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I’d started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.
Over these things I could not see;
These were the things that bounded me;
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
And all at once things seemed so small
My breath came short, and scarce at all.
But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
Miles and miles above my head;
So here upon my back I’ll lie
And look my fill into the sky.
And so I looked, and, after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
And—sure enough!—I see the top!
The sky, I thought, is not so grand;
I ‘most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed to feel it touch the sky.
I screamed, and—lo!—Infinity
Came down and settled over me;
Forced back my scream into my chest,
Bent back my arm upon my breast,
And, pressing of the Undefined
The definition on my mind,
Held up before my eyes a glass
Through which my shrinking sight did pass
Until it seemed I must behold
Immensity made manifold;
Whispered to me a word whose sound
Deafened the air for worlds around,
And brought unmuffled to my ears
The gossiping of friendly spheres,
The creaking of the tented sky,
The ticking of Eternity.
I saw and heard, and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
And present, and forevermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core,
Lay open to my probing sense
That, sick’ning, I would fain pluck thence
But could not,—nay! But needs must ****
At the great wound, and could not pluck
My lips away till I had drawn
All venom out.—Ah, fearful pawn!
For my omniscience paid I toll
In infinite remorse of soul.
All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious ******,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire,—
Craved all in vain!  And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each,—then mourned for all!
A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through my throat.
No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I.
All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God.
Ah, awful weight!  Infinity
Pressed down upon the finite Me!
My anguished spirit, like a bird,
Beating against my lips I heard;
Yet lay the weight so close about
There was no room for it without.
And so beneath the weight lay I
And suffered death, but could not die.

Long had I lain thus, craving death,
When quietly the earth beneath
Gave way, and inch by inch, so great
At last had grown the crushing weight,
Into the earth I sank till I
Full six feet under ground did lie,
And sank no more,—there is no weight
Can follow here, however great.
From off my breast I felt it roll,
And as it went my tortured soul
Burst forth and fled in such a gust
That all about me swirled the dust.

Deep in the earth I rested now;
Cool is its hand upon the brow
And soft its breast beneath the head
Of one who is so gladly dead.
And all at once, and over all
The pitying rain began to fall;
I lay and heard each pattering hoof
Upon my lowly, thatched roof,
And seemed to love the sound far more
Than ever I had done before.
For rain it hath a friendly sound
To one who’s six feet underground;
And scarce the friendly voice or face:
A grave is such a quiet place.

The rain, I said, is kind to come
And speak to me in my new home.
I would I were alive again
To kiss the fingers of the rain,
To drink into my eyes the shine
Of every slanting silver line,
To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze
From drenched and dripping apple-trees.
For soon the shower will be done,
And then the broad face of the sun
Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth
Until the world with answering mirth
Shakes joyously, and each round drop
Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.
How can I bear it; buried here,
While overhead the sky grows clear
And blue again after the storm?
O, multi-colored, multiform,
Beloved beauty over me,
That I shall never, never see
Again!  Spring-silver, autumn-gold,
That I shall never more behold!
Sleeping your myriad magics through,
Close-sepulchred away from you!
O God, I cried, give me new birth,
And put me back upon the earth!
Upset each cloud’s gigantic gourd
And let the heavy rain, down-poured
In one big torrent, set me free,
Washing my grave away from me!

I ceased; and through the breathless hush
That answered me, the far-off rush
Of herald wings came whispering
Like music down the vibrant string
Of my ascending prayer, and—crash!
Before the wild wind’s whistling lash
The startled storm-clouds reared on high
And plunged in terror down the sky,
And the big rain in one black wave
Fell from the sky and struck my grave.
I know not how such things can be;
I only know there came to me
A fragrance such as never clings
To aught save happy living things;
A sound as of some joyous elf
Singing sweet songs to please himself,
And, through and over everything,
A sense of glad awakening.
The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,
Whispering to me I could hear;
I felt the rain’s cool finger-tips
Brushed tenderly across my lips,
Laid gently on my sealed sight,
And all at once the heavy night
Fell from my eyes and I could see,—
A drenched and dripping apple-tree,
A last long line of silver rain,
A sky grown clear and blue again.
And as I looked a quickening gust
Of wind blew up to me and ******
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath, and with the smell,—
I know not how such things can be!—
I breathed my soul back into me.
Ah!  Up then from the ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About the trees my arms I wound;
Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed and laughed into the sky,
Till at my throat a strangling sob
Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb
Sent instant tears into my eyes;
O God, I cried, no dark disguise
Can e’er hereafter hide from me
Thy radiant identity!
Thou canst not move across the grass
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however silently,
But my hushed voice will answer Thee.
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,—
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.
sweatshop jam Jan 2015
if everything else you abandon in the recesses of the life you left behind, remember this:

(when you are holding back the explosion of a scream in the middle of the corridors, when you have a fist in your mouth and sobs rising in your throat while sitting in a lonely corner, when everything seems hopeless and the only way out of despair and anguish is the bottle of pills on your desk or the ladder up to the roof)

- you will always have something to return to. beyond the brick and mortar, beyond the concrete and tile, beyond the only home you have ever called your own or known as yours.

because home is people.

it always has been.
On the southwest side of Capri
we found a little unknown grotto
where no people were and we
entered it completely
and let our bodies lose all
their loneliness.

All the fish in us
had escaped for a minute.
The real fish did not mind.
We did not disturb their personal life.
We calmly trailed over them
and under them, shedding
air bubbles, little white
balloons that drifted up
into the sun by the boat
where the Italian boatman slept
with his hat over his face.

Water so clear you could
read a book through it.
Water so buoyant you could
float on your elbow.
I lay on it as on a divan.
I lay on it just like
Matisse's Red Odalisque.
Water was my strange flower,
one must picture a woman
without a toga or a scarf
on a couch as deep as a tomb.

