Image – Image & Verse

Dark Love

WARNING! This is dark!

Original DDE™ surrealistic art: “Love’s Sin” by: rob kistner © 11/16/23

D o you think
you’re not still my slave
since digging yourself
from that earthen grave

since you sullied
your delicate hands
clawing up and out
of my bottom lands

do you think
you’re safe

think perhaps
that I don’t know
where you are
as you come and go

do you think
that I don’t feel you
with my every breath
that I don’t breathe you

do you not understand
that I hold your life
in my clenching hand

really – don’t you

do you think at all
foolish girl

anytime I want you
you are mine

anytime

you know I love you
you love me too
with a love uncommon
you know you do

don’t you

you are mine
it’s true

forever

you are not free
your every move
is known to me
your every thought
is mine to see
your every fear
mine to trigger

feel your terror
as it’s growing bigger

Original DDE™ surrealistic art: “Dark Love”
by: rob kistner © 11/16/23

I watch you walking
every dark late night
while I hide under
my dim street light

you will not know
whence I may come
I am the shadow
you are running from

the stranger hidden
across the street
the sudden sound
that startles you
from your sleep

so cling mindlessly
to your false hope
as ‘round your slender neck
my fingers grope

you think I’m mad
well that may be
but that’s too bad
for you
not me

you pray
they catch me
we’ll see
won’t we

your nightmare is
I’ll not be caught

well
that dream’s come true
for I will naught

Original DDE™ surrealistic art: “Dark Love’s Captive”
by: rob kistner © 11/16/23

you hope I make
a big mistake
dare a close call
risk my downfall

foolish girl
there is no risk

for I am brilliant
wicked cunning
you’ve felt my power
is it not stunning

does my magnificence
make you afraid
as staring in my eyes
you feel resistance fade

you will not see me
in the cold dark rain
but you feel me squirming
in your troubled brain

as I’m creeping quiet
from behind
to steal your mortal life
as I am so inclined
as terror shivers
up and down
your spine
remember always

you — are — mine

Original DDE™ surrealistic art: “Devil In A Downpour”
by: rob kistner © 11/16/23

*
rob kistner © 2021
edited rewrite © 2023

Poetry at: dVerse

Pepper’d Memories

Yes — I was the walrus
so too the fool on the hill
I was the nowhere man
sometime I feel nowhere still

but when the Fab4 took the stage
and raised their voice in song
they roused my golden slumber
my spirit sang along

I strolled to strawberry fields
along sweet penny lane
and when miss Rigby died
I felt McKenzie’s pain

stowed in the submarine
and sailed beneath the waves
down with the octopus
among the coral caves

and when the sergeant
struck up his lonely hearts club band
I fell in step by step
to march off to Pepperland

but before I’d hit the road
I ended up wounded in my bed
a delinquent name of Maxwell
took a hammer to my head

he’d come through the bathroom window
I forgot to shut it tight
I should have known better
but it’d been a hard day’s night

my friends had called for help
doctor Robert came in time
I’d said doc don’t let down
he did not — and I feel fine

cops searched helter skelter
looked here there and everywhere
but they found clues for no one
I said let it be I didn’t care

leaving home, you won’t see me
I said heading out the door
when I saw her standing there
my lover from the night before

oh darling let’s go day trippin’
I want to hold your hand
down this long and winding road
it won’t be long to Pepperland

now we’ve come together here
me and my sweet belle Michelle
she’s been writing paperback novels
the kind the drugstores sell

we have no plans to get back
we’re swept up in the allure
of Lucy and her diamond skies
on our magical mystery tour

even with George and Johnny dead
that old magic’s not yet slipped away
because old Paully‘s discovered AI
so a brand new tune is on the way

it will be so very cool
to hear them once again
to remember those wondrous days
get to relive them now and then

