POEM: A POD OF POEMS

Inheritance

Children don’t

understand

how once

was grand.

They line up in rows

of blue or grey,

then give all their toys

and ribbons  away.

Path

The Buddha’s feet

never once

walked on air.

By the River

I Will Walk

Hold my hand.

Change the course

of my blood; too much

comes along.

Then start

at the river’s edge

where water wets

the round,

sun-warmed stones,

where rocks are not

tumbled and broken,

where, instead,

they laugh and sing,

and are moved

by different ways.

Pre-Emptive Strike

The jarring missile

of your intention

overrode

my defences’

protocols

and swiftly,

surprisingly,

and most

heat-seekingly,

exploded

into my

arctic heart.

Cold War

O, Wad of Glistening Goo!

Giant slug of sticky gum

adhering twixt the sidewalk

and my shoe.

Yes, you’re as pre-emptive
a first-strike

from spring’s impatient arsenal,

as ever there was.

And I am bound to surrender.

Take me to your leader!

The Firing Range

It was a beautiful day

on the firing range;

it was a beautiful day.

On the firing range,

it was day.

Beautiful.
It was.

Nevertime

When night’s
heavy instruments

no longer stir 
the depths of purpose,

and orphaned sunrise 
finds little favour

in the scent of heated blossoms,

and breaths between leaves

are taken up by pale riders,

then never doesn’t seem

like such a long time,

anymore.

Beepbeep!!

Beeps in the morning

to help start our day.

Beeps on our watches,

so never we’ll stray.

Beeps with our coffee,

our cars and our rules.

Beeps are our measure,

we beeping great fools!

Warning: The Following Contains Irony—

Reader Discretion Is Advised

PSYCHIC FAIR!!

COMING SOON

TO YOUR TOWN!

(You’ll miss it.)

Fade to Black

On the screen,

you look into his eyes,

unseen;

you hear his words

in silence.

It’s in the dark

as he steps close,

knife in hand

to cut your throat,

that you smell

his after-shave

and say, “He’s put

too much on again.”

A Gift

When they looked,

a kind of Eden

appeared in the scope.

Those tasked with

the notice of such things

remarked how like

the former it was,

though not nearly

so hard won. 

  

Reforming

A plastic bag

tumbling slowly

in the wind—

Let go

Release

Let go

Release

Let go.

  

Steps

“Is God behind that cloud?”

The little boy asked.

Newly-minted, he stood

on the church steps

of a fall Sunday,

candle and prayer book

in hand.

“Is He there right now?”

“Among others,” I replied.

Among others.

Sundays In The Park

That plastic bag

you keep your life in

burst open,
spilling everything.
Again.

The Pronounced Little

Something observed of the kit and caboodle,

of a wayward ray, of a day-old noodle:

Necessarily small, lacking great vision,

its slightness assured; no abstract divisions.

Begin is begun, so start in the middle;

firsts are confusing while endings will fiddle.

By listing qualities of shadow and light,

time-honoured neglect, how it fails to delight,

then the skin’s current, its electrical will,

soon aids us in starting the snowball downhill.

Such subjects are endless as sands on the shore,

whose each rocky matrix will promise still more:

So, will a speck of grease on a gravy-ed tie

offer less wisdom than the clouds in the sky?

Will a knuckled napkin found wedged in a ball

fail in predicting what comes after the fall?

Thus, paint of thick ochre brushed from a dry reed

reveals more the human than the cave wall need.

While a broken corner in need of repair--

it shifts understanding, but not much the air.

Leave photographs worn and time-stamped with friction,

stage-dwelling gods, and brave books that boast fiction.

Not heroes of war nor Mahatmas of peace,

not life at its birth, at its middle or cease.

Leave vistas for artists, cave-dwelling or cloud.

Remember that laurels are bent to be proud.

Braying demons are for sunny gods to slay.

Instead, wait for the ant to come cross your way.

Then, wait for flowers that, atop midden piles,

will offer their methane from across the aisle.

Hear choirs of dewdrops, their chanting as gas.

Try praying with microbes come gathered for mass.

Then see in the little what once was in all—

not the striding of man but baby’s first crawl.

Nature|erutaN

New leaves leave you naked,

wondering and weak.

Clouds leave you breathless,

unable to speak.

Rocks break your bones,

and their summits don’t care

how forests seem like

your baby’s new hair.

Footprints

It was like some

new Olduvai,

that contact

between the land

and those moving

across it.

Footprints on that day

at the lake

taken up by a shoreline

drying in the sun.

And only by chance, now,

not to be preserved

by falling ash

or mud,

or the sudden

press of rock.

YET ANOTHER POD OF POEMS THAT I RESCUED FROM THE BACKYARD POOL. They were mostly like dying mini-whales starving for krill. So I took pity on them and sieved away the grass clippings and algae fronds and slime, and the dead cats. Then I harvested them as sustainably I could. I did some editing and inserted some pics, so...
I like “Inheritance”, “A Gift” and “Footprints”. To me, they’re like a beginning, middle and end in a way; they seem to flow one to the other. 

So, here’s a few old poemies treading water and a couple new ones using their water wings. Are they complete? Are they simply fragments? Can they carry water as poems, to drown the metaphor, or are they just leaky buckets? 
But if they provide the reader with any refreshment, then I’m happy. (Just make sure not to drink too deeply from them. I don’t think they’ve added any cestodacide.)

Cheers

Wazzupp!?!*

 

*old meme reference...