Category Archives: Lyric

Classing It Up [Lyric Poem]

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Photograph of "Le Toilet," a Mona Lisa-festooned Port-o-Potty in downtown Decatur, Georgia -- in front of the Old Courthouse.
One can't class up a Porta Potty
   With French or fancy works of art.
 For each is like a ghetto squatty
   Where one fears to sit... or even fart.

Locus [Common Meter]

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One clump of flowers has the power
   To lure the eye’s focus.
 The background blurs as mind infers
    Which hue shall be the locus.

Peach Blossoms [Lyric Poem]

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Photograph of Peach Blossoms taken in early March in Atlanta's Piedmont Park. 
I see the Peach Blossoms of Spring,
   And think of old Li Bai’s answer.
 
In wordless replies, the world sings;
   In unpeopled worlds, there’s a dancer.

The referenced poem by Li Bai [李白] is entitled Question and Answer in the Mountains [山中问答] and is crudely translated as:

I'm asked why I live in mountains.
   I laugh while giving no reply.

Peach Blossoms flow from sight & mind;
   Beyond men, another Earth & Sky.

Or, in Chinese: 

问余何意栖碧山，
笑而不答心自闲。

桃花流水窅然去，
别有天地非人间。

Into the Darkness [Lyric]

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Photograph taken in the "Tunnel of Nine Turns" (九曲洞) in Taroko Gorge (太鲁阁.)
Shadow-striped --
   Juxtaposing day with night,
      And wrong with right,
   And never with always --
      Down the long striped 
           Hallway...
 Until it ends in darkness.

Vagabond [Lyric]

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Photograph of a statue of a young vagabond taken at Fo Guang Shan [佛光山,] near Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Each Soul contains its Vagabond 
   - Who yearns to travel light & free -
 But they load too much baggage on,
   Then tether him to a big tree.

Nameless / 无名 [Lyric Poem]

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Photograph taken in Hualien, Taiwan at the Hualien Temple and Dongjing Temple (花蓮寺東淨寺) [Buddhist.]
They call me Nameless,
   Well-known as fameless.
 My plans are aimless.
 My faults are blameless.
 My chess is gameless.
 My disgrace, shameless?

But my glasses are framed.
   My passions are inflamed.
 My wild horses are tamed,
   And my arrows are aimed.
 All due credit is claimed,
   And nothing else remains.

Beetle [Lyric Poem]

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Photograph of beetle in Botswana, near the Chobe River.
A Beetle that was built like a tank
   Crawled over a blazing riverbank
 Now as any sane one would think
   It should head straight for the drink 
 To cool off its little ole toes.
   But as astute readers will know,
  It hasn't really got any toes,
   So, it can walk hot sands real slow.

The Regal Eagle [Lyric Poem]

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A photograph of an African Fish Eagle taken in Chobe National Park in Botswana. 
No bird ever seemed quite so regal
   As a quietly perching eagle.
 But it's not so much like a king
   When it dismounts, to take wing --
 Cause that bird has to work for its living.

River Taco [Lyric Poem]

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Photograph of Hippopotamus in the Chobe River, between Botswana and Namibia. 
We kayak where lives Hippopotamus,
   And hope it isn't submerged, a-bottom us.
 With kayak a quite crunchy hard shell --
   Us: savory filling that screams and yells, --
 We'll be a three-bite river taco to hell.

Dancing Dragon [Lyric Poem]

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Photograph of the head of a dancing dragon taken in Melaka, Malaysia.
A dancing dragon winds
   through streets of Chinatown.
 Head pivots, nods, and turns
   as it looks all around.

I hope its golden eye
   will not catch sight of me
 because its big, curved fangs
   do not look so friendly.

You may say its paper,
    and those teeth can't do harm,
 but there's life in its moves
    that's cause of my alarm.