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Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
New Moon Melange

(for Harlan Rivers originally,
and now for Aparna,
who reminded me
how I used to write
in the golden era of
seven years of plenty, so long, so ago...)

                         <>

The softest cotton,
Wears ever softer with every use.

Contemplative introspection,

Like digging a castle & moat in the sandy beach,
You dread and joy, the knowing,
Incoming tide will arrive destructive inevitable,
Yet fill the moat, protect the kingdom,
Till is undone and returned to the blocks of minuscule,
Grains of sand.

Answers found, maybe lost, once more,
Necessitating questioning, non-stop processing,
And a rebuilding tomorrow... Pas de choix

But softer each time, easier with practice.

Even if convoluted, it is still a revolution.
Like twelve new moons, recycled.
(occasionally a lucky thirteenth appears)

Some of us are special chosen,
To essay, to assay, the condition human,
With a rock axe, tiny slivers chipped off,
And yet new moon stones uncovered,
needy of Cataloging,
introspection,

You can change the day,
The month,
The moon twelve, thirteen times,
Hell, You can change your **** hat,
But don't fool nobody,

You are one of the special,
You job to paint the verbal paintings,
And to ascertain the meaning interior.

For in doing so, you do all of us service.
For your eyes see it ever so differently,
For you, task, paint and reveal each
New Moon’s Melange,
your unchosen gift.
to you
Responsa to "Mindfulness Mélange"
re-reminded by Aparna June 25, 2020
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
Dreams of a Child
Created: Jan 23, 2011 5:44 AM
Finished: Jan 30, 2011 4:23 AM
Posted here  Jan 2014
Warning:
a very, very long poem, but within , I promise,
there is a precise stanza about, for you.  
Take it as my gift.
Let me know which you took home to play.

~~~~~~~


Some poets care not
for the
discipline of rules,
laws of punctuation.

Why bother brother,
with putting poems
in antiquated jailhouses,
prisons of vertical bars,
or afford the reader,
the courtesy of horizontal lines?

Question and quotations marks
these day refuted,
as a Catcher In The Rye
conspiracy symbology of big lies,,
political interventionism,
to the creative, most natural
right to be crude.  

Inconvenient impositions,
symbolic flailings, of an
over regulated civilization
in the throes of declination

Punkuation is but a
societal annoyance to
today's creative geniuses,
periods, commas,
nothing more than
a pause to think -
who needs 'em?
when we want to stink
up the atmosphere with vitriols
of half truths and inhuman
but oh so gleeful,
concentrated disparagement
of any person worthy of
nationwide late night mocking merriment.

Such free spirits, vivid animations,
within me do not reign,
though upon occasion,
boy got permission slips  
for breaking bad by invention
of an occasional new word.

New words, white truffles
vocabulic incantations,
my own cupcake creations,
meant to burr, or purr,
their tasty meanings, always,
were readily apparent.

Sometimes we rhyme,
sometimes  we can't;
doth not a reading of a
poetic periodic table
of rants, chants
love poems, and paeans
to a shhhh! pretend,
overarching, poesy ego
require some minimalist format?

How I envy you,
kind observer,
possessor of literary powers
untoward and untold,
delicate touches of a fingertip
rule and rue
poetic invention.

You can zoom away or in
for a closer examination
of unscripted revelations,
incinerate them like an
yesterday's newspaper,
thus demonstrate contempt for
less-than-historic ruminations,
as time has done before.

Witness the crumbled ruins of Ozymandias,
king of kings,
and how the critic's machinations
with a dash of tabasco time,
his works, now museum pieces,
in the Tate Modern's room of
Laughable Human Aspirations.

Don't panic, sigh or groan,
kind observer,
infection inflictions,
content of discontentment,  
ancient whinings that the publisher
long ago listed as discontinued,
will not herein unfold.

What has all these mumbled asides
to do with the Dreams of a Child?

Apologies prolific I distribute
for this long winded profligate prologue;
and even for prior invasions
of your contemplative fantasias,
but my intention certain:
**** out the weak chaff eaters,
feigners of faux interest,
who stanzas ago deserted us,
this confessional lore.

These prior lines conceived
to mislead and deceive,
to refer and deter
send away, the hangers-on
who litter our lives,
with whimpered falsehoods.


So, we begin anew:

Today's lecture entitled
Dreams of a Child
were formatted on a silver disc;
this communication's originations,
seedlings of block
roman black letters
on background of cleansing white,