*
rob kistner © 4/5/11
expanded version: rob kistner © 6/13/23

Poetry at: dVerse

Love’s Summer Serenade / Seaside

These first written & published for NaPoWriMo 2010

Love’s Summer Serenade

sing to me my sweet sweet lover
songs as soft as silk and satin
sensual as a bare embrace
warm summer sun upon our face

promise me the world is ours
that this perfect moment’s endless
lift me up on rapture’s cloud
my racing heart is pounding loud

make melody set sail our souls
fill our hearts with passion’s fire
smother me in scorched sweet kisses
oh what a fiery bliss this is

come to me and take me timeless
sweep me off to ecstasy
enfold me in your deepest dreams
simmering under summer moonbeams

so hot we’re looking for some shade
aflame in love’s sensual serenade

Seaside

soft sand warms bare toes

senses stirred by surging surf

summer at seaside

love as fresh as ocean breeze

kisses hot as sizz’ling sun

*
rob kistner © 2010
revised © 2023

More poetry at: dVerse

SunsetGunn

NOTE — I borrowed lines and inspiration from my 2011 poem: Skye Fyre

The SunsetGunn is loaded, the controls, in GunnMaster’s grip
calmly concentrating, he scans the horizon with careful eyes
the golden sun having made his journey, is weary from the trip
quicksilver moon will very soon, traverse the starry skies

Gaia rolls on gently, hushed in quiet space
GunnMaster has her skyline, locked squarely in his sight
Gaia pulls a veil of stars, slowly across her face
GunnMaster has a task, he needs complete before its night

he’s to set the sky ablaze, before he falls to sleep
a fiery coral-orange, twilight-blue, and crimson-red
in patterns broad and bold, in colors rich and deep
he carefully aims the SunsetGunn, and blasts it overhead

in a brilliant, blinding flash, he sets the dimming skies a’fire
in vivid hues, and lavish shades — the dusky sky ignites and burns
GunnMaster has succeeded, so for this night, he can retire
the SunriseGunn already loaded, in early morning, he returns

*
rob kistner © 2023

Poetry at: dVerse

A few more from Animal Logic — GOOD SHIT!

Castle Walachia

~ I originally published this October of 2018, again Oct. 2019, now Oct. 2022. ~
Happy Halloween

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This castle is most ominous
since becoming Voivode of Wallachia
Vlad II has not followed his father’s example
no joy and celebration reverberates
through the greattooms, hallways, and towers
of this venerable old structure

it has become dark and foreboding
and rumored dangerous
even deadly

but I know they are not just rumors
there is a murderous evil dwells here
undead and otherworldly
bloodthirsty and cruel
a ruthless predator
whom I have come to slay

I must move quickly from this light
that pools incrementally
in this long
pungent
segmented hallway

there is some safety in the shadows
that linger tight
to the arch walls
so I bolt
through the full moon’s glow
that seeps silvered through the windows

I press myself
against the damp irregular surfaces
that are the stacked-stone
boundary breaks
of this eerie chiseled passage

I pause at each
listening
casting glances all ’round

this monster moves like a vapor
so what I can see
is far more important
than what I can hear
but still
I listen

this demon has servants
soul sworn to loyalty
that must move on foot
their approach I could hear
so fully alert
I employ all my senses
in my critical vigilence

stealthily I move
from archway to archway
until I reach the last

I halt
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relaxing the tension
in my right hand
I carefuly open my fingers
very slightly
to close them tight again
feeling the smooth wooden shaft
of the stake I have carved
securely in my grasp

this is the weapon I’ll wield
to bring and end
to the ungodly bloodlust
of this ghastly creature
the good people here call
Dracula

as I stand here
back to the dampened wall
relief seasons my trepidation

nothing in my being
wants this dire mission
to which I am shackled

but it is only my hand
on the carved wood dagger
tightly in my sweating grip
that can bring an end
to my uncle’s unholy
reign of horror

