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Coming Together

I have known Kayla for nearly ten years, since she was maybe 13. Now in about a week she’s getting married already. We met at a site centered on interactions around the subject of poetry. I don’t quite remember how we started talking, but it of course involved the subject of poetry. I do remember that for years she would ask me to task her with writing projects, which she would diligently work at and complete. Today she actually credits me with having taught her a lot.

A few months back, she asked me if I would commemorate her wedding with a poem, saying it would mean a lot to her. I’ve tried to accommodate her request. Hopefully she’ll like.

Coming Together

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

This poem is a synthetic ode, my 4th. Since the synthetic ode can contain other forms within it, so long as certain semantic and structural guidelines are met, and since I was playing with sonnets anyway, this poem also contains my 7th and 8th Shakespearean sonnets (parts I and II), and my 1st Petrarchan sonnet (part III).

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Inheritance

My second Shakespearean sonnet. I often think about the effects of overpopulation, which is of course disastrous. Somehow it seemed a suitable subject of focus.

Inheritance

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
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Reforming Words

This is a rewrite of a ghazal written many years ago, making this my 131st. The title, refrain, and preceding rhyme are the same, but everything else is different. Also, rather than using my takhallus (pen-name) directly in the final couplet, as I did in the original version, I just allude to it using one of its many meanings.

Reforming Words

We built this ivory dome on founding words;
its dream of hope sustained with grounding words.

Our Lady braves the darkness, torch in hand,
her call reechoed with resounding words.

In wisdom there is depth that can’t be measured
with just the simple plumb of sounding words.

Our elders gathered long ago and signed
a justice poignant with expounding words.

The multitude would never have been heard
without the glimmer of propounding words.

The graybeard mystic gained the truth of language,
and ever since has aired confounding words.

A wounded soldier presses to his brow
an old book full of most astounding words.

The shape of liberty has changed; the stars
are witness to the force of bounding words.

The original, written in February of 2002, can be read under the same title: “Reforming Words”.

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The Empty Cubby

A perspective poem, written from the perspective of a child as she ponders the empty cubby by the wall in her classroom. I’ve only written a handful of perspective poems over the years, though I would like to write more.

   The Empty Cubby

   The cubby hole is empty
      where your lunchbox used to be,
and everyone seems quieter today.
   There is an eerie stillness,
      like the playground in between
our recess time when we go out to play.

   The Teacher tried to tell us,
      when we all came in for class,
that you were never coming back again.
   We asked a lot of questions,
      but it was hard to understand
the way she hid her face as if in pain.

   All morning long, your best friend
      Tommy turned to face the door
whenever anybody entered through.
   At recess in the play yard
      he sat out by the handball court
alone and staring up into the blue.

   We know that something’s happened.
      Somehow we know that something’s changed.
Nobody is the way they usually seem.
   We didn’t even play much
      when we had our classroom brakes.
The whole entire day is like a dream.

   Now class is almost over,
      but no-one seems to really care
the round clock on the wall is nearing three.
   I think they all are thinking
      of the cubby with your name.
The cubby where your lunchbox used to be.

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Forsaken

I would consider this a random write. As someone who has lived in or at the edge of poverty his entire life, I have sometimes found myself wondering about my wealthy counterparts.

Forsaken

God has abandoned you. Go!
Cower beneath your rocks and pray.
Pray for a swift release. Pray
for a lesser hell. Pray for sweet
oblivion, cast deep into
the weightless black of naught.

Meaning has dried and mummified
taut against your splintered bones.
Hope has cracked and crazed and peeled
revealing raw infections of
despair. Where can you hide? Where
can you tuck your oozing loss away.

Seek the cellar. Seek the marble
floor. Seek the solitude of
pillared halls. Seek the satin
linens of your tier. Seek the
the double-breasted Valentino,
pressed firm against your perfect corpse.

You are followed, each and every
step. Followed by an ever
present loss. Followed by the
exponent of emptiness.
Pursued through every twist of fate,
through every vain attempt to flee.

You are damned, forsaken, lost.
No one waits for you beyond the
veil. Nothing but the cold and
fetid clay awaits the one
who banishes his soul to claw
for bloody scraps of worldly gain.

