Emotion

Midweek Poetry: My White Rabbit

My White Rabbit

I like beer, pizza, and poetry.
And those mysterious rabbit holes.

Poetry is to life
what hearing is to sound,
what thunder is to lightning, what love is
to marriage,
what sex is to love,
what water is to thirst.

I like dark beer, such poems
I love to hear. Poetry
is to me what color is to art.
It’s the butter
upon life’s devolving bread.

Poetry is to life as dreams
are to sleep, like light is for day,
poetry is rain ending a drought.

Life and poetry, infinity woven
together like two heads for sister.
A poem is my White Rabbit.

Life without poetry is sad,
dysfunctional and ignorant,
like breathing without air.
It lacks reason and purpose.

Poetry is as human as skin,
as thoughtful as mind, it goes
deep – beyond any abyss.

No culture is without poems.
The poem-less are like sailors
without songs or sirens,
poetry is a beacon for living,
it’s an eternity for the dead.

Not every poem is perfect, but poetry is
the ancient sound of a beautiful gift
waiting at the core of a newborn,
as the eye of a painter or a touch
of the sculptor forms art,
the words of the poets
are the pipes and drums of humanity.

Look both ways.
Be skeptical of all you see but shed foolish ignorance as soon as you smell it.
Mind the gaps. They didn’t put themselves there.

And this, just cuz I can…

dVerse: Quadrille #134: We {heart} poems

A quadrille is a 44-word poem. See the rules at the dVerse Page.

My Fountain of Youth

Fist sized, emotionally uninvested, hearts
are busy little buggers. Mine’s bionic:
seven stents, a new bovine based aortic valve,
and a safety pacer to keep it pumping
1,680 gallons via 100K systole beats
every day. Deathrate’s down two thirds.
Tricky business, this staying alive.

Look both ways and exercise physically and mentally.
Mind the gaps and feel the beats.

Sammi’s Weekender #223 (pre-loved)

Click on graphic for Sammi’s blog. I dropped the hyphen.

 

Passed Gas

When Dad said, “secondhand store,” I looked at my hands. Wondered which was bought second. It’s a euphemism for used. Now it’s preloved. Just bought a preloved printer. Nobody loves evil printers. They’re used.

Daughter, Julie, likens me to George Carlin. Not as funny, but I’m snarkastic. We both rant about softening lingo with euphemistic bull shit excrement. It’s doublespeak. Even good bad words, a euphemism for euphemisms. What’s your favorite?

Look both ways: a euphemism for pay attention or consider all options. Mind both past and future.
So is mind the gaps. Maybe metaphor is mo’ betta’.

 

Poetry: It’s August Again

It’s August again. Just another
one of twelve named collections of days
to mark our planetary position
relative to our Sun, called sol, in our
solar system spinning reliably about
in some outer spiral arm
of our Milky Way galaxy. Our home.

August is supposed to mean something important,
like some Roman title signifying reverence;
to hold in high regard. I don’t do that for August.

As a child, school started next month,
I was often bored, sunburned, a year older.
Halloween and Christmas were far off.
I feared some raging red-faced nun’s pounding footsteps
and bone rattling beads storming my way,
with some weapon of horror in her hellish hand.
Hormones made me feel things I didn’t understand.
I still don’t get all that. Crazy life.

As an adult, August now means hot and dry. West coast
wildfires raging on while US Forest Service bureaucrats
either fight or fiddle for smarter management
policies for mother nature to ignore.

I try to be respectful of August.
It’s the end of summer, the gateway for September
as promised glories of Autumn soon fall upon us. Coolness.
And color. And feelings. October promises more.
My apologies to summer lovers, tanned bodies,
teacher’s times off, vacations (because kids), and to Caesar.
I say it every year. Only Christmas can save August.

Look both ways to seasons past and yet to come.
Mind the gaps in government policies.
They’re only human, even if they can’t admit it, until the mic is hot.

dVerse Quadrille #132 (stream)

A forty-four word poem (plus title) written for dverse prompt of stream.

Pluvial Passion

Let me feel your kiss.
May your wet tongue lick.
Run into my eyes, down my face,
under my clothes,
over my body.

My passion, you pour copious streams
of love upon me.

