Unrequited

Had you asked me 
Against all odds 

I’d have been the first 
To answer yes and the last 

To wager I was wrong 
Even from the start. 

Life's Understudy

Moreover 
.
You act as if 
You’re standing 
On a mountain 
.
On top of which 
The lowly mole does not 
Understand your role. 

Pure Ars Poetica

(with apologies to Kilmer and MacLeish) 


Genealogically speaking, 
A poem ought to be whatever 

A poet conceives 
A poem should be— 

But never a mongrel barking 
Its ass off up the wrong tree.

Up from the Minors

These big time poetry leagues are a bitch, 
But you’ve learned to slide and pitch well; 

Now let's see you slip in your best 
Curve and keep watching 

As the better part of you flies
Sailing out of the park straight 

Back to hell. 

Sanctum

solitary 

blue 


and 

white 


chapel 

in 

pied 

meadow 


genuflecting 

black 


bird 

making

a

bee


run

to 

ward 

it.

Dusk

The opposite of dawn, of course; 
Another less common 
Name is crepuscule but I bet 
Few English speakers know that 
Or that it also means gloam. 
.

Silent before yet another 
Sunset, I suppose it dawns 
Upon many a man 
That one’s vocabulary,
No matter how dazzling,
Can never be a match 
For the unspeakable splendor 
Of one more dying day. 

Huuklyeand Cinquor on The Poetry Conundrum Factor

What do you expect to gain 
When you ask yourself what 
It is with this game when 
You’re at a loss for words 
Save the riddle that remains. 


Moderator’s comments: ?

How Aesop Nourished My Grotesque Childhood Imagination

As I was 

An eager beaver 
Starved for mind- 
Blowing sustenance, 

Amongst a flock 
Of fabulous doings 
He was said to have 

Wolfed down the bitter 
Cold of a polar bear 
Wearing the panoply 

Of a lobster dressed to kill. 

Abandoned Cow Stalls on Farm Near Fukushima, Japan

Too contented 
To know how to react 
When things go sour, what’s left 
Of the cows remains 
In various stages 
Of rot in empty stalls— 
And the phantom farmers? 

Steeped as they were in high- 
On-the-hog atomic subsidies, 
One surmises they knew 
Better than to stick around 
Too long and high-tailed it 
Out of the premises 
While the milking was still good— 

But this remains idle speculation 
Till the day they feel the answer truly 
Seeping in deep down in their bones. 

Food for Aesthetic Homo Sapient Thought

Coming across photo 
Of beautiful decaying 
Beached albatross 

Carcass, stomach eaten 
Away by engrossing 
Blue yellow red green 

Plastic rot gutting still 
Life work of so much 
Undigested mishmash. 

These Gawkers Never Knew What Hit Them

They forgot 
Rote can be useful as hell— 
For one thing, you can tell 

Spring’s peeling rubber rounding 
The corner headed our way 
By tallying all those rubbed out 

Toads splayed and flattened like 
Pemmican on the asphalt 
Straightaway.