Light but no heat

A mischievous sun,
up too early
and riding low,
he bursts in,
jumping through twin
abandoned panes

to scamper on
a delighted
ceiling, its worth
in crumbled brick.
He skips past kicked
debris, the tagged

walls, he'll now mimic,
dropping down,
bald knees balanced
on fallen pipes
to playful paint
his hued likeness:

a glitter gold face,
speech bubble
attached and crooning
discordant
song of wintry
light, but no heat.

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem is written in response to Read Write Prompt #107: lighting the way at Read Write Poem. This was a photo prompt using the image Shotgun Blast by Shane Gorski.

Beyond

She sees strange lights, hopes
for explanations beyond
the ordinary

Patrick robs

Patrick robs Peter
to pay Paul and rents himself
a new hideaway

Float

It is said, suns rise,
they set. The truth is, we do
with our float and spin.

p.s. This is my 1,000th post to this blog... hurrah!

Pushcart

Pushcart, cobbled from
misfit parts, trundles past to
drop off a present

Green bag

Green bag breathed to life
by fickle wind, arcs then falls
covenant broken

Mirth takes a holiday

Feeling a bit spare
his mirth takes a holiday
to repad its girth

The hoary back turns

The hoary back turns
lush smiles to bemused tundra
a wintry neglect

I can't

I cannot

command a seasoned sun
to shine,
or crowding clouds
to shove aside,

but I can

be thankful when she does
ascend,
and they assent,
cleaving rayed paths

down to me.

Her blue eyes flare red

Her blue eyes flare red
to paint his great pate, and draw
peopled tides closer

A curious drape

A curious drape,
bound by hovering rod,
grown so weary of limbo,
flaps its wide trim,
filling the room
with dawn's restless light

Blood drunk

There wasn't any pain,
no prickle,
nor a tickled pink,
just this worldly feeling
of being pried
to a softer bed,
while twin fangs sank in
and rosy drew out
mere droplets,
planted by the shy
sun's unclotted gleam.
Its golden streams
pulled from primped-up flesh
to fill crimped-down bellows
till they bulged
bronze and round.

There isn't any pain,
no struggle,
nor a muddled shout,
just this bleary-eyed dream
of being led
to a slate-gray patch,
where blood-drunks dodder
and bloated belch forth
queer seedlings
that root at the stray
day's rolled-up edges.
Their crimson creeps
stopped by simple smacks
to spill pimpled oozings
till they sag,
flat and black.

— Francis Scudellari

Last leaf

A lonely last leaf
amber laments lost brothers
its fear, letting go

Black-stomached soil

The black-stomached soil
craves a savory serving
golden leafed decay

Impolite shadow

Impolite shadow's
greedy grasp loosens, over
time grows less troubling

Reveller gale

A reveller gale
mischievous twirling, reveals
trim maple's bare limbs

Molars

Inhabiting smoke
the molar melts, polar capped
to fouled yellow root

Sun slumbers

Sky sifts down soft, white
light hosting, while Sun slumbers
a winter away

Late season's teasing

Late season's teasing
breeze, mirthful birthed by
lake's rolling belly

Passerby stares

His eyes sliding shut
quiet the purple clamor
of passerby stares

My Christmas Wish

I have one Christmas
wish: we'd all let go
our pinch on old grinchy ways
and feel new, magic
unpackaged, unbowed
in gifts of everyday

Unmoored

His life's boat unmoored
he charts a course for unsure
sands on wayward shores

Dull-bladed stare

Dull-bladed stare twists
a quarter turn, to ensure
agony lingers

Odd hop

On narrowing path
he'd taken, destined footfalls
become an odd hop

Close tabs

He keeps close tabs on
the dull and drab, to color
his own misgivings

Fugitive blush

The fugitive blush
chased by a lowering glare
leaps off craggy cheeks

Lime green frog

Lime green frog hops in
the pond's murky brown cocktail
adding twists of slime

Stillness

In its falling,
a white hush
fell on me,

as you hushed me,
"Quiet... ." Still,
in your white,

you wait for this
weighty thought
to break through

the storm's cushion:

"Stillness, I know
may not stay
in your life,

but it will in-
still silence
to linger

in your life, and
remind you
there can be

more, much more still."

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem is written in response to Read Write Prompt #106: Repeat after me at Read Write Poem. The prompt was to practice repetition.

Dali

As mirrors depict
features' drippy slide, he learns
Time paints like Dali

Peppers

He peppers long-stewed proffers,
fresh-ground nods and piquant winks
gently stirred, in hope to prosper

Sunday blew in

Sunday blew in
breezily
popping pinstriped
cuff to bare
a cunning and
ill-cutting
hand,
manicured tips
of rounded
pink extending
to un-shake
my seldom firm,
oft clammy
faith.

— Francis Scudellari

Cheerful flaws

His cheerful flaws
all pause for chats
and chuckling come
to realize
their comity
of errors

Steam

Steam from a vent
as impermanent
as my spent
breath

Ten rigid cypress

Ten rigid cypress
helmeted march through autumn
never once swaying

Wedged in the y

Wedged in the y
of a winter-bared branch
the plump squirrel screeches, then grunts
its oddly coded greeting

Gold Apple

At its very core
his gifted gold apple proved
ucommonly rotten

If I scoured

If I scoured our heaven's
sprawled-out stain,
its light-dusted logic
would leave me
cleansed of flesh and folly

Essence

His molten essence
grown woeful dim, buried in
cotton-cloudy age

Damp-cloth words

Wringing damp-cloth words
she wipes clean his chalky slate,
draws a sharp-edged frown

Ungently

Ungently gone from good
he'll break night's gait
to meet a fate
he hung unstockinged
once upon the tines
of yesterday's forked crossing

Scraps

Scraps of pictured smiles
he picks through, then gathers to
make his Sunday feast

Holiday Cheer

He increases the dosage
pulling tight the strap, but
he still can't quite seem to
inject some holiday cheer

Problems unbalanced

Problems unbalanced
equating, adjust to find
inward solutions

Shaggy head

Scratching shaggy head
he finds a moral buried
with the dark, limp tail

Newbie

A newbie to the north,
she waits for the snow's first fall
so her angels can take wing

Five radiators wake

Five radiators wake
to shake off six months' dust
and whistle steamy
ballads of winter's
ever-soft approach

Gruff grumbles

Gruff grumbles, stubbly stares
donned daunting those wanting
to poke his little-boy heart

Hit

The dolled-up moon may star
in this pierced black reel
sprocketed and spun
to catch our night's lazy
attention, and why not,
what with her curled lip,
her too-precious stare
and her meteor lines
whispered low in the wind
to pull our buzzed ears
a little bit closer
to the telephone,
but don't neglect the trees,
and their stiff-borne backs
abiding far off
our radar, knobby limbs
raised strong to always
offer us support.
Without them, this shell
of a shimmering game,
even when we're best conned,
would never quite hit.

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem is written in response to Read Write Prompt #105: borrowed words at Read Write Poem. This week's prompt came in the form of a demanding 18-word list borrowed from another poem. I managed to fit them all in (click the prompt link to see what they were).

Petal plucked wishes

Petal plucked wishes
she'll toss before her flower
of youth perishes

Recital

A vodka-soaked tongue unspools,
his conveyance for the dazed dance
of early morning lies recital

Porcelain worries

In unbittered blue pools
they stir glass-stemmed flowers
healing her yesterdays
where teacup mouths were scooped
by porcelain worries

Ferrying wind

This ferrying wind
delivers crisp messages
with a stick-tapped code

Subsumed

Striking these stubborn matches,
he melts her
frozen pose, the features too
soon subsumed
into catalogs of loved
forgotten

My eye doesn't despair

My eye doesn't despair
this spare urban sky, black with
possibility

A steaming lake spurns

A steaming lake spurns
winter's immodest advance
slapping at the shore

Runnel plaints

He pens runnel plaints
through snow white stationary
crisp, clean and icy

Day shouts

Day shouts severely
accented, but dusk coos back
in her shaded voice

To their forbidding

To their forbidding
doors, he sneaks and tacks
bombastic lists that tick
off his tactics
for in-word allowing

Suspended Animation

Dear Santa

Seeing how
I haven't seen you now
in more than many while's quite,
I thought I'd write
this letter laden wish,
not big enough to be a list,
as it's just one thing,
and that thing is else no thing,
but a pod. Yes, I wrote pod, but not

any pod
you'd find hanging green
on a bush. I mean those lean
bits of oblong
and white that best belong
in the movies where one's out knocked
and then inside tucked
cozy, waiting for long trips,
or patches too rough, to easy slip

by. I'll glow
in my pod, yellow
digits the ticks down-counting
till zeros sing
alarming doors to whir
and pop, dropping a discovered
when both safely sound
and reanimated found
on the far side of neither's going.