re things that jar me in the night.

Easy slights that waken
from a fitful, pitted rest,
mental paintings
natured in gem colors,
tourmaline auras,
and vibratto hues
of blue zircons.  .  

I have never lain upon the couch,
in the inner holy of holies,
where one whispers
to the Father Confessor
an original composition,
subject, title and inspiration
of said unique origination,
decidedly of one's own choosing,
roots of the essay's telling,
harvested in the root garden
of one's dreams,
where grow herbs,
spicy ones,
flavors of childhood.

The lush and wooded smells
of a forest of childhood scars,
and it's concomitant
putrefying, fruited rot,
awoke and brokered
a stilted, tremulous sleep.

Went to bed a a man
of modest success,
of modest scenes,
a bond trader, who trades
exactly that:
his word, his bond,
his blessing to his
deal constructions,
all of which, ended with an
irrevocable cri of "Done!"

Yet like you,
I am oft undone.

Dreams.

In truth, not dreams, but
spectral moments of
our lives relived,
a melange of ancient lyrics,
taunts of childhood abusers and
peer humilators
who could
teach the CIA
torture techniques
of WORD boarding, par excellent.

Angelic faces of human ****
that birthed in me a holy duality,
anger and a,
love of words,
my vaccination serum.

Granted a love of
human kindness
from teachers who cherished their
high and mighty tight
to publicly humiliate,
knowing full well
that human laws could not
attempt to have them
justly incarcerated.

Where, where were
the supervisors
who let me be spit upon
in the back seat of a
Fifty's station wagon,
by the brothers of
a sainted dead shepherd?

I am still eight,
sitting on a stoop in the
modest side of town,
towel in hand, so handy,
to wipe the tears shed
for cause,
for the car-pool of suburban boys
who "forgot" to pick me up for
Sunday swim night.  

In high school,
in the back row,
I silently ******
the juice of a Sarte lemon and
essayed a term paper,
upon multiple mirrored
reflections of a man
called Camus.

As another self styled, only living
teenage expert
on "alien nations"
received with pride and trepidation,
a sentence of Ninety Eight,
on my term paper,
but the pedantic predators
deemed it an accident
for I, was  inscribed in their
Upper East Side
Coda of Prejudice,
as merely,
"just" a
man of USDA,
B grade quality intellect.  

Hand me downs
I did not get
as I was the
younger, sole brother,
but worn lint lines
of humiliation
when and where my pants
were "let down"
to accommodate growth spurts
were my growing marks of Cain.

Those growth lines
were economic reality signs,
and were rich fodder for
childhood monsters,
Scions of Income Superiority
who lived in ranch homes in
two car, color tv garage slums,
wearing band new Levis.

In the Sixties,
time of my unsilent spring
wore a cross of
teenage hood,
my hair,
worn long,
Jesus style

Worn with labor pride,
for it was
Made in the USA,
I was a most conventional
revolutionary.

In the parochial jail
of educated guesses,
where society's lesson plans
of all that was bad
were O so well taught,
I was apart, ahead,
of Our Crowd,
but not too, radically.  

But a spiteful
Principal of No Principle,
deemed my locks a
disruptive influence,
so to exorcise my rebel streak,
so to crucify his "Jesus Freak,"
so to exercise his diminutive spirit
a pompous uber man,
he had me shorn
like a sheep,
thrice
in just one day,

He loved his full employment
of his pharoic entitlement,
The Educator's Power of Abuse,

I was so denuded
of human strength,
the Italian barbers of the
East 86th Street subway station,
wept for me,
their cri du coeur,
Angels in Heaven did hear
and from God
did dare demand
an explanation!

He roared in manner celestial,
"Is he not my child too,
and if he be treated
in style *******,
it is purposed and willful."

Pornographic compilations of
slaps across a child's face,
I've got plenty
of and in My Space,
should you care to
add your own,
down under,
got plenty of room
for all comers    

In a Facebook world,
I pride, not pretend,
that having fewer "friends"  
is my honest and true
reflection of who I am, and,
life lessons learned -
quality, not quantity.  

Victims of discrimination
can be most discriminating
in matters of
human games, associations.  
****** or word,
lack of taking care
is not heart healthy.

Tried to forgive
the despotic progenitors,
of some of that which
is good within me
that, irony of ironies,
they can claim the title,
creator;

Tried to give them
what I had gotten -
from the happy malcontented  
evil spreaders,

That grace, grace is
the only methodology,
an inestimable but
valuable lost leader,
the only way
to survive on
this planet of
hardtack and
caste striation.  

Though still quick to anger
at the cutters and denigrators
