The Iris Chateau is a beautiful three-story Victorian brick home with white and gold accents and gorgeous Irises that bloom every Spring in the front garden.

This particular day, Mr and Mrs Chesterfield, along with their twins, Lucius and Letitia sit down for tea, little cakes, and biscuits. A few moments after they are all seated, Philomena and Nathan rush in, late as usual.

Philomena is dressed in dark brown twill convertible riding skirt that is currently in the pants form with a beige abbington blouse under a caramel moleskin vest, with matching moleskin gloves, and caramel leather boots. Her hair. although done mostly in a long braid, wisps of it are peeking out from under her black wool riding hat that has various black and light brown feathers attached to the eyelet cinching crown band. She takes her hat off, smoothes her hair and converts her pants to a…

The stone is rough in this constant chill, a stone painted white so a single flame might bring warmth.

I held in my hands today my past,
And now it becomes the present,
Re-created before my eyes,
Living deep in my heart,
Always these things were in my memory,
But now the memory has changed.

Is it really me who has changed,
My present lives in my past,
It is so much more than a memory,
Transforming me in the present,
Things that live in my heart
Will always glow in my eyes

Blind now are my eyes,
How much my life has changed,
But love still lives in my heart,
The good that I knew in my past,
Comes to life in the present,
Love is much more than memory.

Sometimes I rely on memory,
A substitute for my eyes,
Darkness fills my present,
For now the sky has changed,
Beauty lived in the past,
But now it lives in my heart

One day your love warmed my…

Heyyyyyy! Happy birthday!
I hope your day is going good so far.
Even though this moment is the last.
Part of the day I’ll consider “your day.”

Uh, here’s a gift – just for you!
I put in the considerable amount of time.
I hope you shop where everyone shops.
Here’s a gift card to Target, Walmart, Amazon?
I guess it matters that you made it around.
The sun just one more time. Cheers!

Hello! (What’s his name?) How are you?
It’s been so long since I last saw you.
I must’ve been what… Five? Six? Or seven?
Do you still just remember me for my slobber?

I got a gift for you even though I don’t know you.
But you know everything about my childhood.
I guess my mother couldn’t stay off Facebook.
Oh, yeah, that cool trip to California I took?
That was like over five years ago…

Home is a rural place full of song.

The closest neighbors are oaks and pines that sing in tune with the wind.

The ground cover of chaparral dances in time with the trees.

At night the coyotes sing tenor and the owls sing bass. The bats provide a wispy percussion.

The loudest song, however, is silent.

Clear nights provide an unearthly umbrella of color leaking from a black canvas. The galaxy in which we exist drips its lights of fire onto our eyes and, if we are very, very still, we can hear them.

We can hear the reds and blues and whites.We can feel, as if it were sound, the pulsing of the energies that are sent in our direction. They are the remnants of explosions that no longer exist.

Words do not describe the awe, the majesty of those moments, late at night when you can hear…

Like the similarly-named acrostic selfie poem which I wrote about on this blog last April, the anagrammatic selfie is a short, usually whimsical self-portrait in verse. But unlike the acrostic version where the first letter of each line spells out the poet’s name, the anagrammatic selfie consists solely of words formed from only the letters contained in your name. So logically, the first step when writing one is to choose which variation of your name you want to use (this will also be the title of your poem). For example, if I just used my first and last names, Paul Szlosek, I could create a list of 333 different words to write my poem with, but if I add my middle name Michael, I would then have an even larger choice of 2724 (if you are one of those people that lack a middle name, you could substitute…

Hands are hevey,
Arms of lead,
Foggy thoughts,
Drift in my head,
Deep breath,
As dreams depart,
Open my eyes,
Allow the day to start,
Hot tea and a pillow,
As I sit up in bed,
Words comeing slowly,
Writeing things unsaid,
Love and loss,
A tangled web of thread,
A net.. a trap,
On which we fear to tread,
But the bait is tempting,
Glistening with light,
Promising peace,
With just one bite,
So once again..
I place my foot in the noose,
My heart stands open,
The hunters arrows loose,
Will she be quick,
Of hand and eye?
To piece my heart anew,
And let old love die?
Or will I bleed,
A trail.. in the snow..
Force her to chase,
For the finishing blow,
Or let love..
Die slow.

Best wishes -SirHanz

In this old, familiar wood
I take my hood
Down, just
In time for the rain.
I shall not put it up again.

Thoughts of lust,
Of lost love,
And friendship I shall retain,
For a while. But this wood
And the rain,
Shall remain.