But knowing
you Santa, to be
a bastard red and jolly,
if I know you
at all, then here's my due:
one ragged blanket from Good Will,
some pretty pink pills,
and an unassembled cough
instructing me to "go sleep it off."

— Francis Scudellari

Sponge Cake

Starved for the few words
she never spoke
he molds sponge-cake fancies
to trick his ears full
with sugar-false sounds

Unhappy story

Unhappy story:
an aging after forgets
to follow ever

Armaments

Curious cat's paw
swats at ornaments, launching
red-green armaments

Bluffing

He wagers his last
days loose stacked in tipsy piles
bluffing a smug smile

Half moon hatches

Laid on winter-hardened clouds
a half moon hatches
phantom tides

Many dances

Many dances
festooned in our moment's
finery, while Few waits
patient for the happy
tuning to stop

Cautious flames

Cautious, blue-toothed flames
nibble at damp air, waiting
to leap and swallow

Morning barely breaks

Morning barely breaks
spilling its naked red light
as timid seas blush

Snaky chance slithers

Snaky chance slithers
by tempting a lunge, always
proves too slippery

Gray

Winter's withered hand
dabs at gray palette, painting
sky and ground, alike

Fossil

He would have been much
more docile a student
had the fossil not displayed such
an inviting comparison

Sugary scents

Sugary scents jingle
bells of a late-night's peeking
to trap that red chap
and his cookie thieving

Texture

His coarser consonants
and sharpened vowels
texture flat sermons
carved from hollow scripture

Jingles jangle

Jingles jangle, demanding
he pay more attention,
but his coins are too few
to clang, so they'll cling
instead, pocketed

Whispers

Drifting snow whispers
myths of beauty tricked below,
life held in ransom

December spits ice

December spits ice
picking fights with its blue-white
braggadocio

Calomine

Long-plotted lives, just so
calomine pink and unspoiled
she itches to be more
than a little rash

Crunch

Her cherry red boots
step swiftly through ice-glazed snow
a delicious crunch

Thimbles

Teaching his fingers
to be more nimble,
he practices deception
with a pea and three thimbles

His fears came dressed in

His fears came dressed in
black and white habits, preaching
dogma's denials

Bellicose wind

A bellicose wind
rattles on with mock courage
passive moon frowning

Brooches

She fashions five gold
brooches from acorns and twigs,
then sprinkles them white
with the freshly fallen snow,
hoping for winter's magic

Stripped of its color

Stripped of its color
the black arcing bough poses
chilled, dripping questions

Long employed to serve

Long employed to serve
others' wickedness, he quits
to master his own

dissolving

I may waver
before my wavelengths
soar, gathered from pea-green
depths of bubbling soup,
fully measured
for spoiling.

Invited out
to doubtful places
we each must know, I'll step
blithe not grim, trimmed in
pretty-patterned
suits. Their smear

of plaid-scented
tears splashed with paisley-
flavored sighs, I'll rinse through
herringbone-strained smiles,
as the pinwheel-
peopled years

gargle my garb
fresh for bathing. Then,
to bathe I'll go, striding
on the bric-a-brac
bridge that spans the
forgetting

where I wavered
before my wavelengths
soared, and plunge in to bob
atop chic'ry-swirled brew,
fulfilled measures...

dissolving

— Francis Scudellari

(This is a revised version of the poem that I posted at Flowers of Sulfur a couple days back)

Smudged-on ashes

Smudged-on ashes crossed
inarticulate recall
our long lost causes

Preludes

this thought, preludes a word
this word, preludes a deed
this deed, preludes regret
and that regret,
preludes everything

Her piercing eyes raise

Her piercing eyes raise
an alarm, awakening
love long blanketed

Bared by colluding

Bared by colluding
wind and rain, again two crows
squawk defiantly

Hours upon shadowed wing glide

Hours upon shadowed wing glide
clasping wriggling cares, they'll devour
atop morning's light-bathed crags

Once thick, straight and double yellow

Once thick, straight and double yellow
the lines he hesitated to cross
now curve and stretch
as thin as his prospects

His doubt lingers, two-headed

His doubt lingers, two-headed
gnawing both floor and ceiling
to collapse comfort's redoubt

Amid tangled roots

Amid tangled roots
topped with broken stems, he plucks
her name, flowering

These fell cuts

These fell cuts
rather than weakening
scar over in thickened flaps
to shield against
each following blade

He chased glossy scents

He chased glossy scents
down prescripted paths
to the dearly purchased,
but love and happiness
never happened along.

He triples the dose.

If I could wish...

If I could wish,
I would wish upon
petals not yet plucked
from yellowed guessing

If I could wish,
I would wish upon
furry seeds white-tucked
in breathy nesting

If I could wish,
I would wish upon
stony time's rolled back,
concave-gray jumbling

If I could wish,
I would wish upon
yawning star's stretch, black
tales awkward mumbling

And when I did,
each counted could-be
would be a wished lie
down from undoing

— Francis Scudellari

Glowing proud, this moon

Glowing proud, this moon
boasts its theft, risking the sun's
eclipsing rebuke

Black ink penned on milk

Black ink penned on milk
he writes his beloved
messages instantly lost
in squiggled gray bleeding

Marina

For my mother, on her birthday.

The unexpected

The unexpected
crash of a single raindrop
can topple small worlds

Each successive year paints

Each successive year paints
him thick and clumsy, their brush
strokes smudging once vibrant
detail to a drab sag

His derring-do doesn't

His derring-do doesn't
dare imagine those nevers
beyond timid's reach

The sun dangles red

The sun dangles red
low, prized fruit to tantalize
zig-zagging sparrows

I meet Ingi

I meet Ingi,
stumbling down
from the opposite blend
of a tumbled path
paved with impatient falling
matters.

Nearer,
our split-bottom steps tingle
from the crumbling glass,
as slivered gum-ball ends
spike bronze gowns
of brittle leaves.

We swear to sea,
and shake frowns
till our best parts do bend,
toppling humble hats
where waves diverge, to grow then
flatter.

— Francis Scudellari

When I die, I'll jumble

When I die, I'll jumble
that placard long-posted
at the Inferno's gate

To read, "Enter
here with abandon
all ye who hope!"

Drinking in the evening's black

Drinking in the evening's black
blood, he waddles prone to listing
the many wicked vagaries
of less indulgent imbibers

This oft-stooped sapling

This oft-stooped sapling
stands at attention, ordered
by a martial wind

The musing of her

The musing of her
resurrected smile
provides much needed
morale for his
developing story

Bauble Brothers

Bauble brothers hang red,
one rotund, one spouted,
both made a magenta
melancholy by fog.
Its white whispers nightly,
slipping their bloody seeds
down paper-funnel tales
of supple branches stripped,
and the skin-cracking eyes
coming too soon to cull.

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem is written in response to Read Write Prompt #103: pomegranate at Read Write Poem. This week's prompt was the photo above right (Pomegranate by Nasos3), which has a spooky air about it that I tried to capture in the verse.

His once-was pulled up

His once-was pulled up
treading the asphalt drive, then
slammed back to being

Paralyzed in waiting

Paralyzed in waiting
his fixed stare of broken thoughts
watches numbers creep

Her hurried promise

Her hurried promise
fingers seeking upturned palm
a novice's vow

He's disposed to shed

He's disposed to shed
odd old personalities
each changing season

His disgrace lay not

His disgrace lay not
in straying, but in staying
put when he got there

This is not an elephant

"This is not an elephant,"
he confides to the child
as they oval round
captive creatures foreign
and featured in glassy habitats.

"See those four stout stumps
with their loose-pebble bottoms,
rooting him to the dust-bound earth
where his great girth grows?"
"Do you mean its legs?"

"Then pay attention to the gray
veined fans that swat and sway
to push away midges nibbling
heat into his giant's skull."
"Aren't those just ears?"

"There are twin ivory tines
he uses to stab and dine on
tightly packaged meals
the forest's cunning seals for him."
"I thought they were tusks?"

"Last, note his accordion's
appendage that dangles down
to fleet wrestle and greet
with a snicker or a shout."
"Grandpa, the sign says,

'Elephant'! What do you call it?"
"That's a little tidbit
he's never shared with me,
but I do know him to be
much more than his name."

Ink abiding light

Ink abiding light
a looping quill his religion writes
outward drifting verses
sung by the myriad stars
blended in one choral voice

Spare dollars he spends

Spare dollars he spends
like wishes, promising notes
better homes elsewhere

Never rash, he'll choose

Never rash, he'll choose
to lay down an abandon
fully hatched with reck

Close-knitting snug yarns

Close-knitting snug yarns
to be wrapped in soft comforts
she falls away from the world
its caring seasons
that roll and spin past

A gray lingering

A gray lingering
till sated with earthy sighs
he rains affection

Fitted with this mask

Fitted with this mask
hard chiseled at harsh angles,
he hides the impulse
to be costumed in a veil
of subtly rounded feeling

Our too-brief goodbye

Our too-brief goodbye
echoes, expanding to flood
broad-bottomed canyon

Snoopy

Float away, I would
if I could
be Snoopy,
chewing through
those Broadway bounds

Breathy wisp billows

Breathy wisp billows
then fades, ghostly life spoken
into crisp, cold air

His vital organs

His vital organs
still moist, vittles for vultures
swooping down peckish

Small souls wither

Small
souls
wither.
Docile husks
under-nourished by
his unsubstantiated blood

He runs fingers

He
runs
fingers
through jaundiced
pages, but can't find
a listing for lifting curses

Thought Experiment

I may or may not be:
a posited feline absurdity
curled up on comma paws
inside Herr Schrödinger's booby-trapped box.

