BMP15
nzpoetsonline
E. Mitchell Stone
USA

Cycle

Heavy metal illusion of splendor
Walking unguided through landmines
Silent sea hanging swollen
Lips locked tight around watery words
Without rhyme or reason wings that quiver
Fold the past
Collective and reflective,
An abstract fiction farmer stands in a cold field
Ripe and rare animals grazing
In the land of the free
Home for the dead
The next generation comes out of hibernation
Selectively fixing fashion
And dusting off the devil’s boots
A passive earth blossoms spring green
Pink mountain trust
Unaware






The Scenic Route

Brooding behind a barricade,
A piece of velvet-tipped nonsense
Fell in my lap, bleeding.
My flesh sizzled from its cruel comfort,
As it acted out its lunch.
Dirty noise erupted from a tin can in the corner.
The vibration knocked a calling card off a black book,
Spilling the ink foolishly into a shoebox.
Another star is born in the eye of the storm,
Where the sea and sky separate…
Shining for all.
It lifts the town,
Gives it meaning,
In between cold stacks of concrete and green,
Where the clouds gather to plot another dark day.






Cobra in Full Bloom

1

Wet wind delivered the crowd coated in many colors
A scent was there – Mildew mixed with rose
Intoxicating the senses under an overflowing moon
Sinister irrational salesman arose in the flood tide
Their featherless branches scratching pupils raw of imagination
Starched fingers scraping pavement
Littered with homeless pages
Some bundled together safely
Love etched out its stinging insult at solitude
Pomegranates promenade through a revolving door
Unaware of the bacteria ridden blind alley
Antiseptic beauty hid the murky decay
Steaming sewers stagnate with tiger lilies
Triangular slime overlaps
A quiet puddle
Dank and muddy
Clouded by vintage urine
Engorged indigo clouds
Working overtime and reduced to sweat.

2

A silk city night does little to ease the equilibrium
Of a day’s wet and shiny shadow
Once hidden in the gutter
The crowd pivots on a busted saw and the blade points north.
Down where the devil burns,
A cacophony of brash metallic voices reaches around the corner
Learning lies and machine-gun etiquette from a red-toothed volcano
Followed by a flaming lantern lit eternal
Sublime fire at the core
Blazing needles where laser beams form
Loose change bouncing into a new position with each passing step
Arrows are bent and broken with stolen glances
A dog’s paw kills confidence in the comfort zone
A colossal rubber waterbug hisses along absent-minded,
Oblivious to gold madonnas clawing at storefront displays
That long to stand still
Buried to the waist in barnyard waste
A movie played on its windshield creating diversion
Chain-smoking, static-charged feet gripped the ground in defiance
Ready to meet the midway.


Bio: Born in Kentucky, American Indian descent. Editing two manuscripts of nonfiction; managed by Tal Literary. Published work in The Courier-Journal, Free Radical, Southern Poetry Journal, and Sein Und Werden, Sentinel. Also assembling an anthology of free-verse, artwork, and essays.