Category Archives: Rhyme

Espial

I find that beauty walks along
the pathway paved with grit and stone
hovering with each stride.
Moved with light, so to prevail
above the fragments, dirt and shale-
a footfall in each instance, hails
her balance undenied.

And as I watch her sunlight glow,
her poise and pace, from head to toe,
where she walks and ploys-
I am drawn with nothing said,
no words to compensate ahead
and on the pathway, I am lead
in muses lame and coy.

So watching beauty, as she spies
her lover in the western skies
fade just out of sight,
I wander in the settling dun,
scuffling, as I ramble on
and wonder then, without the sun
if beauty rules the night.

A new song

I’m sorry, I don’t have a poem today
the fairy-dust magic will not have it’s way.
The dawning is fell
and I don’t take it well
when barbarized don’t cultivate.

I’m sorry, I can’t have a poem today,
the trampled impatiens are flattened and splayed
from steps that were cold-
no words take ahold
to mend it, describe or portray.

I’m sorry, I won’t have a poem today,
the world is too quiet, and I’m led astray
to ponder the pain
of our powerless reign,
while the children go outside and play.

I’m sorry, I shan’t have a poem today
it’s broken and crying, I can’t make it sway.
Perhaps on the morrow
a finch or a sparrow
will sing a new song and allay.

purpose

I stood among you all,
at the edge of the wood,

a place of curiosity, felled
by absentminded fates.

So meant for heartier work
to weep away the runoff – dissent,

the wet and grime that infiltrates
the ground, I’m to abet

and keep your floor unfettered
from labor, a hollow sweep.

Explored and secreted with man’s lust
and beauty, pages turned and creased by hand.

Housing your scoundrel kin,
a respite from the elements, secure

yet open to view the sun
and neighboring vines, their vow unspoken.

And now, the years have culled me in
and I’ve become a part, somehow,

of green and life, of hope and fate
a place of refuge, I have been.

**********
#summerofprompts

I wrote this in response to poet Mary Biddinger’s recent prompt on Twitter, to write a nature poem from a non-human point of view… This is a combination of a nature poem with a childhood memory of a place in a nearby woods from my home.

answer

there is no answer
only trees with spindled branches
that vanish in the beauty of the green

and trails that wander off
behind the distant hillsides, pastoral scenes.

no remedy – with wind between
the spruce’s fingerlings
since moved along to coastal shores and things.

no antiphon in plummeting
in ocean depths – it’s just serene
and emptied of all guff
and echo that there’s ever been.

no pleas as silent offerings proceed
to culminating crests, and heights convened.

and this, the peace of things
that is to be –
the answers all in all, are unforeseen.

chalk

I use chalk to smudge the lines a bit
and shade the parts where I don’t feel I fit.

Fermatas placed to hold the chords in time
while I dance around cadenzas dipped in rhyme.

I’d rather stare and watch the sun in parallax,
circumventing pain and disappointment – that’s the fact.

Beauty walks, and moves, and sings in form
and transits over paths that I have worn,

shows indifference to my charm- my soul in kind
and I have nothing left save yearning in my mind.

And these, the words of someone sacrificed
to life and how I bleed on paper, less precise.

To stand and sing of resignation, it is mine,
and using chalk can smudge and blur the line.

a foothold in the daisies

The clouds are just now learning how to speak.
There’s a foothold in the daisies,
and a slow descent of water from the creek
The sun is rising amber, slow and weak.

The melody of morning turns
it’s ear upon the repeat cooing dove
and smells of honeysuckle
wafted in from somewhere down the grove.

A single tuft of flowers out among
the complete scene of hurried traffic,
other places here and in-between-
a foothold in the daisies –
a shared embrace,
devotion to a yellow speck in space.

And safe return to where began this whole mystique,
and I am learning -just now- how to speak.

arc

A camber in her first and last embrace
and welling tears I wipe against my face.
Lingered time, that passes under breath
and desires to leave are changing less and less.
Words do not exist to tell this tale,
just kisses, fumbling hands, and hearts impaled.

Bird, bees, flowers, trees

The bird that spreads it’s wings to fly
aloft in winds and lullabyes
will often finds a hiding place
with little bustle, subtle grace.

The bee at work, no time to spare-
buzzing, fluttering, from here to there
to stigmas moist with other fare
but not a sound to make aware-

The flower blossomed, spread in view
with pink and yellow, vibrant hues –
and undulating sun and dew
confessed in morning light, anew.

And ever green, the pine tree stands
accepting flight with steady hands.
Each bough abets, make no mistake
and comforts those who stay awake.

Diligence

Encompassed by her stare
as she reveals a confident esprit,
and wanders in my mind to be omniscient,
salient for me.

Deluged by her rhapsodic reign
and drenched in love time and again,
a dousing seems a welcomed bane
upon my weary soul and stain.

Subject to her word and tome
complete and perfect, craved and honed,
every act a sin – atoned
and riddled cunning, bone-to-bone.

Details

I remember the blue in her eyes,
though often they were green –
a wistfulness, when she tilted her head,
sentiment at the seams.

Her fingertips, absently tracing the rim
of a cup or a saucer, or both.
The governed expanse of the contour
revealing as is, clothed.

To lean in, whisper lure and yearning,
so bold and sacred, so preferred –
then settle back in tidal fashion
sands and beaches bared – secured.

I recall the mounting balance
that melody and rhythm bind,
a song there at the nucleus
hastened,
fresh and primed.

I have felt the blue of her ocean,
my eyes remember the scene.
And I am the breeze that comes off the water
pensive and longing my dreams.