I am the youngest male
of our cursed bloodline
so the brutal deed
falls to me

creeping ever forward
like a shade on the dank wall
I move cautiously closer
to the iron-laden
dense wood door
of his sleeping chamber

my heart pounding
my diaphram starved for breath
I feel I may pass out

but still I pursue
the evil incarnate
that lies coffin’d
in undead repose

suddenly
a noise
immediately behind me

it echoes through these catacombs
pierces my taut raw nerves
and instantly paralyzes me

trembling
I turn

no one there

hushed
I listen intently

no other sounds
save the blood
pulsing as a roar
in my ears

I begin to move
but again
I hear it

panicked
I jerk my head around
and see

in this frozen moment
my stressed mind deduces
the source of the noise

moisture
collecting on the stone ceiling
gathers overhead
into sagging condensation

it released
as a weighty droplet
splattering on the floor
just behind me
with a sharp startling slap

I relax a bit
enough to again draw
tensioned breath

several more labored
careful steps
and I place my hand
gently on the wrought handle
of the immense door

confirming the lethal dagger
quivering in my right hand
I reach
steadily as possible
into my pocket
and withdraw a strange key
I have secreted there
that allows me access
to his chamber

it is unnaturally heavy
and seems to emanate
an unearthly energy

I clutch it firmly
fearing if I lose my grip
I will lose my nerve

I guide the key
into the slot
of the ornate handle plate
seating it fully

slowly I begin to turn it

I feel the resistance
as the key’s teeth
engage with the bolt
and begin to grudgingly
draw it from its secure well

just before I have fully retracted it
I pause
my mind racing
blood pressure soaring
overcome by the magnitude
of what I am about to do

no turning back now
this must be done
and I must do it
but I am terrified

still I hesitate
attempting to gain
my much needed composure

I slow my heartbeat
steady my breathing
steel my resolve
and turn the key
its final quarter inch

the lock clicks
the handle releases
and the door unseats inwardly

this is it
fate has dealt the deck
I am both prisoner
and executioner
in this horrible game

I swing the door open
ever so gradually
eyes rapidly scanning
this vampire lair

and step in

this fate
my destiny

Vlad the Impaler – Dracula

*
rob kistner © 2018
revised © 2019
republished © 2022

Poetry at: dVerse

Northwest Autumn

It is three weeks until Autumn Equinox 2022. I first wrote and published this piece in 2008, significantly revised it in 2018, sharing it again on dVerse in response to a wonderful prompt by Amaya Engleking. I now have further refined it in small ways, and choose to share it again here in 2022. Much has changed in the 14 years since I first wrote this, but not my love for the Pacific Northwest, and most especially — Oregon. It is in the light of this abiding love, that I now share this piece once more here on dVerse, for OLN, September 1st, 2022. Peace!

Autumn is upon us, as we enter our season of nature’s rest and replenishment here in the Pacific Northwest. The cycle of renewal will begin in western Oregon, where I lived for 25 years. I moved in 2015 to Seattle to be near my young grandson. Still immersed in Pacific Northwest beauty here, but Oregon will always hold my heart.

The summer’s dry period has ended, and agricultural irrigation has ceased. Harvesting explodes in October into November, including the grape harvest in our many vineyards. Following the gathering of this autumn bounty, the soil is left to recover. The fruit and nut trees, the vines in the vineyards, and the crop fields will begin the slow period of winter revitalization, in anticipation of the growing seasons to come in the new year. The Great Mandala of life turns steady. The rains that begin sporadically in late October, increasing into November, will work their magic — plumping Oregon’s world-class Christmas tree and holly crops, renewing the sparkle of these holiday icons, readying them for harvest.

Wild nature will also enter a period of recovery and renewal. The flowering plants that have dropped their petals, and the grasses and brush, gone late-summer golden, seek these nurturing rains. Mighty evergreens pause, conifers drop their cones, and deciduous trees shed their leaves all go dormant, and rest. The vast Northwest forests are enriched by this period of rejuvenation.

Streams, whose water levels have dropped considerably, will come to new life when rains begin to replenish their flow. Sockeye and Chinook salmon start their run upstream to begin their spawn. Rainbow, Brook, German Brown, and Cutthroat Trout, as well as numerous other species become active as waters rise and cool. Bear, deer, cougar, elk, coyote, big horn sheep, pronghorn antelope, hawk, osprey, eagle; the varied and plentiful wildlife of our region begin preparation for their unique winter rituals.

