by Admin | Jan 20, 2026 | Emerald Book Club
Coloring Outside The Lines by Stephen Wilson
Our purple fingered teacher passed
Out sheets that smelled of alcohol.
Our kindergarten class was told
To crayon in all train car bars
Or else our tigers might escape.
The choice of tiger stripes we made
Was any color that we liked,
But smeared unless you shaded close
But not across the black wax bars.
We muddied all attempts at art.
I tried again, ignoring rules
And even lines defining car,
And tiger, railroad wheels of steel.
I even asked for crayons in
Our teacher’s special crayon box:
Illuminating Emerald,
B’Dazzled Blue, and Alloy Orange.
Not only had my cat escaped,
But lost himself inside a scene
Of psychedelic jungle light.
Retirement is like my pre-
School was with tiny painting jobs,
Naps every afternoon before
A story time I write myself:
Where children breathe in evergreens
And tread a gently thistled earth.
Where lakes are glazed too perfectly
And tempt them into skipping stones
To break the sun to splintered glass
With flashes, all di min ish ing.
by Admin | Jan 20, 2026 | Colouring Poems, Poems, Poetry
Colors passing through us by Marge Piercy
Purple as tulips in May, mauve
into lush velvet, purple
as the stain blackberries leave
on the lips, on the hands,
the purple of ripe grapes
sunlit and warm as flesh.
Every day I will give you a color,
like a new flower in a bud vase
on your desk. Every day
I will paint you, as women
color each other with henna
on hands and on feet.
Red as henna, as cinnamon,
as coals after the fire is banked,
the cardinal in the feeder,
the roses tumbling on the arbor
their weight bending the wood
the red of the syrup I make from petals.
Orange as the perfumed fruit
hanging their globes on the glossy tree,
orange as pumpkins in the field,
orange as butterflyweed and the monarchs
who come to eat it, orange as my
cat running lithe through the high grass.
Yellow as a goat’s wise and wicked eyes,
yellow as a hill of daffodils,
yellow as dandelions by the highway,
yellow as butter and egg yolks,
yellow as a school bus stopping you,
yellow as a slicker in a downpour.
Here is my bouquet, here is a sing
song of all the things you make
me think of, here is oblique
praise for the height and depth
of you and the width too.
Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.
Green as mint jelly, green
as a frog on a lily pad twanging,
the green of cos lettuce upright
about to bolt into opulent towers,
green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear
glass, green as wine bottles.
Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums,
bachelors’ buttons. Blue as Roquefort,
blue as Saga. Blue as still water.
Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat.
Blue as shadows on new snow, as a spring
azure sipping from a puddle on the blacktop.
Cobalt as the midnight sky
when day has gone without a trace
and we lie in each other’s arms
eyes shut and fingers open
and all the colors of the world
pass through our bodies like strings of fire.
by Admin | Jan 20, 2026 | Colouring Poems, Poems, Poetry
If only life was a colouring book by John Edward Smallshaw
..and then we could colour in,
madly fall fuller in and because
colouring can be erased
we can do it for days and days
and if the years pass me by
I'll just colour me
one more blue sky.
Dot to dot's duller we only need
colour
and
crayon
to make a day go on
I'll
vote for that.
by Admin | Jan 20, 2026 | Colouring Poems, Poems, Poetry
Colouring book by Blind Aesthetic
life is a colouring book
People are the crayons
Experiences are the various
Shades of those crayons
Live life to the fullest
Do it with your friends and family
Fill in that colouring book
And don't be afraid
To go outside of the lines
by Admin | Jan 20, 2026 | Colouring Poems, Poems, Poetry
Colouring Under The Light by Mitta
I believe that my purpose is to colour you right;
be artistic on you all night.
Be bright under the dimmed light.
Hold and squeeze your crayons tight.
Just the two of us; no one else in sight;
because my purpose is to colour you right.
Me on your sketch board.
You filling me in with your crayons when you're bored,
and feeling me up like a hoard.
Leaving your wax on me like writings on a chalkboard.
I'll make sure that you're not scorned;
because my purpose is to colour you even if you're flawed.
Although I might not know where to start the assignment,
I'll colour you with much excitement.
Colouring on you is a perfect adornment,
and together we colour a perfect monument.
I chose you carefully as my colour assortment,
because my purpose is to colour you as an act of an atonement.
In you, I find so many colours in store.
In you, I find light for sure.
I remember us colouring until the early morning at four.
We coloured like we'd never coloured before.
We entagled inlove like a fight of foes.
Because my purpose is to colour you, of course.
Mitta Xinindlu
