Category Archives: Poems

Real

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A real poem may awaken you before dawn
as you watch the shadows scrape away the dark
leaving pits and imperfections in the light,
things that trip or hide from you at night.

A real poem may drink coffee black or filled with cream
while watching rivers rise to meet the banks
and how it meets the line of trees, carrying debris,
then leaving it behind as water recedes.

Truest poems hear the second hand,
the sound of resonation in a quiet mind-
rememb’ring things you heard just yesterday
that click and talk, and will not go away.

And last about the poems that you feel
inside, the ones that cry or laugh or wince or smile,
Embrace them with your joy and gratitude,
caress them at the dawn and let them soothe.

Metathesis

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Raw material
thought unneeded and defective
on snows of paper-
Coloring the outlook in real pigments,
a gradient in between the
two-tone coloration anchored
by the evil absence of light.
It must be a bitch
or at least alien logic
to walk thru or wear on
in such complications.

On the timing,
don’t rush or force the ending.
Science waits-
wins out over time and darkness-
increasing the demand for
beautiful poems.

Pastel

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In springtime, when our love was young
as children frollicking, run ’round and sung
wearing orchid dresses or mallow
neckties – to romp in damp grasses
in crayola sunlight.

Late winter of another year
in charcoal black and sinister
veneers of burgundy and brown- our hopes
and passions tread into ground.
And lasting what seems of a full bitter night,
unanswered prayers of a hopeless plight.

Come morning, then, in the orange dawn
a windless chill – almost gone.
An Easter vigil, impassioned rites
borne of blood-red, silver, black and white,
returns a prize bought with a cost-
hope eternal once thought lost.

Whither

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I wish in sounds that the wind makes
when rustling the leaves in rain, and
shakes, scattered and thrushed.

In a way, it is like breathing –
in another, waved and brushed.

I brace my frame against the chill
that stuns and stings,
and howls the shrill coil.
The fear that it brings,

headlong and brittle
into the wind.

I lose myself in those rushing moments
of burst and calm, the fate of limb
with a wandering unction.

Casting aside the lithe, cold grim
then writing in new script, a whim.

 

Puzzled

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The color is at least a brown,
though it shades a bit of red
with purple tones at corners
and the interlocking tab.

A protruding sense of purpose
it contours like jagged bone
meant to match in synchrony
maneuvering to its own.

And yet, uniqueness hems and flanks
the space, the opening it takes
and turning ’round the key
will not fill disparate gapes.

So left then, is a scenic -rude-
all unveiled and bit-by-bit
assembled there in lots and cast
and there one piece does not fit.

All solving will not cure the form
inside this pale, imperfect zone
of puzzle pieces. Looking close
a wealth of hues and shapes, its own.

a sense

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I’ve opined so to watch the sun recede
and stayed as stars emerged and glint to greet.

I’ve sat for time entranced by waves of foam
on soft white sands, and time, the lull my own.

I’ve pondered over rhyme and reasons why
these wordish things that come and go descry

the foundling sense of who I am to be –
in poet stock or simply my esprit.

A manner like dear Blossom could invoke
as hip, thunderstruck, or just a joke.

And I, with rights to be who as I can,
will write or sing the song like this began.

Pattern

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Going forth from dot to dot,
and lines to sect, and textured plat
– I feel her form in jazz – all that
time, melodious tone and scat.

And though the curve she’s wont and apt
to slide and clutch, her eye for voicing
taut and slack.

The tremble that I feel is naught
set side by side her ending thought.
And once the silence lingers hot,
Is she the pattern that I seek, dare not?

Strings

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To string a harp requires some skill,
nimble touches, and a willingness to grasp
and hold resolute while tightening.

Or to be astute with numbers, theorems-
strings that interweave among
the axioms – truths anchor,
reasons believe.

The twine that twists and loops
as you create, with hooks and pins
to overlap and interplay.

A line to slacken and release
a toy, only to tighten and recall
its track, returned with joy beguiling.

Or words that link by sound
or phrase to sum-splice and describe –
inspire, perturb, dissuade.

Then tie the cord, the knotted ends
that yoke the different threads
we spin and lattice, but not
to demarcate –
The strength’s in bond
and plait.

Walls and Bridges

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Horizons awaken
and to get there from here one must see
where the hills and hollows meet
and the rivers and streams retreat
to dreams and shadows fey.

Please do not build a wall,
the kind where horizons are hidden from view.

Solidified mortar against the weather
against the sun and rain, that blocks
one or the other – when they -the both
of them just work together to ripen
and soak this land of opportunity.

I ask that you don’t build a wall,
the kind where there’s brick upon stone.

Though time will avail itself
The vines and the climbers –
the clematis and trumpets will rise
and entwine, stifling the numbness.
The grout it will crumble
with a shout through the pale
as history teaches – walls are assailed.

Do not build a wall, please forego
this thought of a modern Jericho.

The grindstone of building this edifice-
the structure and reasons abound.
The land and the people in unison
need something better – more sound.
Synchronous dreams and horizons.
Hope beyond now- shared not fought.
Walls will not bring us contentment.
Bridges are much better thoughts.

Summer in Chelsea

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There’s a summer in Chelsea,
a lazy, flush sunrise –
a dew, with its mettle
at morning, then stripped of its guise.
Full glow and blushing
in the mid-day, with nothing
borne except the breezes
that prattle and patter the leaves
and the warm air that settles,
the ardor that thieves.
Just before rain-drops
and thunder arrive on the scene
to swirl and knead everything
before the employ
of the night,incandescent,with hushes
and wants. Pooled sweat and twilight
and intimate haunts.
Indeed, a summer in Chelsea,
and she beams nonchalance.