I am quick still to
confess my own failings, and forgive those
of plain and honest folk.

Unfortunately, kind observer,
you had to share my brunt,
syllabic Iwo Jima battles
of a decaying verbal moonscape
to reach the denouement,
for now we have,
mostly arrived

Most likely you too
have long ago
deserted me like
so many others,
no matter,
this modulated breath
was born and released
from my heaving chest and
as I knew it,
know this:

My Absaloms
where ever you be,
presumably and hopefully in hell,
I give you thanks
and a mini bar drink
of absolution.
a tin medal of appreciation,
for the
Marked Improvement
you inadvertently nurtured
in this restless,
voyagered soul.

My ancient enemies
till now, be advised,
forgive and forget
was and has not  
fully formed
in my penitential template,

Unlike your natural capacity
for cruelty and mean
birthed unto you
in your third rate
genetic melange,
forgiveness is taught
in a Master Class
at a famous school of Ethical Drama,
that I did not attend

Though resident in
a better place,
my root garden,
the bitter herbs you planted
still grow but,
are welcome in sweet brotherhood,
until the selah days
of just one flavor.

Though the universe's expansion
is of a pace such that
time and space definitions
will stretch and warp
and need be
refined, replaced,
the governing principle here.
need not be rephrased.  

For goodness
from evil
doth come
and should your
evil spectres
once more try
for resurrection
in my benighted
dream world.
you will find the doors
locked and barred,
upon them a sign
not verbose,

**Done.
Whew.
In the shade
where the pain of fading out
is all about the colours sat light upon the leaves.
Where each blossom grieves
where the rosebud bleeds into another day
and snapdragons snap and snap away
I shall stay.

Watching honey bees at play and dragonfly's that do not snap
but snap back at snapdragons that take a bite
of the slight breeze that whispers through my hair.
I've been here before,
here is where the dream began and in this dream I can
believe,
that every petal on the bloom does not have to grieve
and that 'Shiva'
does not destroy the beauty to be found
silently sprouting from the heavenly ground.

The foxglove that was never worn by man nor beast
is not the least and most of all
when snowdrops fall they do not drop but droop.
The bandicoot
who does not care watches the wind blow through my hair
and then retires back to its lair
Soon I will be back in mine
but one more time I'll stand and look
before fading in again
to the pain
of fading out.
Tyler C Nelson Dec 2019
My thoughts, a melange in my mind.

A few comprise bits of cosmic dust
   and strands of light
   from birthing stars.
A couple stained with drops of blood
   from rocks, earth, and fire.
At least one is like a marble bookcase.
   Leather-bound tomes with silver filigree
   store memories of many things.

Some float and some fall.
Some are taciturn and some call.
Some are hot and some are like
   stones in the winter moonlight.

They speak and move,
   even in sleep.
They weave dreams
   and paint tapestries of colored hope.

These with ocher hue
   tell of a body woven into earth.
Those, the deep blue of a midnight sun,
   breathe with the peace of stars.
Some scattered forest greens
   sing of beauty.
Bright orange, the guardians
   watch the tides ebb and flow.
Royal violet hopes of things
   that will never be
   but yet excite.
Hopes of rain-spotted silver,
   wreathed in gold and auburn,
   hopes of truth and justice.

My thoughts, a melange my mind.
Nishu Mathur Jan 9
I love the word melange
It sounds not-so-ordinary  
Though not so extraordinary
But I feel a notch above the rest when I use it
So much so for being pretentious

And without being rambunctious
I’ll say that I find —
It describes, perfectly, the state of my mind —
Some happy thoughts, some with twists
Some clear ones, some fogged with mist
Some good, others amiss
A curious melange of thoughts
Of that and this
And that, I suppose, is also what life is.
SøułSurvivør Dec 2015
of beautiful things
willowy warbler's
wax'n wings

silvery strumming
singing sands

languid lagoons
in luxurious lands

carvings of creosote
cacti create

fulcrum of flame
thru frivolous
fate

volcanic vestibule
vestments and
vestiges

historical hypothesis
harmonious
heritage

melanin melange
mellifuous
mild

woodduck waters
wheeling and
wild

crystal caverns
creating
light

nocturnal nymphs
announcing the
night

sumptuous sunsets
scintillation's
scream

dramatic dawn
drawn
from
a

dream


SoulSurvivor
(C) 12/2/2015
I've got a challenge.
Find something lovely
and draw it in words.
Go around it and
REALLY LOOK AT IT

If you do this every day
it will help even
the dark days

I KNOW.

