Category Archives: poem

Glimpses

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I mix about and silhouette
with spices, airs and colors.
It is jumbled, though – my palette-
perhaps wearisome for others.

I may pepper paste with sweetness,
or sing a trill with sadness.
I may paint beyond the lines in bluish green
with tawny shadows of unrest.

The smooth appearance of the grain
slightly roughens under touch,
the textured shelter between petals
holds me in, a friction clutch.

The seasoning of salt and lure
with sounds that twinge with grace
is who I was, and am to be
in glimpses I embrace.

Gathered

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The grey blue sky sits somber
till the sun arrives, pink glint and shine
off buildings -faces in the darkened
canopy revealed as blossoms in bouquets.

The stack of bricks sit solid
till the men decide, with sweat and mortar
placing them in preset order – line
structures built to demarcate.

The words I hear ring silent
till the light resides, with spur and purpose
on their ebbing rule and tide – a dawn
A gath’ring of brush come late.

Prima(l)

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From 2015…..

^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^

They wander, and yonder they go in the dark
with glow sticks, beyond
them the moonlight, and barks
the taffeta, heavy-set makeup and screams-
the night of the beggar, of horrors and dreams.

The rustle of paper, the rattle of chains-
Billy and Molly fight over the brains.
The princess and pirate, too shy to speak up
the conjuring words while Dad just drinks up.

A drop in the bucket-a thump in the night
the blood of the ghoulish departed from sight.
The clown with the paste face, the witch all in black
the ogres and goblins all stomp and attack.

The flapping of ravens, the quiet of stares
at once-a-year play acting- acute and with scares.
Then beating the pavement and swarming the lawns
the tidal rush crushes, and then they are gone.
All manner of monsters and bold super-kids
Just listen for drumbeats, like Gene Krupa did.

*************
Soundtrack prior to writing/reading this poem: Sing, Sing, Sing.

Crux

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As hills become mountains and the lakes lead to streams,
then writing this poem is more like a scheme
to capture them both-though it seems in excess-
The climb and the ascent to narrowed obsess.
Shunning all reason of what comes to rest
on cliffs or near jetties in scenes I know best.
A beauty there waiting in sunlit repose,
her eyes slightly dimmed,as she dreams – I suppose.
And there at each waypost she lingers ahead
culling the scenery I’ve conquered and bred.
And where I go next is of no end, this I know.
She’ll be in the heights or the river below.

Glow

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When I’ve lit a warming fire,
the blooming flames go licking higher
engulfing piled up timbers-
In oak and cherry cinder
new sparks,a hope engendered.

The crackling bite from fibres bound
now torn, fragmented in a sound-
pulled apart from stable lengths
betraying links and bonds and strength
new sparks,a hope engendered.

And after time, the flames reside
awaiting what I can provide,
More lumber on the bed of coals
feeding hungry, lonely souls-
new sparks, a hope engendered.

And after flickers fade to glows
and darkness settles, fills and stows
it’s bundles in the cloaking night
ever silent, there alight
new sparks, a hope engendered.

Swept up (Cento)

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Negation, all fulfilled desire
gold with a heart of cinder.

Everything suggests something else.

When the weeds sprawl
it is not what you think.

The dust motes float
and swerve in the sunbeam
because I say we rather than they;

They change the color of your dream:
We is whiplash
and backhanded ways of settling grief.

Very present like a dark poem,
far and unreadable just out
at the edge of this poem floating.

And it is this rocking back and forth

to take in to sate the mouths

of humid heavy air and the wing music
of bees and flies.
Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part.
Tomorrow waits with a big broom.

**************

This Cento contains lines from the following poets:

Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, Robert Frost, AF Moritz, Muna Lee, Carl Sandburg, Karen Volkman, Lee Herrick, WS Graham, Susan Donnelly, Alison C Rollins, Ha Jin, Jean Garrigue, Jacob Saenz

The last ones

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Where the omegas light
or the zebras graze
coming to a sundown at the end
of a day, with the hues just finishing
at the edge of the page.
Come what may.

Trek down to bottom
of the waterfall,
the pool that collects and swirls
and spalls. Shapes majestic rock
to a minor crawl.
You’ve seen it all.

Walk away from
blood and tears you’ve shed,
The memory maybe still fresh,
and living in your head. Not
worth the pain or the dread.
That’s what they said.

The last ones take
a moment to decide,
to conquer and reign in the now,
the meantime. It’s true what they implied,
yet often untried.

Alchemy

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Skimilvee this, and jorating us that
around the sculpting parapet.

Pleady, the cosmities open and close
and stars swim around in the bath.

Immanent, always the commuting desire
allaying our jittles and wrath-

turning lead into gold, then likewise is sold
and evaporates in a quintet.

So, jorate the statumly, conquer the reavenly
all you would want, or even empath

Turns back in a cyclic anomaly
and sculpts a new parapet.

A part of you

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Emerging in the sleeping dew
with softened morning light,
are you among the sable fringe
casting forth your bright?

Walking on the air of day
with wisps of gleaming kismet,
are you sprite or angel summoned
without claim to coquette?

I comfort your implied embrace,
the smile you offer as you roam,
the auric presence you have shared
lives inside this poem.

 

While

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I spent the morning reading my old poems
and realize they feel like memories.
The lonely ones that desire a second (or third)
reading, the triumphant ones
that trumpet their arrival,
the amorous ones –
they pull me into a corner by the collar and linger,
the nonsensical ones that twirl and wheel
about the sacred and profane, the love or disdain.
The obtuse, they wander.
The linear, they gander.
The poems, I gather to mind
and hold to abide in warm embraces.
They all have their places.