A shaft from the golden sun,
reclined peacefully in my lap.
The amber gleam reflected back,
and gently baked the solemn land.
An ardent whisper furnished the woods
with a viridescent scent that woke up the woods.
Silver songs of sleek streams,
chased the lullabies away;
gently.
Ancient tress cuddled the wind,
their leaves clapped in sheer bliss
The broken winged white eyed bulbul,
warbled hymns to lift the curse.
Scarlet tainted vintage letters resting in the rustic mailbox,
await your tender touch; while they chant for a past long gone.
But lily livered clouds,
they have turned your courage into a yellow illusion.
So now defy the toxic words and the errors you made,
A different person inside your skin, long ago, burned our hearts on the hateful flames.

I remember
Vividly those serene eyes,
Shining bright,
Emotion in them
Sparks my blood to rise

Thy teary eyes divine,
Speak with love and tenderness,
Eyes, a million stars in them
The picture of innocence.

Eyes seeking me -
Glowing,
Like that first dew,
On the new viridescent blade of grass.

Your eyes my matinal star
Your eyes my middays sunshines,
Your eyes my vespers twilight,
Your eyes an oceanic depth,
Your eyes my autumnal hues,
Your eyes wild jasmines
Fragrant at nights,
Like that sunflower
Gazing the afternoon sun.

Let the peacocks vauntingly dance,
Let the nightingales melodiously sing,
Let the flora and fauna flourish,
Like spring in prosperity,
In felicitation,
Let me always
See
Through Your Eyes

The moon tonight is crescent
The color is viridescent
The Earth watches the moon as it mimics
Watch out now moon
Don't grab a sponge and soak up our blue
Don't defy the laws of physics

Why steal the liquid
You're already blue
You're depressed like a squid
What's water to swim in gonna do
You're in solitary like an orphan kid
Nobody wants you

The blue consumed you moon
I'm sorry
The Sun awakens around noon
Greeted by billions
However, when you awaken
You have to implore those who doze
To not leave you so soon

The Earth uses you time after time
You're aware
But you come right back every night as if everything is fine
The Earth holds an annual fair
And you just step in line
Fairly, you only attend to commence a diversion
To steal the liquid

Why steal the liquid
You're already blue
You're depressed like a squid
What's water to swim in gonna do
You're in solitary like an orphan kid
Nobody wants you

Like an absent father
You're a bother
Unlike those who visit the moon dune beach
That's water you cannot steal even if you beseech
Listen here moon
Don't bother the mosquito that flies throughout the dune

the absentminded
water slides
into the empty
spaces of my skin
i can feel your
mossy fingertips
playing with
the forces of nature
(the way you do)
there's a past inside me
that i cannot reach
and i do not run
from it
the mist from the water
seeps into my pores
and i am filled to the
brink with viridescent
potential

Tuesday was when the sun failed
my shin bones were ripped from my legs and made it heavy to walk,
feathers fell through the air and suffocated each one of us,
7 billion curious eyes looked up to the viridescent sky,
then came a flash of emptiness,
the sky went out and so did our minds.
The world was left unable,
we could only feel
only taste
only hear
only smell.
Then they came,
and took everything from us
they took you away from me.
I felt a chilled hand gently touch my neck
and reach to my ear
a distant screech echoed throughout the deserted air  
then a numbing pain that reminded me of death spread over my skin
my eyelids began to close
and as they did I saw more light than when they were open
I saw more things than I could envisage.
A never ending white universe filled with unfamiliar faces flew around me
and once my eyes focused I searched for you,
every single person
hung in the empty air
with thin tubes filled with sapphire gel coming from their ears.
All of their faces were stripped of life and their eyes sunk into their heads,
but the one face I could not find was yours.
I remember day after day hoping I would wake up,
and eventually I did; but if only I hadn’t
I would not be trapped in the silence of not hearing your laugh,
not seeing you grow older
and I would not be stuck in the mind of a hopeless mad man
waiting for “them” to bring your bright green eyes
your soft smile
your small hands
back to me.
So I can only hope that you know
I search through midnight
every
single day
for you
and I will find you
in this blackened world;
my son.