Its flask of uncertain
whether smashed to poison my mighty mews
and spew a gray-mouthed cloud
that inky clots neither's sharpening pen.

Entangled buts become
stranded as knots of fuzzy pink yarn send
either-or careening
arm and arm down imperfect pictured paths,

where Epimetheus
stands, ready to wed Pandora anew,
and doom-birth our many
worlds with the lifting of my thousand lids.

— Francis Scudellari

Ten toes tipping

Ten
toes
tipping
the threshold,
unbalanced he leans
back waiting for a strong gust's push

Lids loosed

Lids
loosed
after
stubborn twists,
release captive breath
to mingle with freshening air

I could let go

I
could
let go
people, things
to end these plagues, but
God is in it for the torture

Light had its chance

Light
had
its chance
to woo me.
Darkness seduces
with a kiss of liquid shadow.

Seeing such smooth skin

Seeing such smooth skin,
two eyes and just four limbs, makes
the spider's hide crawl

Am meal at

With a worded trap I'm asked
to verify my human
being by typing
A-M-M-E-A-L-A-T.

I misinterpret that
as, "Am meal at."
Putting down the plastic fork
to key it in,

I wonder out loud,
"Who's about to be
eaten, and where?"
It tells me I passed.

— Francis Scudellari

Done. Been. Held by

Done.
Been.
Held by
the fickle
world, this incessant
turning, I'll flee its gravity

With fork and knife

With
fork
and knife
he devours
the day, relishing
both its sweet and savory hours

The world makes us

This
world
makes us
all killers
inspiring with memes
of the cruelest survival

They take small bites

They
take
small bites
siphoning
bigger drops each night
growing addicted to his soul

Pickled

Pickled on quixotic tonics
he strives for a polyglot's poise,
balancing plaster peas
at the end of his tippler's tongue.

But the rough-surfaced pearls prickle
his too-ticklish bed of pink,
and gulped down, he administers
only a lessoned indigestion.

Flipping the flop, he prevaricates
himself into the tight-fit corners
of a parallelogram traced
by unsolemn processionals

bedecked in platitudinous finery.
Their porous smirks drip sticky
reminders of a plethora
of previously pernicious exercises

and dampen his fluffy ambition,
prodding procrastinations until
his drunken promise dries out
to become a posthumous wish.

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem is written in response to Read Write Prompt #101: p-p-p-poetry at Read Write Poem. There are a total of 13 p-word prompts, and I used all of them (plus a few extras of my own for seasoning).

He waits

He
waits
at death's
door, transfixed
by ornate knocker

He buys his hats

He buys his hats
too wide and his books
too heavy hoping
the volume
will expand his mind

Charting the distance

Charting the distance
of waved travels, he cycles
back upon himself

Straying's Wish

Disenchanted, this slanted floor
whispers to me
through its tightly clenched slats.
Cranky tales of failed

first steps, I tip-toe past,

unflappable. End tables mock
my walk-by dare,
mouthing weak-coffee moans
from wood-grained circlets. Stains

surface, I sidle on,

as their knots fade. A lean-to shade,
the lamp tilts up
shadows with blunted beaks.
Clipped wings flapping deep-toned

airs, my unsettling makes

falsetto. Vents hiss librettos
to dissuade me
with their combed-over notes.
Forced-upon causes, pause

to caress fleeing ought,

envied. Wood shutters crack mutters
to trick a gaze
from pictured window's bliss.
Vagrant clouds cross crowds

of stars, my straying's wish.

— Francis Scudellari

He may have fallen

He may have fallen
by foolish pride
but it's the bitter
memory of what he once was
that keeps him from ever
getting back up

Thick-leaf canopy

Thick-leaf canopy
humble and temporary
my loaned umbrella

His life's span measured

His life's span measured
half the distance between real
and imagined shores

Compromise becomes

Compromise becomes
easier after your soul
has finally fled

Tracing mirrored routes

Tracing mirrored routes
he calculates scaled-down miles
crafty age has mapped

Her mismatched legs dance

Her mismatched legs dance
to lonely rhythms, sweeping
elliptical paths
I follow, my eyes searching
the hard wood floors laid above

Wispy headed snake

Wispy headed snake
twists and glides through dusted blue
browning its belly

She cocoons herself

She cocoons herself
nightly, woolen wrapped
and awaiting daylight's again
to search her back
for nubs of wings, sprouting

Dreamscapes cluttered

Dreamscapes cluttered
with baubles and toys
his mechanical eyes can't clutch
lifting up filled
but only by waking

A spare marble tossed

A spare marble tossed
across this blue velvet sea
arcs to the morning

False-flattering clouds

False-flattering clouds
gauzy stroke the moon's pocked cheeks
snick'ring at its grin

Door swings open

Door swings open, dis-
covers loving fraught with im-
possibility

I'll robot

As my illogic breaks, I'll robot make
to be this soul's chamber,
robbing a piecemeal joy from misfit toys
tossed out for fine tuning

by toddlers cheery mad to gorge on fads.
I'll take their T-Rex head,
with droopy lids that wink as if to drink
the world's wide-shallow stares,

plug its plastic prongs in torso of tin
while twin squeeze-box arms splay
to tie magnetic bows round pads below
gold, plush lion cub's legs.

This moppet of mixed breeds I'll learned feed
with animate cunning
to be ruled by charmed laws that give it pause
when whole-sum circumstance

tangles fuzzy circuits. Then a circus-
wire's unbalancing act
I'll paste from templed flesh to doll enmeshed
by transfuse rigging,

and as coil comes to slough, just as I'm off,
I'll flip that gilded switch,
implanting my spirit into a bit
of copper-hued country.

His weekly transform

His weekly transform
sluggish to mercurial
by quicksilver shots

After the buggy debacle

After the buggy debacle,
crawling cabinet cascade
jeopardizing his larder,
he ditched swatter stopgaps
to pursue insecticide's purer forms

His broad grin

His broad grin shows off
the new missing tooth he paints
as sporty black stripe

The go-round

The go-round never
made merry for him.
Its lacquered yellow horses
and their creeping,
glazed-eye grins.

He glares desert heat

He glares desert heat
life belly slides, crawls behind
thin shadows, cool nooks

Her pulled-up corners

Her pulled-up corners
a public moment's whimsy
drooping back at home

Crow's harsh caw mocking

Crow's harsh caw mocking
my right-angled walk, it cuts
winged hypotenuse

My scratchy tissue

My scratchy tissue
can't catch the gook graying
lucy's chetstnut eye
so Albert paws in
his nimble tongue obliging

Brazen-minded breeze

Brazen-minded breeze
tugs at the sun's cotton robe
eying his nude blush

A wounded beauty

A wounded beauty
early pierced, too often drawn
by ill-caring hands,
wary of his gentler touch
turns away, stabbing two hearts

Birthed in tumult's core

Birthed in tumult's core
journey becomes choice, which path
to radiate through

More bird on a wire

More bird on a wire
than yo-yo on a string
he clings to the warming
vibrato of her
whispers texted nightly

Stormy ushers shove

Stormy ushers shove
tip-toe stumbles through curtains
half-parted amber
falling against red cushions
arrayed in a fragrant chill

His immense problems

His immense problems
best captured through a peep hole
bottle tilted back

Fall's red-cheeked bluster

Fall's red-cheeked bluster
extending loud courtesy
slams the door behind

Egg-Chicken

Egg-chicken, chicken-egg
however I lay it
my logic always cracks

Romance thirsting eyes

Romance thirsting ears
imbibe her treacly voice, its cloy
a disheartened quench

Jogging autumn gusts

Jogging autumn gusts
fit and trim, push their way through
leaves crowding branches

Her polished lapis eyes

Her polished lapis eyes
set beneath spun gold,
a stare too precious
for me to fix

Mock-rock globe

Mock-rock globe spinning
he pokes at the tan-green blurs
a one-wish ticket

Slender digits lured

Slender digits lured
technology's needling bite
fluid self transfused

His waking coiffure

His waking coiffure
shaped by pillows and static
a cockatoo's crest

Glutton eyes binge on

Glutton eyes binge on
imaginary fillips,
avid to jostle
a brain grown weary trying
to stem their unthinking bloat

Carnival's Valor

Two amorously leaning props,
they duel to woo her,
a far-glowing mistress,
with their neon spins
and flash-bulb reels
that burn untempered torches
against the black-lit night.

