Category Archives: Romantic style

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.

Portamento

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As if the sunrise welled and overflowed,
an inkling of light, then creation bestowed.
Anticipation moments pass
from intra-chordal throes,
at last to grounded melody in phrase.

Or let me express in other ways;
a passion builds in smaller plays.

First, the pedal points of tone suffice,
a basis for embracing life.
Like moon and stars and sunlight greet
the common ground beneath our feet.

Tunes of commonality composed
above this founding base suppose
synchronicity imbued,
and many intervals accrue.

Yet, with the suspense here to next
a lingered moment’s desired effect
mellifluous, and tasting sweet,
such to sweep you off your feet.

As memories are long and vast
our songs with portamento last.

Now and then

It was entire durations of a dream, she stood behind me, not a sound.

Then a gleam of light hit the ground, a shadow fell and her voice sang a round.

Now, the memory a more abundant chorus than I recall

with my littered words that clash and brawl – my slumber at an end.

I never saw her face, neither that of lover or a friend.

Another day may bring her near, perhaps with some quieter verse to hear as when it was just then.

In a moment of selective focus

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Seeing narrow and close

the fresh rain that hangs like tears

from a florid pome and blurred green surrounds it.

The pinnacle of small details – the tip of a pen pressed

at the page or the placed dish inlaid with memories.

The indentions of your slow intake of breath fills me as you read

the texture from a leather-bound book.

Obsession takes a toll, roughshod over the global view

of landscape and horizon. Still and fixed,

the single moment aches in a story with pain

and the point that tarries after a kiss in the foreground, surrounded by rain.

***

A Winter Song (A Cento)

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In silence, they dissolve before dawn-
the words my heart was calling.
They are not in the sun,

I can hear the noiseless sound raining down.
Nothing but the white vowels of the wind,
a perfect song is loveless.
The snow is beautiful on the ground.

For still the night through will they come and go,
unerringly toward the same trysting-place,
making beauty
with iced and darkened flow
on every road I wandered by.

Music, I’ll call it music,
she must have a song at any cost
again and again out of the world’s cold deafness.

*****
This Cento is comprised of lines from the following poets:
Mo H Saidi, Sara Teasdale, Avot Yeshurun, AE Stallings, Miguel Hernandez, Kenneth Patchen, DH Lawrence, Tony Hoagland, Thom Gunn, Philip Levine, Margaret Julia Marks, Graham Foust, Carolyn Wells, AE Houseman, Dabney Stuart

Echoing

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I’ve got no poem today, but it must be okay,
I’ve thought about monkeys, how walruses play.
how the color blue is my favoritest hue,
and wishes are best when they really come true.

I’ve got no poem today, and really do wish
the words on the tip of my brain would assist-
sounding out songs or echoing tales
of beauty transcendent, like the sea from a shell.

I’ve got no poem today, and no thoughts transcend
my own disappointment I fail to contend-
Yet here in the darkness, I draft and forestall.
I guess that I’ll gather more words, lest I pall.

I’ve got no poem today, but I venture to guess
Tomorrow will happen, and words may address
some loftier thought, some grander design-
while playing with words that I thought to combine.

Lament (a Cento)

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Our one forever,

when it stole through the red gates of sunset
left over from autumn, and the dead brown grass
is yet vibrant with the cadence of the song you might have been.

No longer mired in waiting to begin.

They tell us the night means nothing,
and the candles their light the light.

Nothing is hid that once was clear,

then gone and then to come:
all the time, except the split
second, except—

What is there to say except to lament.

You live in the wrong place.

There’s no flowering time to come.

The hands fell off my watch in the night

and you counted the time
from this instant.

**********************
This Cento contains lines from the following poets: 

Kenneth Rexroth, John Koethe, Lola Ridge, Brenda Hillman, Martha Collins,  Melissa Kwasny, Katharine Tynan, Esther Louise Ruble, David Yezzi, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Jonathan Galassi, Michael Goldman, Robert Francis, and Lucille Clifton.

 

Analog

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It’s at times like this,
when morning slides across in its straw-yellow light –
that I am slow enticed to rise
and invite the day into my life.

Somehow its poetry comes upon me like I dial
digits on a rotary phone-
awaiting a cyclic return to home position before moving on.

It’s where the music of my choice plays from beginning to end,
with static embellishment reminding me of conclusion.

The ticks and tocks of the clock drive me forward in time,

It’s the moment of morning glory – once asleep in darkness,
then blooming in the day.

Beauty – she sits in moments, but grows in continuum,
and the anticipation at these time-points are like dust in the shifting light,
and my heart wakes in hues of endurance and tomorrow.

In wandering and being inspired

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I jump over waves in the wind, now thinned-
causing a splash on descent, and the water imbues.
I walk in circles in some well-trodden shoes,
soles that are worn to the heel.
And the crestfallen face of my mind
urged in the gentle spell of her lines-
the brushstrokes of her pastel flowing gown
compel me to write something down.
I frolic amidst the swell and soak in
the flow of her form that rescinds
the aches in my well-trodden soul.
I stand embracing the image and whole.

 

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.