The walls of that grotto
were everycolor blue and
you said, "Look! Your eyes
are seacolor. Look! Your eyes
are skycolor." And my eyes
shut down as if they were
suddenly ashamed.
Rachel Ace Apr 2017
Same souls are an 
_ island_

Eternal lamour
Perfect glamor
                      
Flying
            Transparency
Quiet breeze
        Fragrance
Deep

Vichy dress
Glitter shoes
Cat eye sunglasses
Pearls ears
Coast Chekbones
Hills on her lips
Holographic lady
                    
                   views
*** laude

Seductive Highness
Navy blue
Hair waves
Elegant hands
Embroidery sigh
Mozzarella lover
Prince vibrations
Coast lips
    
                    Views
*** laude

Coastal environment
Sun loungers in the sand
Outside peopleland
small views

Fortuna collapses
*** laude           views

The refuge of the mermaids
Corners illuminated
Turquoise blue water
Gauze Water

We are
_ Caprisland _

  - Codelandandmore // 17:00 PM ©
Actual Love Ode
Circa 1994 Mar 2014
My socks are a conversation starter,
They have more to say than me.
I request a Kid Cudi song
To the kid with his laptop open to YouTube,
Pretending to be a DJ.
Someone takes a long pull on the hookah.

I discuss True Blood in the backseat of a car with a girl from Hungry.
I drink a Capri Sun.
Eat some Ritz.

My mind is sober and waiting for my body to catch up.
Egeria Litha Jun 2013
21 years or older but I asked to use the bathroom first.
Then I slip in when the bouncer isn't looking.
Naked bodies hanging on poles.
Men, smoke, 90's rap music.
On the stage, they bend backwards like dogs.
Dogs staring back, mirroring the position
and her self - esteem.
A woman approaches two men at the table in front of me.
Her fishnet wrap shows she's naked.
*******, grinding, tossing hair.
Some slimy guys buy us drinks from a table a distance away.
Dorena gulps next to me.
I leave mine alone.
Absorbed into this vision because I have to immerse
myself in this because I must write.
I need to tell people that her hand slapped her ******
like it did something wrong.
She made her hand do that because that man
was giving her dollars as I watched them slide off her back,
her legs; the sides of them.
She gave his friend a dance and a magic trick.
Setting fire to matchsticks she placed on her ******* and her ****.
He blew the flame away.
The dollars blew to the ground
and after her performance she went on her knees,
and picked up the remains.
Her dress, the money, her composure.
Afterward, she lit up a Capri, the type of cigarette
I craved all night.
I bummed one off her and she fled out of sight.
Fitz
Fritz
Fido
Sandy
Spencer
Chaplain
Bernard
Jesse
Snoopy
Charlie
Charles
Fred
Freddy
Bones
Remmy
Ren­a
Reno
Tony
Julian
Julie
Frisco
Meghan
Addison
Robby
Buddy
Rudy
F­riedrich
Fredrick
Bernie
Rudolph
Adolf
Ferdinand
Rose
Cassie
Cassidy
Lee
Balto
Little *****
Allen
Alvin
Jake
Demi
Randy
Alex
Richard
Alexis
Kenneth
Ken­ny
Chris
Jose
Josey
Rodger
Moe
Joe
Emilio
Walt
Emily
Emma
Maddie
­Anna
Jafar
Aladin
Jasmine
Genie
******
Amber
Gracie
Ramen
Gordy
G­ordon
Jordie
James
Bucky
Huff
Manny
Sam
Samantha
Mary
Marie
Tila
­Rita
Cathy
Tammy
Mickey
Cam
Amelia
Rene
Jeb
Dan
Bagel
Tommy
Donut­
Bubbles
Blossom
Buttercup
Mark
Cody
Andy
Cristo
Andrea
Whiskers
­Mike
Bill
Billy
George
Geo
Joy
Mitch
Trigger
Tigger
Stephen
Archi­medes
Anya
Duncan
Nitro
Crash
Bub
Crystal
Egor
Bernadette
Cammy
T­immy
Antonio
Natasha
Natalia
Ivan
Abbey
Abdul
Carly
Aaron
Omega
F­inn
Nina
Debby
Tomato
Tabby
Artie
Archie
Noah
Kyle
Alfie
Alfred
Conrad
Conner
******
G­unner
Fry
Fries
*******
Constance
Connie
Frank
Fran
Candice
D­andy
Lucy
Lou
Louis
Quincy
Doogle
Dubie
Dakota
Ace
Casey
Barry
Te­rry
Trenton
Gabe
Laurie
Cornelius
Kabob
Sky
Skylar
Rufus
Louie
Ba­rton
Kimmy
Angel
Capri
Basil
Cy
Ruby
Emerald
Eleanea
Elenor
Barth­olomew
Jazz
Dreamer
Thunder
Topaz
Amethyst
Salsa
Meril
Dodo
Toto
­Eric
Barbera
Hannah
Katie
Zoey
Ben
Pinto
Squanto
Columbus
Columbo
Porgy
Bess
Clark
Savannah
Ken­dra
Marco
Leise
Toby
Trevor
Tresten
Treven
Adrienne
Caleb
Carlyn
­Ricky
Gibby
Donny
Han
Solo
Hans
Gabby
Dirk
Spot
Sebastian
Dee
Sco­oby Doo
Shaggy
Polly
Reginald
Burger
Steak Sauce
Ethan
Bradberry
Lucky
Fergie
Cheese
Boxer
Napoleon
Snowball­
Gerald
Jeremy
Benji
Gemma
Pal
Mal
Preston
Jack
Jackson
Molly
Mac­kenzie
Alexie
Alicia
Dora
Olivia
Salvador
Beast
Beauty
Oliver
Dal­e
Rim
Marley
Diego
*****
Bobby
Ralston
Zeke
Rooney
Plato
Cole
Nep­tune
Sailor
Frida
Rico
Dali
Veronica
Victor
Copeland
Swift
Riley
­Tubs
Lassie
Yo-yo
Harvey
Lemonade
Coke
Pepsi
Tanya
Camille
Token
­Laser
Beam
Seamus
Dorthy
Ian
Moby
From quiet homes and first beginning, Out to the undiscovered ends, There's nothing worth the wear of winning, But laughter and the love of friends.
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953), British author. "Dedicatory Ode," Verses (1910).