The first flings his golden lines,
tracing over-stated claims
to crowned velocities.
The next, more simply,
rolls a sapphire eye
in an unblinking hope
of whirled persuasion.

All the while above,
their cratered princess,
attracted to much more
subtly fired revolutions,
looks down in yellowed yawns,
unimpressed at their boasting
a carnival's valor.

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem is written in response to Read Write Prompt #98: Whee! at Read Write Poem. The challenge was to use a photo prompt (click the link to see the image), which I interpreted in my usual strange way.

My sign of the times

My sign of the times
teetered slowly down the sidewalk
a discounted pizza box
balanced precariously
on her head

I changed my part

I changed my part
from right to left
not to better my look,
but to skip over
this rut

Homunculus

Plump-fully fleshed, it sits
to me not unlike
a cloth of sacked potatoes,

though it's so pinkly dripped
and more misshaped
in its stranger bulgings.

This would-be man's clubby arms
and double-stubbly legs
tacked onto a drooping goop

that he eyelessly affords to
flap and flop around,
as a foundling seeking

its comfort's sorting out.
His sweet-meat rolls,
and summery salted stumbles

lead him to the final fall;
a downward folly
lacking its expected thud.

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem is another one inspired by a dream. It was, needless to say, a strange and disturbing one, and I've softened it up quite a bit here.

We often bemoan

We often bemoan
fleshed fates we've been dressed without
trying another

My choices fall

My choices fall
in do's small
drops,

each splashed no-doubt
kicking out
dust

to carve a did.
Then crooked
rills

of when converge,
timely surge
back

to push my why.
Blue-tossed I
lifts

up on white-capped
and oft-happed
am;

was carried down,
struggling drowns.
My

now, cleansed by here,
is no mere
chance.

Staked in blood-red ire

Staked in blood-red ire
she paints her face ghoulish white
a moody re-vamp

Pulling its blade from stilled flesh

Pulling its blade from stilled flesh
he touches the weeping
tool that bends his once
too-simple faith

His daily drip of words

His daily drip of words
become a gushing leak,
he shaves the faulty pate,
heads off to nearby shop
fetching, a tarry patch

Coiled care's deadened weight

Coiled care's deadened weight
sliced by tempered hand, soul lifts
cerulean bliss

Choppy blade strokes churn

Choppy blade strokes churn
downward flows from source to mouth
clarity muddied

Back to Belly

I'm finally returning to my short story Belly, which I abandoned early this year after posting the first four chapters. I'm going to start anew with a revised prologue below, and I hope to post at least one chapter a week... but don't hold me to that.

Prologue: A Circular Journey

It starts and ends here: The heavy head of a man, who is perhaps too cleverly named, jumps skyward as if it were tugged by a puppeteer’s unmeaning and graceless twitch.

The man is called Jonas. That’s a variant of Jonah, and this is, after all, a tale of bellies.

The invisible hand behind the tugging is the jostling force of Jonas’s week-linked commuter train. The tethered box in which he’s nestled is the first belly of this narrative, and it carries him halfway along its circular journey. It’s a trek often punctuated by fits, false starts, and sudden stops, and one such regularly irregular interruption pulls Jonas from a dreamless sleep, punching up his ragdoll’s chin to bring him gasping back into its interior.

First to wake are his limpid blue irises, which struggle to emerge between black-lashed lids, straining against the flood of pallid light. His nicely rounded ears, more prominent for the lack of hair surrounding them, rouse next rudely reconnected to crashing waves of cartoonish sounds as the mechanical beast regains its stride. Last to stir are the nostrils of a rather plain nose, which flare to gulp some fueling air then spit back the pungent smell of perspiration, mixed with wet wool.

“What time is it?”

These whispered words, voiced as an aside, cue Jonas’s left arm to lift up, but, so long wedged against the steel wall, it misses its mark. A livelier right hand, eager to assist its fellow player, leaps their lapped divide and massages the deadened flesh. It’s a lovely and successful gesture, and the blood gradually returns, bringing with it pricks of tiny needles.

This first dramatic stumble gotten past, the action proceeds as scripted. The left arm rises dutifully and its opposing hand slides back a pale blue cotton cuff to reveal two silver strips spread like an open scissors attacking the white disk.

“Seven o’clock still, but that can’t be.”

If his eyes and memory don’t betray him, and after the arm-lifting mishap he can’t rule out their collusion, time’s usually steady gait had limped to a halt and then reversed path back to the moment icy winds ushered him onto this round-about. Or, it could be the watch. Jonas taps the glass crystal, but it offers no signs of life.

The rounded square of a window, backed by an early winter morning’s confounding darkness, gives him no clues either to his place in this oft-repeated story’s book.

“It doesn't matter.”

Suspended inanimate within these vibrating walls, Jonas lets the wash of artificial light and heat coax him back to unconsciousness. The troubling city sprawled out below him fades further into the black. His once-sharp calling recedes with it to the indistinct mumble of words spoken long ago, far away, and in a forgotten tongue.

Overcome by sleep’s welcome eraser, Jonas’s shoulders slump and his head nods, their controlling strings severed anew.

Burgundy seed pods

Burgundy seed pods
in honey locust dangle
bumpy lobes curling
anxious for fall's first strong tug
and the peace of raked earth beds

Playful finger smears

Playful finger smears
chalky smiles across gray slates
lifting somber face

Distance

In the heat-tricked mirror, he sees
crafty miles creep up with vital intent,
toeing waved lines.

A pair of vultures glide in lean routes,
marking bold exes across the grain
of age-stained charts.

Their sudden runs on scented organs
made with strong swoops to fleshy thresholds
of life's tipping.

He discovers in this scaled calculus
that distance, moist but listing, travels
in taut cycles.

It can't defeat the curse of lifting
unbalanced loads with back pushed against
jaundiced fingers.

Ten peckish tips, waiting for victuals
they smell buried in gusty legends
of cornered maps.

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem is written in response to Read Write Prompt #97 at Read Write Poem. The challenge was to use the "cut-up technique" of picking words at random. I used words from five recent haiku and short poems, so its a cut-up plus a mash-up. The result is pretty abstract.

The world may refuse

The world may refuse
words I toss out, more refuse
atop littered piles
but this trash, offered humbly
is my only true treasure

Turntable: Regret

This is part two (you can read Part I: Love is here).

Turntable
By Francis Scudellari

II. Regret

slips through, skipping over hairline scratches
etched by fitful nudges. The crooned once-so

simple and soulful, become fragile when
poised on wound-up platter. Needling him back,

that night their conversation broke to-be,
and was followed with a pause, he stretches

on each wobbly replaying. Then picked up,
he'll tuck it back in a wax-paper sleeve

corner-chopped to stash among discounted
bins of ballads rhyming her without him.

Your opinion

I truly value
your opinion, it's just that
I like mine better

Crickets

I hear now my
youth's crickets call
in the chirped hitch
of an overhead fan
or the high-pitch spin
of an idling engine.
The everyday reminds
I may have strayed
nearing too far.

No mere pin-prick

No mere pin-prick
on indigo veil, she hovers.

A wink each night in southern sky
burning through this big city haze
to re-assure me, I'm not
utterly alone.

Nostalgia's fluffed sponge

Nostalgia's fluffed sponge
dabs a cracked past's weepy spills
staining as it sops

Back-door alley's soundtrack

Back-door alley's soundtrack:
the one-note songs
of trucks shifting
into reverse
above, an arrhythmic beat
as pigeons take to wing

After School

Backed against an unclean slate,
this teacher, much more preacher,
vowelizes her vague threats
with a dry-throated croak: "I'll learn
you both to behave, or else!"

A one-eyed stare sawed in two
shows that she means vehemence,
tying down small-town thrashers
in the straight-jacketed comport
of a well-raised progeny.

Their permafrosted pause firms
the footing for lessoned spells
that had giggled on the brink
of insolent "Chelations"
and its indecent relations.

But this light-bubbling silence
irresistibly explodes
in a "Cosmoramic" spray
of sophomoric rhymes – soapy
language tickling her upturned no's.

"One more outburst ..." and she'll make
twin reprobates rinse away
too-capricious grunts and groans,
exulting in the power
of a well-placed investment:

her overtime, their effort.

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem is written in response to Read Write Prompt #96: spam, spam, spam at Read Write Poem. The fifteen "Wordle" prompts, taken from spam e-mails, are italicized. I used the motif of a spelling lesson to avoid having to write lines that made sense of the words Chelations and Cosmoramic (whose definitions bred more confusion than clarity).

A frustrated sun

A frustrated sun
wishes for hands, to rend clouds
stealing his kisses

Inspirational Bloggers

My friend Jena has just published a new book called "Inspirational Thoughts and Stories of Bloggers from All Over the World" that features one of my pieces. It's a compilation of works by 27 different bloggers and authors hailing, as the title indicates, from around the globe. To read more about this anthology, and to order yourself a copy, visit her GewGaw Writings site. With the quality of its contributors, it's well worth the money.

