JANET BRICE PARKER
Artist • Poet • Author • Songwriter
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Janet Brice Parker

poems for paintings.

1930's Jazz

Deepest black night
of city streets and shadows
brings beautiful music
behind life's walls.
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Bongo Man

He shone
in the shadow moon.
Water flickering
and silky sky.
cushioned rhythms
followed a balmy breeze.
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Caribbean Christmas

He walks along the shore
and breaks into laughter as
He takes our hands.
We circle through
palms, and dance
barefoot in the sand.
We dance to banjo,
tambourine, castanets
and lyre.
And celebrate
His birth.
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Jamie Paints

The studio is her's today,
and liquid joy creates
Watercolor coveralls
and hair and hands and face.

Three years old, with freedom
in a pan of colors bright.
A brush makes swirls in water bowls,
and Jamie squeels with delight.
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Room to Sea

Trees and houses
stop short of
a lofty place
to sit and dream
in a room
for seeing the sea.
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Birth

Painful summer.
No carefree breeze
to end the plight
of restless nights.
But, first-born calls
and I am broken.
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Glitter Moon

Cool blue-violet sky
imbued this
sculptor's waiting.
Rendezvous with form
gave the the paint
a fragile knife.
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Flower house

Thick silky scent
through patterned hills
blends dew and orchids.
A canvas full of
shifting splendor.
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Riviera Red Place

The "Redneck Riviera"
is the place I love to go.
Sugar white sand, see-through sea,
and a pace down low and slow.

Newspapers aren't for reading
but spreading long and wide.
For piling mounds of fresh boiled shrimp
while you watch the rising tide.

The "Redneck Riviera"
on the Gulf of Mexico
beats any "Frenchy" foreign place,
and everyone wears clothes.
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Beach Baby

Animal crackers and V-8 Splash
and SPF 35.
He's set, for at least a minute or two,
'til some kids come running by.

He wants to ride the waves
with dad and throw the big beach ball.
He wants a castle in the sand,
thick and wide and tall.

The chair is empty,
that boy's long gone
and running down the beach
A trail of animal crackers behind
and mom within close reach.

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