~~~<☆>~~~
İlayda Korkmaz Aug 2018
Take me to Vienna where the music walks.
Where the buildings invite you to sit,
And accompany them for a cup of melange.
Where the many palace gardens have jovial pique-niques,
With their bikes resting by the trees.

Take me to Vienna where life ebbs out
Where the past lives on,
And composers wave out the windows.

Take me to Klimt's golden city,
The city where even the grey Donau is welcoming.
Take me to Vienna and don't take me back.
Nishu Mathur Jun 2016
Monsoon Rhapsody



I am rain on a summer day
Drenching drowsy, lifeless buds
Stirring them to a dancing wakefulness
Washing leaves dull and dry with dust
Dousing fire in a desert ringed inferno

I am the drizzle on a pale moon night
Easing into the heart with music
The melange of water humming with the wind
The splash of puddles in fields of barley
Gently filling thirsty river beds craving for a flow

I am showers before monsoons
Impregnating the air with soothing droplets
The hint of life in an oasis of colours
Breathing moist on a farmer's bronzed skin
Tingling the world with shimmering emerald

I am sawan, the monsoons
Winding my way through a chorus of clouds
Thundering my presence into the sea of renewal
Cascading on sandy shores that glisten with light
Whisking away waves of gold with jubilant darkness

I drape the land in arrays of greens
Scent the soil in my fragrance
Dance with the rhapsodic dance of the peacock
Wreathe petals into flowers that vine
And curve in the soil of growth.
Rhinestone Kelp May 2012
Mint spreading in elegance.
Some divine blanket of taste in the soft vert.
What meadows of limestone growing
tusks and a peppermint hair!
Verdent tastes of beaming echoes,
Bouncing off the walled caverns,
Body and soul.
Radiating vieled ripples.
The mountain's roots in caverns carved,
the speech of silent wind within,
inscribed on the hollow shell
of a white turtle from the deep lakes.
Waves form energy suppressing noise,
leaving keratin quiet.
Coral growing body soul,
maintaining vibrations of mossy
touch and taste.
Rhinestone tongue of night
Diamond sky.
A granite vineyard in the clouds, and
pitch shaped into a tower,
the glassy eyes of dawn and dusk.
Vespertine.
Translucent dreams.
Bamboo chins translucence,
Escalating moonstone shadows,
fingers spread in wide stretch,
ephemeral hollowness,
of everlasting happy spices.
Fingers locked in thin ligaments,
stones nestled in the crabgrass burrow,
moles' eggs in the nutmeg painting.
Luscious browning melange.
Quartz upon the wave-struck ridge.
Puffs of gray magical,
escaping cavern's entrance,
filling the air with
a fragrance uncompared
and bringing to the stomach,
a funny, fuzzy, filling feeling
called munchies!

*Written by: Simon and Lotus
Amrita May 2016
I think of you in words that don't mean anything.
I think of you in places that don't exist.
To believe in reality is hard because reality is brazen and I've always been meek.

I see you in all the faces I see,
Some have eyes like yours,  some have your hair.
Nobody has a smile like yours,
A perfect melange of shyness and mischief topped with genuineness beyond compare.

I hear you in all the voices I hear,
They all talk like you yet they don't.
They don't make sense to me,
Your voice made me feel like home.

I catch your fragrance when someone passes by,
That enticing smell of cigarettes and cologne.
Now she smells it everytime she hugs you,
It fills her head with euphoria and inexplicable bliss.
sobroquet Jun 2013
renegade memories
relentless effrontery
rogue  fractured intruders
a formulable formidable aside inside
man is a modified monkey
a jackdaw in peacock's feathers
contradictions, the multiplicity that is a unity
a patchwork of odds and ends
snips and snails
                                  dreams and delusions                                
hopes and fears
a mystifying  knot of  phantasmagoric  disquietude

agape in a stupefied bewilderment
as an autistic child swept up in minutiae
inscrutable incongruities
melange of matters beyond  explanations
maundering machinates
necessary inventions repeating and reforming
sheltering some aspect of the mind's deforming
'reaction formations' sotto voce instructs the analyst
defending emotions at the personalities bequest
    merrily merrily merrily merrily,  life is but a dream
psychotherapy is no mere scheme
partial selves
Paul Stevens Nov 2012
Are we to wither away, say goodbye to the remote possibility of everything or the acceptance of nothing, damaged as we are from life and what it has thrown at us and how we have adapted to it, where is the strength we thought nothing of when we were young – everything was possible, anything could be overcome.

