"gradation" poems
Fatima Latima
I had wished I had no gift of sight
That the worst I could endure is hear you speak
And not snapshot the footfall of your gradation
You may not be a thief
Nor **** daughter of the dayspring
But definitely my heart you stole
I speak of the daughter of Arabia
Aesthetically, she rocks
The queen of the pilgrim sands
And aeonian desert stones
Beyond the hijab
Artistically knead with consummate craft
Like the relics of Mecca
Blest by the prophet’s bones
The blessed
I see torches
Beaming with intelligence
Within those mascaras
Exquisitely trimmed and vibrant
A lulu class botany
She fixes a searching gaze
As she saunters close
And the stride and tread
Beats a drum entrancing
Soothed in her solacing spell
I give in, to her lullaby
She halts her perambulation
Stands magniloquent and stupefy
Like some pop diva magazine pose
Or Victorian secret shot
A tactical derangement of her gluteals
As she rests her palm in its cleft
I feel contractions, my dartos muscles
The blew of summertime
Gently beats her exceptional form
Her belt submerge her thigh crevice
Cleft by the sundered rift of fleshy fat
Built by the dainties and delicacies
Seasoned by the finest Arabian chef
As her silken dress slithers and gowns
Under the breeze bulging and blooming
Like a rose blossom or sunflower fore
As she bends down
To assuage the burlesque
The sun specula lilts her sensational
Her smile apologetic bids me stillness
I am caught staring
Guzzling down her scent and
Feasting on empty imaginations
Of What If that accentuate the mind and
Speed a hormone
And I pray I sin no more
Next time we meet and I see her again
For I am but a writer
Learning to use my pen and paper
And hope you but forgive
My linguistic impotence
When I make my confession
Employing too plain a language
When I say thus;
Her smile is classical
Her walk magical
Her beauty celestial
Her stride sensational
Her religion ethical
Her character spotless
And that leaves me breathless
And forgive if I step on broken toe
And try speak of the unspoken
Her ****** is sacred
Her being a type that dresses up
In the milliards of brutes dressing down
And shamelessly style it fashion
I must see a priest
One confession I ought to utter
And even vociferate abroad
For once I had fallen in love
With an Arabian Beautie
A ****** of Mecca.
Jun 18, 2012
Jun 18, 2012 at 9:12 AM UTC
a birthday poem for S.
perhaps, this is the responsibility, the purposeful gentility,
that poetry engenders, that thwarts the impulse to anger,
guiding away, finding a way, to temper the temper, to out
and joust away our basest, our first, but never our foremost
nor finest, succinct instinct, yet terrible human nonetheless...
perhaps, this is where we hide, neath our carnival masque,
our-would-be better selves, and struggle in this, this intensity intentional,
the season's change is subtly blatant, not obvious 'cept to those
who have a front seat, a well worn Adirondack chair in the nook
where the airy breeze offers fruits of words so easy, pluck words
as easy as breathing, and the slight gradation change, in the light and
temperature, and yet, the suns cares not, for it still warms my body,
though lower and slower, nonetheless, when the heat invades my soul, confirming my, our, existence,
burning off the fog of our contradictory confusions,
and eliciting an unsolicited
"thank you god"
for my, our personal miracle of re~birthing
and better comprehending,
that other
miracle we can embrace
never enough
loving kindness
sun~mon
sep 14~15
twenty twenty five
Sep 15, 2025
Sep 15, 2025 at 8:33 AM UTC
the initial impact
the ruptured vessels
crying crimson
pooling up underneath the surface of your
fragile flesh
soft, breakable unlike the iron
that flows through you
then a swell
of black and blue
of violent violets
a nebula to remind you that you
are not invincible
are not invulnerable
will one day turn to dust,
a star of lost oxygen
tender to the touch
then the healing
a green gradation
yellowed edges
the swelling going down
the knowledge that nothing is permanent
that even your bruises pale
even your blood decays
even the galaxy imprinted on your skin can explode, collapse,
lost infinitely in infinity
the knowledge that even as you are getting better,
you are fading like the bruise
that once stained your skin
Sep 19, 2015
Sep 19, 2015 at 10:47 PM UTC
Comeback
Perhaps I should be grateful
That I never was recipient
Of great applause,
Years of adorers,
Broadway’s honey,
Years of being stunning,
Grateful that
I never had to kowtow, bow out,
Miss the kudos and the fame,
Never knowing what life was
With and without them, since I never got them.
Never got to play Las Vegas,
Glad there never came a time
Of longing for a non-existent encore,
Cheering I no longer hear.
