I don’t think much of Kim Jong-Un as a ruler,
but between you, me, and the water-cooler —
there’s something that just must be said:
I’d buy a cookie jar the size of his head.
POEM: A Kim Jong-Un Clerihew
3
Category Archives: poem
POEM: Contrarian Bear
There once was a bear named Jerry,
and – like the nursery rhyme Mary –
Jerry Bear was quite contrary.
“Those salmon should not swim upstream.”
“The people I bite should not scream.”
“Why wreck good berries with whip cream?”
There wasn’t a thing anyone said
upon which Jerry would not tread.
Don’t be like Jerry. He’s a d!$%head.
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Three Kyōka of Animal Aggression
I
three monkeys
look down from a high branch;
one throws a pit;
a tourist dodges left,
right into the pit’s path
II
a goose struts,
then wheels about – wings flaring –
Karate Kid,
but standing on both legs —
feint with foot, jab with beak
III
a llama
spits in some poor girl’s face
as if she
were Hitler or Kim Jong-Un
classy, Llama, real classy
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POEM: Raging Canyon [Virelai]
The scrub and tumble weed are scant
against colorful sands.
The burning heat will ensure rants
while crossing desert lands.
The heat is felt, and rage supplants
the awe of the badlands.
A broken mind enters a trance
as it dreams choking hands.
The hands enwrap, at just a glance,
the throat of a strange man,
who offended with just a stance,
given the heat’s dead hand.
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POEM: Coming Down the Mountain
every heavy step
an act of resistance
against the indefatigable force of gravity
— hell on the knees —
why does everyone think coming down the mountain
is better than going up,
as if gravity were doing one a favor
the desire to live high in the mountains
with stunning beauty on view everyday
is one of those romantic notions
that reality pummels
and robs of its lunch money
i’d say something about everyone
who goes up a mountain having to come down,
but then I think about the stories
of the frozen corpses on Everest —
instead of coming down the mountain
they became stone-hard monuments to ambition
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POEM: The Sprawl
cities grow outward
like angry amoeba —
false-feet stretching down
the motorway corridors,
and developing tumors
that will metastasize
into cities of their own,
sprawling until they span
the global petri dish
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Quiet Morning Haiku
I
at the pass,
fog stands guardian,
then moves on
II
the chipmunk
freezes at a crack,
sniffing the air
III
a burble rolls
off the paddle as
the boat glides
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A Limerick of Zambia
There was a young woman from Zambia
who developed an instant phobia.
She’d suffered a trauma,
finding two Black Mamba
curled up in her corner of Zambia.
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POEM: Adrenaline Spike
a hot spike of adrenaline
sluices into my blood
not a shot, a squirt, or a drip,
but an adamant flood
if you can find someone who gives
you that kind of feeling
without fearing a certain death
but, still, with mind reeling
Hold on!
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POEM: The Cabin Trap [Sonnet]
I snatch a coat from hook on my way out.
The gusting winds are rattling the panes.
The sad line of tracks, when I wheel about,
suggests I’ve made little by way of gains.
The cabin keeps me ever near at hand.
I walk and walk and yet it won’t recede.
The slog is slow as if I’m in quicksand;
I lean to snap my chains, and so be freed.
But chains I cannot see, I cannot break.
My sisyphean lean does me no good.
And through the air there falls just one snowflake,
but there’d be more before I reach the Wood.
The cabin wants me back; I hear it call.
I buckle at the knees. So goes my fall.
