Panoramic Earth Tones

By Timothy Hodor

Abstract

Illustrated poetry offering a full and unobstructed view in every direction of the world,
encompassing the boundaries of geography, culture, and wildlife.
Panoramic Earth Tones captures the heart and soul of men and women who color the earth human.
This collection is fascinatingly shaped and well-rounded like the earth itself.

Salvador's Gala Nude

Amid Teatre-Museu Dali,
A nude woman
Forests Abraham Lincoln's

Face, jungles
A bearded
Presidential smile.

Head over Heels

Your eyes
Azure the sky,

Become an
Aquamarine liqueur

In a glass-bottom
Heaven my

Land-locked heart
Sips top-down.

Lizard Sunset

The macrolobium trees
Uproot the water,

Wait for
The melting

Pink guava sun
To land on

Their upside down
Iguana claws,

Silhouetted reptile bones
In lagoon-softened skins.

Weeping Spirits Out of the Darkness

I enter
The cemetery
No tombstones badge.

Only plaques lie
Like dominoes
On a table

Of death.
I labyrinth
Between the pieces,

Looking for
The number
That calendars

My brother's grave.
A pack
Of hoarse

Winds howls
And outshines silence:
A lantern

Of voices
Overlights my tears,
Yet fellowships

A lone wolf
Of life, foster-mothers
An orphaned brother.

Sambόdromo Play-by-Play

The sky above
The phantasmagoric parade

Unheavens an
Orgasm of fireworks.

A stiletto-heeled flagbearer
Performs a mating dance.

A kaleidoscopic blur
Of food-

And-beverage
Hues passes:

Saffron, melon, avocado,
Aubergine, and pistachio.

Skating-rink-like lights
Trapeze surrealistic floats:

An upside-down castle,
A casino

With women in
Roulette-wheel skirts,

A soccer game played
By dummies moving

On the heads
Of men

Who later team
With a sunrise

That takes
No sides.

Sewing Ocean

Footsteps make
An uneven stitch

Along the shore,
While the tide

Rolls up
Its sleeve,

Exposes bare-armed
Sandbars and

Goose bumps
Of coral.

Mausoleum for a Deceased Love

The fog hoods
The Taj Mahal,

Leaves a face
Of sadness.

Marble weeps.
Beauty mourns.

Twenty-First-Century-Act-One Synopsis

Hurricanes and tsunamis
Attack coasts.

Muscles of
Earthquakes flex,

Bury cities alive.
Governments wage wars

To meet ends
Without grasping beginnings.

Terrorists turn
Buildings, subways,

And buses
Into bombs

They detonate
With remote beliefs.

Nature changes
Its pace

And stride,
Plays tame,

Rebels, takes revenge,
Concedes or surrenders.

Time and
Politics march.

View of Geiranger

From the waterfront,
Liners muscle in

The fjord with
Stretch-limousine bodies

That dwindle
Into tugboats

Anchored in
A bathtub

Porcelain cliffs side
And glaciers lather.

The Icarus Couple

I want
To soar

With you
Towards the sun,

To warm ourselves
Far from this

War-cold world,
And slalom through

Tree-like rays,
Yet tread air

Long enough
To carve peace

On the bark
Of light.

Petrified Music at The Hatshepsut Temple

A fan
Of rock

Backdrops the
Roman-Forumesque facade,

With porticos
That resemble

Terraces of
Flat harmonicas

Only the ancient
Egpytian mouth

Knows how
To sound.

Petrified Music at The Hatshepsut Temple

Side-Stepping Waterside Towns

I board
A train, have
No destination,

Float between
A riverbank
Of rails, take

The day downstream,
Chug by sandbars
Where civilization thins.

The Lattice-Windowed Palace of Winds

The poet-maharaja
Sawai Pratap Singh

Offered his courtesans
A facade

Of discretion and
A back wall

Of air
To peek

At city life
Behind wooden veils.

Tomb in an Alley

I wait for nature
To say a prayer

Instead of me
At my brother's grave,

But trees loiter
In a corner

Of autumn,
Shuffle leaves

Back and forth,
Keep hands

Of branches
In their pockets.