Dear Parents

Thank you for deciding after two years of marriage to have a child, me.
Sorry I wasn't the boy that so many of my family desired, sorry I was late, sorry that you missed the "Rumble in the Jungle", if it's any consolation I know who won.
How I came to be is quite beyond me. Father's family disliked mothers and vice versa. Dad a steelworker, Mam a trainee chef, dad flipped a coin with a mate, my mother was the stake.
Four years later sister came along, then another four years the son, that so many yearned for made an appearance.
I saved my sister's life from my grandparent's dog, lost an ear in that battle, a bit like Van Gogh. Plastic surgery at seven, still hate Cocker Spaniels to this day. I tell everyone I saved her from a rabid Doberman (I know parents, there's no Rabies in Great Britain) what did I get for my trouble? A stuffed white cat and a sister that I made sit in a cow pat.
Thank you parents for sending me to a school that made other kids suspicious of me. A welsh medium school, might as well have been Hogwarts, but they taught me well, (I can swear in five languages) and read and spell.
Dad taught me how to head ****, mam you taught me how to make cake.
My sister taught me how to share, my brother taught me how really not to care. Live each day as if it may be your last, I told my brother that often.
Dad, one of 13 kids, mam one of 3, like me. Dad, I hate your sisters that are alive they remind me of the Moirai, or the three witches from Macbeth, I've tried to like them but I'm terrible at lying, and to be honest they are in their late 70's so they must be close to dying.
Mam, your sister is a lesbian, I think her army days gave that away. Your brother like mine a source of consternation a Navy man that never went to sea????
Now, my grandparents are all dead. Apparently, I have inherited my father's mother's temper. She disappeared for 3 days when she thought she'd killed my grandad!
I'm married now, no rug rats thank God, I'm aunty material, selfish and wicked.
Now, this sounds I know a little quaint and odd, but I know we've had our share of bad luck, but, 42 years wed, still in the family home, surrounded by trees, neighbours we've known for years and people we'd like to poison. But,we've laughed so hard mam you have a hernia, dad you are the male equivalent of a ****, you'll be flirting in the OAP home **** yes, sorry parents as one of your three I get to pick the residential home! And, as they say,that is a good life.
Jo **
P.s I didn't mention our family mental illnesses, early 20th century communism, possible adultery, coveting the neighbours Ford Capri, or pet cemetery in the garden. I'll wait til all are dead then spill about the good secrets.
© JLB
17/09/2014
01:43 BST
Robin Carretti Jun 2018
Jamming jellyfish
Top-Me 
((Giddy App Seahorse))
The horseradish on
my lap_

The jolly Jelly
Gefilte Fish
Little help from  my friends
How we click the laptop
One dent to Deceive me
The Rock and Rolling

Stomach his smoke went
Like (*** Cheese)
he leaves me
The spicy tongue map
Z-Top Zany Chilli Pepper

your # tap dance tap
Italian top of
the cheese designer skirt
The outskirts of Naples
Her sweet dimples, please
The Islands of Sicily
So many Cheese forms
Terms of Endearment

Mama Mia Murano-Positano
Her lips of Romano Cheese
(To Top Me) Challenge me
Cheese doesn't mix
with cappuccino,
she's the Capri
Ala Denti
Cheese Wiz chair
Mediterranean Wines
Bear men doing low
sips of time
the grisly(Z) pour

The car smelled like
Flight (Top Me) Swiss air
Meet Dominique

How it went La Cirque
Anti Christ Devil Red-bed
cheese mystique
SOS to their notes
PS the junk car in
Midas the makeover
Make-up artist counter
Clinique
I could paint over your hood
Creamy mind put at ease
He's so displeased

New castle disease
Mingling social disease
She's so infectious
ZZ- Top me rock me
Eyes bloodshot you got me

And nevertheless
With twelve and V
V- Vamps tramps
and 14 karats
The French Lieutenant
Mistress Brie with heavy
bite teeth like garnets

Cher turning back time
The burlesque striptease
Come back little Sheba
Z Top Queen of Sheba

I know it's coming soon
?

All Tight claustrophobic
The tight squeeze
Him speaking
Mandarin Oranges
The British Colony

Unique Chinese languages
Her hills, San Francisco
Jack Nicholson
Comedy of China town
The American Women
Smile cheese at the Disco
The food Cantonese
style
Z muscles Hercules
Joan Rivers
Fashion Police
The Cheese of Portuguese
Its the meat market
With his nifty thrifty Neice

All Socrates
(Gromet and Cheese)
Those Brooklyn
workers
The Falcon Matese
_*
More cheese Z-Top
Who could ever top
The string cheese
Silken strings became
to rest, I rest my cheese
What cheese fascinates you
Tell me?
This is about cheese wait no smiling yet you need to read my poem
Do you want some cheese so many spreads to choose? Oh! Ghezz
We don't have to be polite please donate this poem
August Dec 2012
I feel like Cruella DeVille,
Smoking a capri
In brand new clothes
Because Christmas
Just happened
Why did, when I opened
All of the gifts from
Family & friends,
Did I long for a person
To step out of a box
And wrap their arms
Around me?
To take them back
To my apartment
So we could sit on
The mattress on the floor
Smoking my little
DeVille cigarettes
And drinking a,
Previously unopened,
Bottle of bourbon
In my now,
Newly gifted
Star Wars mugs
Wow, this isn't easy.