A dark, bloated cloud

A dark, bloated cloud
caught in lake's bounded mirror
pushes drifting thoughts
to float sinister tiding
shaped as his own swelling corpse

Wooden mask

Wooden mask slipped off
face carved wicked revealing
god's crueler knife

Turntable: Love Is

This is the first piece of what I plan to be a four-part poem. Unfortunately the next three are still just vaguely shaped at this point. I'll post the remaining pieces here as I finish them, and then the fully assembled work at my main site (FrancisScudellar.Com).

Turntable
By Francis Scudellari

I. Love is

a two-headed hook, that bobs as she toes
this cunning line. It cuts through the muddy

reverb of a wax-spun groove, swirling round
tar-black to reach the Day-Glo hypnosis

at its center. A trembling voice tucks in
among the hiss and crackling pops. Echoes

found as her left arm floats, extending
a turntable's journey to spiral back

on that jumble of a first rainy day
they met, dripping in the coffee shop's queue.

Halfway up the hill

Halfway up the hill
after many trips, he asks
"why the fuss, Sissy?"

With tender kisses

With tender kisses
her lips blot away, his doubts
spilling from cracked brow

Waking on clear white sands

Waking on clear white sands
teeming with black dots a-scurry
to surround his giant's frame,
it dawns on him Swiftly,
he's read this tale before...

Forgotten glimpses

Fogotten glimpses
bubble up from decay's dream
airy traps catching
roll-back words in filmy shells
lines warped by a fish-eye lens

East of the Sun

I often try to sing of penciled landscapes
where we two might meet.
My clumsy words hatching crumpled rocks
to top a barren line,
and in between their gaps, thick trunks I sketch,
to sprout bouquets
of vibrant green. But I give these trees too much
life, too much choice,
missing you, they pull up their roots and escape
the page to run

East of the sun,
And west of the moon,
We'll build a dream house
Of love, dear;

down mirrored corridors.
The future and familiar trade steely gaze,
as wooden crowds lead
in fruitful chase, pointing my not-belonging
eyes toward stainless pods;
squat glowing bellies lined with leather laps
where I could slip, nestle
and pillowed watch digits whirl backward,
dialing a piped-in lilt,
my lullaby to a past that trips its way

Near to the sun in the day,
Near to the moon at night;
We'll live in a lovely way dear,
Living on love and pale moonlight.

across black-and-white tiles. Instead I dodge
as I skip-dance through
dozens of mechanical players, lounging
above carved pieces,
hand-painted with perplexing stares. These
salt-and-pepper pawns
I grab and toss shoulder-ward, unsettling
over-recked games not fit
for the fancied fix I place on distant cracked
pedestal. Then, a stray

Just you and I, forever and a day;
Love will not die, we'll keep it that way.

among banqueted queues
of chattering guests, who ivory arrayed
wait beneath vaulted glass,
I see your finery's smile beyond them,
with pen poised atop
my hard-bound tale of tender leaves. The ink
on cream, once-written
you tear, so that together we can fold
papyrus sail boats
homeward pushed by a shared breath's slow unwind

Up among the stars we'll find
A harmony of life, too lovely, too.
East of the sun and west of the moon, dear,
East of the sun and west of the moon.

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem is written in response to Read Write Prompt #95: The poetics of the mash-up, by celebrity poet Matthew Hittinger at Read Write Poem. Of the suggested mash-up techniques, I chose to mix a poem I was working on with the lyrics from a song.

The poem takes as its inspiration an actual dream sequence I had, which was a bit of a mash-up in itself. There was some very sudden scene-shifting, and it included a piped-in recording of "East of the Sun" as sung by Billie Holiday (and those are the lyrics interjected here). I tried my best to make the dreamy bits a lot more coherent, while preserving the metaphorical quality of the experience.

His close-covered eyes

His close-covered eyes
dodge appointed jabs and thrusts
dawn's glad-jousting sun

Tension curls

Tension curls up on his couch
a triggered comma, waiting
to uncoil with the phone's next
blasted ringing out

Fall(en) Leaf

Late summer wind

Late summer wind
whispers of coming decay
its warm breath on blushed cheeks
tickling out thoughts
of a last sun-splashed fling

Watery time flows

Watery time flows
radical patience toppling
vanity's build-up

I can't help...

"I can't help but feel"
is a phrase
I can't help but torture,
prying out
that rooted "but"

Or gently stabbing
a daggered comma
in between
its yawning gap

Still, the words
always leave me
feeling helpless

— Francis Scudellari

Leaf transformed to fire

Leaf transformed to fire
mimes our slow-burning journey
then falls, exhausted

Bitter-syrup stares

Bitter-syrup stares
he spoons around, milky gray
eyes, wide yet shallow

A demagogue takes

A demagogue takes
world's embrace, while Cassandra
gets an ill-turned back

Transfixed by pulsing

Transfixed by pulsing
in streams of soft red, he waits
trafficked and blinkered

Per-happy Spins

His present stands up —
a back-turned red,
round-blade shoulders held
high — ribbon proud,
but ever so prone
to be toppled,
heels-over-head twirled
by counting past.

Such flippancy
can't unfix the stare
of his future,
posed cottony white.
Two o'clock looms
less distinct, not less
vulnerable
to per-happy spins.

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem is written in response to Read Write Prompt #94 at Read Write Poem. This week's challenge was to take inspiration from Thomas Hawk's photograph "My Angel and My Devil" (above).

My sigh lifts up

My sigh lifts up
to join with clouds, touching
to bring down, soft rain
to re-nourish, this soil

From dust to dust

"From dust to dust" we go,
they say, but I
prefer to dream
a trip "from soil to cloud"

A quick note: Bye, Bye Entrecard

If you aren't familiar with what Entrecard is, you can stop reading beyond this sentence. If you are, then please continue.

For those of you who visit this blog solely to "drop" your cards, I have some bad news. In the next couple days I'll be removing the widget. Most of you probably won't even read this post, so it won't matter. I added the widget as a way to build traffic to this site, but I always had mixed feelings about that situation.

I've met some very interesting and worthwhile bloggers through the service, but it's gotten to the point now that most of the traffic I receive from it is "artificial" and therefore meaningless to me. No matter how much it inflates my numbers, there's no point in attracting visitors who neither care about nor read what I actually post.

If you are one of those who visit in appreciation of the actual content, I thank you. I've tried to add as many of you as I can to my Google reader, and I'll keep tabs on you through it.

There's also Twitter, which is a much more useful tool to building traffic, in my opinion. If you have an account there, please let me know and I'll gladly follow you.

Obsessed with endings

Obsessed with endings
he flips to final pages
savors the summing
then flops back where it started
hoping words and deeds connect

Quarter moon's sad gaze

Quarter moon's sad gaze
tilting blue toward the sea,
a too-distant love
whose foamy caps leap, aching
to console her waxing loss

Dyslexic Dosido

These letters dance, spun too fast,
hopping spaces, changing places,

coming apart, re-assembling
in dyslexic dosido.

Their glee-filled, false steps kick aside
punctuation's too-stern stops,

undoing its stressful beats,
with a quick slip, dip and elide.

They make meaning a mean thing,
dressed loose in flimsy flowered shift,

and force my eyes to linger long,
caressing its rounded shape.

— Francis Scudellari

His scar's sleek, scored lines

His scar's sleek, scored lines
steel rails slicing back through fog
to knife point's menace

Men become monsters

"Men become monsters"
our fictions concocted to salve
open, weeping sores,
to distract the haunted, hollow eyes
lost in watching shallow gravesides

Go along to get

Go along to get
along, the dropping off point
empty cul-de-sac

Her whispers, soft cast

Her whispers, soft cast
hook my cornered mouth, reeling
in a mirrored smile

Nether Realms

No thumb-printed squish or slippered swat
will I ill-fit as fate
to the various bugs so very engaged
in vertical creeps, horizontal crawls
and diagonal scurries
from baseboard to ceiling to jamb.

It's not that I'm a coward, cringing
at the prospect of spilled goop
(it does curdle my stomach)
or an insect mahatma
committed to non-violent displacements
(they always find their way back).

This keeping of six-legged fascination
has an even odder bent:
I tolerate roommates of small
and exo-skeletal sort (rent free, of course)
because their nightly prances
enhance my fancy with tallish tales.

On dozing lobe, barbed forelegs unfurl
notes scanned by faceted eyes,
their jagged beaks propping then dropping
sibilant syllables to be carried
on stereo cilia strumming
the tympani of my inner ear.

Their droned odes sing of minute kingdoms,
each clique in turn surveying:
spiral stairways sculpted from red clay;
ornate thrones wood-worked in stump and root;
dangling silk hammocks spun on airy heights,
a reward for stealing flowered kisses.