Renaissance Men

Dali's Sistine-Chapel version
Replaces Michelangelo's
With a ceiling

Life and death
Frival on.
The painter ascends

With oversized feet
That sole
A trivial heaven.

Purple

Her lips
Flutter like

Wings of
A violet butterfly

That glow on
A black-light meadow

And hallucinate
My tripping heart.

Temple of Karnak

I thread-needle
The aisle

Of sphinxes,
Who soldier

The entrance.
Their ram faces

Out-stare time,
With eyes

Archeologically anchored
In a desert.

Loosely Drafted Existence

My life reads
Like a book

Ghost-written by stalking
Alter-ego strangers

That had
Nothing to do

With the
True story.

The Irish National Famine Memorial

Bay winds
Thread skeletons

Wired to
Circle-cross masts.

The million lives
Hunger shipwrecked

Ensphere suffering,
Form a humble halo.

In the Finnish Countryside

Fog ghosts fields
By a lake,
While birches

Space woods,
Look like
Unfinished faces

Of proud generations,
Totem poles
To be.

Basilica Cistern

Carp patrol
The aquatic crypt,

Surface by
A waterproof column

An upside down,
Algal Medusa head foots.

Lost Jazz Son

Buzz was cremated
Last January.

His trusty
Hollow-body guitar

Hangs on a hook
In a log cabin,

Like a boneless skeleton,
An orphan of music.

Metropolitan Fodder

From the bay,
The roof of

The opera house
Depicts colliding

Shark fins
That crash

On a surface
Of urban plankton.

Groping for Transient Loves

Women cross
My life
In slow motion,

Yet a blur
Of females
Collides with

Gusts of infatuations
A blind
Wind fondles.

Ayers Rock

The sunrise puts
Seven coats
Of red

On Uluru;
Forty-five-degree heat bakes
The clay-like paint.

All around,
Aboriginal souls
Mass the earth.

Daily Flute Rations

The melody
The snake charmer
Plays in Marrakesh:

Ravel's Bolero
Chopped up into
Insane slivers

Of a lure
The old cobra
Diets on.

Lakebound

Under Christ's observation
On Corcovado,

The butterfly-shaped lagoa
Stills with

Wings of jade
Ipanema hotels pin.

Damp Icicles

I feel the shivers
In your eyes,
Clutch chilly tears,

Sense our love
Becoming a
Frost-bitten heart.

Dali's Sculpture in Figueres

A Venus-de-Milo-like statue
Figureheads the black

Cadillac convertible
Tailgated by

A keel
Of Michelangelo

A tire barnacles
Under a boat

That weeps tears
Of turquoise sperm.

My Sister Through Sun-Lit Octaves

The beams
Of harp strings
Celestify her face,
As her fingers
Trapeze across one
Blond-maple wing
Of a butterfly
That flutters
The music
A summer
Heart rhapsodies.

Rosana's Stage

Your footsteps
Tambourine the

Copacabana boardwalk,
While your rhythm

Palms a
Handmade samba.

The Amber Iguassu Hives

The sky
Blues the plateau

Of water
Egrets stilt.

Cascades drone.
The overweight rain

From yesterday
Wets down

The hides on
Bumble-bee-

Colored backs
Waterfalls arch.

The Soft to Hard Woman

You approach
Like a drizzle

That walks
On tiptoe,

And depart
In heels

That scuff
The air.

Hand-off Replays before the Homestretch

At the grave,
I focus on

The hyphen between years,
Imagine a hash mark

Or a finish line,
See a boy scoring

Game-winning touchdowns
Or breaking track records.

Driving home,
I think about

The blue-ribboned walls
In the bedroom we shared

And the teenage stories
We relayed through Indiana nights.

I'm moving around
The cindered oval of time,

With memories prone to cramps,
Stretching my hand out

To an invisible runner
Who keeps dropping the baton

In a race
Only a long life wins.

Menelaus's Morpho

The indigo-blue butterfly
Rides with
No saddle

Of shade
On tame winds,
Then helixes

A ceibo tree,
Whose whale-shaped tail
Keels the soil.

Saint Lucia Boat Tour

The steel drum
Music reflects
A face

Of rhythm
That smiles,
While the crew

Captures winds
That surrender
To sails.