"chiaroscuro" poems
navigator’s balcony cocktail hour
rocket orbit ocean liner rising
clenched no teeth no guernica no bam bam bam
correspondent notary republic
address book dial figure 8
charred with a thousand jigsaw pieces
false as a beach chiaroscuro black
on black graveyard womb naked milk glass lit
footprint tourism by candlelight and flare
vaccination fatigue puke fingernail fish
moving a bandaged echo **** him **** her
familiar bell music **** them both **** them all
stretched shirtsleeves spanish toffee slashed tires
(failure as a painter he shaved his wife’s fur coat)
bust your ***** Barcelona red alert
knock-kneed broken squeezebox no hands
standing room only ladies first (please)
unbuttoned interrogation coffee rolls (stop)
marine’s vegetation (stop) early morning tea (stop)
armless menus (stop) pink cathedral fingers (stop)
and (begin again) move
we move
moving inside an eye this eye
that advances step
by step
10.3k
They enter the café just as some sappy pop song is playing
They order then immediately hug
Embrace
Swaying to one side, together, like the wind
Encircling the leaning tower of Pisa
Then teetering to the other solstice
Foot to foot, smile to smile, hand round skirted waist
Forearm resting on his tall blazered shoulders
This is forgivable in the young
Those teeny-boppers with defiant hair-cuts and posters
However, he has peppered hair
She, though voluptuous and tanned,
Must be in her 30s.
“Affair.”
My cynical devil snickers, between sips
But I sit mesmerized, and for the first time ever
Envious.
The chairs and the tables somehow seem more distant
The song now sounds as if it’s funneled through some crackling phonograph
The very light disentangles itself from stones
It’s as if a sky has opened up in my chest
Flying high overhead, one lone raven,
Its slow shadow
Gliding across my heart
Oh, how I miss you
5 states away
I see your smile on magazine covers
I vaguely sniff your scent on passing women
Yet you remain elusive - immaterial, haunting,
While this visceral assault
Leaves me bewildered - empty
An echo in a chiaroscuro cavern
Fading for thee
Jul 28, 2016
Jul 28, 2016 at 5:31 PM UTC
she likes to dance in cemeteries naked
warring little but jeweled ***** bells,
ankle bracelets
toe rings
bingles, bangles, piercings,
through ******* and nose
her tongue split
each side wiggling independently
she gives head on a head stone
her blow jobs
like two undulating mouths
her skin inked with
black and blood tattoos that say
*Satan's little ***** *****
double penetrations preferred porfavor
the more buttery big ***** and pastry puffy ******* the better*
she
all purple hair tinged red
and antler horned hat
with silver toe and finger nails
a crazy saint sane
adored by the popes of the lascivious
eyes wide open over a crimson mouth sneer
cherry pout lips
gods gift to ***** and vaginas
a temple of relief exalting
Eros
a **** it bucket list of lust
her heart
cotton candy in flames
****** like a river of smashed potatoes
in cream
she like
phases of a corpse moon
begs to be used after death
like pigment on canvas
smeared red globes and chiaroscuro
she playing dead
living it up
do you know her
she keeps her secret hidden
on her sleeve
while you keep yours
from yourself
*bless me father for I have sinned
and loved every minute of it
yet dare not be happy
for fear of Gods rage*
my soul saved
turned fertile earth to sand
and shrouding vistas of light
till the bed is the bed
of the living dead
so there's nothin left but work and sleep
and dreams of drunken **** madness are buried
under the weight
marked forbidden
black sun curse
hips sway in ashes
a forbidden dance
Feb 22, 2018
Feb 22, 2018 at 10:42 AM UTC
Magical cauldron apomixes connoisseur
Cephalic phantasmagoria entity obliquitous
Mystical conjurous conjugal entrepreneur
Fantasia fantastication phantasm obsequious
Amorously arduous ardent raconteur
Ephemeral translucent opulence ubiquitous
Vanity sanctimonium temerities saboteur
Intrepid verve’s intriguingly iniquitous
Sorcerous sabbatical apothegms chauffeur
Endemic veracities fortuitous elicitous
Futurity fatidics fornication kithe
Ephemeral metaphor semantics flaunts
Empirical emulation scenarios blithe
Subjunctive subliminal nostalgias haunts
Agile articulation acuities lithe
Analogizing corroborative prolificacy daunts
Alacritous tactile manipulations writhe
Numinous syntactical paradigm *****
Emanate imminent perdition tithe
Orotund jaded seal ordinand jaunts
Overt convection coercions chiaroscuro tempestuous
Apex crux axis ****** matrix torrid
Manifest objectified enamorous interstice lecherous
Spurt binge spree ***** protuberance squalid
endearingly engendering amore
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 9:51 PM UTC
land's moniker
mulls utmost care
Kalinga
branding the ox
of men with glaringly
immaculate chiaroscuro,
atop hills flourishing
with the fruits emblazoning
reticence.
