Jeff Norris shoots

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 9^th 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