© Amara Pendergraft 2012
Qui su l'arida schiena
Del formidabil monte
Sterminator Vesevo,
La qual null'altro allegra arbor né fiore,
Tuoi cespi solitari intorno spargi,
Odorata ginestra,
Contenta dei deserti. Anco ti vidi
Dè tuoi steli abbellir l'erme contrade
Che cingon la cittade
La qual fu donna dè mortali un tempo,
E del perduto impero
Par che col grave e taciturno aspetto
Faccian fede e ricordo al passeggero.
Or ti riveggo in questo suol, di tristi
Lochi e dal mondo abbandonati amante,
E d'afflitte fortune ognor compagna.
Questi campi cosparsi
Di ceneri infeconde, e ricoperti
Dell'impietrata lava,
Che sotto i passi al peregrin risona;
Dove s'annida e si contorce al sole
La serpe, e dove al noto
Cavernoso covil torna il coniglio;
Fur liete ville e colti,
E biondeggiàr di spiche, e risonaro
Di muggito d'armenti;
Fur giardini e palagi,
Agli ozi dè potenti
Gradito ospizio; e fur città famose
Che coi torrenti suoi l'altero monte
Dall'ignea bocca fulminando oppresse
Con gli abitanti insieme. Or tutto intorno
Una ruina involve,
Dove tu siedi, o fior gentile, e quasi
I danni altrui commiserando, al cielo
Di dolcissimo odor mandi un profumo,
Che il deserto consola. A queste piagge
Venga colui che d'esaltar con lode
Il nostro stato ha in uso, e vegga quanto
È il gener nostro in cura
All'amante natura. E la possanza
Qui con giusta misura
Anco estimar potrà dell'uman seme,
Cui la dura nutrice, ov'ei men teme,
Con lieve moto in un momento annulla
In parte, e può con moti
Poco men lievi ancor subitamente
Annichilare in tutto.
Dipinte in queste rive
Son dell'umana gente
Le magnifiche sorti e progressive .
Qui mira e qui ti specchia,
Secol superbo e sciocco,
Che il calle insino allora
Dal risorto pensier segnato innanti
Abbandonasti, e volti addietro i passi,
Del ritornar ti vanti,
E procedere il chiami.
Al tuo pargoleggiar gl'ingegni tutti,
Di cui lor sorte rea padre ti fece,
Vanno adulando, ancora
Ch'a ludibrio talora
T'abbian fra sé. Non io
Con tal vergogna scenderò sotterra;
Ma il disprezzo piuttosto che si serra
Di te nel petto mio,
Mostrato avrò quanto si possa aperto:
Ben ch'io sappia che obblio
Preme chi troppo all'età propria increbbe.
Di questo mal, che teco
Mi fia comune, assai finor mi rido.
Libertà vai sognando, e servo a un tempo
Vuoi di novo il pensiero,
Sol per cui risorgemmo
Della barbarie in parte, e per cui solo
Si cresce in civiltà, che sola in meglio
Guida i pubblici fati.
Così ti spiacque il vero
Dell'aspra sorte e del depresso loco
Che natura ci diè. Per questo il tergo
Vigliaccamente rivolgesti al lume
Che il fè palese: e, fuggitivo, appelli
Vil chi lui segue, e solo
Magnanimo colui
Che sé schernendo o gli altri, astuto o folle,
Fin sopra gli astri il mortal grado estolle.
Uom di povero stato e membra inferme
Che sia dell'alma generoso ed alto,
Non chiama sé né stima
Ricco d'or né gagliardo,
E di splendida vita o di valente
Persona infra la gente
Non fa risibil mostra;
Ma sé di forza e di tesor mendico
Lascia parer senza vergogna, e noma
Parlando, apertamente, e di sue cose
Fa stima al vero uguale.
Magnanimo animale
Non credo io già, ma stolto,
Quel che nato a perir, nutrito in pene,
Dice, a goder son fatto,
E di fetido orgoglio
Empie le carte, eccelsi fati e nove
Felicità, quali il ciel tutto ignora,
Non pur quest'orbe, promettendo in terra
A popoli che un'onda
Di mar commosso, un fiato
D'aura maligna, un sotterraneo crollo
Distrugge sì, che avanza
A gran pena di lor la rimembranza.
Nobil natura è quella
Che a sollevar s'ardisce
Gli occhi mortali incontra
Al comun fato, e che con franca lingua,
Nulla al ver detraendo,
Confessa il mal che ci fu dato in sorte,
E il basso stato e frale;
Quella che grande e forte
Mostra sé nel soffrir, né gli odii e l'ire
Fraterne, ancor più gravi
D'ogni altro danno, accresce
Alle miserie sue, l'uomo incolpando
Del suo dolor, ma dà la colpa a quella
Che veramente è rea, che dè mortali
Madre è di parto e di voler matrigna.
Costei chiama inimica; e incontro a questa
Congiunta esser pensando,
Siccome è il vero, ed ordinata in pria
L'umana compagnia,
Tutti fra sé confederati estima
Gli uomini, e tutti abbraccia
Con vero amor, porgendo
Valida e pronta ed aspettando aita
Negli alterni perigli e nelle angosce
Della guerra comune. Ed alle offese
Dell'uomo armar la destra, e laccio porre
Al vicino ed inciampo,
Stolto crede così qual fora in campo
Cinto d'oste contraria, in sul più vivo
Incalzar degli assalti,
Gl'inimici obbliando, acerbe gare
Imprender con gli amici,
E sparger fuga e fulminar col brando
Infra i propri guerrieri.
Così fatti pensieri
Quando fien, come fur, palesi al volgo,
E quell'orror che primo
Contra l'empia natura
Strinse i mortali in social catena,
Fia ricondotto in parte
Da verace saper, l'onesto e il retto
Conversar cittadino,
E giustizia e pietade, altra radice
Avranno allor che non superbe fole,
Ove fondata probità del volgo
Così star suole in piede
Quale star può quel ch'ha in error la sede.
Sovente in queste rive,
Che, desolate, a bruno
Veste il flutto indurato, e par che ondeggi,
Seggo la notte; e su la mesta landa
In purissimo azzurro
Veggo dall'alto fiammeggiar le stelle,
Cui di lontan fa specchio
Il mare, e tutto di scintille in giro
Per lo vòto seren brillare il mondo.
E poi che gli occhi a quelle luci appunto,
Ch'a lor sembrano un punto,
E sono immense, in guisa
Che un punto a petto a lor son terra e mare
Veracemente; a cui
L'uomo non pur, ma questo
Globo ove l'uomo è nulla,
Sconosciuto è del tutto; e quando miro
Quegli ancor più senz'alcun fin remoti
Nodi quasi di stelle,
Ch'a noi paion qual nebbia, a cui non l'uomo
E non la terra sol, ma tutte in uno,
Del numero infinite e della mole,
Con l'aureo sole insiem, le nostre stelle
O sono ignote, o così paion come
Essi alla terra, un punto
Di luce nebulosa; al pensier mio
Che sembri allora, o prole
Dell'uomo? E rimembrando
Il tuo stato quaggiù, di cui fa segno
Il suol ch'io premo; e poi dall'altra parte,
Che te signora e fine
Credi tu data al Tutto, e quante volte
Favoleggiar ti piacque, in questo oscuro
Granel di sabbia, il qual di terra ha nome,
Per tua cagion, dell'universe cose
Scender gli autori, e conversar sovente
Cò tuoi piacevolmente, e che i derisi
Sogni rinnovellando, ai saggi insulta
Fin la presente età, che in conoscenza
Ed in civil costume
Sembra tutte avanzar; qual moto allora,
Mortal prole infelice, o qual pensiero
Verso te finalmente il cor m'assale?
Non so se il riso o la pietà prevale.
Come d'arbor cadendo un picciol pomo,
Cui là nel tardo autunno
Maturità senz'altra forza atterra,
D'un popol di formiche i dolci alberghi,
Cavati in molle gleba
Con gran lavoro, e l'opre
E le ricchezze che adunate a prova
Con lungo affaticar l'assidua gente
Avea provvidamente al tempo estivo,
Schiaccia, diserta e copre
In un punto; così d'alto piombando,
Dall'utero tonante
Scagliata al ciel profondo,
Di ceneri e di pomici e di sassi
Notte e ruina, infusa
Di bollenti ruscelli
O pel montano fianco
Furiosa tra l'erba
Di liquefatti massi
E di metalli e d'infocata arena
Scendendo immensa piena,
Le cittadi che il mar là su l'estremo
Lido aspergea, confuse
E infranse e ricoperse
In pochi istanti: onde su quelle or pasce
La capra, e città nove
Sorgon dall'altra banda, a cui sgabello
Son le sepolte, e le prostrate mura
L'arduo monte al suo piè quasi calpesta.
Non ha natura al seme
Dell'uom più stima o cura
Che alla formica: e se più rara in quello
Che nell'altra è la strage,
Non avvien ciò d'altronde
Fuor che l'uom sue prosapie ha men feconde.
Ben mille ed ottocento
Anni varcàr poi che spariro, oppressi
Dall'ignea forza, i popolati seggi,
E il villanello intento
Ai vigneti, che a stento in questi campi
Nutre la morta zolla e incenerita,
Ancor leva lo sguardo
Sospettoso alla vetta
Fatal, che nulla mai fatta più mite
Ancor siede tremenda, ancor minaccia
A lui strage ed ai figli ed agli averi
Lor poverelli. E spesso
Il meschino in sul tetto
Dell'ostel villereccio, alla vagante
Aura giacendo tutta notte insonne,
E balzando più volte, esplora il corso
Del temuto bollor, che si riversa
Dall'inesausto grembo
Su l'arenoso dorso, a cui riluce
Di Capri la marina
E di Napoli il porto e Mergellina.
E se appressar lo vede, o se nel cupo
Del domestico pozzo ode mai l'acqua
Fervendo gorgogliar, desta i figliuoli,
Desta la moglie in fretta, e via, con quanto
Di lor cose rapir posson, fuggendo,
Vede lontan l'usato
Suo nido, e il picciol campo,
Che gli fu dalla fame unico schermo,
Preda al flutto rovente,
Che crepitando giunge, e inesorato
Durabilmente sovra quei si spiega.
Torna al celeste raggio
Dopo l'antica obblivion l'estinta
Pompei, come sepolto
Scheletro, cui di terra
Avarizia o pietà rende all'aperto;
E dal deserto foro
Diritto infra le file
Dei mozzi colonnati il peregrino
Lunge contempla il bipartito giogo
E la cresta fumante,
Che alla sparsa ruina ancor minaccia.
E nell'orror della secreta notte
Per li vacui teatri,
Per li templi deformi e per le rotte
Case, ove i parti il pipistrello asconde,
Come sinistra face
Che per vòti palagi atra s'aggiri,
Corre il baglior della funerea lava,
Che di lontan per l'ombre
Rosseggia e i lochi intorno intorno tinge.
Così, dell'uomo ignara e dell'etadi
Ch'ei chiama antiche, e del seguir che fanno
Dopo gli avi i nepoti,
Sta natura ognor verde, anzi procede
Per sì lungo cammino
Che sembra star. Caggiono i regni intanto,
Passan genti e linguaggi: ella nol vede:
E l'uom d'eternità s'arroga il vanto.
E tu, lenta ginestra,
Che di selve odorate
Queste campagne dispogliate adorni,
Anche tu presto alla crudel possanza
Soccomberai del sotterraneo foco,
Che ritornando al loco
Già noto, stenderà l'avaro lembo
Su tue molli foreste. E piegherai
Sotto il fascio mortal non renitente
Il tuo capo innocente:
Ma non piegato insino allora indarno
Codardamente supplicando innanzi
Al futuro oppressor; ma non eretto
Con forsennato orgoglio inver le stelle,
Né sul deserto, dove
E la sede e i natali
Non per voler ma per fortuna avesti;
Ma più saggia, ma tanto
Meno inferma dell'uom, quanto le frali
Tue stirpi non credesti
O dal fato o da te fatte immortali.
Felicia C Jul 2014
I am told that my anatomy is the sheer academy of my lack of sensibility and that my sense of autonomy is just my way of rebelling against my own skin.

