Carloluigi Colombo paints

Robot in Search of Lost Time

Marcel Proust

James Babbs writes

Leaving the Bookstore

I see the heavy-set man

holding the cardboard sign

will work for food & gas

the bookstore didn’t have

the book I wanted

even though

according to the internet

it was released three days ago

this was the second time

I tried to get the book

the first time I tried getting it

I had the publication date wrong

on my way home I decide to stop

and get a pepperoni pizza

pepperoni is my favorite

but bacon on pizza tastes good too

it’s another Saturday night

and everything looks the same

I think about getting drunk

but I don’t have any booze

I guess

since the bookstore didn’t have

the book I wanted

I’ll go ahead and order it online

like I should’ve done in the first place

 Rosace -- Jan Reymond

David Allen writes

DOOMED TO DOMES

I wonder

how life

will be

when we’re

all living

under the domes;

safe inside,

away from

the ecological

disaster scientists

warned us about

and the politicians

ignored.

 Metropolis KL 2210 -- skian-winterfyre

Pramila Khadun writes

The kiss

A poet worth his mettle

Boiling water in his cute kettle

Told me that kisses will eternally

Remain unsurpassed in beauty.

He kissed me and I was seventeen.

It was my first taste of love’s elixir,

A perfect osmosis without cosmetics,

With charms invariable

And desires unforgettable.

Ethereal and surreal,

It was the zenith of a wish

That left me spellbound

While the thunderstorm obliterated the town.

The kiss had the taste of nectar unblemished,

Making my interior self with light replenished.

Again he kissed me and this time

It had the peachy taste of sweet peach Melba.

Voluntarily or involuntarily absolutely sobered,

It invoked the vision of love making

While lightning flashed across the window panes

Taking us both in its strides.

In reverie and camaraderie

I asked the poet, ‘Is it the beginning of a lifetime love?’

In a hushed whisper , he replied,

‘The lifetime love is in the now.’

I smiled while the rain drizzled

And the scent of geranium and oregano

Rose joyously in the air.

The sun shone through rain

Making a radiant rainbow

And love shone in between our lips

With exuberant ecstasy

While the unbridled passions

Slowly empowered our frail bodies.

The Kiss -- Man Ray

Duane Vorhees writes

Ah! Nights

Ah! Nights you were a harem
and I the unmade Bedouin too long in the thirst.
Past the black eunuch of the night
I would steal to your tent,
unarmed save one single arrow in my quiver.
I'd draw sensuously back your damascene veil
and let fly my shaft 
deep into your bull’s-eye arabesque --

Or: you were queen of the hive
and I a drone among the honeys
getting a buzz on and doing my job
plunging among the dusky clover
trying to pollinate the skies
to flower the night with stars.
To lose my only stinger would be to die --

Or else you were madonna
awaiting your Jealous Commanding God, 
The Spawner Of The Cosmos,
Beam Of Light Made Flesh To Hold You In Your Place
(while you shook in rapture for the coming of your Lord,
i a small choirboy would steal into your unguarded churchyard
and send a solitary firework into the cathedral's secret hole
and hope it explodes high up in those beribbéd vaults
and surprise celibate fathers from their sleep).