August 29, 2017

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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August 28, 2017

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.


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August 22, 2017

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.


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August 21, 2017

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.


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August 19, 2017

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.

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August 16, 2017

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.


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August 15, 2017

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.


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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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August 14, 2017

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.


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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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