chase angel-ward, the synopsis
of meaningfulness,
jagged, indelible accoutrement
akin to the brand of
chaste heritage,
galvanizing this epitaph
with aesthetic nativity,
gallant mambabatok - fill my bones with the ache of your past,
carve in me what the rippling
shrill of air has toppled
in the highlands
you have us shaking the blood
of this archipelago like boughs
breaking free from water's ebb,
frenzied by the river-warm
serpentine embellishment
the strike of the thorns
mints in our untouched bodies!
altogether in this numerous hike
we go in pursuit, hunting the
nibble from flesh to bone,
revealing the rebel, body
to soul.
Sep 30, 2015
Sep 30, 2015 at 5:10 AM UTC
Umbrage ultraism infrangible extemporaneous incognito edition
Penumbral platitude platonic proxy photics rendition
Interface fenestration imbroglio pandemonium inducement sedition
Wretched infelicitous extant trajectory sordid intuition
Scandalous scavenger squalid anomalous punitive condition
Panacea chiaroscuro parallax emanate imminent perdition
Equilibrist revision exertion suborn temerity imbues
Indulgent zealous discrepancy apparentness cogitation accrues
Heuristic noumenal psychokinesis extrapolation incursion construes
Aura auspicious primitive prism processional reviews
Obstinate tenacious preeminent edificatory omnipotence eschews
Equivocal gumption ratification constitutional manumission ensues
Delusory apparition extravagance peccavi verity tempestuous
Obtrusive obtusely overt indemnities sagaciously obliquitous
Ephemeral anxiety antonym existential exigency alacritous
Fortuitous emendation phantasm ontological ontogeny acuitous
Indemnify veracious infernal infidel impunities iniquitous
Meritorious fulham presumptive extrication expiation indigenous
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 9:20 PM UTC
Pi, at the end of its endless decimals' grandeur,
meets a human being—who holds a mirror!
Until now, the number, knowing only sway,
has been lost in discovery’s polished way.
No more: it begins—on a human—in front of its eye.
Patterns and unique precision, patternless waves,
new math tides soar, pivot at the cosmos' height,
only to bag the ultimate truth:
Fathima—the first spiritual woman—mooned there first!
Fathima steps forward where nature falls behind,
across the dead end, the irrational chasm she strides.
For the cosmos' deep mind, Earth, the ocean is but a drop;
the rope to the top is the lead—the feminine Fathima’s lock!
Raw Fathima moves; in shadow, nature follows,
clustering atoms span between the two,
only to witness her encrypted, secured fashion—
intact, uncharted, yet fully functioning,
in Makkah and Medina, while she lived.
The red fairies at midday’s spot-on,
the black swans arching rainbows in wonder—
marvel how Fathima deduces, straw by straw,
the maestros’ dream of ascension,
potion-polished, taking Ma pauses in liminal crescendos,
between past and future, here and hereafter—a circular duo.