Autumn nudges into winter, a peaceful time of rest and restoration here in this breathtakingly beautiful region. A regenerative calm lies upon the lush land, as the season of sky-water arrives to quench nature’s thirst, and revivify her energies in this utopia.

Just as the gardener
nurtures her tend
bending close
to nourish
and protect

so too nature stoops
to embrace
and refresh
her pacific northwest paradise

her autumn shadow upon the land
she leans down
and lets flow life-giving waters
to enrich this lush realm

she covers her beloved eden
in a soft blanket
of moist cloud

a shelter from chilled winter
to insure a rich bounty
when spring returns

abundant fruits
vegetables
and nuts

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hill-climbing vineyards

towering trees
too numerous to imagine

endless grasses
bushes
berries
and flowers

all will be spring succulent
from buildiing winter waters

mountain streams
valley rivers
swell with migrating fish

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as they journey home
up these fresh waters
of new birth

birds and animals
flock and gather
embraced by this season
of quiet replenish

in balanced step
and close harmony
with this cycle
they too
will welcome next spring
with plentiful new life

a sustaining love
this affair

life
nurtured to flourish
in the eventual spring

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*

published: rob kistner © 2008
revised: rob kistner © 2018
final revision: rob kistner © 2022

* More poetry at: dVerse

photos (top to bottom):

Autumn at Multnomah Falls, Oregon

Oregon Autumn rain on conifer needles

Autumn at Sokol Blosser Vineyards, Willamette Valley Oregon

Sockeye salmon, Deschutes River, Oregon

Autumn Cascade Mountain Lake, Oregon

Spellbound

poet
you are enigma

darkness and shadow
you veil and shroud

fire and light
you burn and incandesce

torch my essence
burn deep my soul
trouble my spirit
unsettle my being

then poet
ignite my wonder

whet my seeker’s vessel
with need
to be filled full

poet
at once familiar
yet
exotically foreign
wonderfully strange

wrongly boxed but
exquisitely wrapped

in angst
indignation
longing
discovery
loss

in love

with all these
and infinitely more
you reach an empty place
deep within

echoing my past
awakening my myths

exposing
that which I embrace
in the moment
as truth

refocus me

stirring my pain
my anger
my loneliness

my hope

offering just enough answer
that I combust with question
sacred uncertainty

I’m held
suspended in inquiry
in memories of neverwas

enrapt by your careful words
transfixed by mystery
elevated by insight
impaled by vision

spellbound

Flying Backwards

H ey look
look up here
I’m flying backwards

backwards
and upside down

soaring over the earth
over your cars
over your blurred human haste

look how fast I am
and invisible

I see you
though you can’t see
me

wonder where you’re going
going in your big hurry

somewhere
anywhere

nowhere

are you running away
too

I wonder
what are you thinking

how many of you are sad
how many happy
how many mad
bored
lonely

how many of you
are frightened

frightened
and hurting
how many of you are hurting

how many scared
broken hearts
am I racing above
right now
on your road
to nowhere

if you were fast as me
flying here upside down
and backwards
you could outrun
those broken hearts
those hurtful words
the mindless abuse
your fear

you could do it too
I bet you could
right now

I bet you could
too
just like I am
if you were fast
and invisible
like me

like I am
now

*
rob kistner © 2021

See other responses to this photo: Mindlovemisery

Bridge of Truth

The music is a key element of my expression here…
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P ossessed of all it is I am
I sigh a sigh of longing
I feel empty sad and very old
I seek to fill my barren soul

~across the bridge of truth~

I seek not a kingly right
nor scepter gold to rule a realm
worldly wealth I do not need
love’s enlightenment I seek

*
rob kistner © 2021

Poetry at: dVerse

~ A live bonus from Pauly! ~

To Us

To all d’Verse poets — Salùte!