Hair going grey,
Kilos heading the wrong way,
You are asked to make a comeback,
Or you’ve asked to make a comeback;
Life feels boring,
No alluring pleasure takes the place
Of listener filled with earful grace.
You sweat and strain, extra kilos off again,
Get back routines,
Move as you did in your teens,
Flexibility, the voice retaining every nuance.
Frank and Cher came back again - and then again.
We followed each rendition, each gradation, limitation;
Cheered until the cheers turned into hesitation.
I am grateful that I never
Had the clamouring for autographs and tresses,
Shredded dresses, theirs and mine.
Never had the glamour and the clamour of masses,
Fervent need to make a comeback,
Coming back to audiences smelling wine:
Hard to define.
And still I play and sing and grow.
Comeback 5.28.2008/revised3.19.2021
Birth, Death & In Between; Time; Vaguely About Music; Arlene Nover Corwin
Mar 19, 2021
Mar 19, 2021 at 5:07 PM UTC
Sprung, from beauteous filth,
The lies and gradation of the un wed saints
Hung, from gracious guilt,
The death and oration of the un sung and faint
Led, from grounded earth,
The soulless narration of the unloved taint
Believing is all when your all is a lie,
The smell of defeat in the blink of her eye,
The way you never fail to surprise the easily shockable,
Revealing that all was a lie of your life,
The decay of a scent from the skirt of the pile,
The path you never chose to really surmise the unreadable, uncollectable
Paid, to believe this girth,
The salt and salvation of unborn wealth,
Laid, the solution of all their faith,
The untouchable wrath and indignation of lifeless whelps,
Said, to ears that deceive all truth,
The unsinkable feeling you and your friends try not to avoid
Swaying in time to a common hope thief,
The guileless age and her sense of relief,
I thought i just told you to leave love at the door,
Poison and ruptured the stale old lies,
A night of betrayal and blood on these tiles,
Faithless, inauguration a purpose that you belie,
Lover, sweet mother, joker, and harpies with scales combine,
Hater, sweet undertaker, all is within, a touch to cold skin and a world you can't deny,
Believers, my underachievers, fornicate how to the march of the rain, a lifelong ambition that's driven in pain, a rusty disease that you spread with a knife, a guiltless decision made by his wife, a turning old format that withers and screams, a breathless recognition, we all fail to grin, just wait on the inkline to say what you want, I’m turning these covers and buying the bought, ******* the sweetness to boldly deny, that all these suspicions were aroused in the night, a turning, a quickening, a life on the rails, this one ****** mess i can't wash from my nails, so thorough, so clean, yet so impure it's not true, i tried to remake what i thought couldn't be you, but all indication now points to my spine, the tossing and yearning beneath valentine, i am the weather that spoils your day, please hold my ears as she screams my name.
Nov 25, 2011
Nov 25, 2011 at 4:48 PM UTC
Before I fell in love
with the midnight sky;
with the summer breeze;
with the deep blue ocean;
with the shimmers of gradation
on the sunset sky;
with all of the city lights
in a starless night;
with the words and poetries;
and even with myself;
it is you who I fell in love with first.
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 5:35 AM UTC
Formless words...broadcast scribbling space, their diagram
of poetic motion washes over you...formed on impact.
Dark room's glow in broad daylight--your fully developed
picture...deepest blue of two worlds in one, betwixt vibration.
Hue of the canonized, twanging entire a cloudless sky...
enriched tenfold in mimicry of you.
If only stained glass and silk would wed, search light's
spectrum...distill the most affecting gradation of blue--
then would you see a just replica?
Visionary's shield...where earthen wend unveils the abysmal...
that eyes may remain upon you--till one is ferried, and
vision seen through.
Apogee of seventh sea...epicenter of dancing Nine Muses,
whose round keeps the Blue Flower earthbound.
Blue Flower of the poet's pilgrimage, whose synesthesia
electrifies.
Blue Flower...a nebula pinned to earth, the name of spring
born of you.
The golden section of angels fly their flawless form to you...
that High Art may pray to High Art.
...Blue Flower, commended spirit rife with grace...whose
ceaseless hour at hand holds beauty alone.
Mind, quill to tongue riven--if ever...ever is now--Blue Flower...
ever is Now!
The words of this poet have begun fasting...not to eat of what
they cannot sacrifice...their Blue Flower.