Because I was born in a body that is just a little too small to contain such an opinion, and so this must be just the remainder of some book I read, right?

I am told that at times my mouth traces outlines larger than my hands can, and all I know is that my fingers stretch to try and reach the cord that turns off the light on my porch so that I can find the streetlight shadow puppet.

Because I am at odds with the lightbulb delivery of my best friend’s idealism and my body’s realism and it’s all a sense of alchemism when I’m searching for altruism.

I’m told that I am too big for my body, or “for such a little girl, you’re very smart,”. I used to start in the plus-size section of stores, only to be escorted to diminutive floral prints and capri pants.

I am still mistaken for a lost child at the airport, I am still advised not to go out in certain areas after dark, I didn’t realize I was small until I wasn’t listened to.
January 2014
Nisida and Prosida are laughing in the light,
Capri is a dewy flower lifting into sight,
Posilipo kneels and looks in the burnished sea,
Naples crowds her million roofs close as close can be;
Round about the mountain’s crest a flag of smoke is hung—
Oh when God made Italy he was gay and young!
Leslie Philibert Apr 2017
Capri

roofless cubes, spidery with wire,
cakes of azure and enzian;
above at the Villa San Michele
Rilke smiles down at the broken beaches,
coves of defiant waves, compacted sea

Pompeii

a chessboard of honest stones
open to a sky of hushed shouts;
we huddle in a ***** frame
of another life, a stopped day

