Tag Archives: poem

POEM: Timely Tempest?

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Savage winds hit like a ramming shoulder.
Pelting rains sting like sand-blast on pink skin.
Dipping ships drop from sight of their beholders.
Soft sounds compile into a raucous din.

Nothing stands still; everything is moving —
Sound and Fury signifying Calm’s death.
Minds conflate the confused and the confusing.
Mouths gasp open but they can’t suck a breath.

Angry gods find newly pious converts.
Sinners sin like they’ll not get one more chance.
While disaster plays the consummate flirt,
dunking sailors, but pulling them back to dance.

Every soul knows each storm must – in time – end.
But one can’t know whether time is one’s friend.

Five [More] City Limericks

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There was a worker from Detroit
who — in his job — was quite adroit.
They said he had powers —
a thousand nuts an hour,
but it’s not like he could enjoy’t.

 

There was an old woman of Singapore
who was fit as a fiddle but quite poor.
Her legs, they were stout
from lugging about
fixings to sell chicken-rice door-to-door.

 

There was a businessman from Osaka
who flew in (for safari) to Lusaka.
Walking the savanna
he slipped on a banana,
and was lost in an elephantine ca-ca.

 

There was a bad boy from Budapest
who wanted to behave his very best.
No more driving drunk —
a corpse in the trunk.
Being good was harder than he’d guessed.

 

There was a young woman from Cancun
who knew all the phases of the moon.
She worked a nightclub,
slinging drinks and grub —
because the mid-day sun made her swoon.

 

First installment:

Five City Limericks

POEM: What Is this Thing Called Beauty?

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We see beauty in nature, but we see more in nature reigned in — kept in check by the hand of man. Why should a fresh-cut patch of grass please the eye more than its shaggy state of nature?

What soul doesn’t sore at the sight of a Japanese garden? It’s nature, but micromanaged in the slightest details of distance, shape, light, and order. Not a leaflet out of place. Gravel pads equidistantly furrowed with great precision. A bonsai tree could be called grotesque in its gnarled, shriveled deformation, but — instead — the bonsai has a universal visual appeal. Is it because they are stunted and deformed in precisely the manner man has chosen?

We see beauty in the human form, as well — but too rarely in our own. We like them depilated — plucked to the point that not a hair stands out of place. Biology tells us our eyes should seek the figure capable of staying strong while chasing prey across the savanna or gathering nuts and berries through wastelands where those foods are sparse. But our eyes covet those leaner than that — that leanness expresses our beloved ordered angularity.

Pure nature is frisson-laden — ever uncontrollable, unpredictable, and disordered. Its beauty is never separated from the fear it inspires.

Manicured nature offers a pleasing feel of dominion — an illusion of control that puts the mind at ease.

Rainforest Haiku

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clouds crawl in,
hiding whole mountains —
i await, “Ta-Da!”


sun comes out,
flash-boiling droplets —
steam breathing


life abounds, it’s
max. occupancy living;
yet, none are seen


plants grow from stone
wall becomes a hedgerow…
but shaggier


elephant ear
leaf is played by the rain
like a mad drummer

POEM: Spine

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Flex forward and a row of rounded, fleshy knobs form in that muscled valley — straight and evenly-spaced.

Chest up & shoulders back and the knobs shrink, enshrouded; while those low, rolling knolls become bounded by scapular cliffs.

Dance about and a million topographies form and disband: all without a sharp corner — nothing but smooth transitions, gracefully made.

Fronts get all the attention, but backs are masters of the beauty of subtle change.

My spine bends and flexes, and I’m alive.

Sparks run in riffles down that line, and I’m alive.

POEM: Claustrophobic Shores [Blank Verse Sonnet]

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The rain bands slant across the narrow track
between the leaden clouds and churning seas.
The vastness, standing before ocean’s edge,
is boxed by rain, low clouds, and rising waves.

My view of infinite space shrivels up.
The water curtain hides what lies behind —
the lost horizon lies, disguised by lines
of squall that crawl with all the time allowed.

What brought me to this shore is now mislaid:
some sense that I could never be contained.
I’m sure that storm intends to push me home —
back to the box where it thinks I belong.

But then it passes by; blue skies beyond,
and I can see out past the trawler’s shapes.

POEM: Unceasing Jungle

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The jungle paints the ruins green —
brown blocks are made verdant.
So, you can’t see its ordered shape
’til you part the curtain
of palms and vines and mammoth leaves
that hide those old remains —
once hacked back by muscled men who,
daily, took great pains
to clear the rampant jungle growth
out beyond moat and berm.
‘Til the invading army won,
and Fort was deemed infirm.

POEM: Mind Floater

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An idea drifts in my mind’s periphery.

It’s the mental version of an eye squiggly —
those translucent, sinuous shapes that…

-barely register in one’s field of vision,
-can be glimpsed but not focused upon,
-and are insubstantial — but become a fixation.

And I’m left to wonder whether it was really an idea,
or just the feeling of having had an idea.

POEM: Trio

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I
her form,
perched at the water’s edge,
took the shape of a treble clef

and all the notes that followed,
my heart did sing


II
there’s a gravity that grows
between two orbiting souls,
waiting to be nudged into unity


III
not all silenced voices produce loneliness
one voice, silenced, opens infinite connections

POEM: The Devil’s Hour

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I’ll not weep in, this, the Devil’s hour.
I might not laugh, but I won’t be dour.

The blur of winged fury sweeps above.
Each thinks of his first and last love,
wondering which of these memories
his dying mind will last see.

Whichever it is, I’ll not be dour,
though this be the devil’s hour.