Now it is harder to start from the beginning to rise from the detritus that has left its smudge on this human plane, to  feel warmth from one’s own heart, passions that used to run deep are locked away lost from the moment, will they ever return or are they buried from this reality – what is this reality?

Pure and without stimulus our bodies weak from over indulgence become but empty vessels  for our pain to adhere to, but yet exists this mind of memories that fail to disappear.

These very memories fight with the functionality that we accept as our living life mixed with dreams and our experiences laid bare to improve upon the quality of our anger, frustration, pleasure and happiness that engages us again, enabling us the advantage to overcome our apathy and  withstand hardship and discomfort, both  mentally and  physically.

And once again we shout from the highest imagined ground our intentions and with our determination set to turbo drive, we move out on to the superhighway of our existence, battling  our demons to achieve our presupposed goals, is this living?

Or merely homage to a bygone set of loosely interpreted doctrine absorbed from our greater consciences. Individuality what has this become? – A freedom to define ones uniqueness?

Is it truly accepted or is it frowned  upon, an illusion perhaps, to be held high then massaged by ego, manipulated by the wannabees and dismissed by the pseudo intellectuals for their contrived  ill-gotten gains.

Or is it puerile credo that mutates in to a complex melange of all things material, a substitute for the happiness that existed in a previous incarnation of existence, without doubt a causal effect imploding,  oblivious to the damage that is caused by the ignorance of consideration and distillation of emotion from love, to the banality of acceptance.

Once again the circle is circumvented  and the cycle is begun in earnest until the finality of death is welcomed unto the midst of longing from the soul, in repose before its journey to dance amongst the cosmos.
wordvango May 2016
then I tuned one day the body electric
of one reading of a phenomenal woman
partook a host of daffodils
where bad men seek forgiveness
after throwing vases against the walls
alone they are with nobody
alone frozen fields with snow
and broken wings
cry when solemn
will fails to help another carry on
with an ear lent to confiding
while walking decks exulting
and ringing bells
drinking ale , gagged his daughter
and bound her to the bed
remember nor recall day by day
darkness or the corruption lain
in one forgotten love or friend

A melange of browns and greens
Styled in a stream, where twigs float, flashing emerald green
A new life, germinating within
Colours on the canvas, dripping
A splash of yellow, winsome pinks
The barks of trees, have scaled heights
The canopy and foliage to kiss sunlight
raen Oct 2011
Tracing back…
that is what I am doing now,
just tracing back
along this woodland path,
in an attempt to grasp remnants
of a time
when I felt so alive, yet dying.

Thoughts and memories,
they fall  like these leaves,
a melange of confusion, beauty and frailty

Swept away by the wind, scattered
or swept into a pile, unified.

Either way, they can be stomped on,
brittle leaves crushed into a satisfying crunch.

All around me,
there’s a profusion of vermilion, gold and copper
but those reds have always been my favorite—
so alive, yet can also mean bleeding.

I see a pumpkin carved out,
a creepy smile adorning its face
A chuckle escapes from my lips,
remembering that time
when laughter lived in harmony
with love.

Now, I am not sure anymore…
Because how can something
that had so much hope, so verdant,
change?

I am a fool, for the answers
are so obvious—
I only need to look at these leaves.

So much like our lives, these seasons…

Not very long,
I will be staring up at argentine skies.

The thought of it gives me chills—
I pray for spring.
09272011336p414
Stephen Parker Sep 2012
A spindling sun stream on copses' cloak spun
Melange of orange, yellow, red on foliage does glisten
Decadent Umbrella wields fluorescent shield o'er barren fields
Glinted blades colorful shades heighten
Glossed Bright-cherry, Oak leaves the fringes floss
Purple haze of Sweet Gum lobes the flanks glaze
Yellow tips of White Oak fingers waxed with gilding syringe
Orange Marmalade, Maple stars varnished with tinseling *****
Blue Beech crusted folds dusted with a brackish rust
ottaross Aug 2013
Forlorn pleas, angst and aching laments,
Thick like a melange of surreptitiously smoked cigarettes,
And plastics that have melted and burned while too close to the heater.