Limning out chiaroscuro in light and shadow—
nothing like it exists, in plain sight or the world in toto!
Rainbows shaded in, sparking out,
the scent of roses in her veiled black hair:
the cosmos anew glinting off her edge,
deeper quintessence than dark matter!
The blueprint, the intelligent pre-design, rests in her elements.
The breakthrough exponent—hidden in her eyes.
Yet beyond the masses’ gaze,
she remains Zahra—light upon the original way.
Truly, only one feminine form has reached across
the other end of the cosmos' endless highway,
zooming past nature’s hidden gems—the irrational Pi,
the complex chasm—a mathematical goldmine.
Beyond the masses’ eyes and their painted canvases,
shine the daylight and the glowing fireflies of the night.
Viva Mankind! Fathima is the Moon at the highest high!
Dec 12, 2021
Dec 12, 2021 at 11:53 PM UTC
We revel in the artist's gaze.
See us, artist, we say.
Scale us in the geometry of your sight.
Objectify us, break us down
To our vital light,
The zero shade of being,
Our essential black and white.
But what if the figure becomes the ground?
Does the artist’s vision ever come to rest?
Does she halt the eye’s restless turning,
Instead hunger to be seen? Fathomed? Expressed
In basic hues, simplified, resolved,
Into the object deconstructed, the mystery solved?
Spotlight and camouflage,
Revelation and disguise:
The chiaroscuro of the artist’s eyes.
Then where does beauty reside?
In our eyes, beholders,
Invited in yet held outside?
Or in the starlight, sunlight,
Lamplight as it plays
On the seer seen in beauty’s gaze?
Jul 24, 2015
Jul 24, 2015 at 10:02 AM UTC
Magical cauldron apomixes connoisseur
Cephalic phantasmagoria entity obliquitous
Mystical conjurous conjugal entrepreneur
Fantasia fantastication phantasm obsequious
Amorously arduous ardent raconteur
Ephemeral translucent opulence ubiquitous
Vanity sanctimonium temerities saboteur
Intrepid verve’s intriguingly iniquitous
Sorcerous sabbatness apothegms chauffeur
Endemic veracities fortuitous elicitous
Futurity fatidic's fornication kithe
Ephemeral metaphor semantics flaunts
Empirical emulation scenarios blithe
Subjunctive subliminal nostalgias haunts
Agile articulation acuities lithe
Analogizing corroborative prolificacy daunts
Alacritous tactile manipulations writhe
Numinous syntactical paradigm *****
Emanate imminent perdition tithe
Orotund jaded seal ordinand jaunts
Overt convection coercions chiaroscuro tempestuous
Apex crux axis ****** matrix torrid
Manifest objectified enamorous interstice lecherous
Spurt binge spree ***** protuberance squalid
endearingly engendering amore
Mar 30, 2017
Mar 30, 2017 at 7:59 PM UTC
There was a homeless lady,
one afternoon, outside the hospital.
Was she homeless? I don’t know.
She had a ladened shopping cart,
which, on TV, is kind of a signature.
We were inside, waiting for an Uber.
She was outside, in chiaroscuro relief.
Dressed in bright, multilayered, mismatched
florals and brocades, she reminded me
of a gypsy. There are still gypsy caravans
in France. Are there gypsies in America?
She wore boots and long strings of beaded jewelry.
They would have had to have been glass, I supposed,
but tinseled with the glitter of those pop spangles,
she looked, en bloc, the richest and the poorest of us.
She wasn’t young and she wasn’t old. She sat alone,
on a short retaining wall, her cart within guarded reach.
I noticed her because every time I glanced over, she
was watching me with the dark unblinking eyes of a bird.
She had an easy confidence, in the wild, sitting safe
and protected by her clam, obstinate shell of boredom.
