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.
Been lost in books
This new found day
Drowning in their words
Find time by what they say
The Great American Dead!*
Their voices stifled
By dust, in bookcases
Their pages rifled
By Pilgrims seeking places
To give glory
To the Great
American
Story.
Often they’ve looked in
On the old, cold dark walls and halls of Europeans
But that boat has sailed
With the Revolution
And Moderns;
We seek
Curt details.
*Dickinson, Longfellow, Whitman, Frost, Williams
I picked this
Flower for you
Because you
Deserve it!
I picked this
Flower for you
For when
You are blue.
I picked these
Flowers for you,
The ones in
Your pictures you keep.
I picked these
Flowers for you
Because you
Are my Mom.
I picked this
Flower for you
And you pressed it
And I kept it
Close to my heart.
I don’t
Want to practice
A dead art.
But you are practicing it
So how can it be dead?
Gone from the memory
Of the people. Lost
Are the words to them.
Confused by broken
Syntax and boiled down
Meanings. Un-reflected
Lives don’t contemplate
Their own depravity in
The face of those surrounding them.
Not enough words for
Comprehension available.
A failing of the Academies?
Lost to glowing gods
That speak of everything
And say nothing. No food
Left for the spirit of inquiry
Lost focus of the digitized mind.
Alas, poetry is dead unless we can resuscitate the culture.
Shrill, shrieking screams
Cold. Violent. Chilling
to hear in the distance
A sharp thud and another
and a scream and more
yelling I can’t understand…
As gentle flakes drift
and sway in the silent wind
A murder
of crows caw and bolt
into flight as the next
wail splits the silence.
Round white globes volley
back and forth
another thud
another scream
as I approach.
Fresh snow, two hands
A shocking cold spray of
force and wet hits your
cheek and sticks
to your glasses.
“Hey, no fair! I said not in the face.”
Auburn poles
From white holes
Paintbrushes
Jammed into soil
Painting the only
Color in the blinding
White mountainside.