A POEM DEDICATED TO LADY HOPE

A POEM DEDICATED TO LADY HOPE

 [based on a photo by Barbara Florczyk]

In a heavy rain, you hang out the wash,

then hum a tune you cannot name

nor care to for fear the need to hum it

will leave you.

All sorts of unexpected things like that

while the child that I am hangs in close

at your heels, shadowing you,

eavesdropping on choice bits

of talking to yourself

as though you were your only friend.

But you never see me:

not in the heavy rain

nor in the madness of your senseless chores

nor in the humming,

not anytime you go about your living,

heels ahead, laughing at things

that when I reflect upon them

are funnier than they are when you don't say them.

So, I hang in close, shadowing at your heels,

and holding tightly to Life itself,

your only child.

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FIVE 17-SYLLABLE BONELESS COURAGE POEMS

FIVE 17-SYLLABLE

BONELESS COURAGE POEMS

1

The only place where courage

resides ramrod straight

is in the backbone.

2

Just because it lacks bone,

courage still walks

softly into blazing fire.

3

A wise man once said

“A boneless courage” means

“a spongy bravado.”

4

The spineless talk the talk.

When it comes to action

they wiggle cold toes.

5

The meat of it all

demands the lionhearted,

not the jellyfish.

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LOVE BEYOND WORDS

LOVE BEYOND WORDS

What else do I have but these words

bulbously looped or scrawny

and tall as wind-blown weeds,

these slashes, these vowels

open-mouthed and sometimes closed?

How else can I explain my love

for you except with words that paint

second-rate images of what

cannot be touched or expressed?

Still, I feed the words to blank

sheets and screens and pray they touch

the heart of you where I would like

to think my words are somehow

transformed to a living authenticity.

#

WHEN LOVE COMES, BE THERE

WHEN LOVE COMES, BE THERE

Love’s a grin away when you’re near me,

A tall glass of nectar to imbibe

like royalty, a common man made king.

I was the naïve fool who declared  

how love was a joy untenable,

playing out behind a keyhole, malleable

to others who were adept at grasping

opportunity and calling it love.

How much I finally learned in hindsight!

Love lacks heartsick trammel for those who dare.

I fell for you in the backseat of

Debbie’s red car that first time our hands touched.

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FIVE 17-SYLLABLE RETURN-TO-DRIZZLE POEMS

FIVE 17-SYLLABLE

RETURN-TO-DRIZZLE POEMS

1

Waving farewell to an eclipsed sun,

We wait for the drizzle of gold.

2

Life’s uncertainties are drizzling days

We can’t decipher: rain or sleet?

3

When God cooks up a storm,

He first drizzles the Earth with

A spread of rain.

4

Drizzles are wannabees

Envious of six-starred flakes

and globes of rain.

5

Autumn waits in the wings.

Summer basks in its last days.

Light rain coming.

#

POETS ARE NOT INFALLIBLE

POETS ARE NOT INFALLIBLE

It ended, not the way Eliot spoke

of the world wasting to a chorus of

children and frightened cats and dogs whimpering.

It ended, sputtering away in sizzling shards,

in jagged grasslands, mountains exploding,

ponderous snowfalls of many colors,

mostly red, orange cinders, silver shrapnel

teeming down like spears of mercy on those

too weak to run, life seeping through clenched hands.

It ended in wildfire this time.

#

BAD LUCK! BAD LUCK!

BAD LUCK! BAD LUCK! 

I watched the old Roman woman

hobble to the empty lot,

left-over spaghetti wrapped

in crumpled pages of today’s

Messaggero newspaper.

Straining to bend, she laid it out

neatly on the graveled dirt,

then toothlessly whistled a call

to dinner, signaling homeless

felines from their alleyways

near Tiburnia Station.

A rush of cats of all colors,

undernourished to the bone,

swarmed toward the old woman’s meal.

All but one, a coal-black cat

that kept a distance away,

meowing pangs of hunger.