On the muted music of the zephyr, the viridescent folks' dance and the fluffs veiled in white, sallow, and orange tinges glide in the mid-air. In this pristine swathe shield by a mysterious guard against intruders, there's no gravity to land from jovial vibrations.

© Spriha Kant

They tease only because they like what is true.

That is why you call them friends.
So when, in avocado skies,
With the fragrance of fuchsias, 

And perhaps even focaccia, 

And other salty, honest facts of life,
Droning like blue hummingbirds
And Manuka bees,
You seep through my weak and ailing
Ego, out onto the blotting paper of my conscious mind, 

I shall consider what it is they cherish, 

And come, perhaps, to feel the same.

And do not berate me when I do, 

I tease you only because I like what's true!

But here's a precursory thought or two,
Already noted on bibulous blue...

While I write a bottle’s worth
Of evasive attempts at articulation,
The following transpires:

That I have more in common with Van Gogh
Than most care to know, or notice.

That some called him Vincent.

That all I’ve ever written does not sum me up now,
And that the whereabouts of Brighton really doesn’t matter.

That you are the closest I will ever come
To understanding the stars,
And candidness is more attractive
And captivating
Than anyone cares to admit.

That lousy house parties
Are sometimes better than expected.
And you are braver than me,
And I thank you for it.

That speech is, more often than not,
Inadequate, and
Words seldom do justice
(However hard I battle with them.)
And that self-confessing,
Asymmetrical smiles
Are secretly my favorite kind.

That some songs have a hold on me,
That I could never explain much,
And photographs are not my favorite medium.

That poems are often incredibly hard to write,
And it’s all your fault.
(That you’re forgiven.)

And that even the spectrum
Of browns, golden and dusty,
Azul, virescent and viridescent,
Warm and hazy, igneous-red,
Flushed in sunset,
Curled in blazing amber;
The hue of gloriously tawny,
Shaggy apertures
Of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers
Are no match
For the honeyed morning's
Beams of light
Dancing on your head.

'But how can words express the feel of sunlight in the morning...'

a mouse
spiraling through the complex maze
in search of freedom

a lab rat
left behind
viridescent

the silken-haired mouse
rewarded with fine cheese
for every accomplishment

the course rat
with meagre scraps
viridescent

a vibrant mouse
pushing onward
pleasing the scientists

a dull lab rat
unmoving
viridescent

His topper reflected prisms,
And hair burned under his moon glance,
How ephemeral was midnight,
Darkness dressing my hair in stars,
His smile the light spill from a broken moon,
A claret glass bursting with blood skies,
His plumage exodus stealth netherworld ,
Trithing shards in flamed heat,
Black salt pastes orinein wounds,
Kirk yard elementals despoil spirits of all hell,
Strix cackle, taunt on nightly transvections,
A viridescent sadness wakes alone.
Saudade no seasons doth befall,
Trapped in concupiscence darkest tale void of intemperance


── Clad in loves spectural crown

Arnay Rumens © 12/ 2014

My grandpa who eats steamed sweet potatoes on foothills textured in green rice patties
dreamt up a tall brick house with a black iron gate
barbwires sprung around the tips of the entrance to keep out thieves
right now he wonders how long he can keep fibbing to my mother—
their rotten hut at the end of the massive foothill, not fleeting
monsoons come early, swells the ground till it gave
a landslide takes four people and a child

that day, red stars hung above Tiananmen square gates
grounded bones came in sacks, white cement hauled by green skin trucks

My grandpa who loves sweet potatoes constructs an ivory wall.

after the revolution, the sun peeks out in montages
peering through the smoke
gunpowder stuck to the tank tire roads
black heads roll off yellow tar dirt into a pit
My grandpa gives his best friend one thousand yuan—
visas for my mother and grandma,
His best friend disappears,

writes my grandpa
an apology and, leaves him a large white sack of uncooked sweet potatoes

light tan, severs in half and plops down on the lumpy cutting board,
dusty orange inners, grandpa tosses them in the boiling water
and later, while gnawing down,
he pretends they are oranges for once