Nov 17, 2014
Nov 17, 2014 at 1:48 PM UTC
~for you, girl~
words have definitions; shades; moods,
even within the contextual moment,
the coloration sometimes is discolored,
one person frantic is another’s
normal
passing fancy
insanity
quiet
overwrought silliness
frantic is a continuum’s conundrum
and oft the hubbub coverhup lends
a veneer of urgency importance
when knowledge acquisition is iron
irony, best when well chewed, quietly
considered and consumed with the
perspective of addition and subtraction
what we know is more than yesterday,
and less than what we will one day own,
for the only purity of learning is that’s
final refining is never ending
the artifice of deadlines,
gradation vis-a-vis
all the rest, is not a
distinction worthy of
distinguishing
your human value is beyond compare
exactly!
the greatest of valued adders to the world body of understanding put the race of
ego to one side, and so should we all,
not
be ****** in by the imposition of qualifiers
you are quality, and that is the only
qualification you will ever
acquire and require
and in my naïveté
I reflect looking back
and give you here the
free use thereof,
of its worth, you will
determine
but in summary judgement:
always keep thinking
ridicule is ridiculous
but best when applied
by oneself to oneself
with a
*** did I really think:say that?”
and laugh out loud at our human
foibles, especially our own,
with a wry smile, admitting
some of things we conjure up
in all seriousness are
are the funniest things we’ve ever heard
Dec 5, 2024
Dec 5, 2024 at 11:13 AM UTC
2nd to rise, she enquires
you ready for coffee?
it's only 6:22am
if you're having, I'm having...
she quiet disappears
thinking coffee's coming,
when to this layabout,
it occurs,
she's making
coffee in the ****
get up, make myself presentable,
track her,
the coffee aroma pulsating,
radar signal emitting
sure enough,
coffee in the ****
grinding, dripping...percolating
but what I see is
contrast and
definition
appliance white
stainless
steel chrome gleaming,
walnut wood cabinetry warming in
Vermeer sunlight window in-streaming,
a Chagall and Botticelli duet,
freshly filtered
thru a Manhattan sky
and flesh,
freshly filtered
flesh
is not a Crayola color,
or
if it is,
it's more a spectrum,
than a single shade
but this moment morning
flesh is more realized,
as if recognized for the first time,
by a newborn old timer,
who senses the
comprehension tension of circumspection
circumcised differentiation,
flesh knowledge gradation gained
this poem,
a first attempt at
painting a ****
in words
appreciating task enormity,
for there are currently
insufficient words,
too many striations,
all cannot be straitjacketed to the
vocabulary palette
this then,
but my first definition of many,
of
flesh
so many canvasses,
so many undiscovered shadings
awaiting
****** recognition definition,
composition
Jul 24, 2015
Jul 24, 2015 at 6:27 PM UTC
a contradiction contracted in
lowest terms are
you.
[it’s metal edges]
your beauty is
of
a
garden
(suspended at mid-
clouds), to enter
and
to say
that in such a
variety of
flowers
there
can not
be
one that
attracts
you
to pick it
to dismantle it
and
to
neglect
the
rest.
[it’s plasticized segments]
you know how to
quickly imprint
yourself
on me
when
you laugh
at times
and
conversely
you weep
and
you are like
those skies
that shake me
to my core
when
they are
blinding
on one hand
and
violently bleak
on the other
so
clearly
fractured
they shake
me pierce
me
pierced
i am
by
you.
[it’s just thinned points]
imagine if
a chameleon
started
to
acquire
each
gradation
of
another
creature
in the form
already
similar
to
it:
where
could
he
ever
escape?
[it’s inconstant semicircles]
(i can not
delineate
you
it is like
sketching
a tidal
wave
nobody
can:
painters
invent them)
[and it’s shoved arches]
i’ll tell you
of
a
woman
her soul
shattered
and
subsequently
imprisoned
splinter by
splinter
in hail
stones
she
fell
and
she felt
herself
crashing
at the same
instant
millions
of times
however
she
never
went
insane.
[it’s torn curves]
(and I know well
how a continuity
interrupted
succeeds
to make
you
fumble
convulsively
but it’s not
enough
for me to
restrain
myself
don’t
ask
me
to)
[it’s petrified vertical axes]
what i see
is
a cross
section of
enclosure
handfuls with
disconcerting
efficiency
consisting
of prisms
and
you know how to decompose
yourself inside
an innocence
delimited
you proceed
by inconstancies
you lacerate
metabolizing
you struggle
silencing
and
i could
only
teach you
one thing:
gray is not
a faded
version
of
black.