This entrancing Royal's ransom promised
to me in simple exchange:
I let them traffic through cabinets, walls
and drawers, all the time plotting
how to populate and expand a bit
further their swarming, nether realms.

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem is written in response to Read Write Prompt #93: Make it a Whopper at Read Write Poem. The challenge was basically to build a tall tale out of a lie or lies.

Sacrificial flesh

Sacrificial flesh,
fire-licked, spits its fatty drips,
riles moody embers
crackling out an acrid smoke
to entreat wayward idols

Electrical cord

Electrical cord
uncoiled strikes a languid pose
its fangs unvenomed

Mocking shadows tug

Mocking shadows tug
ragged cuffs of worn-out eyes
guide sidelong glances
to stitch tightly patterned stares
patching ghostly absences

One lonely star

One lonely star set
within a cobalt sea, blinks
its sad tale, leaving

Captive Wave

What would a frog want?

Ever-after wishing
for magical

transformations, and
one to follow

closely, by the book,
she rolls lace sleeves,

plunging icy hands
into pond's brown

murk, with a talent
for fetching out.

Finger-wrapped, fearing
pursed leather lips,

her slime-green captive
gives squirmy croak:

"What would a frog want
to do with you?"

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem is a "fractured fairy tale" inspired by a spam email I received with the subject line of "What would a frog want with you?"

Ink and blood mixed

Ink and blood mixed, smudged
Newspaper rolled, tossed aside
six-legged murder

Clad in thicket's mail

Clad in thicket's mail
thwarted wounding finds a way
to gnaw, inside out

Today demands

Today demands
I change
everything, but tomorrow
always sits, cross-
legged, patiently
waiting

Her closeted pain

Her closeted pain,
a ruby talisman
she pulls out for falling dusk
its thumbs rubbing facets, to wish
a gentler awakening

Scofflaw Christ

A scofflaw Christ, he mounts the wrought
balcony to sermonize between bites of fruit.

His musty words cast out, over
an impoverished lot, its multitudes lost
among clumps of grass, weed and clover.

This day's gospel topic: the waiting-to-be
attitudes of a conformist flock he extols
from their meeker paths in vague hope
to inherit a less unkempt earth.

Black rail receiving the leaned weight
of narrow hips, this mock Jesus extends only
one arm, and with graceful arc tosses
a twice-bitten plum, to bounce and roll
where his disciples might some day stand.

Till that coming time, when craned necks await
his offerings to remedy sleeping hungers,
these peels, husks and wrappers of half-eaten
confections, his pittances, will lay in stead,
as he withdraws from reverie's limelight,
to a kitchen well-stocked with sweetness to impart.

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem is written in response to Read Write Prompt #92: Word Gems at Read Write Poem. The 13 words from the challenge are italicized to ease their spotting.

Undiscerning tongue

Undiscerning tongue
held and bitten too often,
lures the incisors
to pink meat for a hard chomp.
Its lopped-off tip flopping free

A Toady Haunt

The bathroom faucet drips hurried footsteps,
carrying him back to dappled wood buried

in repeated dreams: a brushed ritual
circle hasty ringed by displaced logs, bark bit

by lichens; their sacrilege tools — hammer's
rotted-wood grip, nails with rusty shafts — littered

about a stump-altar where brothers met,
made not-so-secret sacrifice, to abash

their god; still suffering toad, random
picked to endure this mock passion play ending

on cross-tied twigs. Its yet resurrected
eyes stare at him, ask simple but damning "why?"

No Samaritan, good or bad, among
pretend Romans, ever stayed their hands to help.

— Francis Scudellari

---

This is my second poem (finally) written in response to Read Write Prompt #91 at Read Write Poem.

The trapped candle's blushing

The trapped candle's blushing
light escapes its cracked
crystal, tinting the gold
caps on his irregularly
stacked teeth an eerie red

Brad awaits the blow

Brad awaits the blow
gracefully, but when it falls
awkward, the neck kinks

Two Souls: Gathering

I finally was able to complete the next installment of my cycle Two Souls, Twin Lives (a title I may eventually change).

IX. Gathering
By Francis Scudellari

Two legs find horizons
cracked-wide, the hours
of likened now made unlike
when, heavy cloaked
in thickets' hair-cloth prickling,
she-he slip out
into lusty gatherings
of clutched sticks fixed
with sharpened stones, prancing
down hooted trails
painted fresh by scents, singing
of sun-drenched tang,
slain muscle torn from bone

Taxed computer fan

Taxed computer fan
choked by age and dust, labors
with more clunk than whir

Tiny explorers

Tiny explorers
equipped with twirled antennae,
hard shells, grippy legs
squeeze through crevices, scale walls,
reach for human peeks

Waxed black floss

Waxed black floss, sharp-edged
cuts crooked nose from curled lips:
a facial fraction

Love's spectral faces

Love's spectral faces
refracted in each splashed drop
of a sunkissed rain

Mere Kids

Mere kids, we probe the distant
sky, anxious to touch
glimmers of a wink, peaking
out from rain-dropped curtains,

their slow thinning, allowing
pale fingers to rip
glad gaps through which we tumble
as we plunge from sliding glass

doors smudged with our fingerprint
smiles. Mere kids, we skip
slippery slopes, trail run-off's
trickle down to bubbling beds,

careless steps raising sweet scents,
the decay of leaves
and years falling away thick
from a canopy's stout arms,

criss-crossed rays sneaking through, hatch
us to muddy ponds
breathing out black, buzzing clouds,
then drinking in an unseen

pursuer disguised in plops
and ripples. Mere kids,
we muck bent knees to spread small
hands chasing backward crayfish,

who scurry red-brown under
slime-licked rocks, too poor
cover against nimble eyes,
as armored backs with pinched claws

we snatch and drop into jars
sealed shut with clear minds,
plastic moments stretched to last
an over-fancied lifetime

— Francis Scudellari

---

This poem was written in response to Read Write Prompt #91 at Read Write Poem. It was a bit of a challenge for me, and there's another draft poem from the exercise that I'll try to post soon.

Heart-hungry shadow

Heart-hungry shadow,
love's drawn-out silence, blinding
as fire, it consumes

Trash

Gun metal gray,
this pigeon grasps
at current strung black
across a brick-
bounded back alley

edgy eyes on
uneven piles—
disposable
artifacts of people
caught in-between—

it trills its plea,
a directionless
directive to throw
away smaller,
more edible, trash

—Francis Scudellari

Still supple necks

Still supple necks strip

to beseech the reaper's blade

inclining to tempt

his crescent keenly purposed

to sever their spectre's stalks

Rock spine's arched crumbling

Rock spine's arched crumbling

looms at warped, gnawed planks' end

thresholds to forgot

Steely beaked cranes

Steely beaked cranes swoop

to pluck shallow souls lost in

dreaming's swift current

Prompted: My song to fire

This Is My Song To Fire
By Francis Scudellari

This is my song to fire
imagined gods, tipping the balance
of an eight-pointed star;
spirited tongues that orange-blue dance

lost stories of ancient's
mother whose land-distending belly
gave violent blood birth,
spitting forth choleric streams to crawl.

Molten fingers capped by
cruel mouths, gurgle cryptic paths down
humped and wooded back, till
reaching the lip of a plunging slope,

their fierce heads droop, roiling
limpid pools to release snake-coiled steam
and entreat ill-favors
from a jealous, flood-fathering moon.

This is my song to douse
fancied demons, speeding the tumble
of an eight pointed star;
frenzied frolics to blur waking myths.

---

This poem was written in response to Read Write Prompt #90 at Read Write Poem. The challenge was to take inspiration from a photo of a street performer balancing a metal frame tipped with eight flames (click the prompt link above to see it).

Heaven's lidless eye

Heaven's lidless eye

drinks deep velvet scapes, eager

to taste liquid sparks

Hour-swept stage

Hour-swept stage, bare-faced

follows uncounted costumed

bows, taken before

a fixing flood's painted gaze

washes bound acts to pale light

Unborn

She's there, I'll find her, hasty
piecing together
this twilight's sparkling
caught in splintered hazel shards
I gather close, then spin to

cast kaleidoscope stencils
of stained eyes, dripping
twin-hearted hours, glass
tears slipping away, snapping,
spilling out timeless

grains push-pulled by moistened breaths
to dune round lank reeds
clutched in shallow sipping
the clouded puddles
of a leaky shore. That's where

I'll be, dipping abandoned
shells I'll put to ear
to listen for the whispered
tides baring see-saw fables:
her life, still unborn.