What must I look like to her - with her tangled hair
and unwashed face? Me in my permanent pressed
hospital wear, diminished by over-washing. A doll
behind glass, whose whole life is patterned by plans?
Our Uber pulled up, the number matched and as Lisa
opened the car door, I gathered my things and looked
back but the gypsy lady was gone, leaving a blank space.
Jun 11, 2023
Jun 11, 2023 at 10:29 PM UTC
Umbrage ultraism infrangible extemporaneous incognito edition
Penumbral platitude platonic proxy photics rendition
Interface fenestration imbroglio pandemonium inducement sedition
Wretched infelicitous extant trajectory sordid intuition
Scandalous scavenger squalid anomalous punitive condition
Panacea chiaroscuro parallax emanate imminent perdition
Equilibrist revision exertion suborn temerity imbues
Indulgent zealous discrepancy apparentness cogitation accrues
Heuristic noumenal psychokinesis extrapolation incursion construes
Aura auspicious primitive prism processional reviews
Obstinate tenacious preeminent edificatory omnipotence eschews
Equivocal gumption ratification constitutional manumission ensues
Delusory apparition extravagance peccavi verity tempestuous
Obtrusive obtusely overt indemnities sagaciously obliquitous
Ephemeral anxiety antonym existential exigency alacritous
Fortuitous emendation phantasm ontological ontogeny acuitous
Indemnify veracious infernal infidel impunities iniquitous
Meritorious fulham presumptive extrication expiation indigenous
Oct 12, 2017
Oct 12, 2017 at 9:10 AM UTC
energy surging,
heat begetting heat
expands to dark expanse to cool and brew what slow restocking weight
with white supernal flare between
around an equipoise of center you imagined as you write
and what non-being-being residing in beneath the deep?
inspired by the question-thought embracing
death beyond what death to value life a blissful state
in even darkest reaches found
the pain a sundered gate of joy you capture with poetic greeting ploy,
that coin is split to join opposing worlds
as when blind Shiva blinded world
unbridled lust arrayed from hut to hut
obliging them his ***** to rip
but then extinguishing their rant
to foster pleading for the dance again
collecting yoga as viyoga
in samanvaya chiaroscuro maya-vidya
or adept on cosmic player focus
hate-trancendent into vast eternal love
which even Luke (14:26) dropped lovely clue to
un conditioned by contingent fondness
for what myth of real play
we stage together evermore
to frolic in the uncut hair of graves
(greenest grass to know what past)
whose leavings are for future sunrise lush to celebrate another self envisioned
in another set of singing eyes
the literal, empty, formless mien
a synthesized good-bye recursion rush
.
Nov 9, 2012
Nov 9, 2012 at 9:23 PM UTC
my roman nose did not
fit the cupboard womb
as I stared at
the silhouette
of a ketchup stain on
a breakfast table
raw burger meat,
ripe debutantes
all bathed in
glycerin and
self-destruction
waiting for teeth
or the occasional knife
I pressed
against
the greasy
diner table
arms crossed
to hide my face behind
a promise to be
waiting for it
open mouthed
and mute
chiaroscuro, blind
Apr 28, 2019
Apr 28, 2019 at 8:08 PM UTC
*Like the stormy wind in a sunlit day
You always love to contradict me.
I tell you stories of monsters,
You transfigure them into angels
With your wand of positivity.
You tie my sadness in moonbird’s wings
And let it fly out of my earth.
Sitting amidst the emotional chiaroscuro
You play with soft words,
Paint new songs in your album,
Mimic the meowing of your honeyed kitten.
I sit back and wonder,
How do every time I witness sunrise
Whenever you let me walk deep
Into the core of your eyeballs.
And when I ask you the definition of life,
You unfold your slender arms
Like a Pegasus, and reply,*
***“It’s about transforming from
One Avatar to another.”***
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 1:32 AM UTC
In this summer light, your face startles
Much like the sudden unveiling
Of Baroque Oil On Canvas
Your face becomes illuminated
Like an entire Universe
And I will study the threshold
Of your mouth, admiring its clear brightness
(Chiaro)...before moving up
To consider the invitation
Of your eyes, reclining into
Their obscure mellow darkness
(Oscuro)...and soon I will recall
The arrangement of light and shade.