Grandpa, who’s kneeling on our dried front yard with a worn out copper pail
waters the salty earth slowly until it sprouts sugar canes
chops one down, breaks it in half, the sun beats
peering through palm leaves
a viridescent river of silk and pale honey
my small three year arms grab a hand full
sliced by grandpa into pieces neatly placed
in a blue flowered ceramic bowl
years later, I chop a stalk down and chew until
English becomes a second language again
and in my twenties, I grab a hand full
sliced my mom into pieces, places them in a weaved basket
made of reinforced bamboo
I put it in front of my grandpa’s grave
in Fujian on the foggy mountainside of a small retirement town.
The edge of the South China coast covered in a thick plastic smog,
I sit on a stone eating sweet cold potatoes with my grandpa facing outland,
a red kneeing sun, barely visible past the trees

There is an ever growing forest within my chest, viridescent canopies endlessly reaching towards powder blue skies like hands extended upwards in prayer
Vividly mesmerizing flowers of imagination and life bloom in scattered unmarked paths for meandering souls
Sadness flows in endless fountains pouring forth rapidly rushing streams of velvet indigo and starlight
Crumbling riverbanks signal the beginnings of tentative doubts
I’ve become aware of the weight of heavy shackles curling around my wrists like thick vines and ivy twisting over old bricks
Nature reclaiming my insides, society disdaining and threatening to capture and drag me beneath the underbrush
I feel the unmistakable pang of hopelessness nesting its thorns just below my ribcage, etching itself into my skin like stonemasons carving their legacy into mountain faces
My body is sacred ground, a temple of an apathetic deity who’s staked ownership over the emotions that run deep like ocean currents in my veins
My heart pumps opalescent despair, washing up on the shores like waves on new sands of lands I’ve yet to see
My forest lays on an island within the bermuda triangle, unreachable by sea or sky
My emotions act as geomagnetic pulses and methane vents to  confuse your aeronautical and sea faring instruments,  causing your vessels to come crashing down and sinking into the vast expanse of rolling royal blue unknown
I exist for the sole purpose of straining inspiration and failing aspirations
Those inky black buds slowly unfurling in the core of my being, remnants giving way to wilting foliage, petals listless at my feet, eroding with the will of misery and time with vibrant colors burning to ashen corpses
With my lips I inspire hope, yet my own lack thereof hollows me out like rotting jack o lanterns
with light flickering despondently through gaping hole, my eyes, liquid light vaguely sauntering downwards, softly dripping into my hopeful reserves like torrential rain
Drumming like the thrumming of my rushing blood in my ears and the powerful thunder of waterfalls cascading in the distance, returning to earth from their perpetual perch atop towering mountains
A jungle of my own endless shame carves me like a sculpture, eroding me like oceans and cliff faces over thousands of years, with fear uncoiling like deep blue carpets of jagged glass running like rivers, squeezes the paralyzing uncertainty into my blood like an injection. Turmoil joins self loathing, they loom above like my own personal berlin wall, disappearing into the white clouds composed of nervousness and doubt, separation from all I long to aspire to on the other side

I SAT ON THE EDGE OF CREEK
The moss on the boulder sleek..
The viridescent carpet all grey
Beneath sapling an old man lay ..
Wrinkled face, ripped hands,
Wearing pheran, shabby lands,
Scuffing eyes
Where pain lies !
Beyond tree line
Is the Alpine
Where
The sun always shines...
The Autumn exploring the bottom,
Chinars burning,
Children mourning...
Beyond Chinars is my House,
And that is the place
Where is my Spouse
That is the place
Where is my spouse....

Rayees Ali Najar

Could you love me at once?
The way you do in my dreams,
Lying on the viridescent growing tendrils of grass
The beat of your heart being my lullaby
Your fingers strumming my side
as I took a deep breath from the nook of your neck
The redolence of earth dimmed as your cologne
marked me as yours.
Your fingers slide to my cheek,
caressing the skin dotted with freckles,
connecting the pattern they made.
My content sigh
tickled your ear, making you laugh.
A gust of wind blows my hair all over your face,
the fingers leave my cheek and settle in my hair.
Playing with the ebony strands
shuffling them, I stare into your umber eyes
and your lips descend to mine
claiming me gently.
Could you love me like that in reality?