L et us drink deep
this wine of friendship
ripened well with time
aged to a vintage true

may this nectar rare
sweeten all our days
may its heady warmth
linger long and lush
lighten life’s burdens
and ever lift our spirits

here’s to us!

More poetry at: dVerse

Seductive Fantasy

…a stream of consciousness trip…

Soaring psychedelic
colors pierce my eyes
to bleed into my mind
pulsing into shapes
and melting forms
dancingly irregular
a brilliant cacophony
of fully beautiful discord
that flows in time displacement
blared breathing blending abstract

wow dude!
~~ drifting drifting ~~

so wondrous and magical
as to create a dreamspace
where reality steps away
to a seductive fantasy
that roils and broils
a seething serenade
of sounds and vision
a sanctified vibration

simply too gone!
immaculate!

joyful noise’d orblets
flaring and flashing
in hues and shades
in timbre’d cadences
they spark stiletto sharp
stabbing staccato’d stealthy
and again colors pierce my eyes
lovely rumblings fill full my ears
shifting spinning and floating
to journey a’new through
my beautiful bountiful
and utterly blown
mind garden

}|=|{

psssst! hey! you!
am I conscious man —
— or halluuucinating truuuth?

Day 1 poetry at: NaPoWriMo 2021

Folding Together

My daughter and son surprised, I should say shocked me yesterday, revealing the name and photo of my actual birth father — and the name of my birth mother. This information was unknown to me for 74 years. In fact, I was unaware my kids were genealogy mining. I was stunned to look at the picture my son showed me of a man, heretofore unknown to me, and quite clearly and eerily see “myself” — and the unmistakable faces of my son and daughter. Joseph Lawrence Perrmann and Evelyn Tieke — my birth father and mother. I was utterly floored. Using De’s prompt, I’ve created an imagined romantic scenario of that day they met, and I was conceived as a post WWII bastard — later to be placed in a “sealed” adoption.

she is as bright as sunshine
and as beautiful as a summer day

what a most unususl place
to find such beauty
he muses to himself
as he paints her fondly
with his admiring eyes

“come here often miss”
he rolls off his lips
with a slow sly smile

“only when my laundry’s dirty”
she smiles back
with a perky snap

“what brought you in mister”
she banters jokingly

“like you, dirty laundry”
he emphasizes dirty

“you got a big load there”
she observes coyly
with a lingered downward glance

“you got a nice full basket too”
drawing ‘nice’ to a sly sssizzle
“what’s your name”
he asks, seductively

“Evelyn, what’s yours”
she flirts back

“Joe, but friends call me JL
you can just call me
whatever feels good to you, Evelyn”
he offers with an inviting smile
“can I call you Eve”

“sure, Eve is nice
what’s the L for, Joe”

“Lawrence — Joseph Lawrence Perrmann
purr, you know — like a cat”

“I’m Eve, Eve Tieke
you know, like the wood”
she says
“wa d’ya do JL,
rather, Joe”
she teasingly purrs

“I’m now a cop,
was Navy shore patrol,
I’m just back from war”

“where’s your gun officer”
she coaxs

“I keep it holstered
until I need t’use it”
he warns mockingly

“is it a big gun, Joe”
feigning wonder

“it’ll do the job Eve
you like guns”

“not usually
but I bet yours is nice”
she says breathily

they continued chatting
and flirting
while they laundered
growing more interested
and mutually attracted

just then
buzzzzz

“well, laundry’s dry Eve
wanna help each other fold”

she looks around
“these tables are awfully small”
she replies encouragingly
“I live just around the block Joe
and I have the perfect table”

“great Eve, let’s go there
and fold together
— how does that sound”
he asks suggestively

“purr-fect, Joe
I would love to fold with you”
she says directly into his eyes

“OK,
then let’s go
show me the way Eve”

they pause
their imaginations fully engaged
smiling deeply into each others eyes

“OK” Eve says warmly
body language relaxed
eyes willing

then JL turns
grabs both baskets
full of their warm laundry
and out the door they go

together

and into my history

Poetry at: dVerse

Frozen Man

Vote = Voice — Speak Up! 2CC45105-E580-4197-9120-35D724A74CF8

Voting HELP: CLICK HERE

Stopping Is No Option

— QUADRILLE —

Stopping is no option

giving up
is giving in
grip letting go of dreams

frozen is the frightened man
withered in a worried cage

happy is a voting man
a hero heard and heeded

stopping is no option
for the times
they are a’changin’

