Somayajulu Musunuri writes

WHERE HOPE GROWS!

Spill the seeds of hope

To grow the plants of confidence

Where hope grows,

Miracles blossoms!

A kind word, a sweet smile

A pure love and helping hand

will float hope for humankind

A tiny gesture can make us kind

Hope can go a long way

It makes a difference

Hope will lead us from

darkness to light

 Faith Hope Charity -- Don Michael Jr

Leonard D Greco Jr sketches & tattoos

Herakles  (preparatory sketch) & Massimo

https://boondocksbabylon.com

Jack Harvey writes

At the Whorehouse

The world's best available playgirls,

in brief, the duchesses of delight,

at present at leisure, waiting

waiting in the whorehouse,

garter-belted gum-chewers,

sitting on their asses

like bored kids in classes,

tits awry and

passing time chit-chatting,

for a price

will now be ready

for large-folio labors

on your behalf.

Is your desire the

best standard debauch

or less simple in taste,

an afternoon in an arbor

under Madame de Sévigné?

Or scholarly with

ten thousand props on stage

or in your fantasizing head,

the fully perverse.

Whatever, sweet friend,

you will pay and

you will have it.

But regard and remember

as you leave

your petite death-bed,

sated and serene,

plebeian or patrician,

you, too, on the wild-maned

horsewomen of the night

suffered and conquered

and however quaint,

straining under the reign

of looming delights

and uberous splendor,

painted faces, sloe eyes, sweaty thighs,

however dirty and discreet,

gave to life what is life

and in your own careless loveless way

advocated creation.   

Salon in the Rue Des Moulins -- Toulouse Lautrec

dah writes

I Say Dream Only

It starts to cloud, heavy gray clouds
then begins to rain
Drops the length of drumsticks

The tin roof on a beach shack
is a tight percussive skin
that rises off-pitch
Dune grasses sway
to the drumming
flap to the beat 
The waves applaud

We take refuge in the shack
The storm crashes against the walls

We sleep or should I say dream only
She, a starfish, I, a gray line
Starfish floats, gray line catches

Huddled together on a wooden cot
surrounded by sand, salt, storm
She, a starfish, I, a gray line
I lift her to taste the sea
a clam floats over my tongue
I lift her higher
tasting more of the sea

Tako to ama (Octopus and shell diver) -- Katsushika Hokusai

Starfish Kamasutra --  Mrzyk & Moriceau

Arlene Corwin writes

Keep That Lipstick Going 
                (It’s Never Finished)

Can vanity
Ever be
A good thing,
Always there
In one form or another?
I wonder ‘bout its essence;
Ponder over properties.
Does it have a function partly unction?
Does it help keep us alive a little longer,
Or
Keep up illusions,
Nourishing our views of beauty
In a body always rotting, wrought with pain?
Solder man to Man?
Although St Augustine
Considered vanity a primal sin,
Perhaps it can.

Le rouge à lèvres [Lipstick] -- Delphine Kreuter