Brief Elegy For A Lyric Poetess, Passing At 58

In your short, bittersweet stroll through 
Life’s unavoidable highs and lows, 

You were as full of life as your poems were 
Touchingly sorrowful. 

Sailing The Dream (Spindthrift)

air                     rows 


sea                    waves


bow                   quivers 


 

Too Much, Too Soon

You know you’ve been trying 
Too hard to find your voice 

When you find out too late 
You’ve lost it. 

Lovely Being

a word in a poem 
enclosed in a bottle 

opened by one 
you love. 

Closure For Beginners Up Against A Wall

The next time you feel 
A desire to execute 

The poem 

Of your life, make sure 
You wind it up with a blank 

Sheet of paper. 

Suddenly, Phlegm

What on Earth were you 
Expecting, poet? The expected almost 
Never comes when expected— 

If and when it does decide 
To make its entrance, 
More often than not

It acts as if it were 
An indifferent ephemeron 
Setting down miniscule droppings

On the tip of your dumbstricken tongue, 
While all you can do is expectorate, 
Expectorate profusely till kingdom come. 

Being An Irreverent, Albeit Clean Defence Of Nihilism

As long as the blank 
Page insists on

Staying immaculate 
White, what appears

Out of nothing 
In the end 

Must be predicated 
On how well

Our maker conceived 
The abject absurdness

Of his maculate plight. 

In Passing, Dear Heavenly Demiurge

Though it has nothing whatsoever 
To do with language 

Right or wrong, just fondle 
Sweet basil once ever so 

Lightly and its scent stays full 
Of innocent angels years after 

You’re long gone. 

Haiku: Carmina Trumpana

One fragment follows 
One more equally broken 
Specious argument. 

What We, As Law-Abiding, Solid Citizens Of A Great Nation, Are Discouraged From Acknowledging

Hear, hear— 

That auspicious 
Gritty feeling that keeps 
Gnawing fitfully 

Against the gristly hollow 
Of our most nauseously fitting 
Specious inner ear. 

75-Year-Old Pedestrian Versifier Temporarily Stopped In His Tracks By 7th Century BC Fragments Of Archilochos

[ ] [ ] 

[ ] [ ] damn it all 

[ ] [ ] Startled that [we?] are 

[ ] [ ] only now 

Starting [where?] 
To realize just how 

[ ] [ ] 

Moving this all is, [isn’t] it 
Too bad we can’t 

[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] 

Put it in reverse 

Balcony With Ionian Seaview

Matutinal sea 
Of jasmine spilling 

Over corroded wrought 
Iron railing against white 

Washed wall splashed 
With streaks of light, 

Overwhelming pale 
Blue pastel light.