Category: art

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

 


https://youtu.be/oz3JlMhgfq0

SunsetGunn

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

IMG_8599

 
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

IMG_8599

*
rob kistner © 2023

Poetry at: dVerse

 



A few more from Animal Logic — GOOD SHIT!



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

 


Waltz of Youth



 

W ith the heft and smooth sheen
of the beautiful sculpted body
caressed lovingly
between her nubile legs
her excitement stirs
her anticipation grows

eager and confident
she lays tingling hands upon it

engaging the sure strength
of her lithe knowing essence
and the firm deft touch
of her pristine fingers
the brilliant young cellist
ignites the dance

strong slender legs
carry firm yearning bodies
perfumed and cologne’d
around and across
the crowded dance floor
pulses alive

budding passion
craving — yet hesitant
swept up in innocent bliss

the waltz of youth
rising and falling
to the rich give and take
of the cellist’s bow

she lifts the energy
coaxing the passion
of the beautiful dance

with her nimble sway
and precision movements
delicately she envisions
the flowing notes

lovely face
in rhythmic expression
eyes sometimes closed
she dreams the music

wholly consumed
by the seductive strains
the enlivened dancers
sweep round and round
bodies a’glisten
in smoldered embrace
bathed in the chandelier’s
golden glow

further fired by stolen kisses
and breathy whispers
of promised love
and naive forevers

dawning lives
in the tender grasp
of blooming desire
and the velvet touch
of mad magical
magnificent music
*
rob kistner © 2021

Poetry at: Sunday Muse


 


…a little “out of this world” music…

 

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?

rob kistner © 2021

Day 1 poetry at: NaPoWriMo 2021


Ghosts

An old man remebering his days of young love.


— Summer of 1963 —

Author’s Note:
My inspiration for writing “Ghosts” was drawn from my youth, as represented by the images at the top. Also, strangely enough, from a wonderful novel by Peter Heller entitled “The Dog Stars”. It was reinforced by my awoken curiosity, which found me sampling the top 100 hits of 1963, which was the soundtrack for the summer of my 16th year. This was the summer of my ’57 Chevy Bel Air, of my ‘63 Triumph 650 Bonneville motorcycle, the summer of my first rock and roll band, and my first “girl”. This entire journey back in time was initially prompted by my stumbling upon an old picture of that Chevy.

Looking back at my early teen years, those years when I was waiting for my life to begin, I flashed on my memories of young love. The intensity of that tender pure unrealistic infatuation could perhaps have happened only then, in those times – in that summer of 1963. Before assasinations, collapsing economies, open social unrest, Viet Nam, before AIDS, COVID-19, rampant drugs, criminal presidents – the year of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Beach Boys took the world surfing, Annette Funicello playing beach blanket bingo, red Chevy ragtops, Triumph Bonnevilles, OpArt, and President Kennedy challenging us to go to the moon. This was a time, maybe the last time, when teens were truly naive and innocent.

I don’t know why that feels true. Perhaps it’s because we were so naive and so unsure as teens, in that post WWll, white-picket-fence, father-knows-best, american-dream, faux-utopia. We were tentative and waiting, wondering. It’s like love imagined that innocent needed that much room, that much “open” mental space, that much emotional “safety”, that much unbridled belief, for it to take root, and to bloom – even if but for a brief moment in time.

The not knowing anything really for certain, but hoping, with aching faith in the possibility of pure true love, was both thrilling and unsettling. It was a love full of passion and devotion, but scary. We were not completely certain how to navigate such an emotion, not really, so we left it alone, tried to let it unfold lightly, terrified we would lose it. And if it did manifest, it felt so big and beautiful, and unbelievable! It was most often short-lived, owing to our immaturity – but what intoxicating joy, such heady exhileration! Those were the times when the apparitional wings of young love did fly to the moon, and carried us along. Here is “Ghosts”…

 
Ghosts

~

strong slender legs
carry firm eager bodies
perfumed and cologne’d
around and across the dance floor
pulses racing

electrified — entwined — excited

young groping lust
craving
yet hesitant

swept up in innocent bliss
shadowed near the band shell
beyond the glow of incandescence

throbbing with the big beat
of scorching rock & roll

smoldering for some
longing for more
confusing for most

a pubescent play
beneath a high starry sky
sparking with carnal fantasies

humid as our urgent embraces
hot as our stolen kisses
as forever as our promised love
in that distant
sizzling
teenage midnight…