Napoli

warm and secret, olive-eyed
you make a new face
as we gaze from a bus:
an act of moment
Jayne Blackman Jun 2015
Boyfriend number 1
Moody, tall & grumpy
Heard he's got 8 kids
****** glad he dumped me.
Boyfriend 2 & 3
Interchangeable, doing battle
Fighting for my affections
****** tittle tattle.
Boyfriend 4 heartbreaker
Mastering his art
Olympic flirt, lothario
2 timing man ****, ****.
Boyfriend 5 flash Harry
A ladies man, so he reckoned
Metallic Ford Capri
He was gone in 60 seconds.
Boyfriend 6 & 7, Hammer Horror
How the **** did these begin
Beer goggles and cocktails
UGH! Just let me catch me skin.
Boyfriend 8 from Down Under
Bit angry, bit thick
James dean Lookey likey
Married him too quick.
Boyfriend 9, pious
Quiet nature boy
Once married grumpy ****
Terminated contract, lack of joy.
Boyfriend 10 professional
Public Sector, comprehensible
Politically correct lifestyle
He thought I wasn't sensible.
Boyfriend 11 is The Man
Mild mannered rampant ram
Sizzling hot attraction
He accepts me as I am.
Now the chase is over
Got him, Bingo, I've won
Hellfire he's got 5 kids
******* glad I've been done.
Kendra Canfield Feb 2013
the professor
name's John, I think
every day a goatee
a ponytail
and an honest smile
brings me flowers
sometimes.
pays in nickels
sometimes.
"have an easy day"
he says to me

man in the same brown
suit, mismatching
every day
coffee, hunched over
with something under
his arm
sometimes.
never seen him speak
just a scowl
and a solemn shuffle

the owner
of the bar next door
I think.
out for a cigarette
every 30 minutes or so
or move his car
he gets our mail
sometimes.
glasses on his forehead
never on his face
always a fleeting
noncommittal smile
pacing past the door
sly eyes.

there's the guy
stuck in the 70s.
every day
bell bottoms
a black bowl cut
it's a wig
I think.
a leather jacket
sometimes.
walks like he owns
the sidewalk
he doesn't.

the old man
the half-blind one
orders the same thing
always.
with his walker
his hands searching
haven't seen him
in a while

the big guy from
the burger place
across the street
no, not the famous one
the other place.
took his suggestion
got a burger
wasn't very good
but he's always so
cheery, gotta be nice

the one guy
blue shorts guy
stops by during his
run, to check
the selection.  back
an hour later in
pants and
a jacket now.
never buys a thing
wearing those blue shorts

the woman with
oddly spaced teeth
and hair
the short witchy kind
lots of shawls
and oversized tote bags
and cargo-capri's.
complained of
an allergic reaction
once
to god knows what.
keeps coming back though

a mother and son
mother, tired.
ten year old
private school boy
asks for too much
and too many questions
"did you make this?"
"are you really 20?"
"do you go to school?"
he asks so many questions
"yes, yes, no."
"why not?"
"well…"
mom saves me
distracts him away

the poor skinny one
the homeless man.
ill-fitting clothes
always.
women's
sometimes.
begging, cigarettes and money
has a tic, says
"hello! hi! hello!"
every few seconds
he's very persistent.
and very polite.
gracefully insane, I'd say
I love working a menial job.
Stephen Wolfe Aug 2015
I wear men's 9 shoes,
and black socks underneath
Batman boxer briefs during morning shifts
And cotton boxers when I sleep
Boot-cut jeans during the winter
and capri joggers during spring
Long sleeve, and short sleeve button ups  
Are pretty much my thing.
My glasses are black, lenses thick.
My hair cut short, just recently dyed.
If I didn't have *******
You'd think I'm a guy.
Paul Hansford Feb 2016
I  went into the kitchen and made sure to wash my hands,
then looked inside the cupboards and took out the pots and pans.
I sorted out my sharpest knives and laid them carefully
beside the wooden chopping-board I'd brought home from Capri,
a wine-glass, and a bottle of a cheeky Spanish red  
(another happy souvenir of my travels to the Med).
I thought I'd  better have some herbs to flavour up my lunch,  
so I went into the garden and picked myself a bunch
of parsley, sage and rosemary, then poured myself a drink
– a drop of wine should help me in my labours round the sink.
Then I peeled and chopped an onion, which I sautéed golden brown
in extra-****** olive oil.  There was no time to sit down
while I scrubbed some new potatoes and put them on to boil,
so I had another glass of wine to help me through my toil.
Some Italian vine tomatoes and some peppers, red and green,
I sliced up on my chopping-board – no need for a machine,  
and I always think that slicing veg is somehow that bit kinder –
then I sprinkled them with sea-salt and some pepper from the grinder.  
By now my glass was empty, so I poured another drop in
to replenish all that energy I'd used up in the chopping,
and started on the vegetables, some pak-choi and mangetout,
from the local Farmers' Market, though they cost a bob or two.
I got the steak out ready, a lovely bit of fillet,
and lit the gas to heat the pan, my well loved cast-iron skillet.
It wouldn't need that long to cook; I didn't need to think
too hard about it, so I poured another little drink.
“That's really rather good,” I thought, but noted, broken-hearted,
that I'd finished off the bottle – and I thought I'd hardly started.
Still, I laid the steak into the pan.  I left it there to fry
and uncorked a second bottle. “Here's to me. Mud in my eye.”
I don't know why at this stage I was feeling less than fine,
but the cure was very obvious – another glass of wine.
My attention must have wandered then, if only for a minute,
for I saw the pan was smoking, and the steak that I'd left in it
was going up in flames, and so, although I knew I'd rue it,
I emptied out the bottle – it grieved me sore to do it.
The potatoes were so overcooked they'd  boiled completely dry,
and were rather badly scorched; I wish I knew the reason why.
Still, I rescued what I could, and laid it sadly on my plate,
and I know you won't believe it, but I thought it tasted great.
So when relations come to dine, perhaps on Christmas day,
I'll serve my speciality – I call it …. Steak Brulé.