— Francis Scudellari

Lid of mottled grays

Lid of mottled grays
snapped tightly over, casting
moods to scuttle by

In that voided space

In that voided space
where mingling, light and dust danced
then fled, long-ago
heavens slowed by age, collide
a dull thud, low-pitched echoes

Low, milky vapors

Low, milky vapors
raised by the sun's softened tears
sprawl across paved stones
hissing wispy blue ballads
of their head-consuming tales

Twin hourglass tears drop

Twin hourglass tears drop,
snap to spill out timeless grains
wish-filled accounting

Chasm's sculpted edge

Chasm's sculpted edge, poised
turquoise calm pooled below, tempts
foolish leaps, joy's falls

Sadie

Blind night offers

Blind night offers end-
less forms, spirits swirl till switched
light sets its boxed traps

We all go round in circles

By Francis Scudellari

"We all go round in circles,"
science has weighed in.
Its confusion-clear voice
lithely concluding:

Leave us to walk blindfolded
in a clueless traveling,
going far enough, we'll end
where we started.

That may not surprise,
all of us tied down so long
to this marbled mother-sphere's
endless spinning,

but if science recalibrated
to measure perhaps,
it would find our orbits
are elliptic

and, like the greater bodies,
our movements, a revolving;
pulled around by someone, or
something, we love

This poem was written in response to Read Write Prompt #89 at Read Write Poem. The "challenge" is to take a news headline as inspiration. For mine, I used the story We all go round in circles by Emma Woollacott.

Not a haiku

This poem might have
seventeen syllables, but
it's not a haiku

Knobbed twigs, puppet arms

Knobbed twigs, puppet arms
string-pulled to a snared center
tap out glassy rhythms

Silence's blank weaves

Silence's blank weaves
haircloth coves, sanguine pricking
beads of when, why's drops

And an alternate take...

Silence - woven blank
rough-spun cloth draping, pricking
beads of when, why's drops

I prefer the first, others seem to like the second. Feel free to weigh in through comments...

Warm and Fuzzy

There are those moments
warm and fuzzy, when
walking my fawning pugs,
Albert pushes that flat,

wet nose to nuzzle
the muzzle of his house-mate
Lucy, as if to say:
"Hi, and bye the bye,

I'm always right here!"
After seven years, each
time he reaches for her,
I still smile and sigh.

— Francis Scudellari

If I could steal it

If I could steal it
your sadness, I'd swallow it
whole and deep, keep it
where blind, trapped, never would it
twist its dark ways back to you

Rushing low whispers

Rushing low whispers
gurgle of foreign lands, push
away loose pebbles

Sky splashed blood-orange

Sky splashed blood-orange
awe strikes the waking earth mute
webbed eyes still glued, shut
till one warbling voice sings out
a silent needing, broken

Unsugared absence

Unsugared absence
lumped in quick-gulped memories
turns a full stomach

A kissed randomness

This is another poem born of a structured randomness. The words were mostly provided by the Twitter Magnets Web application, but I embellished, smoothed and stretched them out. I think of it as a variation on the idea of "found poetry." Here's the final result:

Wholesome clouded kiss
By Francis Scudellari

In a wholesome clouded kiss,
her puffed pink lips lock
to the hardened lines
of this wandering,
thunder-headed stranger

The heavy blanketing peace
of her color-blinded sadness
woolly pulls apart
to here's frayed-edges,
their bitter-quilted coupling

Pale moon's crescent glance

Pale moon's crescent glance
side-long, unfocused, pushes
my heart to the shore

Prompted: Coiled Rope

Coiled rope
By Francis Scudellari

With a swollen tongue,
years saturated in bile,
he rolls and flings frothy tales
tinged rancid yellow,
coating his tight lip's corners
already primed spittle white;

These sing-song rants he chants
in a cursing elocution
over salacious beats
that ride the tangled ribbons
of his long-ago committed
8-track mind, slow unreeling...

gifts to a sore gullet
caked-up with coagulate
black grease, moldy dust;
The spoon-fed, eager gulps
of plastic pablum soothing
tumbled down disturbances—

deep-belly laughs captured
in photographs he clips sun-bleached
to mouthy, drooped lines
stringing together a coarse film
painted electric by diodes
snapped off fragile circuits. Bored,

his motor idles outside
belching exhausted breezes
that strum stained curtains
in a melodic bustle
to hustle clutter on a hitch
and pull the coiled rope, homeward

This poem is written in response to the Read Write Poem Prompt #88, which suggested 14 words to build a verse around. It was a difficult challenge met. If you haven't yet checked out Read Write Poem, it's well worth a look:

Cream colored canvas

Cream colored canvas
black dots not painted, crawling
beetle invasion

This abetting night

This abetting night
spills out, an indigo stain
my sins smudged inky

Lunar moth

A rather simple depiction of a lunar moth inspired by my poem Elixir.

Tweetku, Twaiku, Tweeku... how about Tweetanka?

The Twitterverse hasn't yet settled on a name for Tweeted Haiku, but that won't stop me from posting the 17 syllable mini-poems. Nor will it keep me from tooting my own horn about a most surprising development. Check out my "ranking" in this article at Chicago Now's Breaking Tweets Chicago: Top Haiku Twitter accounts in Chicago. Many thanks to Craig Kanalley for the honor.

It inspired the following haiku:

Slow-creeping, pink blush
false humility's dyed mask
smiles, overwhelming

Meanwhile, here's my attempt at the 5-7-5-7-7 structure of a tanka, which I tweeted yesterday in response to the word prompt "weary":

Mid-summer sunlight's
wavy, white radiation
fans glass-print petals
pushes shut moon-weary lids
burns a crimson path inward

Tweetku: The calendar turns...

The calendar turns
its astral spoked wheel blurring
seasonal palette

Learning from Randomness

This is another poetic exercise born of my Twittering. Through a fellow poet's tweeted stream, I discovered a Web app called Twitter Magnets. It's the Internet's version of the poetry game that used refrigerator magnets to build poems from a random selection of words.

I tried to use as many of the words and punctuation offered as I could without going over the 120-character limit. This is what I came up with:

soft yesterday of reproach, always present
picks cold heart
i growl glass,
two-fist embrace it.
flick needle?

I really liked some of the unusual word combinations it forced me to use. I liked them so much, in fact, I decided to build on the skeleton of that magnet exercise to create the following slightly longer poem.

Needle
By Francis Scudellari

A soft yesterday's sharp reproach,
always present,
pricks my calloused heart

I growl out glass
caught between gritted teeth
and two-fisted embrace it

Pulling the knot tight,
I flick this needle's glint
a spiked drop, acceptance

Tweetku?

Because Twitter imposes a 140 character limit, there are a lot of tweet-poets reviving the Japanese poetry forms of haiku, tanka and senryū. To see some good examples, just search on those tags at Twitter.

This new-fangled adaptation will probably rankle the literary purists, but they're the sort to always get rankled about something. I've tried my hand at writing a few of what I'll call tweetku — since I'm sure they don't rise to the level of haiku. They're a nice diversion. Back to longer form poetry soon.

Soft-breeze dawn voices
ripple curtains glowing rose
hint at worlds beyond

This ripe, round moment
dangles tantalizing, close
then shrivels, too soon

Ripe plum once bitten
sits wound-up on back-stairs rail
offering to birds?

Cajoling bird songs
backed by dissonant chorus
five fan blades abuzz

Both Sapped and Nourished

There's a prickly feeling tucked deep inside this verse, but I've camouflaged it well enough to confuse its prey.

Nectars
By Francis Scudellari

Sprinkled in her snowy cup
there's a powder-sweet wish
for this passing shade
who with shifting stripes, dappled shell,
and feather-creased skin
fractures the dawn
in a soft-buzzed calling
to sip at nectars
tendered, nestled deep
in conic blossoms...

Will he suckle to nourish,
and tasting such sweet water
abide the day?

Then with whimsied leaving
his barbed tail twitches and jumps
as he dashes away
in careless seeking
distant other's untapped blooms
and these supple leaves
once so pertly pricked,
grown thick in wing-beat light,
droop and trail
after the lilting dusk...

Till a stemming sap
recalls her blush
to the morning he visits again.

Two Souls, Hunched Up

This is part eight of my mythic poem-cycle Two Souls, Twin Lives. You can check out the other seven parts by clicking here (note that they're listed in reverse order, most recent first).

VIII. Hunched
By Francis Scudellari

Willful drawn, down to clay
ruts choked with grass,
edged by berried brambles
whose thorny twists
bend to a lowering sky
as its grumble
stabs open wounds, gushing
muddy instants
to puddle, pool, swell, swallow
the black-humped plains,
and force he-she up, hunched
to scour trappings
of craggy, gouged rock skins

Magic potions

This poem is about tranformation, or the desire for it. It's a bit magical in tone, as it's informed by the Alchemist's concept of the Elixir of Life (with special thanks to fellow poet Jemfyr for the inspiration).

Elixir
By Francis Scudellari

This Elixir of light,
distilled from lime-green tears
of lunar moth
moved by the monthly turning
of his mistress'
full and silvery back,

drops dripped from ducts
to vial, to tongue
and is sealed with pursed lips
that push back the fluorescent
waves washing down
to stir a still larval heart...

stretching, yawning, a flame.
Dancing particles
of iridescent powder
carried on one thousand tiny wings
twirl back through my mouth
to enliven a sleep-thicketed forest

with the fluttered speaking
of her name

Feeding, frenzied

Don't ask me about meaning. There is no meaning. There are only the words...