I puckered lip sounds, hoping

to catch his eye. “No! Not that one!”

hollered the woman. “Male fortuna!

Bad luck!” she said. “Gatto nero!

Black cat!” Though the others

paw-slapped my hands, I gathered

the red saucy pasta, then

placed it on the wintry ground.

“Don’t let it walk in front of you!”

Male fortuna!” the old woman said again.

#

LOVE IS MORE THAN ALL THAT

LOVE IS MORE THAN ALL THAT

Papa always said that love was action, not words.

We could carry banners, scream love at another’s heart,

But without a promise to keep that love alive

it was a waste of time, a game to play, a lie

doomed to hit rock bottom, a brick wall, shrivel up

and die. Of course, I found his little speech a laugh.

I loved Helen Steubel. She had a pretty face,

red hair, and said so sweetly how she loved me.

We were both ten. Ten years old and certain our love

would never end. It did. On Valentine’s Day, no less.

Helen gave all the boys in 5B an I-love-you card.

#

ZENDEL WAITS OUT THE NIGHT

ZENDEL WAITS OUT THE NIGHT

[Based on Art by – Ooberxandxdavie6]

Somewhere in the far-off mountains,

hiding in crevice or dark cave,

Zendel waits out the Martian night.

Beneath the two moons of Phobos

and Deimos, he fights against sleep

where ogres crouch waiting to kill.

No one and nothing can save him.

He imagines his mother

high on the branch of a burned-out

wood, searching, begging the Martian gods

to command the rigid mountains:

“Release Zendel! Release the boy!”

When dawn breaks across the Martian sky,

mother and son trek towards home.

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MOUNTAINS CRUMBLE NEVER ASKING WHY

MOUNTAINS CRUMBLE

NEVER ASKING WHY

We live each day and hope it’s not too late

to complete what’s expected of our fate.

We fear ill-mannered Death will come too soon

and steal us from our noble half-done task:

our best work unfinished, left in ruins.

How foolish to question our last day,

when mountains crumble, never asking why.

Are we humans not less mighty than they?

All creation in proper time will die.

Let’s live our lives as if today’s our last.

Consider life the time from sun to moon.

Start living in the moment.  Don’t delay.

Open our hearts to kindness.  At least try

to fill the hours with good.  Time won’t wait.

                           #

FIVE 17-SYLLABLE SEE-IT POEMS

 FIVE 17-SYLLABLE SEE-IT POEMS

1

Left or right?

Bright star or empty palm?

Behind your back a change of hands.

2

Thomas wasn’t there to see it.

He needed proof.

Then faith gave new eyes.

3

What the blind man sees

with wisdom, those with sight

cannot identify.

4

In placid waters

your reflection stares back at you.

Which face is true?

5

The child sees a herd of stallions

stampede across the sky.

We see only jumbled clouds.

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DESPITE UPS AND DOWNS

DESPITE UPS AND DOWNS

 If we could just embed into life’s stumbling stones 

some polished rock to soften the gait we walk, 

we could press on without footstep fears of toppling.

Some insist it’s only natural to look down,

forewarned is forearmed, but left out of this maxim

is the false notion life is perfect, without grit,

smooth as gems, in no way malformed, not at all

the labyrinthine journey that despite ups and downs,

we feign is a joyride of amusement.

The hour is late. Make the best of it.

 #

MY COMIC BOOK HERO

MY COMIC BOOK HERO

Plastic Man never opened doors

nor took the stairs to save his life.

He slithered like a red yellow snake.

In his dark shades, he could see crime

playing out everywhere, his arms

and legs, long and deceptively

thin, stretching far to make things right.

He was my hero in those days,

an elastic man of justice

who showed us kids crime did not pay.

Batman had his sidekick Robin,

Superman, a body of steel,
Flash, here and gone, too quick to pin down,

but I was skin-and-bones boy;

he was the man of plastic,

the mystery man who could stretch,

shrink and bend: the hero of my early days.

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