Category Archives: poem

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.

Interval: A Cento

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I was asking myself:
will I be like this? How will I manage?

Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table,
A beggar shivering in silhouette,
with a splash of vinegar:
stoic, bitter,
strangely sweet.

It never stops still for a moment, so
I try to make it internal, and every wave is charmed.

How better to drift toward another world
but with leaves falling. The leaves, a modulation
of the accumulated darkness in which
two hundred million stars have wink and glimmer needles.
Soundless, their gaps in the dark
bless the traveler and the hearth he travels to.

All the blessings
for squash, apples, carrots, and potatoes,
the milk, the wine, the honey that night pours out.

The boy who lives inside me still won’t go away.
There was a gap in things and here we are.

**********************
This cento contains lines from the following poets: Andrew Motion, Langston Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Margaret Atwood, Donald Hall, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rosemary Willey, Phillippe Delaveau, Luke Davies, Todd Davis, John Taggart, Bruce Weigl, Ron Padgett, Wendy Videlock, Howard Moss, John Hollander, Dave Lucas.

Layering

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First, lay down a crumble of moments in a dish,
childhood memories and first visions evoked –
if you have them – mix them with a butter
sauce of retention.

Smear a layer of simple exuberance – whisked and sweet
over the base. Linger if you must, smoothing and spreading
a zestful meringue until it glistens reflected light.

Next will come chunks of a weightier kind.
Dropped upon the dish,
they will indent the surface.
They will disrupt your coated enthusiasm
with texture, and by themselves, will be unfulfilling.
Do not allow them to cover in total,
but position them throughout – they will later add contour
and context to your beginnings.

Prepare a lime gelatin containing your favorite morsels
of triumph (and defeat)-
One cannot come without the other-
Spoon it over the patina of your past until covered.
Cool and let it set for a time- until solid.

When removed and sliced, savor the different
complexions – the marrow and the substance in between
and within the continuous and smooth.

Add layers.

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.

 

 

 

Words

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Borrowed light from the edge of the blinds
illuminates and too, reminds
a claim that words festoon –
Be it despot, king, or brass baboon.

As wind-blown foolishness accounts-
judgement – dogma- can win out
if echoed loud, with sheening rancor.
Out to dull our dreams, this cantor.

But tides roll in to shape the sand
and acrimony leads the damned
to an ever-shifting, deep abyss
where nothing left can calm or kiss.

So to this hole of excrement
trash words of hate and their assent.
Endow more words to raise and soothe,
and stem the shit of brash baboons.

Scale

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I step to the side of a ladder
and look up the beams to ascend –

Pulling the halyard, extending
the length of the climb to the end.

Firming the placement and facing,
I place on the first rung, a tap

of rhythm and firm motivation
supporting the weight of the step.

Then, rundle by rundle, I top it
climbing by scaling the air.

Grasping the sides upon reaching
a place at the base of the stair.

And wondering a bit as I conjure
the memories of whence I have come,

I turn, and with hand on the railing
continue my climb to the sun.

************************
A poem for the hope that a new year brings, though I suppose it could apply to other challenges we face daily. I wish everyone a prosperous, happy, and successful 2018.

Quench

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Most times it is a crumpled ball,
this sheet of words, intact and small –
wound around and bunched within
my secret thoughts and synonyms.
Folded, once or more, the verbs
bundle but do not deter
the escalating captive theme-
a wish once held inside the dream.
Sometimes, I unwrap the leaf
bending back the freed motif
to see your smile and hold your hand
then I crush it back again –
A crinkled memory, held in close
that now I render in repose.

Ghost light (Cento)

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When you came with white rabbits in your arms,
not for greater gifts of genius,
the wispy, the lightly lifted or stirring threads of existence.

I’ve learned everything is falling outward –
Quickening for the land and sea,
Drawing contours, shapes, and lines.

Shining nowhere, but in the dark
watching illumination upon illumination,
plunging and lifting, the grain spilling back.

Another circle is growing in the expanding ring –
and vanished into where they seemed to start
They are the future of us all.

**********
 This Cento was composed using lines from the following poets.

Rita Dove, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Christopher Buckley, Gail Wronsky,Stephen Edgar, Henry Vaughn, Robert King, Barbara Howes, Tami Haaland, Dylan Thomas, May Sarton, Seamus Heaney