Category Archives: Rhyme

The Best Medicine

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It’s a sound welling up from a guttural wheeze,

Brought forth in the presence of an obvious need.

Clusters of friendship, opening a door

for giggles and snorts and guffaws galore.

Nature’s convergence is there to create,

though few evident species can cachinnate.

The turtle, the emu, the rabbit or shrew

None of these chortle or cackle or spew

forth the boisterous emission of laughter,

the kind leaving you breathless and heaving thereafter.

And from the next room, while I search the thesaurus,

sniggling and outbursts blend into a chorus.

I’ve captured a moment, but not twinkling insight

to laughter, the remedy cure-all tonight.

*****

It has been quite a while since I have had the inspiration to write a poem. The last half of 2023 has been a difficult time. My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in late summer and is currently undergoing chemotherapy. This evening, she was having a Zoom gathering with four of her best friends, and the laughter emanating from their conversations was infectious. Try as I may, I can’t reproduce their joy. But perhaps I shouldn’t worry about that, the joy is medicine for her. Thanks for reading. :)

Opening

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A shrieking blue jay sounds a turning point.
The day might be too long.
Cardinals perch in boxwood sacs, 
reminding me of those now gone.

I've skirted 'round an earthen hole,
peering to the bottom.  
Dirt and pebbles slip from my steps
and down into the dark and glum.

Choristers pause, holding a note
that pierces incense smoke.
The carillons ring out the hour
and half a prayer's invoked.

Is this how changes snap and tear
when events go awry?
a grinding crevice in the ground? 
a ripped seam in the sky?

Careful plots, with no solid facts
are awfully mistook,
our hero left with no recourse
but to rely upon a hook.

A shrieking blue jay sounds a turning point.
The day might be too long.
Cardinals perch, reminding me 
of people that are gone.

Opalescence

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A jellyfish cloud drifted in the sky

propelling itself hither and nigh.

The type of motions that mesmerize,

whilst I woolgather time in the ocean wide.

A rabbit perched upon some pillow fluff,

awaiting a moment to jump, and not to muff-

then disappear inside a hole in a huff.

(All this I’ll imagine soon enough.)

And later, the sky I watched was flattened and grey.

A canvas without texture on a humid summer’s day

settled in to remove my imaginative display.

And the daydreams diverted down and away.

The shades of green caught now in my sight,

Jagged lines on the edge of the canvas’ chalk-white.

whispering connections to the last vestiges of light.

And the opalescence of dreams settled in for the night.

Driving into Lascassas after midnight

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Driving into Lascassas after midnight, when only the ghosts walk.

The glint of streetlights launches from the pavement,

a blank page to capture dreams

and past countenances in the moonlight.

The words you speak echo in the night and pass through blinking traffic lights;

As poems create themselves in flight.

Not like arriving at LaGuardia on a Sunday afternoon,

with its hallways filled with a thousand stories at every turn.

There is a rush and jumble to this world,

only small pockets of stillness swirl

to float a verse into the air.

Most often colliding in the face of a hurried elsewhere.

Almost never staying free and clear,

like driving through Lascassas after midnight

with soundless ghosts and streetlight glare.

Rabbit

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The sky was pallid, lacking device.

My ambition was weedy and my aims imprecise.

I walked near a garden while out on a stroll.

My mind in a spin that was out of control.

When a rabbit darted from beneath the hedge-row yew

out onto the pavement and pondered askew.

It paused just enough to acknowledge my glance

then hurried away in a leap and a prance.

My eyes then diverted to a swelling of phlox,

purple and white, and crept over rocks.

Opportunistic, these flowers that crawl

slow and indifferent of their beauty and sprawl.

A shelter for insects, this bloom carpet sum

covered terrain in a besetment of rhumbs.

The rabbit returned, hopped in a straight line,

I stood there connecting the points to design.

What wonder is here. What mystery there.

The path to discovery does not compare

the direction, the lines that we draw are just that.

Drawn from perspective, our own charted plat.

The rabbit now vanished, my lunch hour spent,

I returned to my workday with a poet’s intent.