That is you. Forever reliving
What you have revealed to me:
Your hunger is my pleasure, your words
My truth, your song, my delight, and you,
(Chiaroscuro)...
By: Evelyn Augusto
Dec 3, 2017
Dec 3, 2017 at 1:02 PM UTC
Her hair flutters in the golden light
a lioness
she knows words like chiaroscuro
and chimera
Her eyes, lit by twilight
chase the evening star
from blushing clouds
The sunset, pink and red
inking out our silhouettes,
releases shadows
snaking through the grass
and trees,
eloping with the night
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 3:24 AM UTC
chiaroscuro moment
molten chords
in golden glow
titian ringlets cascade
from linen shoulders
as your hands bring liquid color
to idle black and white
chorded words of three parts
Not easily broken
Ebb and flow as breath over water
a shift in timbre
resonant teak fettered in silver
*heady scent of resin and balsam reeds
echoed drones the cantored dance begins
Taking flight the quiet arias rise
coursing low over open moors
Eyes veiled green
a fog shrouded shoreline
We leave transient prints
In damp sand...
Sonorous notes
From kilted pipers
A flash of tartan on thistled field
Drummers pulse the motion of life
You raise the standard
This ancient song is yours
and mine.
Open eyes to desert sky
Burning blue and empty
As fresh pages fall un-inked
on thorny ground
Only the ache of a melody remains
Lost refrains
broken notes in my DNA
Inspiration drifts away
*I used to have a recurring dream of me, and two other friends - in a recording studio with the complete sheets of music in front of us - which we were singing...and when I wake up...I can never remember the song.
03/2008
© 2008 TL Boehm
Oct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 at 6:00 PM UTC
They say demons should be
exorcised
They say in the dark lurks
evils
They say in your soul
should be nothing but
light
That washed out is better
than chiaroscuro.
They say all these
things
But what do they know,
these people who live in the grey?
My muses are demons
My pen is a knife
My life is much
better
With black ink in my
veins
I suppose if their minds were to
open
We'd all be exactly the same;
A world full of demon filled people
With eyes open
wide
Drawing beauty from shade.
Oct 11, 2018
Oct 11, 2018 at 11:57 AM UTC
Lost in my chiaroscuro world
I cannot be followed
No-one knows my secret language
No-one knows my passwords
or my frames of reference
Everything said, is coded.
In desperate times
speech becomes pure sound
rhythmic and completely foreign
People can make out words
but they have no context
George, Jean, Martin
Arthur, Margaret
Names like rays on a compass
They were my world
of visible magnetic forces
I could no more abandon them
than rearrange the continents.
But you can learn
when the old geography
is too painfully familiar
not to abandon it
But simply invent
a country of your own.
A landscape beyond maps,
compasses and sextant
Beyond a dictionary
of common usage
and invented diction.
You can search
but the unseen
patterns of dreaming
are as easy to find.
Isolated, distant
language fractures
and returns to you
words are breaking the barrier reef
an exile in a shadow land.
The damage grows inside
sensed but unseen
seeping into crevices like moss
and lichen gripping
spreading and creeping
a spiked vine
flaring down to the tongue.
© M.L.Emmett
Feb 23, 2016
Feb 23, 2016 at 7:59 AM UTC
Swallowed in dreams of bliss
and sunset berry kisses
in the still of azure skies
I gaze into your eyes.
Strands of water blue satin
touch your delicate curves
inflamed with soul passion
in nights of quiet storms.
Your lips full, sweet of honey
like a dream lover's dream
I swim in your open sea
motions elicit your extremes.