engulfed in viridescent
i suffocate,
there’s no way my existence only live in one color!
at this rate, i will only absorb monochromatic colors-
boring, black and white colors-
my life isn’t an empty chess board!
my life is supposed to be a prism after sunlight, reflecting the colors of the rainbow rays after heavy rainstorm.
my life is supposed to be a clear cheerful lights that invite happy beams from every eyes that saw me!

where are those beams now?
there are,
but all of them are
impish
smiles.

it can’t be.
it can’t be.
now it’s only one solid color,
a color that allows me to be invisible.
perhaps
it’s better this way.
i would die rather than letting my morose colors transparent.

until when?
will i hide my colors forever?
but then, i will never witness the rays of the sun.
how will i refract rainbows, if i only let myself hide in the color of the night?

the sun.
the sun won’t come out.
but the clouds are here.
gray, heavy clouds leaking of water.

ah.
maybe i should wash my colors.
wash, wash, until i’m cleanse.
wash, wash,
the loud sounds of thunderstorm.
wash, wash, rain,
volatile sky projecting a vicious achromatic light.
let my colors melt in rain.

until my vicinity is filled with fluorescent bulbs,
‘til the sky is pastel,
'til holographic air diminish,
'til then,
i can see others beams,
and my own cheerful color
is the best one i could display so far.

---TRIGGER WARNING: themes related to ****** trauma.---

On an evening alone, dark and dismal,
I laid upon my crisp floor rug.
Stomach down, back up,
Thinking about the one I love.
I mused and mulled over many things,
Such as how I cared for her so,
Or when we'd next meet,
And what I'd even say.
As I continued to think and think,
My mind settled on other kinds of things.

I bit my lip; I stalled for a moment.
I hovered a thumb over the enter key,
And with a single exhale released my hesitation.
"How to figure out my kinks," or
"How to ask about her kinks."
I felt like a child, sneaking onto the home computer at night,
And finding a timid sort of delight
In googling "*****."

So I continued...
Taking a quiz here,
Reading a page there,
When something stopped me in my tracks.
Something cold ran down my back,
Like a spectre tracing my spine with a finger -
An otherworldly shiver.
Not a shiver of excitement or elation,
But rather one of danger,
Signaling an unholy presence hanging over me.

I could see them as I glanced up.
His eyes:
Smiling
  Laughing
      Singing
                       Feeding
                                                   Growling
                                                        ­                                       Burning
                                                         ­     Knashing
                                Decaying
        Wa­iling
                                               Devouring
                                                       ­                                       Bloodcurdling
Looking, seeing right through me.
My ceiling fan stirred his viridescent hair;
Pulled at the petals of the rose between his teeth.
His grin grew wider
As the stem's thorns grew longer,
Piercing his raw, red gums.

He came to remind me, it would seem...
Remind me that he still existed.
He wanted to remind me that
He still haunted the sides of my head -
Stirring, kneading my temporal lobes.
Searching the gaze in his eyes, I remembered.

I remembered feeling more worthless than dirt.
I remembered the validation I thought I needed.
I remembered the guilt, shame, and fear.
I remembered feeling like a disgusting, useless ****.
I remembered trying to avoid sending him photos.
I remembered staring at my ceiling,
Sobbing quietly in the night,
Silently screaming within my chest
For help.
To be saved...
By someone, anyone.

But most of all...
But most of all,
I remembered why I couldn't be loved.
Not in that way, at least.
My demon, who for some reason I still cling to,
Reasons that I don't even understand,
Won't allow it.
I blinked, and all but his eyes vanished,
Leaving me with a small thought as opposed to immense fear.
Maybe it's okay that I could never enjoy a partner that way?
Perhaps I could learn to be complacent with that.
Perhaps I could learn to be content with that.

I yawned, chucked my phone aside,
And closed my eyes to sleep.

A sickly entrance, barely breathing,
I'm tiptoeing through viridescent dreams
as silent as envy
like her heart's song for me.
I hummed the lyrics in his ear
but she wouldn't dare whistle the melody.
I was greedy for her glory
a dull emerald in my cheeks,
its beginnings as an ember,
doubling in size: a forest fire,
deciding to swallow her whole.
Slimy tears gather in algae pools
drowning in a lime seaside.
Not the slice in your icy margarita,
but the twist in your taste buds
spitting the seeds into her hands.