…sweet ghosts of my youth
haunt from long ago

~ ~ ~

rob kistner © 2012
unpublished 1st draft © 2007
updated © 2020


— Me in 1963 —


— Like my car in 1963 —

Frozen Man

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

Voting HELP: CLICK HERE

 


line art: “Frozen Man” — rob kistner © 2008

 

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’

rob kistner © 2020

~ ~

— 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’

~ ~ ~

rob kistner © 2008
revision © 2020

 

https://youtu.be/wZ9drv78dCQ
 

NOTE: To read more about folly: CLICK HERE

Aeropachydermicide

Aeropachydermicide: recklessly causing the death of someone or something by actions that result from the foolish belief that one is so smart and powerful that one can make an elephant fly.

 

Aeropachydermicide

  • Debunking the ridiculous theory of human dominion.

    • ~

    somewhere between our petrochemical insanity
    and our reckless dance with fractured atoms
    we believed we were the miracle
    and it all went seriously awry

    we fantasized we had dominion
    that we understood the vast unknown
    could control the raw chaotic
    that we had figured out the why

    so we delved into dark science
    with no regard for frail nature
    flailed our way across the planet
    belched our leavings into our sky

    we so bought into our egos
    that we perceived ourselves as gods
    that we were capable of anything
    perhaps make the elephant to fly

    but we humans lost sight of balance
    did not comprehend our place
    as only one of precious many
    we let the tipping point slip by

    now we wonder what will happen
    to our misbegotten dream
    stare through disbelieving tears
    as we watch it slowly die

    ~ ~ ~

    rob kistner © 10/3/11
    revised © 2019


     

  • Click below to check out more poetry at dVerse:

    Poetic: Theories of Everything and Anything


     

  • Check out more poems on Toads

     

    35C6DAEF-40AA-452C-885C-C373E1DE84F6
    Hi! I’m Edgrrr, rob’s shih tzu.

    • Reaper Groom

    A MURDER MYSTERY

    I’ve always been fascinated by who-done-it’s and classic horror stories, so I was inspired to write this piece with a ‘retro’ gothic feel.

    Lyle, the socially awkward, seemingly milquetoast villain of this tale has a ‘killer’ obsession. A shy, mild-mannered church organist; he is ‘changed’ into a murdering menace — by loneliness and rejection.

    BE WARNED: This poem, and the collage I created to accompany it, are both a bit graphic — in a noir-tongue-in-cheek sort of way.

    I invite you to enjoy, “Reaper Groom”.

    reaper-groom500d.jpg

    collage above entitled: “Thief of Hearts” — by: rob kistner © 2008

    ___________

    Reaper Groom

    ~

    backlit by a lightening flash
    a figure scurried ‘cross the yard
    between the gravestones he did dash
    head down low, and running hard

    dressed in cape of velvet black
    he seemed to vanish from our sight
    but then we saw him double back
    he would not escape tonight

    elusive as a demon’s shadow
    ghost-like — he could disappear
    but no more, this scourge of sorrow
    finally, we were drawing near

    surround and capture, was the plan
    the hounds had tracked him to this place
    this had to be our wanted man
    though none had seen his evil face

    we were sworn to bring him down
    bloodthirsty was this man — and cruel
    he’d caused such horror in our town
    if he escaped, we’d look the fool

    the target of our townsfolk’s hate
    he must be caught this beast of doom
    he’d killed so many brides to date
    we knew him as the “Reaper Groom”

    he took the lives of countless bride
    murdered them by dark of night
    once betrothed they couldn’t hide
    death was sure to be their plight

    marriage took an awful blow
    as one by one our maidens fled
    our bachelors’ ire began to grow
    there were no wives to share their bed

    this had to stop — no maids for men
    it wasn’t natural, wasn’t right
    this curse would never be again
    it would end, right here, tonight

    we had him cornered in our net
    he’d not escape our clutch this time
    he owed this town an awful debt
    he’d pay quite dearly for his crime

    we closed in slowly, with great care
    we’d make sure he couldn’t run
    we deftly caught him in our snare
    and gathered round him, every one

    we took him roughly in this place
    and chained him to a stony block
    and brought a torch to light his face
    then gasped, and staggered back in shock

    this couldn’t be, not this poor fool
    this shy man of timid smile
    we sought a monstrous evil ghoul
    this was bashful lonely Lyle