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sunday morning

I am trying to learn what I’ve half forgotten, how to bring moments of thought—imaginary or reflective—to life through imagery in words. But with all the insights I’ve gained since before forgetting, I find now that I want to try out strange oblique angles.

sunday morning

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

No, this isn’t about me, nor anyone I think I know. But it is about someone. It’s definitely about someone—somewhere.

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Transmogrification

My second synthetic ode. Parts I and II represent antithetical aspects of a child’s development, first the creative wonder and exploration all children seem to enjoy, then the addictive violence and desensitization of modern video games. Part III presents the synthesis of these two, the soldier on the field of battle, ready to kill without hesitation or remorse.

Imagine, as you read, one voice—say a soft-spoken female voice—reading part I and a second voice—say a harsher male voice—reading part II. Then, as you read part III, imagine the two voices reading in unison.

Transmogrification

        I

Hazel eyes absorb a world of wonder,
    cities floating through the sky
  half concealed among the clouds,
    mermaids dancing in the sea
  half revealed among the foam,
    and camouflaged away from human sight
        elven nations thriving all around the world.
            Nimble hands explore
    paper wood and plastic,
          creating new inventions week by day.
        Supersonic aircraft zoom through hallway canyons
          and out across imaginary bays;
        coffee table cities rise among the couches
          busy with the sounds of industry; and
        stellar ships and space ports emerge from bedroom closets—
          precursors of a future yet to be.
 

        II

Stormy eyes absorb a realm of slaughter,
    cities rotting with the dead
  overrun by demon hordes,
    Gothic townships ever dim
  overwhelmed by zombie mobs,
    and everywhere, apocalyptic doom
        drowns imagination with visions of the slain.
            Frantic hands control
    pixels bent on trauma,
          with implements of every kind of war
        wielded to the hymns of personal damnation,
          gentleness made mad for battle-scores,
        shooting hacking slaying, all discrimination
          lost amid a growing thirst for more. And
        steadily the will to think and learn is narrowed
          to morbid rivulets of combat lore.
 

        III

                Steel gray eyes survey
            silent flesh and burning bone,
        columns pluming black against the darkness,
            cities rubbled with dismay,
        broken homes where broken mothers moan,
    brick and mortar scattered through a halflight
fraught with holy terrors lurking deep in shadow
and sensor-tripped explosives stashed along the roadways.
        Steady hands take aim,
    crossing foes between the rigid hairs
        of righteousness and training,
    a firm belief that killing in the hallowed name is fair
        ingrained through years of subtle inculcation.
            Calloused fingers stroke the edge of death,
    forever tense, prepared to deal
            the fatal strike that leaves the twitching dead
        left glaring up one final supplication.

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revelation

I found myself thinking about the story of Adam and Eve. It has always seemed odd to me that god would place his newborn creations in a garden of ideals, and then stick a tree in the middle that grows fruit you’re not supposed to eat. Then, on top of that, toss in a snake that gets off on lying to people and convincing them to do what they’re not supposed to do. Never mind that Eve didn’t know anything about lying, so imagine her confusion when god tells her one thing while the snake tells her another.

This is like putting a small child in a room with a great big bar of chocolate, telling him he’s not supposed to eat the chocolate, then leaving a recording behind that repeats over and over, “You can eat the chocolate. It’s okay to eat the chocolate. Go ahead and eat the bar of chocolate.” Well, what do you think is going to happen?

Naw man, if you take the story at face value, then the whole thing was a setup from the start, like a really bad practical joke. So thus this experimental poem.

revelation

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

Sometimes I just feel like experimenting.

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rainbow

I had no idea where this was going when I started it, but I thought I’d just go with it and see what happened. I’m kind of surprised. Perhaps even pleasantly so.