“He had hazel eyes and street smarts” She said, smiling ruefully.

“She had viridescent eyes and a guarded heart” He murmured, his eyes shining

“I was leaving in 6 months and he had a troubled soul” She touched her lips as if remembering a kiss

“She smelled like fantasy and tasted like melon lip gloss” He couldn't take his eyes off his hands

“I think he tried to love me,” She said

“I loved her more than anything in the world,” He said

And it's that word: ‘tried’, that gets caught in her throat. She takes a breath and continues.

As if the memory of her was too much to bear, he got up and walked away.

if i became an expanse of sea

would you find my coast a cool place to dip your sorrows, as you     would your toes in insufferable heat

would you thirstily jump to my refreshing depth, looking to soothe and   attend some unbeknownst desire

would you wade to the shallow depth
and fill your cup with my summery libation

would you cast nearby tropical flowers in my tide
watching them swirl with contempt and longing as my waves carry    them aimlessly but gleefully
  
would you flood me with boundless questions,
submerging your mind with my saturating sapience

would you compose timeless billets-doux,
forming the cursive lines from the foam atop my waves

or would you extinguish your cigarette in my lurking , subfuscous waves,
as you shrunk rapidly from my sandy shoreside

would you toss fragments in my whitecaps, getting rid of the things you no longer cared for

or would the swirl of my water dizzy your mind, murkily shrouding your ability to think lucidly

if the wind leads you towards land
or where the deep color of the sky harmonize’s with my iridescence,
try to find slumber in the vespertide

allow the viridescent vapor to ease you in my
thalassic cavern

if you sought other sea’s to soak your searching soul in,
know my desire would not diminish,
but wade in its wishful want

The air was crisp and faintly green
The wind was light, the scene serene.
I gazed upon a sprawling field,
As viridescent waves revealed
A lone black cat, soldiering on.
His eyes as verdant as the lawn.

He strode with purpose, without pause.
He writes his tale with the path he draws.
Black dagger, shimmering bright,
Piercing the grass, a shard of night.

Where was he going with such haste?
What delights of life would he taste?
It did not matter to him nor I,
But he knew a freedom that could not die.

I daydream often of that field,
And of the life that it might yield.
To trot assuredly through lush domain,
The burden of choice all that remains.
To feel the wind upon one’s face,
The grass and sun, a warm embrace.

The black cat’s life proffers this wisdom,
The path is forward that leads to freedom.

Vacant Streets
Barren homes
Concrete rubble scratching beneath my feet
Am I all alone?

Towering viridescent leaved Giants
On the other side of the road
Wind swiftly whispering hollow secrets
Into the grove.

I intently observe the grooved bark of a tree
What species is it?
I don't know, but I would like to know
My eyes scrupulously make their way up to the reaching branches at the very top
Next to this tree I observe is a tree stump
It doesn't look like it was cut with precision, it looked like a flash of unpredictable lightning chopped it right in half
Incapacitating it to no longer grow, ragged shards of raw inner wood
Now blackened with death.
The difference between the stump and the outreaching tree was one proliferated while the other did not due to death.
I felt my heart in my chest and arteries transporting blood to a part of my mind neglected and depressed
As the realization swooshed and then swelled into my heart,
that these conditions of my mind and circumstances were not forever
But temporary lessons
Yes, that's all these bad things are,
Temporary lessons
A tree can be cut but if not cut through all the way to cause death, it will grow around that cut, and everything else about it will eventually become bigger than those few times it experiences pain
The key to all of this was to move forward, grow
With limbs outstretched to the sky.

They dazzle
and dance among
the branches
bright rubies
lively viridescent
frosted blues
and sparkling white
mixed with a golden yellow
that makes the fuzz around
my vision grow

I sit there with you
we can see our breath
dragons amidst the forest
curled to each other,
arms wrapped in one other,
close and warm, hearts beating quick
you look into me again
and I look back.

There it was, my heart
stopping once again
as you gave me that warm look
in those deep, copper eyes.
How could someone look at me
like you do?
I've never felt someone probe so deeply
into my very soul.