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 19, 2013 at 9:04 PM UTC
~
*Cotton duck canvas
on careful days
in a closed room,
intersecting tension,
energy and interest
for strangers to interpret
Three bashful belles
and lovers of art
undressed as a figure study,
cloistered together
in a line of beauty
for moral support
Their congregation assembled
in glorification of
angelic landscapes,
tempered by the mysteries
within convexity's arboretum
In unequivocal parts and gradation,
where good posture
and graceful presentation
count in equal measure,
to create Hogarth's
line continuous
--the Analysis of Beauty,
bended at the waist
to spread light through the canopy
During such exhibition
the belles whisper
under the rose,
of war and shopping lists,
they seem to avert eye contact,
gazes fixed to
the eternal sphere
ticking on the far wall,
never directly into the eyes
of those who come to
paint their *******
with sandalwood*
~
Apr 17, 2024
Apr 17, 2024 at 1:05 PM UTC
yeah, i'm drinking you in.
the moonlit sky of nighttime gradation,
atmospheric blue to reflected white,
I can't help but remember our time
and that drive we took through the countryside.
memories replay inside my head
like a lonely cinema, screening avant-garde films,
but still the bills get paid, even when things are quiet.
I said I love you but my knowledge was elementary
i do love you still but only because no one loves me like you
yeah, we lived in sin.
lazy Sunday mornings were for laying skin-to-skin
with no intention of changing that fact
no desire to part carnal bliss
our rest was wicked and yet so vivid
our sweat was sweet and so humid
our days were bright and bountiful
but our appetites were different
there's a light that shone within the forest
and somehow between that light and the moon above
i entered a cinema, and i'm the only one.
May 23, 2018
May 23, 2018 at 11:29 PM UTC
Have you ever thought of that possibility?
That the heaven we all crave and dream of could be inside of us
I do not want to poison your minds with my silly thoughts
So think about it carefully and make your conclusion
First of all, I'm not a pagan and I believe in God
And I pray as always never to in anyway incur His wrath
I believe in His son and could recite the nicene creed
And my faith in Him is bigger than the mustard seed
This world is full of trials, troubles and tribulations
People living their lives in reckless abandon and with less gradation
Taking each day as it is, forgetting they are part of something noble
And has been called even unto a greater purpose
When we are desperate for a miracle, we lift our eyes to the sky
Funny, has anyone ever travelled there and back? So why?
What if it's something abstract one could call a mirage?
And all it takes to get there lies inside of you.
For the ticket, build as many houses as you can or even buy
Write as many poems as you can and let them trend
Be scholarly and have many awards and trains of friends
None of these would go with you when your life ends
Your character, faith, good deeds and other beautiful attributes would be your judge
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 6:01 AM UTC
No, never any clutter.
Disarray somehow never an option and everything in it's place.
Each object assigned to a specific spot on your shelves,
furniture rarely catty-cornered and
blinds always straight.
I watched you dust twice a week with dejection and revulsion because
clean bedrooms just have no remembrance.
If I can't smell what you've had for dinner
two nights ago
ascending up from underneath your bed
then where do you truly live?
I want to see nicotine stains and cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling.
I want to wonder about how long they had settled to get to that gradation of yellow.
How long have they been hanging on by just one string?
Tell me,
how do you scour away at that intricate wondrous web;
another creatures art,
all for your woebegone off-white walls?
Abandoning the remains from your dust pan into the garbage without feeling resentful.
A clean bedroom has no trace of life.
How do you sleep at night
aware that there are no *** spots on your freshly washed sheets,
not being able to think
"This is where she showed me she loved me."
I want hidden messages behind picture frames throughout the hallway.
Give me mud on the carpet and fingernails in the bed.
A clean bedroom...
How could you be so muted,
so unvarnished,
to keep a clean bedroom?
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 1:52 PM UTC
Gaze into your garden of a deep brown eye
I leave my universe.
You never see the radiation of beauty on you,
Yet you are so big and full of life.
I see roses, daffodils, growing inside you.
Only one eye do I see gradation of colors have changed.
Beautiful, you are.
The gardener forgot to water you, your seeds never grew, sunlight was hidden,
you never knew the danger.
You were a dead garden never grown. Nonexistence
I ask you to let me take care of the garden.
I'll water you every day,
place you in a spot of sunshine,
tenderly listen to every thing a garden can say.
Everyone will know you exist
Your flowers will grow once more,
and they'll never stop.
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 3:27 AM UTC
I sat a foot away and sketched her. I didn’t use pencils.
I drew her with words. I started with her cheekbones.
They were raised like hands eager to explain
what gradation does. Her mouth provided the answers
and moved like sketchbook pages in the wind.
I moved on to her eyes. They were like the Van Gogh palette
from which “Starry Night” was born.
The charcoal above them was like a ******
of crows at dusk. If she saw imperfection,
she could cover it up. She was the painter,
but also the canvas.
