Category Archives: imagery

Spoken

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My words disappeared under the moonlight,
The sounds of dissipation fading fast
to quiet in a cavernous depiction,
a blank homage to the universal past.

Then, vibrations denigrated all the darkness
setting into motion light set free –
like a word spoken among the silence
resonating shift and change and deed.

The silhouetted shapes that give perspective,
colored vivid depth to pangs and shine,
a pulsing heart, a growing hunger
that extends from shadows unconfined.

To this, we owe our debts of salutation
the creative source we poets grace-
in the beginning there was nothing
but a word from which our imaginations trace.

 

Lament (a Cento)

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Our one forever,

when it stole through the red gates of sunset
left over from autumn, and the dead brown grass
is yet vibrant with the cadence of the song you might have been.

No longer mired in waiting to begin.

They tell us the night means nothing,
and the candles their light the light.

Nothing is hid that once was clear,

then gone and then to come:
all the time, except the split
second, except—

What is there to say except to lament.

You live in the wrong place.

There’s no flowering time to come.

The hands fell off my watch in the night

and you counted the time
from this instant.

**********************
This Cento contains lines from the following poets: 

Kenneth Rexroth, John Koethe, Lola Ridge, Brenda Hillman, Martha Collins,  Melissa Kwasny, Katharine Tynan, Esther Louise Ruble, David Yezzi, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Jonathan Galassi, Michael Goldman, Robert Francis, and Lucille Clifton.

 

Tide

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via Daily Prompt: Tide

Coming now, in a swath of yellow,
this rising tide of dandelions.

Showing first in punctuated crowns
arriving signs of dandelions.

Golden plots among a fullness of green-
conspiring dandelion lines.

Amassed in fields and hills and mounds
collected dandelions upon inclines.

Rushing in from every side
waves of auric, common mind

Rising now, as I recline
on this tide, in dandelions.

Analog

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It’s at times like this,
when morning slides across in its straw-yellow light –
that I am slow enticed to rise
and invite the day into my life.

Somehow its poetry comes upon me like I dial
digits on a rotary phone-
awaiting a cyclic return to home position before moving on.

It’s where the music of my choice plays from beginning to end,
with static embellishment reminding me of conclusion.

The ticks and tocks of the clock drive me forward in time,

It’s the moment of morning glory – once asleep in darkness,
then blooming in the day.

Beauty – she sits in moments, but grows in continuum,
and the anticipation at these time-points are like dust in the shifting light,
and my heart wakes in hues of endurance and tomorrow.

Cobblestones

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We played as we hopped on a path made of cobblestones,
working to miss tripping up on the wobbly ones-
teetering remnants of geological dawn.

With skips, our fortuitous leaps soon encouraged us,
daffodils blooming beside, on the precipice
jumping to miss the mud puddles along.

Darting and skipping on shiny smooth pebbles
No one would think less of us being rebels
while racing the sidewalks and adjacent lawns.

Falling about in the bluegrass and fescue
Speaking our dreams in expanse, what we cling to-
while bouncing, en-route, as the day lead us on.

Then, after our respite, we left hand-in-hand
Back to the fray of intruding demands,
the cobblestones under our feet level drawn.

And, clicking our heels in the dance of our sunset,
With light on horizons and tears in our sweat,
it’s like we were walking on air all along.

**********
Reworking an older poem from ca. 2005-6

Dyad

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It’s careful planning
in open seasons,
speeding on the highway-
none are most enchanting
than sultry evenings.

It’s dampening ground
then freezing compost-
warming to the sunlight,
glint and once again crowned
each day, sol profound.

It’s noisy joy
come silent druthers.
Minus equals pluses
and divisions are ploys
with burnished alloy.

It’s swaying elders
in the blue dimmet.
Twinkle and a glimmer
of days when he held her,
she’d swoon and swelter.

It’s now and tempted
cosset the twilight,
The token now doublet,
a bell sound presented
with geminate thread.

heaven

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Someday, I’ll walk in the valley
and see the high hills that surround me
thinking that day is the one of nadir –
that my dreams and zeniths are all on paper.

One day, I will pause by a stream
to watch the fish dart, to wish as they teem,
believing that now is the moment of truth –
that now is the difference ‘tween rippled and smooth.

Nowadays, I seek out a dale
with hills along side, and a brook to avail-
hoping this heaven will open the souls
of all who exist, and persist as a whole.

Soundly

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An artless man dreams no dream,

writes no poem,  cannot scheme.

He sees no beauty in those that wish

for better efforts netting fish –

Building hopes – not a gist.

Money talks – lime and twist.

A feckless man walks no walk,

Only chitters on in talk.

Shares no elegance in wit

spewing anger, bile and spit.

Polished words – not a skill.

Poisoned venom – strapped and shrill.

A useless man will he become?

Continued uninspiring thrum –

Whilst the beauty grows in spite

filling in the space and fright.

Magic overtakes the ill.

Speak it soundly, you know the drill.

 

 

 

Veritas

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This poem was born of a phrase,
its stem and budding promise
a point, the origin of which
is unknown.
There was growth,
with cooing and a wriggle of cadence.

It crawled and I was proud.

With careful diagramming,
bone to bone, its frame was
constructed – evolved to stand
and as a laggard on legs, walked
from the mirage of composition
to live.

It left behind the chaos
of structure, the wild haikus
and couplets in the dark,
keeping grasp of its intent,
as language that now endures.

Shouting and singing its veritas
to anyone who passes the moment
and lingers.

And when the time for its jaunt
is at an end, it will sit for awhile
and crumble in upon itself, leaving
the predicating letters – its a’s
and u’s – to seed the next generation
from the soil.
 

Walkways

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The hollow sound of steps on concrete
as I move through quiet halls,
walking with a mood of purpose,
striding forward without pall.

Thinking of the crunch of leaves
in autumns’ past on wooded malls,
Shuffled red and brown debris
whispering with their ruffled brawl.

Memories of a trail in snow
with silence mid footfall,
or sloshing on the coastal sand
the tides erasing tread and scrawl.

The running gait on playground fields
and rhythmic marching bands recalled
echoing their pace and chorus
clapping, steps from those enthralled.

All this sound and vision walking
as I move through vacant halls,
listening at the sound of knocking
of my own steps, from wall to wall.