    Lyle played organ every Sunday
    and lead the hymns, as we would sing
    our fiend escaped, we’d get him one day
    and when we did, for sure he’d swing

    it wasn’t Lyle, it was another
    Lyle was not the type, you see
    Lyle lived with his aging mother
    so we’d set lonely Lyle free

    but Lyle spoke up in quiet voice
    don’t turn me lose, please, I forbid it
    you see you really have no choice
    cause I’m your man, that’s right, I did it

    I killed these maidens everyone
    I’ve charged this town a heavy toll
    but my spree is over, I won’t run
    this weigh’s too heavy on my soul

    sentenced to hanging at his trial
    Lyle was shortly going to die
    looking sadly stern at Lyle
    the judge inquired of him why

    had he slain all this beauty
    made so many families cry
    he felt an answer was his duty
    so this was Lyle’s cold reply

    for many years I’d been denied
    until my soul was heavy laden
    god knows how often I had tried
    to win the love of a fair young maiden

    I was so consumed with bitter grief
    that, though I’ve caused much pain and strife
    this was my only true relief
    to take from them their tender life

    as mama’s words rang in my head
    I’d cut out their precious part
    there’s more than one way, mama said
    to steal a lovely lady’s heart

    ~ ~ ~
    rob kistner © 2008

    Sanctuary


    “Under Windsor Bridge” by Adolphe Valette, 1912

     

    Sanctuary

    ~

    dead calm envelops me

    moist morning fog
    adrift on the water
    wraps ’round me
    like a cool blanket

    it muffles the sounds
    of daybreak’s industry

    alone with my thoughts
    in peaceful privacy
    safe anonymity

    the regrets of last night
    dim and fade

    this brief sanctuary
    a soothing balm
    so welcome
    at the start of this heavy day

    ~ ~ ~

    rob kistner © 2012

    Cloistered

  • This piece deals with the strange duality we all carry with us through life, the unique contradiction between the person we think we are, and the ‘many’ other persons others perceive us to be from their experience of us, as filtered through their differing individual perceptions. Fair or not, convenient or not, we are ‘judged’. Our lives are impacted to one degree or another, every day by how we measure up to each of these interpretations of the “I” we are thought to be. This includes the “I” we perceive ourselves to be. Which one is real, is valid, or is any one of them truly definitive? The phrase “I am” presents a fascinating philosophical quandary.


    image by René Magritte

     

    Cloistered

    ~

    when another
    tells you of yourself
    you’re shown the dance they see
    your outward choreography

    but you hear not of the music
    that rings true in your mind
    that leads and drives the steps
    to this inward dance they’re blind

    you are shown the reflection
    not the light that shines inside
    that illuminates your soul
    to guide your steps and stride

    are we the I that we know
    the self that we so treasure
    or are we in fact the other
    the one the others measure

    for if the valid I
    be the one that is most known
    then we are in fact that I
    the one to ourselves not shown

    for surely when compared
    the majority story shared
    is of the outward other
    the one seen by another

    and so we live our life
    cloistered in this other
    and live this life alone
    even when by many known
    for the I that’s outward shown
    is the I that’s not our own

    ~ ~ ~

    rob kistner © 2012

    • Solitaire


    “A Dinner Table at Night” — by: John Singer Sargent

     

    Solitaire

    ~

    immersed in pleasured chatter
    bursts of heightened laughter

    in the ringing clank of crystal
    of silver on fine china

    crisp bustle of starched service
    lush rustle of satin’d lace

    aglow in silken’d candlelight
    caressed by gentle strains

    wafts of sweet Bordeaux
    heady fragrance of cut orchids

    midst soft din and dance of mirth
    I gaze upon your empty face
    and see there in your hollow eyes
    our game is solitaire

    ~ ~ ~

    rob kistner © 2012

    Transcend

    rob1

     

    Transcend

    ~

    this week at sfmoma
    fell captive
    to the genius of mehretu

    rolled close in my chair
    soul-toppled into stadia
    carried off by the brilliance

    made the journey
    took the trip
    my soul expanded a bit

    after
    there was salad
    on a table
    graced by orchids
    julie on my mind

    ~ ~ ~

    rob kistner © 2012