(Alternative last line, for American readers :
  I'll serve them up my specialty – I call it …. Steak Brulé.)
Megan Grace Jun 2017
paint fingers,
jelly mouths,
katie's teletubbies
bike helmet.
mom said
now don't go too far
and the park was just
far enough to not be
able to see the house
but close enough to
smell dinner being made
and hear dad mowing
the front yard. no
skinned knees this day
just riding our bikes
through the grass,
down the big hill
that made us scream
until the bottom. wind
blowing through katie's
hair, too long then from
her refusal to have it
trimmed even one inch,
and capri sun's under
the weeping willow tree.
before the sun went all
the way to her bed, we
made flower crowns
from the dandelions,
picked an extra handful
for the dining table,
waved to donna as we
flew down the sidewalk,
ran hand in hand to the door
before dad had to call our
names one more time.
"want to meet up soon for lunch?"
Shiksa Bargeld Jan 2016
I know this guy who’s diabetic.
Whenever we're together he has to leave every couple of hours
to check his blood sugar levels.
I miss him during those few minutes
and I’m always overjoyed when he comes back
sipping his Capri Sun.

Once, a long time ago,
he checked his blood sugar right there in his room.
When the results were in
he shot insulin into his hip.
I asked him if he needed a Capri Sun.
“No sugar this time. Just insulin.”

He called me one night while I was
trying to write
and told me, “I had a seizure today at 4am.”
I was over an hour later
with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s
Double Chocolate Fudge Brownie.
“Cause this time you where low, right?”
He grabbed my hand and said,
“Do ya ever have days when you only wanna see specific people?”

Curled up on his bed
with the ice-cream close at hand
we watched the first half of a movie
and then we kissed for nearly two hours.

Then I went home at 2am and stared at my
blank computer screen and told myself,
“I could love this guy.”
Steve Page Oct 2022
I can't speak for the others
I can only reflect on my own thoughts and the heat of discomfort.

I can't speak for the woman who wept beside her oversized suitcases on the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow, I can only consider her tears and what they did to my own heartache.

I didn't speak, but I reached over after several minutes of communal silence and placed a tissue (clean and unused) on her lap.  Before I was back in my seat, she had taken it and covered her face in her grief and the tears came again.

The grandmother across from me got up next and placed a red stripped mint on the woman's skirt.

The dad who stood in the doorway, dressed for the beach, followed, leaving an offering of a capri-sun.

The child in the pram looked up at his mother and she smiled encouragement to him, as he offered his Spider-Man, pressing it to the woman's hand

and as she unveiled her face and saw the offerings, she laughed, brief and wet, but with a smile that stayed.  She hugged Spider-Man, nodded and then with a sensibility to a child's needs, handed it back with thanks.

After a moment she found my eyes, and mimed a request for a fresh tissue and then in the silence she settled for her journey as we all looked away, dutifully silent.
The London underground train system is known for its un spoken policy of not speaking to one another.
Peter Kiggin May 2017
In a Ford escort you can get on the motorway and let your self free
In a Ford escort you can paint it black or red or even blue like the sea
In a Ford escort travelling to Wales is a whole different country
In a Ford escort my dad drives it like it's a Capri
In a Ford escort it's easy to get parts for you and for me
In a Ford escort you can fit a big stereo and wake up the street
In a Ford escort you can go to Blackpool and drive on the beach
In a Ford escort you can smoke a cigarette because we have a smelly that looks like a tree
In a Ford escort when you've had enough of the mark 2 you can save up and get the mark 3.
Logan Robertson Jan 2019
There she would be
Under a spruce tree
Wild and free
Like sand at sea
Holding the waves frenzy
Filled with so much spree
Scenic and capri
Down to earth to thee
The rain and sun give her glee
Moon and stars zzz
Her roots are key
The door to the tree
A foundation to the marque
It's branches and leaves agree
Knock on wood she be

Logan Robertson

1/03/2019
Applaud the efforts of the Audubon and other conservativation groups that save the forest and trees. This preservation preserves the carbon, which the lack of such, as we're seeing, contributes to climate change. The roots of the tree goes beyond majestic, myopic and metaphors it can make man moralize.
J Mar 2021
all these people and their
"it's easy to sleep, ***"
I'm up at six
with four things of Capri suns.
people sleeping and their
"My dreams are so fun!!"
I'm never sleeping,
I'm thinking of shotguns.
waking up pretty and their
"put your hair up in a bun!"
I'm busy trying to make my own source of income.
petty people with their
"*** jiggle" (yeah, that's ***)
I'm thinking Russian roulette would be my fun
maybe lyrics for a song one day or something to delete later when I realize how stupid it sounds
Tammy Boehm Aug 2014
His matriarch set off in the brilliant burn
Pre-monsoon summer skies as she flies
Home to Big Blue and strawberry fields, rolling sand dunes
Studded with peaches and cream stalks full corn ears
Past the gunmetal  hulls - Motor City madness
Send that cheap crap back to China
Import ratchet dreams that obsolesce faster than a preteen’s
Boy band crush
We left our polite goodbyes on padded benches in the Sunport
Trekked the cement labyrinthine path back to the car
Sprawled myself out in the backseat
Marinating in my bipolar haze of relief and regret
Two weeks of my soft under parts presented  
Respect for the Alpha who never hacked up a rabbit
At the mere sound of my keening cries
Sate the pack tomorrow I’m off the forest floor
In all my ears back, feral, foaming at the fangs glory
Salient thought abandoned on the crest of a stressed induced migraine
And the whelps yipping for pricey coffee with caramel drizzles

She broke my bleary eyed unfocused reverie
Wrangling two carts corralled by bits of ragged twine in the parking lot
As she ferreted through her peculiar tinsel adorned collection
Scraggly plastic wreaths, sad ghosts of Christmas past
And her grizzled locks wound round a red velveteen door decoration
Muted hues against her transient mantle
I caught myself looking away…
A triad of flies buzzed her presence
The dull thrum of something important forgotten
She shuffled to a center table
Arranging dusky floral skirts and kohl layered clothing
With hands caked with cracked black grit
Fingers studded with grimey chunk costume jewelry
Dug at the lid on a generic bulk bowl of noodle soup
While baristas and capri clad patrons skirted her table
As though they were restless waves
Fleeing before the power of God across the Red sea
And me ******* spun fat from the top of an overpriced iced concoction
Without pittance in my pocket
Caught myself staring…
Waiting….
For someone else to do the Christian thing

Is that how a Freak rolls?
Tongue lolling for the opportunity
When crazy plants itself
In the high backed chair in front of you
And pops open a styro container of “stroke in a cup”
Do you flash that cash wrapped round a tract
Put a hand on her weary back and pray
Do you simply look away
Caught up in awkward indecision
Uncomfortable in your urban bubble
This is latte day at Starbee’s for God’s sake
And she never put a hand out for help
Or spoke a single word
As if a bag of Oprah’s cut leaf tea would
Change her world.
Or yours.
Pride goeth before Christmas wreaths, and shopping carts
And *** metal costume jewels

Under the cool blur of my ceiling fan I glance skyward for answers
Offer a smattering of plaintive prayers
For matriarchs
And mavens with dull velveteen bows in their hair
For my children
For release from the pain at the back of my brain
And the constricting grip of entitlement torqueing my brittle heart
God breathes in moments missed
When we simply look away…
TL Boehm
08/21/2014
The day my MIL left after a two week visit, we stopped in at a local Starbucks in the Burque and ran into this woman in the parking lot. She now has a permanent if cramped home in my memory.
JB Claywell Dec 2018
Looking back at photos of Christmases past.
An action shot of my youngest boy,
testing out his new hula hoop.