~ ~

— COMPLETE VERSION —

* Watch me read Frozen Man complete version: CLICK HERE

Stopping is no option

to lose the way is to keep going
keep moving forward
lest one atrophies
rigid with despair
paralyzed with doubt
locked in hopelessness
bound by fear

the giving up
is the giving in
is the rot that sets
with the loss of wonder
when grip lets go of dreams

loss of faith debilitates the soul
cripples the manifest light
that shines so bright
at the leap into sacred uncertainty
so bright
as to boldly illuminate truth

frozen is the frightened man
withered in a worried cage

terrified of the wrong step
of the journey all in
of daring the way unmarked

wounded by fear
bleeding out the color of life
hemorrhaging joy
exsanguinating possibility

a cold brittled husk
mired in regret
for never having shone so brightly
as to blind the eyes of death
as to light the way of truth

valiant is a voting man
a hero heard and heeded
a cry of dissatisfaction
a voice of change
a stand for defiance

stopping is no option

so senators and congressmen
you best heed the call
don’t stand in the doorway
don’t block up the hall
for they that will lose
will be they who have stalled

so brothers and sisters
raise up your hand
let it be known
throughout the land
if we want change
we must take a stand

NO
stopping is no option

for the times
they are a-changin’

~ ~ ~

NOTE: To read more about folly: CLICK HERE

Day Breaker

“stream-of-consciousness rant”

DayBreaker

(hard-drinkin’, jazz-lovin’, workin’ man’s lament)
~

day breaks
on
a new week’s
sun

putrid
as the stains
on my
flesh-soaked
mattress

damp
as my sour
mat
of fevered
greasy
tangle

hot
as my
whiskey-foul
breath

another
un-commuted
sentence

6A-6P
’til
merciful dusk
delivers me

jack-knifed
into
my
jack and coke

don’t obsess
in sorrow

drown
all
‘da-way
down

a bottom-dive
to comatose

no virtue
feigned
nor
implied

mad goes
the struggle
‘til
saved by
jazz
48 over
‘da
dub-ya
hump

2
debauched
24’s
then
the hissing
sting
of monday
and
the mindless
6-6 grind
120 n’out

cruel numbers
game
goes
round round
and ever round
’til
the tombstone’s
tender
solace

~ ~ ~

Click below to see what’s being imitated at dVerse:
Imitation Practice

Crows of Castle Keep

“Castle Keep is my metaphor for the mind.”

Crows of Castle Keep

my contemplation on dementia

my memories gather and squabble
like the crows of castle keep
they pick the bones
of my recall

bones against the cruel clay
of an arid
barren mind

littered with the harsh forgotten
like the bones of the dinosaur
I’m becoming

struggling
with what letters are made of
my words crack and crumble

my thoughts
parch and wither

lonely silhouettes
against an unforgiving skyline

fading visions of my past
of my life
my home
of yesterday

harder and harder to remember
the degrees of separation
growing ever greater
smoldering in the fog
of my reflected past

splashes of vivid color
on scraps of paper
blown in the mounting winds
of my confusion

dread rising
that I will soon not remember
what it all meant to me
a stirring fear I will forget
lost in tormented emptiness
that all will go black

this is not just a poem
it is much more

this is a light
searching in blackness
for familiar things
for persons beloved
that I do not recognize

this is a fractured tome
a cry of frustration
a tear of loss
a whispered prayer

an epitaph
to my fading map of then

of cherished memories
that now falter
and dim

slowly slipping
unintelligible
into the cacophony
of the crows of castle keep

~ ~ ~

Click below to heck out more poems of blackness on dVerse:
dVerse Poetics: On Shades of Black