A Prelude (for my Mother)

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A single bell has rung the hour.
Our moment to remember dear affection is now here.
The overtone from ringing still quite clear.

The ringing overtones are lucid and bright.
Our memories like the matin chimes that wake.
A single bell has rung, the hour appears.

The bell now rung to mark remembrance of the hour.
The organist starts her pedal tones and song
over tones of ringing, crystal clear.

The sounds of bells and melodies o’er tones so clear;
A prelude of majestic time begins
after the bell has rung, the wrinkle of the hour.

The bell-tone sounds the hour as it’s rung.
Songs of memories flush and flare the cathedral walls
with tones of ringing bells so loud and clear.

A single bell has rung the hour in song,
the overtone from ringing, clear and strong.

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

This is a poem I wrote for my Mom who passed away earlier this month. She was an excellent pianist/organist. I read this villanelle at the beginning of her memorial service, so the prelude nature of the bells and the repeating sounds would stand as a testament to her talent and life. Thanks for reading.

Bridges

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A craftwork of metal and wire arisen out of a mist.

Something fashioned by a fantasist

appealing to our journey, future-made

above the clouds with hope arrayed.

A box across the creek bed, made of wood.

The romantic moonlight lit and understood

its dirt road point of interception.

It hosts a memory of affection.

The stone one with its aqueduct eyes,

peering just above the waterline.

A docile stream that’s hardly flowing,

yet moves a slight, its life sea-going.

The poet’s words are diffident,

but stand in verse, the infinite

transitions to a place of rest

spanning over rocks and clefts.

Horizons stand, all that remains

beyond the beckoning segue plains.

Reunion Rhyme – For the RHS Class of 1982

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Cyclones class of ’82, how does your garden grow?  In 40 years, these plants have grown- some rapidly, some slow.  Some sprouting leaves, some spreading seeds, and flowering as they go.

A few stand tall, some standing short, some spread along the ground. A garden of mosaic art familiar, yet new-found.

Some leaves are broad to catch the rain, some narrow, small; we can’t explain the reasoning how they thrive so well – except God’s grace, we hear them tell. Bloom where you are planted, I’ve so often heard and chanted.

Once our plants were in one plat and lived among this habitat. We grew from seedlings, shoots, or grafts – thriving as we learned our craft. With help and care from those who taught our landscape grew and then we sought our own estate. We took our seedlings to create.

And here we are, a lifetime passed, our gardens grown and fruits amassed. I’ve pondered this and have to ask:

Friends from 1982, how does your garden grow? With humble grace in your chosen space, from seeds culled long ago.

With Coffee

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I reached for a cup with stripes in the cupboard,

setting among the ivory porcelain others,

and after putting it down on the marbled counter

I waited for the coffee to spit and sputter.

I poured from the carafe to the cup with the stripes

and added sweetener from a yellow packet, twice.

I stirred with a long-stemmed spoon, and thus

the coffee swirled and swirled.

 I confess among the rivers in my mind

I counted the swirls encompassing time.

Somewhere there adding some milk in a dollop,

I came up with this veiled verse of codswallop.

If you’ve read this far thinking I’ve something to say,

maybe it’s just that I like my coffee this way.

Or perhaps my own struggles in crafting aright

this poem’s distraction is less of a fight.

The coffee in the striped cup has a caramel hue,

is sweetened with a bitterness aftertaste too,

Like many poems that I’ve already done,

it’s finished, and the cup sits in the sink in the sun.

Outlier

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I stared into a pitch-black midnight
to write of emptiness in the dark.
A space of nothingness and naught
from which creation sprung in might.
In the void just out of sight
a moment not content, embarked.
The single flower in the pot,
a point, a speckling shared its light.
The space surrounding it recites
in motionless time when a moment harks.
A melody repeating on the spot,
a verse then opens with a different plight.
This thing with hopes that will ignite
and focus the poet on its spark,
and in the notion we see, besot –
the outlier is neither shy nor contrite.

****

A poem of inspiration to bring in 2022. I wish everyone a safe and happy new year. May it be everything you want and need.