Michelle Smith

For the love creme brulee 

I'll be happy to gain weight 

Carmel custard creaminess 

Bites full of  joy and pleasure

On the tip of my tongue 

Smooth my spoon on its top

Ooh the taboo of this 

eating utensil the fun

Curiously taps the ramekin  

Dives in the center or side

The top layer sweetness shatters 

My spoon skates on the sinful delight

Crackles form effortlessly into the 

Delicious sugar of baked ice

For the love of creme brulee 

A once a week habit has become 

Now three out of seven

Once on my lips forever on my hips 

Tasting it in my mind, taunts my mouth 

Look for recipe and make it yourself

Prediabetes won't be too behind 

For the love of creme brulee 

My mind may be willing, but 

my flesh is weak.

Nana's Heart

Shiny sterling silver
Sparkly and cool to the touch
Inside soft red velvet
A jewelry box reminds me of Nana's Heart.
No music, no jewelry, nor an empty find.
Memories open of childhood past and love,
For our matriarch,
Beautiful teacher, disciplinarian, and kind.
They're stored up like heaven's treasure.
As a little girl, our days spent together
Were collected in a jar as if fireflies,
And our nights glowed like moonbeams.
Imaginary sand flows freely from my hands.
My yesterday is gone in a flash.
All grown up and too old to pretend.
My memories sustain me
and remind me of way back then.
Remember when the world grows cold,
Those crown jewel moments
Will have me captured forever in time.

                                         

Previously published in 

http://spectrumlookingback.blogspot.com
Spectrum: Looking Back
December 2020

gia civerolo

bones dreams haiku

 

I love you as I

 

sleep. Awake I devour your

  

Flesh, play your bones

 

love flies away

 

Hangover & thorns

Still bleed horoscope

late mornings

 

He kept making the

Same point over

& over again

 

Boring

 

She never auditioned

for the role

It was given without

permission at inception

 

Black ribbon razor

thin satin sensory

Pleasures

 

Please

 

Twirling around her

 Nails chipped 

red glittered pink

Insisted she wasn’t

In love with bad boys

 

Anymore

 

Even when they

Finger bang her 

Tears drip down 

Red candle wax 

 

Poetically

 

Creating sacred space

Cradling the first kiss

Yes, please I will beg

on scrapped knees

 

Earth & Moon dance

Disco ball style

Sparkling light

Ricochet off stars

 

Glittering, fluttering

Cutting heart shape

love drops swirling

 

Kiss

 

On tongues touch

Blue of the sky

Your eyes

Reflecting her

held breath

 

Gray doves coo

On black telephone

wire revolvers

Spinning out of

control 

Vertigo

Not waiting 

 

Anymore

 

Raven

Shakes off

Crown of wet 

Love 

 

 

please call my name

 

Call my name

Wind won’t blow away 

Memory bubbles pop 

You blow a kiss

Good-bye

 

Call my name

In a church

Stained glass

Streaks for all

To see

Call my name

Take away all

My shame

For all to see

 

Call my name

Lava flows inside

Your body loves

Molten memories 

Melt

Purple puddles

Popsicles

 

Call my name

Flame flickers 

Dark sky

Don’t ask why

Coyotes cry secrets

Why won’t you

Howl 

My name in 

The lonely night

Screams

Please call me name 

Ambika Talwa

Promise of Mothers and Roses

Mothers and roses, child, back aches and poses.

All this toiling, the art of love and deception.

Creating a life for one's self – learning how

to make breezes blow over lovely waters!

 

If we but knew how to make multi-layered cakes.

Each layer for our need to be whole, feel lovely,

like when we are born and delivered into

velvet blankets that smell of roses dew and blood

 

If we but knew not to be the flannel that absorbs

another’s tears and bruises on sad ragged limbs,

but become all which we are truly born to be:

daughter, sister, lover, friend, wife, mother, more!

 

Love surges into charm of wild grace as sunlight

through mulled glass glows far into the night.

Our smiles light up paper-fine unformed wrinkles.

Dew drops on leaves catch the light of love.

 

This love forgotten is remembered when

tears fill teacups. Why do we hide our selves as

shadowed folds of curtains mildewed with memories,

that smell of mould and mud, when there is rain

 

that washes away the pain. Why do we deny love?

Why not hold the one with promise, even if they

linger like silken curtains that catch sunlight.

Roses are eternal even though they fade!

 

Their fragrance becomes potpourri for linens;

And we arise again and again – there is you see,

Spring – Eternal as our self!  Innocence cannot die

forever. And joy survives all mirrors! Look again.

 

 

 

My Empyrean Vision – Stirring of Supernal Love

 

Awoke to an empyrean vision, promise of gossamer

gold. What was I doing wandering lost and tossed.

a nearly-forgotten note in a shriveled gown...?

 

Those torn hands serve me not nor I broken hearts.

I waited holding those well-worn weaves that needed

but to be shredded, returned to the fire. To love?

 

Is this my absolution that I hold captive old wishes?

When the new is all around me, why do I refuse

its blessing? The music desires that I awaken.

 

Its pounding melodies beat my skin, love reminds.

New memories promise my return to empyrean worlds

here and now to all that is beloved – hum of solitude.

 

Angel and woman! Be one, insists the Sky. Or heaven

lost-tossed will wander in the distance love-broken.

And hiding beneath horizons is a gold road. Choose!

 

Surrounding is white gold fire. Out there are forests,

gardens for your endless walk into love's arms

whose breath is empyrean – marriage of destinies.

 

Such is the dream of paradise – to release all desires

is to gain a promise of the supernal. My toes tickle

in flowing water. Music glows luminous as my heart.

 

All above around me are feathers. There in a flame

someone arrives. Heart-to-heart we are disrobed;

rainbow lights bathe us, prepare us for our feast.

 

We will learn to walk barefoot in the dirt. Smell

the fire that marks the periphery of wisdom’s gaze

We are commanded to love, be free so be fulfilled. 

 

PJ Swift

Kiss the Frog

The little girl was so pleased with her pet frog.  She spent hours observing it in its aquarium. feeding it, and sometimes, in a calm moment, holding and lightly petting it.  One day she was so enamored with it that she held it up to her face and kissed it.  She was shocked to suddenly see that the frog had become a prince.  A tall, strong man, now standing in her room.  She wanted none of it. She wanted him gone and wanted her frog back.  But not even kissing him would bring back her frog.  And so she ran.  Leaving everything behind.

Tammy Smith

Love, Conditional

My first memory of our marriage
is a grammar lesson:
possessives, conditionals.
If you were mine,
you would do everything
I say.

Twenty years later
I tell myself: no regrets —
the lie my father handed down,
the one your mother
called love.

I’m wrong.

Your sinister grin
settles in my son’s cheeks.
My son — not ours.
He doesn’t belong to you.

Even three years dead,
the rot of your morning breath
burns against my face.

Your last memory of our marriage
is a legal lesson:
no contact.
Stay away.