The teen angst hangs in the depressions and around the corners of this place
Where it is damp and wet in the just-breaking morning.
Among the verdant green, earth-rupturing sprouts
There are flower buds that threaten to burst.

The spring landscape here reveals hewn timber,
And crafted structures
Yet also black loamy dirt
Dredged up from beneath the swollen green carpet
Of ferns and sod,
Marking the unmistakable path
Of an errant vehicle,
That skidded unexpectedly from the narrow road.
Tomas Denson May 2014
What if i could see my thoughts
would they chase each other around
a chaotic melange of colours
crashing and swirling through the  mists
an ever moving cacophony of intelligence

would they be stately progresses of comprehension
an elegant forest with deep thirsting roots
seeking knowledge as sustenance
branching of mind expanding to catch the wind
of thoughts rushing by

could they be complex mathematical equations
sharp and precise, proven to absolute
no doubt, no grey surrounding the theorem
the purity and truth of numbers
running the reality that is me

a mix, i think, of all
a chaotic mix of order
an ordered mix of chaos
that makes my thoughts mine.
S E L Dec 2013
mix
mixed stirrings
hard to place this constant ire rising from ashes of a fire not quite, yet felt
stir into that melting *** the sum of miscellany unknowns
all wrought from the unsweet gifts of quotidian sighs
no need to wrap the present, baby, for it's already here
twinkling in the birth of every moment
we hardly know it nor acknowledge
so busy wrenching pain from secret places the darkness loves to keep

yesterday brought unsought smiles of outer space dust
then space in pushed into the blue spit bubble of crayfish folly
and fear frozen into place on cauldroned cheeks
as tendons pulled fury tight on a cocky bounty's cry

I want to carry that sweet loading joy
which scorches my receptiveness in astringent non reciprocation
I die to please that spangled energy so much
which holds back its cagey kernel, far from my prying hands
I kneel to take in out of the blue blessings
which fall slapdash on this preoccupied trajectory, forever waiting in sozzled hope
I take the package you flash and cast heavy
which leave sweltering whiplines across my insides
all fine, all just a fine melange

beneath your magic fontanelle lies a sunken cache
there are painfully few privy to that miracle
I live in hope of neither looping nor taking
but just to be happy to bear witness to the shiny array of your gem stock

you are like none other, inimitable and hard gemstone (inside)
a mix of purity stirred in crazy, along with star shine and fire sparks
*my angel with honey eyes
anonymous Dec 2015
enough time
turns lost love
into a cicada shell

a hollow melange of
lust and nostalgia
left abandoned under a tree

the ley lines and star alignments that drew us together
have all lock-tumbler shifted
and the combination is in a notebook
in a cobwebbed and dusty box
that i left on the curb for recycling
on some unspecified thursday in 2012
or 11, or 13
something a little unlucky

i miss you
in the same way that i miss
a dream, upon waking:
a sandcastle, built under the wrong moon, described to a stranger
shapes so thick with water that they can't hold,
but it was good, wasn't it?
it was probably good.
it must have been good.
i think i remember smiling.
a city old in trades,
in cultivation of the arts
based on industrious commerce
   of its citizens who boast
the world's oldest commercial fair

the city in which
Martin Luther and Melanchthon
led fierce disputes
with delegations of the Pope

where J. S. Bach found stimulus
and time to master
harmony and rhythm
close to perfection,
(and that was shocked listening
to Leibniz's monadologies),

the city of which
Goethe spoke with praise,
that saw Napoleon defeated
on the nearby battlefield
(and built a monument of quite
imposing ugliness one hundred years
after the fact),

this city suffered hard
from two world wars
followed by over forty years
of dreams gone sour of a new society,
until, most recently,
this city once again
became a catalyst of major change.

Yet those who kept their meetings
at St. Niklas' church
and by their stubborn protest
helped to reunite
a country separated by walls for generations -
those you don't see,
walking the streets of Leipzig now.

What strikes the eye
(besides the crumbling blackened ruins
of former glory,
and strip-mined land
just out of town)
is Wall Street's new frontier,
the bustling peddlers of new easy wealth
as they appear on every street downtown,
offering anything from oranges
to shoes and South Pacific cruises.

Ramshackled pre-fabs built on shabby parking lots
already stake the claims of big banks,
business and insurance companies
that promise earnings, safety and security
to eager though bewildered customers.

   "Pecunia non olet" says the poster
   of the postal savings bank,
   and shows a happy pig
   rooting in money.