Touch me where you can.

Where are you, my sweet Rain?

 

Look both ways for summer showers.
Mind the gaps between the drops.

The Greatest Gift

There’s joy,
in the smiles of others,
in visions of those we love,
people we care about,
that is where truest,
most honest, happiness thrives.

To see such dancing zest is to feel
the same in my bones, heart, and mind;
while tears of delight run down
my cheeks. When babies laugh.
Hope laden felicity. Even
an old man simply must smile.

To sing and dance
with those we love most,
to see and hear them rise
in rebirth to life’s glorious days,
to overcome fears and sadness
that come with what we call
our human condition.

How strange, that we may
give or receive no greater gift,
no higher prize,
no nourishing of the spirit,
no deeper love than to allow
others to be and to see us
high on being alive.
Even more, to here and now
let love swirl among us all. Hallelujah!

Look both ways for the joy of love.
Mind the gaps, but live and let live.

Sammi’s Weekender (unknown)

Turning Into the Wind

I wish
I didn’t know now
what I didn’t know then,
back when my lost
happiness was
still unknown.

Before I won these emotional
and physical scars;
blissfully, foolishly ignorant;
lucky, privileged;
without foible; free to be me;
a self-centered fool
with a college degree.

Now a recovered lover
of painful truths I never sought.
But I’m proud of our past.

Look both ways,
to the earth and into the heavens,
into the night and through each day’s light.
Mind the gaps and face the facts. It was what it was, and so were we.

 

Poetry: Bloqueo de Escritor

My brain
or is it my mind?
Whatever. It’s rebelling.
Just for today,
as they say in AA.
It will not allow
even a crumb
of creative thought
to come in,
much less,
fall
to the page.

“No, no, no,” it says,
“I will not go!”
As I sit here.
(Ever have this?)
It feels like fear,
but otherwise,
I’m empty
of emotion and purpose.
Where to start?
Much less, any thought
of how to finish.

Just this silence.
The sleep that disallows
doing the exercise,
I’m unprompted
with lines pulled too tight.
I feel stymied
by an overworked
empty whiteness.

Sometimes,
it simply does not
work for me. I’m sorry.
I have ED of the mind.
I should leave.
Take a nap. Wane a bit.
They call it “block.”
I’m sure it’s temporary.
But what a shitty
suffocating feeling.
I feel museless.

Look both ways for the walls of chaos.
Mind the gaps, gasps, and gyps. And this…

“Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.” – Margaret Chittenden

Poetry: Hello, Tom.

All that I can recall
about Tom Steele,
is that he was tall, blondish hair,
quiet, and we never spoke.
We were both CHS
class of 1964, graduates.

His panel is 6E, line 104.
Tom was Army, C Company,
Second Battalion, 16th Infantry,
First Infantry Division. A grunt.
A boots-on-the-ground warrior.

At the Battle of Xa Can My,
April 11th, 1966, Tom was killed,
along with 36 fellow American soldiers,
age 20, not old enough to drink,
but young enough to die.

And I – must remember the boy
to whom I never spoke because
Memorial Day is all about him,
and them, for me to Remember.

Look both ways;
into the past to remember, into the future for something better.
Mind the gaps but try to treat folks with love and respect.
Say it. Care. You never know.

Poetry: Rainy-Day Me

It is raining.
Outside everything is wet.
My long walk this morning
was in the rain. I wore
that red rain jacket,
got soaked only below my waist,
and I loved it.

Now it is afternoon
and the rain is still here,
and I should be reading,
drinking coffee, and
sitting on my back porch,
contemplating life and pondering
about what’s next.

But I’m having poetic thoughts
about rain (again), about
writing, and about Julie,
and I need to make some notes.

I’ll go sit on the porch now
where I can enjoy the rain more.
I hear distant thunder,
nature’s version
of rainy-day drama.
I can think about Zeus
or any one of dozens of other
gods of thunder and lightning.

I shall read, drink coffee,
and enjoy the rain, maybe
some thunder, if it’s not right
in my face. Maybe I’ll wonder.
We should wonder often, right?
I wonder what I’ll wonder about.

Look both ways for desire and disfavor.
Mind the gaps for indifference.