rainbow

i traced its edge
through deep green fields
over pine tree hills and higher
till it scraped the desolate
snows of nowhere

and still i followed
on through alpine vale
and florid glen and down
jagged canyon ridges past
island mountains that rose
as if from seas of sand

and still i followed
past mesas lined with crows
and sere grass ranges
where lumbering cows rid
the world of diversity

and yet still on
along wide slow rivers filled
with stench fish floating lifeless
on bloated sides and
by pillars of smoke that
chased blue from the skies

and yet still on
through lifeless mountains
painted green to please the eye
past springs that bubbled poison
and wells that oozed dismay

yet still i went
following those faded hues
amid a web of tall marble
monuments each depicting
through stains the long neglected
dreams of liberty

yet still i went
along shores littered with
death where rag-worn poor rake
thin pale fingers through filth
for remnants of life

and finally there in a long
white plaza it ended
all its color drained to sooty
shades of gray that flickered
out from the last remains

of a once great constitution

now but a distant hope for
greater souls to strive toward

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strange disease

I normally don’t approach topics of this sort. But hopefully I can pass this off as a sort of pen-portrait and not as any sort of political commentary. I don’t actually know or understand enough to comment on American or World politics. But, regardless, this is the undeniable impression I get when I see Bush and certain members of his administration up in front of the microphones.

strange disease

your face looks somehow
    slack

        not with age but some
    strange disease

            your tongue slithers in and out
        slicking greasy lies
                like rancid butter
    across rows of microphones

your cheeks spill out
    over insect jaws that work
            mindless as mandibles
        on flickering teleprompts

            your eyes are toxic
    squalid little pools of terror leaking
        shivers from soft busy glows
sea to noxious sea

            your ears have rotted gray
                    deaf as battleship decks
    slack as the torn and tattered flag
        silenced behind you

            your voice is the sound of gravel
    shoveled from the backs of trucks
        with dirt and lime into
long shallow graves

            your hands grope out trembling
        as if overcome by pressure
tapped from ancient soils long ago decayed
                    to putrid pools of loss

                and your head swells grotesque
    to bursting from your dark black suit
        pumped with agendas too fetid
                for the heart to endure

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puzzles

I have been thinking of trying out another dialect poem. They’re really tough to write, requiring a lot of editing and reediting and thinking and rethinking about word and syntax usage, and how to graphologically represent a highly modified, accentual use of English.

This poem is inspired by a young teenager at a residential home where I used to work. He was someone who grew up in urban poverty and who ended up where he did because he—like many who grow up in such environs—made some poor choices. He was an angry kid, and a fighter. But during the time I knew him he demonstrated himself to be capable of totally random acts of compassion toward younger residents. For all his anger, it was clear that he didn’t like to see others bullied, demeaned, or taken advantage of.

He really liked putting together jigsaw puzzles, and would spend considerable time on them.

puzzles

so much gone wrong what
goes through ma mind as i
slide them pieces up
ova one anotha

th’ edges iz easiest to find
easies’ ta fit inta place
man what was that why’d
i beat that man down

then there’s them pieces
they look like they go
tagetha somehow cuz
they got the same cullas

they look like they match yet
a lotta times they don’t
i don’ know why i get so angry
maybe cuz my own pieces

they nevva seem ta fit
these if i look at ’em long
enough i find where they go
but no matta how long i look

at all th’ liddle pieces of ma
life i don’t see how they go
damn man i can’t ev’n find
the edges fo’ the frame

i used to force them pieces in
cuz it seem like they go like
that but then when i think ahm
close ta done it look all wrong

wrong like my damn life like
my damn future all jigsawed
but with pieces missin’ an’
forced all crazy ’till they’z all

bent up an’ don’ seem ta fit
nowhere no mo’ an’ i didn’t even
realize they wuz gettin’ bent
when i put them in but i learned

learned if i gotta push hard they
ain’t in the right place an’ when
they do fit they just slip down
all easy an’ it look right

maybe that’s what i did tried
to make pieces fit that didn’ go
where i’ look like they did
maybe that’s what my mamma

did when she had me when
she got high when she slept
wi’ daddey when she got mad
and took it all out on us

took it all out on us till we didn’
know how our own pieces went
no mo’ and now ahm here
here wi’ failure starin’ each day

hard in the face of a broken
tomorra wonderin’ wonderin’
what ahm gonna live fo’
wonderin’ how ahm goin’na live

but i got these puzzles an’ i
learnin’ how to find what pieces
go where an’ ta take the time
take the time to fit ’em right

i learnin’ how ta think about what
goes where how evrethang fits
tagetha an’ ta pick up the pieces
an’ maybe fit ma life tagetha