Old stores, in order to survive,
have started selling
new and shiny goods
to happy new consumers,

only a few resist

and hesitate to walk a mile
for the melange of
fast food, cigarettes and *****
offered at makeshift stands
that seem have come
to symbolize the great new freedom

of the new Wild East.

          * *
Written upon visiting Leipzig one year after the Cold War Iron Curtain came down.
"Pecunia  non olet" (Latin proverb) = "Money doesn't smell!"
Some things don’t just
fade away
Mesmerized by a song that was once
sung
…melodies of time
Thoughts brought by the days
that were once a tomorrow
Whispering to every ear
touching every beating heart
Could be pain
could be
smiles
laughter and tears
A melange of intertwining emotions
spiraling with the ever changing face of
the silver shinning moon
A melodramatic prodigy of the night
blooming with the midnight rose
in solitude with the cries of
each
distorted
smile
Wanting to let go of the burden of the wisp
but not of the melancholic scent
Memories of walking
hand in hand
and the nostalgic breath of the wind
soothing but sometimes cold
Rekindling old flames
over and
over
again…
Mek
Aug08
Most of the people hate isolation
only a few taking it as blessing
and such is the one I'm talking about.

What if the familiar have shunned me,
he would say, the world is now mine,
to the strangers I bare my heart,
as they do to me, a complete stranger,
in the once and possibly the only meet
between people otherwise divided
exchanging thoughts and contacts
sure no call would ever follow
but happy in the chance encounter.

He thus meets a melange of people,
the man whose wife fled with her lover,
the woman whose husband deserted her
but she still wears red in his name,
the son abandoned in childhood
the old woman disowned by son.

He takes all their sadness into him
and feels his own greatly diminished
thankful that fate hasn't been as harsh
or how he would have coped with
the misfortunes that befelled those strangers.

He bows his head, for in the isolation,
he knew how it hurts to be deprived of
what was obviously legitimate.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS May 2023
I'm walking down a country road just west
of Silver Lake with my dog, Cinder. Just east
is the Kansas River, woods between it and me.
I'm not alone exactly. With me are Sherry,
Stephani, Kathleen, Susan, Cara, Anne, Cynthia,
Nancy, Kristin, and Patricia--at least in memory.
As I amble, I'm in a trance. Moments of laughter.
Afternoons of picnics--hotdogs, potato salad,
lemonade. Trips to the Rockies. Steamboat Springs
was my favorite destination. When you got high
enough in the mountains, not only could you see
their majesty, but even better, you could smell
the fragrance of the evergreens, the ultimate high.
Rafting down the Arkansas River sometimes,
down the Colorado other times. A melange of
memories. Decades of intimacy, nights of passion.
Some tears, but more kisses than tears. Cinder
kept up with me as I would occasionally kick up
dust as I continued my country walk. If was as if
I were walking through my past. I guess that's
exactly what I was doing, remembering the mountain
air, the tender touches, the silence lying side by side.
I was taking a walk down a country road with Cinder,
but we were not alone.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Roland Dulwich Jan 2012
The dormant streets breathe weakly through
storm drains and clearways like cancerous lungs
As the humid air clings to bodies like layers of duct tape and people walk
in parks like living corpses in a cemetery, in the aimless melange of heat, exhaustion and sweat.
The grass is withering slowly as the celestial cauldron spills;
its contents red like the ****** daggers that smile in men's mouths and blending into some spun heaven metal; orange-gold. Dying concentric circles of heat sweep across the gilded skyline as lights,
like vivid ichors, flow through the veins of a dying sky.
And the air is now sweet with the smell of dried flowers and starlight and the streets breath easily.
Mostly composed of fragments. Enjoy and tell me what you think - Roland
Literatim Dec 2016
On a train.
Inside, a mosaic of faces
Eternal strangers
Passing by, changing places
Pace increases
My heart races.

Outside, life flashes by
Blurry instances and faces
A melange of random places.
Pace increases and in flashes
Shadowlights traverse my lashes
Leaving imprints on my soul.

