color

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 21, Overstated

I don’t think I’ve ever had a real favorite color (or colour). But I needed to answer the question: what is it? So, I used to say it was blue. I like green, too.

And while I don’t like yellow cars (think lemons), pants, shirts, or journalism; Motorcycles, flowers, and mellow yellow songs all do well in Amarillo yellow. Also, I liked Jay’s pumpkin colored, semi-yellow-orange Porsche, which was kind of sweet.

Today’s Prompt-areno (it’s been three weeks, folks) is to write a poem that repeats and/or focuses on a single color. While any color would do, I went ahead with ubiquitous blue. It meets prompt.

Overstated

I thought I was cool, or at least being so,
like I would know the trick,
but I was advised
that I looked more like a fool,
the colors were a little bit sick.

My shirt, pants, and shoes were all shades of blues
but shade makes the difference, thus I donned—
a lighter shirt in a bland shade of green.
That was yesterday.

Now at home, I write a blue poem about my casuals,
while wearing a two-tone blue top
and mixed-up blue bottom that is not to be seen.

Long ago, my eyes were blue, but now some say green,
depending on the day,
my shirt,
and my blue-eyed soul.

We dance to the Blue Danube waltz,
and we swim in blue waters,
we pine for the bright blue sky,
then in August we wonder why.

Blue Ridge Mountains take me back,
a Blue Duck sits on my desk
or maybe it’s some Lonesome Dove’s
dark psychotic character.

Like red and yellow, blue is primary.
Mixing gets us shades of green or purple
or a midnight-something.

Blue nose or blue toes, blue jeans on blue teens,
blue men in a Vegas troupe.

Blue moods and Mondays
are both downers but not the blues of bennies,
and blue shaved ice is coconut flavored on blue tongues.

Navy blue is almost black, and baby blue is much too tac.
So blue is good, and blue is bad, and blue can even say
that we are in a mood or feeling sad.

But I thought it through and through
and I must admit,
if I did have a favorite color,
it would probably be something like
a deeper shade of blue.

Look both ways but try not to see red when looking at blue.
Mind the gaps in mismatched tops and bottoms, but blue is the truest of the cools.

Midweek Poetry: Thursday

Muhly grass in bloom (Fall)

It Feels Like Fall

Like a nearby preferred lover,
October with its distinct aromas,
ambiance of Autumn’s threshold,
sending forth changing vibrations,
moods, and patinas.

Animals know this is today,
deer bucks are seen rutting near does.
They feel cooling air, but with heat
in their blood, driving sex to their bones.

Say, mew-len-BERG-ee-ah kap-il-LAIR-iss,
or better pink, coastal, or gulf Muhly
saving face for fading summer annuals
promising striking purple haze seeds.

As plumes of flower panicles perch
above glossy green-leaf foliage
made permanent, a picture in a cloud
striking the gaze of poetic conceit.

Goodbye summer, Fall is here
to change aura and climate,
to soften and heal me, to remind me
pink is a color for comforting me too.

Look both ways in every season.
Both flora and fauna seek attention.
Mind the gaps so as to miss nothing of Mother’s beauty.

Poem: What is la couleur de l’amour?

I never really had a favorite color,
but I lied and claimed blue, then green.
It changes. I never claimed yellow.
I hate, “what’s your favorite…?”

I am starting to like the orange colors,
that red halfway to yellow, t-sip
burnt orange wheels closer to yellow.
I try not to lie awake at night over this.

I don’t have much yellow stuff. Wouldn’t
have a yellow car. Might a motorcycle.
I think it’s because lemons are yellow.
Honestly, sometimes I like yellow a lot.

Maroon, that old chestnut, is a brownish
crimson (hey, `bama) or a dark reddish-purple
horney-frog, Cowtown kinda color just south
of burgundy. Maroon is a French-ish word.

Color words are cool, warm, primary,
and secondary, or tertiary. Some value,
hue intensity with a tint of tone, and neutral.
But gray they say has fifty shades. Maybe.

There’s monochromatic some say is dull,
analogous begins with anal, but a double
complimentary can split a tetrad, even primes,
I suppose. But who cares besides me?

This business with our fondness for colors
may explain something about human nature.
Like long yellow argyle socks and brown sandals.
I like red shoes and sandals (no socks). I wonder why.

Look up and down and both ways for the color of love.
Mind the gaps and forget the French tuck. Let it all hang out.

NaPoWriMo: 30 poems in 30 days (day 24)

Day 24 prompt: write a poem about a fruit. Where do we get the word for the color when we mix red and yellow?

A Norange by Another Name: Orange

What shall we call this yellow-red color?
Geoluhread was, but is not right. From China
came five centuries ago the answer, a round
citrus fruit. We shall call it orange, as is the fruit.

See the color, not persimmon, pumpkin, or tangerine
they are all orange. See textured shiny bright rind
hiding yellow seed, white albedo pulp and triangle
segments of juicy sweet meat for kings and queens.

Feel the firm round breasted textured shape,
softly, almost spongy, heavier than an apple
with a protruding nipple or navel or pedicel
from the flower of past blossoms mating.

Smell the fragrant fruit, the peel, the acceptance
of inviting sensual aroma used in fine perfumes
or arousing essential oils. Hold the orange
to your nose, near your lips, take her home.

Taste the tangy citrus flavor after peeled,
soft, bitter skin is removed, baring mixed taste
and aroma of sweet bliss, a robust exiting,
acidic-sweet flavor sliding into your mouth.

Hear the soft sound of bursting flavor,
for quiet wet eating, the soft thud when
dropped or tapped. Hear yourself masticate
briefly before swallowing treasured pleasure.

Look both ways for the common and the rare.
Mind the gaps, by any other shade, tone, or hue, and orange is still orange.
The fruit came before the color.