Faithful Feeders
By Francis Scudellari

It's not the sweetness
coursing crimson inside
that these faithful feeders seek
drawn darkly
by the midnight blue
currents we wade across

Nor is it the pink flesh
of tensed muscles
closely cupped to catch
a filtered fire
slow-dripped till clear
through the morning's lucent mist

No, they feast instead
at noon's shallow edges
with greased hands that tear spines
from fathomless tomes
of hobbled scriptures
to suck the pasty marrow

Head like a turnip

Here is a drawing I did to illustrate my poem Rutabaga.

Two Souls, Hollowed out

Here's the seventh part of my poem cycle Two Souls, Twin Lives (the previous six can all be found on my eponymous Website).

VII. Hollow
By Francis Scudellari

Fed by over-ripe knowing
the cloying tastes
of acid hued morsels
shrivel and blanch
squeezed by hasty, restless
new appetites
and she-he's clasping hands
let seconds slip
tumbling to hollow thump
moss covered mounds
whose stretched backs pull the nose
with aromas
of more savory blood

An untimely Tinkering

Another poem that takes its inspiration from an off-hand tweet, which was a failed attempt at observational humor.

Tinkering
By Francis Scudellari

Finger tips splattered and smudged
by a black oozing
from this vain
pursuit that litters
his workshop:
white, crimped-edge faces
torn and strewn...
bent, clutched hands
hacked and slid...
rusted spring innards
uncoiled and rolled...
among the chipped teeth
snapped off old gears
that he's stripped smooth
grunting untimely breaths
as he takes apart
countless clocks
tinkering with mechanisms
to invent a knob
to dial it all back
the swing, sway and grind
that spins his life forward
in an ever gathering
haste

To the bots, with love

This is a bit of silliness I wrote to honor the "spam bots" who at times seem more interested in reading my poetry than a human audience. As it's meant to be a twisted sort of love poem, the title is a play on the word aubade.

Au bots
By Francis Scudellari

I tender confessions
of the not so, secret
infatuations:
these bots, those little bits
of code much maligned
who so tartly
tease us in human veneers
falsely lashed
to digital spines
they drag and drop
as they bump along
tangling the silken strands
of a Web that snatches
our writhing lives and loves
while weaving its own

They're always found out
these bots, those bits
so poorly exposed
by the hairy Nets and white gloves
that wipe things clean
till new ones emerge
in viral vestments
and insinuate themselves
into irreverent streams
leaving: us to pray
(their infection becomes cure);
me to opine
(their next dawning lack);
as I open up my veins
and draw them back in

A Starlit Poem

Trying to keep up the frantic poetic pace... this piece began its life as an odd bit of observation embeded in one of my Twitter posts. Sometimes an interesting phrase will burrow its way into my mind and compel me to expand upon the theme.

Mothering Starlight
By Francis Scudellari

The endless starlight streams
down from ever's sprawling heaven
unseen

but feeling our atoms
flutter, a son's fond eagerness
recharged

bouncing, stretching, burning
to touch mothering particles
fallen

connections to distance,
memories of our own birthing
untimed

Rutabaga, a sweet-bitter end

This is the conclusion of my poem Rutabaga (here are Part I and Part II). I'll post the full version, perhaps slightly amended, to my Website soon.

Rutabaga
By Francis Scudellari

III.

And run up against blunted tip
of his hooked nose cast aslant,
drooping down over broken-lines
of brown, wormy lips with edges
that snag on tilted-maggot teeth
and gobble up the urge to smile
he keeps sealed in the cramped cloister
of black-white habits, his nun's heart

Where he now pulls stiff-backed photos
just stolen from a local shop,
lifting to tattered light reveal
the blue noted compositions
that sing of men so neatly garbed
in fair-taut skin and glad-rag years --
the polished, scripted texts he studies
to re-limn life in pleasing shapes

A Smile, this time in words

This poem owes its title and its stylistic playfulness to my last drawing. It's a bit backwards to write the poem after its illustration, but I'm an unconventional sort.

A Smile
By Francis Scudellari

A smile,
left unguarded
against the vices
of mischievous
and prying fingers
can be twisted
at the corners
or tugged or pulled
or even pinched
till drooping
in the middle
it becomes
a mouth full
of strange bits,
put all together:
indifferent

Smile

I admit indulging a bit of my childish side in creating this cartoonish face, but it makes me smile and the process relaxes my mind so forgive me a guilty pleasure. It reminds me of Joker from Batman if he were genetically modified with a Brussels sprout's DNA. The apparent happiness lightens the obvious freakishness.

Cut to the middle of my Rutabaga

Here's the middle part of my poem Rutabaga (the first part is here). Its ending is still vaguely shaped, but coming together. I always wonder if I rush to the finish of these.

Rutabaga
By Francis Scudellari

II.

Pushing him on over-turned pail
to begin a costumed hour's stare
at the filthy, rag-wiped middle
of his lean hut's filmy mirror
giving it back the reddish glow
of his rheumy and pinched eyes
so deeply tucked in the pockets
of his un-swept bristle-brush brows

His tooth-torn nails tracing features
dully scooped out rather than carved
from the opaque and spongy flesh -
a sickly root's yellowish white;
its deep ridges marked by dense maps
of blackened constellations:
the oblong blotches, bumps and moles
that pimple rippling, stubbled cheeks

Two Souls, Focused

After a long interlude, here's the next installment of my poem cycle Two Souls, Twin Lives (although I may change that name). You can read the previous five poems on my eponymous Website.

VI. Near sight
By Francis Scudellari

He-she shed circling lives
as they build bulk
and with nimbler digits
clutch airy roosts
where they're kept ill company
by sly creatures
who slip between branches
to spit and spell
old tales of mimicked fruit
and poisoned tongues
that transfix keen focus
on the too near
while long ago lessens

New vegetables

This is the first part of my latest-poem in progress — Rutabaga. It's also the 700th post of this blog, which is a milestone of sorts (insert self-congratulatory back slap here). I still have more installments of my poem Two Souls to post, plus a new drawing called Smile. I do tend to get easily sidetracked.

Rutabaga
By Francis Scudellari

I.

In a loose fit hood, he hides
his big, rutabaga head
plus a too-close-tucked secret
whose pouty, bent-lip outlines
you might spy while skulking late
in dimly lit alleyways
and assume the dastardly
not knowing his wishful theft

Only as a half-hinged door
pushes the night behind him
does he lift the thick gray wool
and scratch his crown's screwed-up stem
of patchy brown leaves that flop
and fall over bulbous back
to the spur of a chin knocked
crooked by time and man's hands

Trying to keep things simple...

In my current mood, simple and reflective are the proper forms of expression. The title of this piece was actually inspired by a dream.

In it, someone who I don't know called me on the phone to recite a poem called "Linger Back" that I had written and they found touching. Of course I can't recall the words of the dream poem, but I think the sentiment is the same.

Linger Back
By Francis Scudellari

Linger back
a few short moments
with me,
soft-edged times
when life is simple,
happy
or seems, so
stay, don't race ahead
just yet
to certain
futures, we both know
won't be

Swarms

By Francis Scudellari

Swarms, swarms
everywhere
birds, toads
the swarms
of bees
of ants
of thoughts
that something is
not right

Recasting Alice

This is a poem that started out as a Twitter post, but grew into something quite different. I offer it to you with all due apologies to Lewis Carroll, whose Alice I've always admired and whose credit I've repaid poorly here.

My Alice
By Francis Scudellari

Her short, wintry youth,
a fair tale's ending
she windy followed
at the blue-white tip
of a buttoned nose
reaching this fine point
to a bent-fork path
where she stands, then sits
on the glassy edge
of iced-over pond
and looks less than dives
in, to grow unfrocked
by wonders re-versed

Immaterial
things, once-thought, awkward,
perhaps too-weighty,
are pulled thin, stretched tall
and golden snake give
her skeletons form,
a key gently grasped
that she inward turns
unclocking spun minds
to lithely chime up,
out of darkly twists
where they holey lay
fixed, for her "so-long"

Two Souls: Flabby mimics

After the last long-winded and prosaic post about the movie FRESH, a return to sparser verse and the next installment of my poem Two Souls. I may yet however revisit the idea of "monocultures" within a different context.

Two Souls, Twin Lives
By Francis Scudellari

V. Flabby mimics

She-he, un-mated flames
half to fading,
slip on fatted layers,
flabby mimics
of trees' up-craning trunks,
pained limbs that twist
when ten bony barbs burst
through soft pink nubs,
new claws they file against
rough-surfaced stones
to climb the greening heights,
feast on sweet-meats,
and sugary speed the cycles