Paulette Spescha-Montibert writes

Two golden leaves
at my window
fall

Fall is coming

 --Omid Asadi
 

Soodabeh Saeidnia writes

Hangover



I hang my tired shoes 
on a power line 
with the height of tireless hopes 
Not to fall down again 
Not to be worn by a naughty kid, 
whose life-time running has not quenched her
playing thirst

Madame Gautreau Drinking a Toast -- John Singer Sargent

Christopher Hopkins writes

Lime

the drink talks to me, 
in such beautiful rhymes.
I try to write it down, 
with little success.

The traffic calls and the raise
rumbles like a drum
and my coffee cup shakes 
and I whistle the tune all day. 

Your beauty pokes and kicks, 
and luck and love is
as lucky as I am. 
To be, with you.

I could lime the outers 
of my life
ready for the fall,

but 
love, 
loving with you 

I am one with you. 



 The Egg Dance -- Pieter Aertsen

Leonard D Greco Jr paints

Seizing Sanctimonium





https://boondocksbabyon.com

Joseph Lisowski writes



RULER RULES!



“Repeat after me!” Sister Mary Ludmilla shouted, as she beat time against her palm with a heavy wooden ruler. “A noun names a person, place or thing!”


The class dutifully complied but the response was merely a murmur to her roar. Everyone obeyed, that is, except Jesse who sat slumped in the back of the room, his vacant eyes fixed on the window where a heavy rain beats. He was a recent transfer from Central Public High School to this 9th grade English class at St. Francis Academy. Actually, he was expelled; the Catholic school recently began accepting problem students as part of their ongoing commitment to community service. Jesse had very little sleep the night before. His mother’s new boyfriend decided to suddenly take a parental role with Jesse and his 8 year old brother. The guy’s idea of discipline to was to use the steel end of a flyswatter against the back of the legs on the young boy immediately and often when the youngster demanded his mother’s attention.
 
When Jesse came home that night from a particularly exhausting 4 hours of scrubbing pots in the hospital kitchen, he came upon a scene—the boyfriend whacking, his brother wailing, and his mother nodding off in what he recognized as her usual drunken stupor. He yelled at the man to stop, who turned and raised the business end of the swatter toward him. At first, Jesse shielded his face, but after the first taste of blood, he attacked. He didn’t really know how long the fight lasted or who called the police, but when he left the police station early that morning, he was too tired to think. Rather than go home and possibly face more of the same, he went to his new school. 

“Young man, I asked you a question!” Hovering over him, brandishing her ruler, Sister Ludmilla screamed. “Answer me, you dummy!” Her voice rose to eardrum breaking decibels.

“Huh?” Jesse uttered, his eyes still fixed on the rain. 

“I’m talking to you, dumbkoff!” She stabbed his shoulder with the instrument.

“Sit on a fork,” he mumbled as he tried to sit more erect. 

“How dare you insult me?” She demanded. 

The first blow she landed on the top of his head was perhaps the last time she would apply that rule as her standard of measure. Jesse grabbed it out of her hand and pitched it to the front of the room. Then in one fluid motion, he rose from his seat, his right hand formed a fist and shot straight into the hairy wart on the nun’s chin. Sister Mary Ludmilla crashed into the window pane, and in what seemed to the students an endless cascade of black cloth, she slid to the floor.

 Gerónima de la Asunción García Yánez y De La Fuente -- Diego Rodriguez de Silva Velázquez
  [The motto on top reads, "It is good to await the salvation of God in silence" ]


GRACELESSLY WAITING


Now, hum, chant, dust off the altar.
Calf's already gutted for slaughter.
All I need now is the priestess.

"Just hold me in honor, hold me in awe,
my fine and gaudy mistress.
I pray you, Make me your god."

But you released me, to wander
beyond the range of my hymns.
And left me here to conjure
you, incarnate, back from a dream.
So, carefully, I detail our temple
with incense to be purified.

But I'm running low on these candles  

while watching the calfling putrefy.




Keith Francese writes



the growing overuse of lens flares

 
and the bandings rent 
opaque


gossamer acquainted 
with time


and time 
having reached a long pause


comes a moment 
appropriate


for quiet 
elongated along a wide, pale hall





this winter has been aired out 
of reaches


gypsum 
and unharried


a lifetime of voyage 
vaguely dreamt, 


ages upon ages 
cast diminutive


japed, sun 
swept

[Lens flare on stairs of Borobudur temple, Magetang, Indonesiato enhance the sense of ascending

Jason Gungabissoon shoots


'This is the only country in the world where the stranger is not asked 'How do you like this place.' This is indeed a large distinction. Here the citizen does the talking about the country himself; the stranger is not asked to help. You get all sorts of information. From one citizen you gather idea that Mauritius was made first, and then heaven; and that heaven was copied after Mauritius." -- Mark Twain

Heather Jephcott writes



The Beauty of a Smile, Wear a Smile



Smiles
snippets
that fit the lock of each person's heart



Smiles
the beginnings of love
and hearts at home



Smiles
pure,
opening glory



Smiles
flying by
faces showing happiness



Smiles
pretty things
don't forget to put one on



Smiles
help to stop another's tears


 Big Smile -- Yue Min Jun