I can see my mother’s feet.
She’s sitting in her chair,
watching what must’ve felt
like the magic of the day
unfolding before her very eyes.

And, it was magic.
For a while her pain had subsided,
her knees didn’t hurt,
and she simply enjoyed her small,
nucleus, family as we unwrapped
the wonders laid out before us.

Her shoes,
the ones she deemed the most comfortable,
were yellow and black little tennies.

I called them her bumblebee shoes.
And, there they are in the bottom left corner of these last three photos.

Now, she’s gone.
Somewhere, around the corner, we say.
To the other side, we say.
But, she’s always near, we say.

And,
as I think of her now,
I imagine her as a drawing,
a cartoon,
like something that Bill Watterson
might have drawn up.
Bumblebee shoes,
looking a little bit like dinner rolls,

(That’s how Schultz described Watterson’s drawing of Calvin’s feet.)

her capri jeans,
showing her little birdie-like ankles,
and her comfy, orange Kool-aid Man shirt.

(I still have it.)

She’s still a bit wobbly,
unsteady on her feet,
but she’s doing okay.

So am I.
(Angela too.)
So’s Pops.
So are her grandkids.

We miss her.

And,
this Christmas is different,
that’s for sure.

But,
she walks into my thoughts,
coming from the kitchen of my memories,
carrying a cup of coffee
or
a plate of something wonderful for me to taste.

And, she’s always wearing her bumblebee shoes.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018
Merry Christmas, Ma!
Jill Anderson Apr 2012
You are my love
My best friend
My cuddle buddy
To the end.
You are my moon
And my stars
The air I breathe
The ground beneath me.
You love so much
But always have more.
Determined to grow
But I am so lucky just to know
Perfect you
With eyes so blue.
A love so strong
It lasts through it all
I love you, Capri
And I know you love me.
And that to me,
Is perfect.
Mike Hauser Dec 2013
They said that he's a genius
Called him a Wonder kid
Which made the whole town wonder
Why he did the things he did

Why he climbed the water tower
That early morn in June
After all what makes us all
Do the things we do

He took a rifle with him
A back pack full of shells
When he turned the town that day
Into a living hell

His mama always warned him
A soul is never free
That is why he sold it
To the devil that day for cheap

He'd always been the perfect model
From his early days of youth
Teachers thought that he was special
If you must know the truth

There was never any talking back
It was always sir or ma'am
No ones sure why or when he snapped
You'll get no answers from the dead

He packed himself a brown bag lunch
Expecting to be awhile
To quench his thirst a Capri Sun
As he sipped he smiled

His mama always warned him
A soul is never free
That is why he sold it
To the devil that day for cheap

His very first victim
He selected randomly
Never did they find out
What knocked them off their feet

As soon as the shots rang out
It was madness and mayhem
It took the town a little while
To find from where the shots they came

By the time it was that registered
At least fifteen were down
From mothers holding babies
To couples holding hands

From the central park to the school yard
And terror in between
He left a trail of pain and sorrow
Mixed with misery

Was it a curse or a blessing
When he suddenly stopped the way he did
With a back pack still full of ammo
He stood and stepped off of the ledge

His mama always warned him
A soul is never free
That is why he sold it
*To the devil that day for cheap
Inspired by the song "Ticking"
Written by Elton John & Bernie Taupin
llcb Nov 2015
.
Kafferinge på skrivebordet, hænder på gelænderet, for lange bukser, fransk om onsdagen og cigaret til frokost, AT og NG og NV og AP, krudseduller på bordet, børster tænder i bad, kold kaffe i stuen, kruseduller i mit hoved, 10 minutter i tog, 6 timers søvn, et kvarters grin og et par sekunders gab, knækker fingre, kysser kinder, skriver beskeder, hvide gummisko i støvregn, capri Sonne på stationen, en god snak, Naja Marie Aidt, søndagsmiddag, aflevering på lectio, lektion ved min computer, møde om innovation og introduktion til AT konklusion, smukke mennesker, januarudsalg, skilsmisser, nye mennesker, øhm og det er så fint.
John Bartholomew Oct 2015
Was he a disciple or just a friend of Jesus
So many to choose from it carries on through the ages
Whether you hail from the sunny realms of Brazil as Juan
Or lead your life on the bus tops of Paris, showboating to the tourists as Jean
you are always just John

Did you see that goal on Sunday in Barnsley from Pedro
crossed in on a sixpence by that guy on loan from Bristol
Parading as the next man to steal the footballing thrown from Beckham
Just a council house kid from the block down in Peckham
again, just John

Kissing the Blarney stone an excuse for his gob
the banter the laughter hiding the rile in his job
that day in Ireland that Sean always dreams of
going back would be heaven, to find the girl he should have once loved
again, just John

The shores of Naples looking out over the sea
Ischia, Procida, Capri, the place he’d rather be
behind lays dormant, Vesuvius once angry
Pompeii, Herculaneum destroyed in its fury
now time to spread his net and look for new shores
only Gino knows it’s time to open new doors
again, just John

No matter where you are from
there is somebody like you just struggling along
troubles brew in every corner of this planet
don’t think it’s just you who really cannot stand it
again, just John

Difficulty is rife no matter where you seem to look
your boss is a grievance and you wish them long gone
but it’s not just you, it’s you and every other John
so I’ll say it again without a look in the mirror
I know your stress my friend because I am that man
yes that is me
I am just John

— The End —