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 3:29 PM UTC
DARK SIDE OF A RAINBOW, ,DARK RAINBOW
Awakened to a shimmering light bring us out of the darkest night
Easily showing it keeps growing ,can such a broad spectrum be covered by grey
Lumber from our slumber,slim wishes for the day ,what will be found to make the afternoon bright
Hidden deeply behind daily shadows will make bringing a band of color closer even harder to stay
Maintaining mundane mindsets, becoming locked into the lowdown, needing that crack in the glass to let in some light
Gradual gradation slowly shows it's beauty ,brightening the darkest corners is it's way
Bland can be burdensome with no outlets for pressures ,then simple specters delight
Clouds can form many formulas ,brewing,billowing into blackness but as the sun shines through relaxing into a true versicolor display
Globally roaming in a battle of adversity,sometimes brightly beaming or closing darkening bring about fright
Displayed across a valley marbled mosaics showing the prisms before the darkness won't let it play
Blinded by blackness most remain sedated while others accept iridescence,
with it's colored arc we remain pacified .R.C.
Aug 12, 2017
Aug 12, 2017 at 7:49 AM UTC
Live in the moment, we exhort ourselves as well as others,
But such a mandate is a fool’s errand, nothing more,
For all which we endeavor, all we savor and regret,
Are transitory things, snatches of synapse,
Fireflies gone a-gleaming before we can fasten the cap,
All Chinese-checkerboarded with air holes, onto the jar.
So forgive me, then, for not extolling the virtues
Of your laugh, your smile, a certain set of jaw or wrinkle of nose,
For those are fleeting morsels of time,
Mere snapshots, flat and obsolete at the click of the shutter,
Like the crimson-iris inducing Instamatic images of long ago.
Rather let me, then, dwell
Upon the aftermath of these glimmers in time, in your eyes
Those crevices of memory and apprehension
Where the momentary acquires its shading and gradation,
Its context and concreteness, its niche in ones cosmology
Of those things which flutter the surface
Of somnambulant ponds of sleep,
Roiling the stuff of our dreams for better or for worse.
Aug 3, 2017
Aug 3, 2017 at 12:45 PM UTC
Allegorique- You were a star that shined brighter as the night darkened
Metaphore- A sun amongst moons
Metonymie- Your brown skin had won my heart
Synecdoque-The power of love
Hyperbole- 1000volts ran thgough me as you touched me
Pleonasme- This ancient ritual, from long ago
Personnification- Your eyes spoke to me and conveyed your intentions
Gradation- You were dangerous, so dangerous and threatening
Anaphore- Breaker of hearts, breaker of love, breaker of lives, now you've broken me
Exclamation- Liar! deviever! Traitor!
Anacoluthe-with all my love, you decided to...
Hypallage- Your beautiful face was so decieving to the world
Antithese- Your mind was with me, but your heart remained elsewhere
Comparaison- You poisoned me, like the apple of Eve did Adam
Inversion- The death of me was my love for you
Question- Why was it me ? Why was it us ?
Jun 12, 2019
Jun 12, 2019 at 6:02 AM UTC
How much gradation in a
graduation? is it a final line
declining to be either here
or
there? I'd like more
gray
in my ceremonies
May 20, 2015
May 20, 2015 at 12:49 AM UTC
As you hear thunder
you are safe from its lightning
because you have heard the past
When you look upon the stars
marveled by their spectacle
what is present is past
Thee is no way around this
there is a before and an after
then and there and now
Jan 20, 2021
Jan 20, 2021 at 3:42 PM UTC
——————————————————
midway up the alleyway
among illegal upheaval
urban street backgrounds
swell unfolding into soundscape shapes
for exchanging
cracked mufflers
and
broken English as ingredients
out in this blacktop district melting ***
ramp-up,
cascade,
clatter,
and crash
spilling out almost detuned chords of reverberated sustain
into and echo through my window
in an oscillating fling around the ceiling fan
and from there it’s on repeat until dusk begins to loom
Static sizzle begins a final crescendo
And quickly takes its medicinal weakening
inevitable low murmuring enduring
in an almost complimentary gradation
a fading to dark (so you know where we’re at)
Frogs and crickets use their voices
In nocturnal harmony
singing the daylight to rest
while synchronizing intone
all those unforgiven and withdrawn souls
can take a new step forward
walking in stride with carefree invisibility
beneath a scattershot of luminaries
that constellate a shadowy veil
draped over town
My town
and Your town
and across
in a floating waft
Dispatched via the calm blue astral spheric hue
from a lunar dome
Or
cosmic citadel
represent
Represent
REPRESENTING
for all our collective
Grandmother Astral-sphere
————-————-————-————-
Sep 23, 2020
Sep 23, 2020 at 11:45 PM UTC