"I don't know and I'm afraid to say"
en español, you speak

I huff, waiting for you
but you still say you're afraid

This is the moment
THAT moment
where I look around me
at the sparkling trees
and wonder
how this could even be happening...

and the words
roll off my tongue
like honey off my spoon
and I feel our bodies
sing together, truly,
for the first time.

Abstract shapes of various colours
Congregate against the viridescent canvas,
Ready to worship the thing that was hidden away for so long; arcane.
Prodigious circles of many talents,
A constant rotation of life and death.
A long road with no end.
Or a deep ocean with no beginning?
While the verdency of eau de Nil possess such entities,
The black and yellow striped obscurities peculate life and confer to the triangles.
Obnubilate.

I inter this one along with his brothers and sisters,
All of them dead, wrinkled, dry, and spent--
Then cover their husks with earth
And wait.

Next Wednesday, here they resurrect in bodies
Nothing like the ones I laid to rest.
But greening life unfurling over that same ground that smothered them
Last week.

Where is the seed? I wonder, and digging shows that
It has been consumed by what it started.
Now verdant growth delineates its forgotten
Shallow grave.

And for some time I don’t recall the humble start
To which my viridescent vine’s indebted.
‘Til autumn, when the flower’s passed and pods can shell out in
My hand.

There, held in dusty palm I meet the progeny of
Last spring’s burial--
How like their father, and how many!  Separated by that living vegetable
And time.

“The Seed is the Word” I know. I see it happen
As it plants itself in my soul’s garden patch.
Just words on wrinkled paper, ancient script seems long
Since dead.

But something new grows up in that same spot,
Some living thing that I had not expected
That seems not myself or what had grown there
Before.

It’s not the seed, but somehow hearkens back to my ingestion of
The pages in that dusty tome.
And I forget the exact words that sank into my being until
One day,

When an accusation flies my way--though wrongly hurled
By one who should have loved me.
And my response, unexpected, is not my practiced
Comeback.

What is my deal? I wonder.  Where’s the anger and vexation
I should feel right now?  Why the
Peace I can’t quite understand, and the total lack
Of pique?

Then I see them in my soul, breaking from the pods, thirty, sixty, and
A hundred:  “Great peace have they which love Thy law, and nothing
Shall offend them.”  “ Blessed are ye, when men . . .
Revile you.”

The seed I found in age-old text--now separated by the verdure growing
In my spirit, lush and full--is now
Mature and bearing fruit that looks just like
Its Father.

"But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty."  Matthew 13:23

viridescent vines
cloud my view
of the horizon awaiting me

i'm making my way through
a victorian garden
the fragrance of the many flowers
puts me under a spell

i fall down a winding spiral
and plummet deep in to my heart
it is dark,
within each beat silence reverberates

i'm drinking rosehip tea
it's so pink
rose petals float on top
steam rises to kiss my lips

should i continue to repeat the same mistake?
or take the road less travelled by my heart?
i'll have to venture beyond my habitual vices
i'll have to step out beyond the known

stick my thumb out into the galaxy
catch a ride to my next divine destination
i'll laugh every step of the way
and be okay with the oblivion that saturates my mind
i'll learn to live through my heart,
whole and complete,
spreading love.

It's hidden,
among the thick viridescent vines
It's somewhere just beyond the cumulus clouds
It's tangled within the particles carried in the smoke
exhaled through her pursed rouge lips

It's akin to a polychromatic dragon,
slithering through the boiling concrete like
a rainbow snake

It's a doe, staring at you
Blankly
Absorbing your soul

But you never look into the mirror for too long,
Do you?
Because if you do
You will start falling into yourself
Over and over
through infinite dimensions
Your mind will flip you like a hologram
through cubes rotating
on a conveyor belt
You would lose your body,
momentarily disassociated,
Eternally disconnected

But it's funny you see,
Because I talk in riddles
For you to not quite understand me
The significance is imbued within the images
If you dare contemplate them

It's hidden
Like the soft roll of the sea
tugged gently by the crescent moon
On the sand it's finally quiet,
No more bustling life

Maybe it's hidden
Behind those iridescent sunglasses
Hidden in those concealed eyes,
That concealed heart.