Akin to impressionism
Colors, forms and spaces mix
Unifying to become
A prism of the Unknown.
Brake.
Stop.
Aditi Uniyal Oct 2015
As the sun embarks
Upon a journey
To the hills that it
Insolently calls home,
It becomes a painter-
A wild one,
And splashes its colours
Carelessly,
As if purging them,
And creates a pristine
Melange of dire shades
And a melee of
Cacophonous hues,
While writing a vague
Amphigory,
And swirls the clouds with
Its sugary, yellow fingers,
Like those of a gluttonous child
Who spent most of his time
Handpicking his favourite candy,
But as the clouds perform
An elegant pirouette
And make merry for the world
To ogle at,
The dreary eyes of a young girl
Find solace in the daily atrocities
Of the endless sky.
...Beneath every smile
lies a dormant tear in
this world of chaos
Needing a light
deep within the
decadence…

Beneath
every silence that
empties the day
cries a melange of nostalgic sky
Heard within dreams of
desperate solace
Overshadowed by insanity
shrouded by
the dark of
blindness…
Mek
Dec08
Lia Dec 2018
You knew what perfection tasted like
as if you’ve molded limbs in a soulful dance
or bathed in each other’s voices in song

You knew what iniquity smelled like
the sickening sweet scent
from whenever your finger bones ran
graciously along her hair like the waves rushed to meet the shore

And through either you created me:
a strong bitter abyss that looks too much like heaven
drowned deep into the naked ***** of the eye

If you had not laid your flesh like a crown around my throne,
their tongues would not have craved for even a single crystal of you
you who slips carelessly pretty upon the seas

Our amalgamation was never meant to be candid
no melange with our imprints meant to stand the kisses of the sea
our collisions orchestrate an ecstacy, one that morphs with my solitude.
Ghazal Apr 2016
Slow cooked over a simmering flame
is how I'd like our love to be
Full of earthy fragrances and soft
crackling of fire fuelling our chemistry

Wafts of aroma will float through,
with the gradual deepening of the flavour
Impatient bubbles will form and burst,
Heightening the temptation to savour-

That delightful melange of emotions,
But we'll hold back and let there be
A deeper hue, a thicker consistency
To our painstaking alchemy

For the dish of love will be best served
When conceived with patient devotion,
So lend me a hand darling; let's slow-stir
together, our delectable concoction
chuckle ! when the heavens open up ,
a congruous rainbow ,
iridescent , immaculate , sublime .

© Mrunalini.D.Nimbalkar
#08/11/2019#
Rainbow
Colourful life !!
Have been attracted to the rainbows since a child and who isn't ?  They still give me the excitement of how the phenomenon works.
Love the rainbows and  the positivity and charm they bring along ..... Simple verse....
Dora Joe Dec 2014
I had a visitor,
At mid-night.
Into my room,
He crept.
Silently-Sleathily.

A spectator,
Behind the light.
Over my bed,
He stood.
Sneering-Grinning.

What comes next,
Is a melange of emotions.
A blend of terror and bliss.
He climbed on top of me.
Like on a saddle.
His cold hands grasping on my neck.
I tried to fight him back.
But as I was choking,
He looked at me with the saddest eyes.
And I felt remorse.
I stopped.
I let him took control.
He kissed me with lips so coarse.
He reeked of stale cigarettes.
With a hint of cheap scotch.
I laid there.
And into my dreams I escaped.
I woke up at 3a.m.
My hair slightly unkempted.
My bed, a mess.
And my blankets astray.
The dampness on my forehead.
Was it a dream I had?
Surreal and yet so real.

I wondered.
No traces.
No evidence.
My mid-night visitor,
Will be a mystery.
I thought.

But, you see,
I became curiouser and curiouser.
So, I looked it up.
I was visited by an Incubus.

-Doey
Those nights!
The clouds had being fair
And the birds were chirpy
Soaring in the blue skies;and gyre the coconut trees
While the gently breeze
Blew;and the branches skid
Side by side fluttering
And notably,the birds vocal the ditty of love

She sat beneath
And I laid on her tighs
Dedition like a pet
But as I goggled through her bra
To her face;I met
The frolics of her hair
And fantasized
Till I traced down her lips
As the juices she sipped
Smack dab on my neck
And trail my chest

I grasp her hands and licked them
As she span to mob them
"You're beautiful"I said and smiled
Looking through her eyes
Sssssssssshh!!shut up"she muttered"
She lean and held my chest to hers
And fervidly she kissed on my lips

All at once,the droplets of waters
Dangling in the air
Broke the light
And pave path of the spectum
To flaunt its melange
Emblem on us

That moment she troth
Not to open her eyes
But sing till the sun
Disappear over the horizon

I toss myself
And learnt it was all a dream
That moment,that hour,that minute
I made a wish
Lord I pray this dream one more time

©Historian E.Lexano
To you Johanna

— The End —