These are poems that aim at reflecting something uniquely American in experience. Be it a place. Or a person or an experience. It had to happen somewhere to become something.
To Ascend
To summit
To take to
The high ground
No shelter here
Only vigilance
Every footfall
An icy opportunity
For mass and gravity
To take swing
And change
Your orbit to
Down
“Watch your step”
2.
Silent!
Mountainside
No wind
Only the
Ringing,
Singing
In my ears
And the heavy
Drumbeat
Of my
Overextended
Heart
Palpitating
Out of my
Chest as
I stop
And breathe.
I listen
And hear
Nothing!
The forest
Still, until
The brief
Drop of water
That “blips”
And returns
To the white
Cold canvas.
I saw the
Volcanoes 3
In front of me
History
I saw the
Heavenly Stars
The Light from These
History
I saw
The thoughts
In my head
The reflections
They said,
“History”
My Present
Human Being
Exists in
The Past
I build the Future here.
Whipping tail
Chassis loose
On the move
No control
Hope there’s
Nothing
Behind you now
Pressing forward
Counter balance
Brings you back
To straight lines
With a shimmy ~
The only one
who thinks in poetry
is seemingly me.
(surprisingly)
Perhaps it’s you
who thinks
in broken lines,
metaphors and ink.
But to the rest
I must plainly digress
into lyric rust
For on the shelf
These prisoners ||\|||\
(pioneers)
must sit
until they’re unhinged \_/
Or read aloud
to a half-listening crowd
Seeking
Enlightenment?
So you wrote a poem
And you called it a song
Only counts if you can sing it
Let’s hum along
But if it’s just a poem
Then leave it as you wrote
For I don’t need your melody
To stick in my parched throat
Yet if ye be a singer
Then sing your hearts content
I like to Rage and Hammer on
And scream and bang my head.
What does it mean to serve?
To be in the service of another
To wash the feet and tender oil
To sit with the weak as they pass
To lend shoulder to grief while it lasts
Or do you help my day?
To be there when the toilet’s clogged again
To put my squeaky car back on the road
To come to my rescue in my grave hour
To bless my wedding or baptize my child
Or perhaps action’s calling?
To serve when duty beckons you to arms
To shield your brother’s harm from far away
To protect the unknown with your own life
To put back the pieces when peace finally comes
Or to relieve the woes of folks?
To social workers holding back the brink
To the nurse whose hour saves a child’s life
To the lottery winners who tip a grand
To those who help others with nothing asked
‘Cept
“How can I help you?”
I do not break,
‘Cept for the line,
The cobble stones
Removed by time
I do not build,
‘Cept on the theme,
A lasting home
For my family
What do we make?
With this poetry
Not castle nor treasure
Just memories
Just minuscule
Glimpses
Into the moment
Of the mind’s
Poetic
I
Got it right, got it right
Doctor Williams
Got it right
The trick is in the meter
solid rhythm, perfect beat
Well balanced measure
Pluck the string elegan’ly
Don’t forget the tercet
A quatrain will suffice
Just keep it in just meter
Or the critics will complain
That you have made no mastery
Of that which Williams claimed
Yet me I like my brevity
And dabble in vain rhymes
But The meter,
O the meter
I will take
and
do no harm.
Sitting in a skateshop
Boy’s buyin’ a board
Old man sitting
Under origami
Birds Flying
up the glass
Walls
As he looks
For a home
For the night.
City living
Breathing life;
Sounds of
Cycles, cars
A fight,
the honks
And groans
Of an otherwise
Still afternoon.