Category Archives: poem

POEM: The Emperor’s New Clothes

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Source: Ivo Kruusamägi via Wikipedia

It wasn’t the Emperor’s nudity
that so offended me.
It wasn’t what I saw, but rather
that which I could not see —
a skeptic’s sense of what was not,
what was, and what might be.

Anyone who knew their ignorance
could never be so fooled.
He’d say, “I know that I know not;
of that I needn’t be schooled,
but that man is plainly marching
so completely butt-a$$ nude.

It’s they who say, “I must look good.”
who become ego-ruled.
And can’t see the Emperor is
so very, clearly nude.

Zen Garden Haiku

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I
evergreens,
twisted and bent
to gnarled beauty


II
arched bridge
forms a wide eye
with water’s mirror


III
the garden
designed, aligned, and kempt —
nature, but not


IV
peace-filled
by tranquil sights —
soul programmed


V
sitting on grass,
the rocky outcrop
turns island

POEM: Saved by the Breath [a Rondeau]

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My mind curls up into a Breath
to wait out wild and weary thoughts
about who catches and who’s caught
and what is scarier than Death.

A toothless youth whacked-out on Meth —
all roads to hope come but to naught.
My mind curls up into a Breath
to wait out wild and weary thoughts
of men who went the way, Macbeth —
costly made, and yet cheaply bought —
iron-forged, but ambition wrought —
a shapeless agony of Death.

My mind curls up into a Breath.

POEM: Beauty

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People prefer a face that can launch a thousand ships to one that can stop a clock. But did the clock-stopping face break the clockwork mechanism or halt the steady increase in entropy?

[Speaking of entropy, and it’s insistence on increase, a more disordered face reflects a more advanced state of progression, and yet that advancement isn’t honored.]

Back to the clock-stopping face. Breaking the brittle plastic gears of a mass-made clock is no great feat compared to ship-launching. But binding up the inexorable flow of the universe? That’s power.

POEM: Higher Dimensional Human Zoo

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The doorless door was painted on
a vacant building’s wall.
It stood cartoonish and shabby,
crooked, and far too small.

I peered around the vacant room
behind that concrete wall:
nothing but dusty detritus —
of broken bottle brawls.

Later that night, after I’d binged,
I came back past that way.
The door was now thrown wide open.
And what was on display?

Into those higher dimensions,
I had a fateful view.
There was cage after cage of me
in an odd human zoo.

Cold Night Haiku

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I
a winter moon
is seen clearly between
breath fog plumes

 

II
starry skies,
through the tent flap,
herald cold’s bite

 

III
cold slinks in
once sleep has taken hold,
settling in bone

 

IV
winter midnight —
sunlight, a distant memory,
or so it feels

 

V
how bright the moon
in the mid-winter sky —
yet, no heat

POEM: Story in Ruins

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In ruins I see
what was, but could be
no more.

When land becomes sea
to live they must flee —
fate’s door.

In ones, twos, and threes,
they left on sad sprees —
ashore.

POEM: Sunday Morning Sounds

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Rainy morning pitter-patter sounds like a distant sizzle.

Caws come from down the street.
Did they drag out a bloated rat —
a chubby, urban-fed beast unable to escape the flooding storm drains?

Or maybe rain and stillness have riled these rowdy ravens?

Silence.

A near bird shrieks…

Finnish Limerick

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There was a hardy man from Finland
who wanted to move further inland,
but sallying forth
meant moving more north,
and he feared he’d wrap into Japan.

Canadian Limerick

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There was an old lady from Canada
who was a hockey aficionada.
She couldn’t still skate,
but always shot straight —
firing in place like the Spanish Armada.