Soft whispers pant to find your ear
beautiful, drifting, lingering near-
driven blind, your brown skin, size
titillates the recesses of my mind.
Trapped within a muse
conversing-secrets stolen
so many thoughts of you
I can touch each shade of emotion.
Beauty in your eyes
defies, eludes my mind
visions of a summer breeze
made my heart rise.
I would steal polyanthus
and lay beds of jasmine
my strong attraction, feel me
as I move you to endless reactions.
Let me allure you
and find your every need
I want to liberate your heart
and give you the best of me.
I search the depths of you
as if you were an ocean
floating through your violent tides
ever the one who makes you cry.
Fascinated by your style
come with me for a while
in the footsteps of pandora
though mythological, love never lies.
Chiaroscuro, form, light
like poetic lines
your silhouette in the haze
from my lips fall this pantomime.
Her fingertips drip elegance
in the moonlight mist
the jewels of your hips
like spinning quasars aglint.
She is delicate as a lily
flawless like a pearl
in sea blue threads of a tapestry
which colors my world.
Aug 9, 2016
Aug 9, 2016 at 10:27 AM UTC
Wakefulness has come to be
A pale respite, a poignant dream
Reality has paled and ceased
To be of real devoir to me.
Amongst the living, I trail the dead
That intone from the Netherlands
And in their voices, they do spread
The need to meet their languished hands.
There in the dusk's cerulean shores
Towards the night's sapphire core from
Whence winged creatures dart and soar
I sleep to leave what I abhor.
With Morpheus I cast aside
The shell from which by day reside
In chiaroscuro paradise
I lift my head to meet your eyes.
By day you're nothing, dust and ash
And memories that shall not last
By night, draw breath, return to me,
Come back to life within my dreams.
*Original, Un-rhymed Notes:
The waking world has become surreal
After everything that's happened
All things are a pale shade of what they used to be
Those that aren't here call out to me louder than the scores of the living
I feel them, carried with me
Clinging, pulling me back towards
dreams.
I see them there, whole and unscathed*
Jul 23, 2015
Jul 23, 2015 at 10:14 AM UTC
These are pieces taken
from a mind of someone
falling in his own mind.
There are two significant bodies.
As the victim, one is tied
onto a wooden royal chair
while blindfolded; another
with scalpel at hand inflicting cuts,
sculpting flesh as beats
of Pornopop’s ‘Little Kafka’
play in the background.
Chiaroscuro. Lightbulb
in pendulum motion. From a distance,
there’s a bystander who can see
both of them in fluorescent smiles —
curious about the lack of cries
despite the absence of a gag.
Perhaps this is why poems require
too much words.
Here and there: a painting in progress,
an artist, an unidentifiable face on canvas.
*You always remind me to forget you so
let me be your masterpiece instead.*
And as the beauty of impermanence does
its work, his world fades away.
Jan 28, 2017
Jan 28, 2017 at 8:38 AM UTC
The darkness whispers
To me tonight
Of a tickling
In my ear
So light
Softly,
Softly
It goes
Chillingly
Up my spine
And down again
Darkness, be mine!
The light
Is creeping,
Crawling, sprawling
Away from shadow’s grip
So boldly it waxes the floor with gold
Polishing the banisters with pure filigree,
Polishing them with purest golden filigree
It makes the dawn more welcome here
Expanding thru empty hall
Revealing in stride
Most horribly
The end
Sep 23, 2011
Sep 23, 2011 at 10:26 PM UTC
To my left,
there is the Neoclassical beauty,
profile drawn by David himself,
delicate,
bright eyes, reminiscent of Gainsborough.
The Rubeniste sits in front of me,
full figured, though not as colorful
as the Graces.
Behind me lurks the Rembrandt,
moody, dark,
in the chiaroscuro of a leather jacket
and tousled hair.
Here I am.
With my Schiele hands,
Rosetti lips,
but without the quiet grace
or distortion of either.
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 5:31 PM UTC