Thursday, December 31, 2020

Clearly Blue

I want 
To describe 
 
A certain indescribable 
Hue of melancholy 
 
By looking closely 
At how I cannot 
 
But think of you.
 
 
 
 
 

 

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Haiku: Arena

Here most of us mill 
Around without character, 
Others haul millstones. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Friday, December 25, 2020

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Poet Against The Grain In The Boondocks Of The Southern Peloponnese

Over your head perhaps but 
Then again never entirely 
Out of your element, 
 
This singular cleansing 
Clear blue sky and that 
Uncompromising view 
 
Unobstructed by the ubiquitous 
Chatter of pedestrian clutter you 
Like to think now safely behind you.
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Coming Clean At Last

When you feel up to it, 
Feel free to write in 
The persona of one unwilling
To exist outside himself— 
If you do, be a sport 
And rub out every ineffable 
Trace of his presence—painful 
As it is, it’ll spare the both of us 
A world of disconsolate grief. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Friday, December 18, 2020

Double Crossed Subject/Object Matter

the
in- 
no- 
cent 
gilt- 
 
edged 
mir- 
ror 
frames 
no- 
 
thing 
specious 
in 
it- 
self 
 
save 
the 
precious 
image 
you 
 
project 
to 
cover 
your 
abject 
 
about- 
face.
 
 
 
 
 

 

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

From A Poet's Handbook: A Poem Should Be (23)

To all those unwilling 
To face it, revolutionary 
 
And easy to digest— 
Even those hard ones 
 
Whose subject matter’s 
Revolting—say how 
 
Sickening the image 
Of a starving child is. 
 
 
 

 

Sunday, December 13, 2020

Thursday, December 10, 2020

Sappho's

[ ] [ ] [ ] 
 
ex 
plosive 
               frag 
[ ] [ ] [ ] 
 
meant 
to 
be
 
[ ] [ ] [ ] 
 
loving[ly] ex 
 
[pli-] 
[ca-] 
[ted] 
 
[ ] [ ] [ ] 
 
[from?] 
 
[dia] [pha] [nous]
 
pleats
in 
her 
enamored
 
[memory?] [now]
 
[ ] [ ] [ ] 
[ ] [ ] [ ] 
 
by ravenous moths torn 
 
[ ] [ ] [ ] 
[ ] [ ] [ ] 
[ ] [ ] [ ] 
[ ] [ ] [ ] 
[ ] [ ] [ ] 
[ ] [ ] [ ]
 
to shreds.

 

Tuesday, December 8, 2020

A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose Tattoo

 
Get that thorn off 
Your chest—what 
 
The indifferent eye fails 
To take in, the still willing 
 
Anxious heart torn in two will, 
And all those now too timid 
 
To reveal it shall soon be 
Wearing it on 
 
Their bloody sleeves, too. 
 
 
 

Sunday, December 6, 2020

Another Holy Mountain, Believe It Or Not

This time 
It’s Zeus’s so-called ladder- 
Like Mt Ithome that climbs 
 
To where the air is still 
Alive they say with spirits 
Of the undying 
 
Ancients that have 
Yet to exhaust that one 
Last precious breath needed
 
To ascend there. 
 
 
 
 

 

Friday, December 4, 2020

Humor Me This Mellow Melancholy Idyll

 
What if 
I told you those blooming 
 
Little yellow croci 
By the side 
 
Of the narrow path leading 
To the cramped white 
 
Chapel on the top 
Of the hill overlooking 
 
My dying birth village took me back 
To a song of my lost youth, 
 
Would you go along with me? 
 
 
 
 

 

Sunday, November 29, 2020

Critical Poetic License

Happily ever after, 
Do not write as if 
 
Your life’s a third-rate novel 
Where you end up 
 
Reading a biography 
You could’ve lived without. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Thursday, November 26, 2020

Memo Writ To A Fare-Thee-Well

Don’t forget— 
No matter what you do, how 
You do it will always come back 
To let you know how you did. 
 
 

 

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

A Poem Should Be (22)

Lightheaded but not 
At all incongruous— 
Like a grotesque
 
Metallic bird lunging head- 
Long into the sound 
Barrier banging against 
 
Your tin ear till 
You can hear yourself 
Heading for another universe 
 
Eons 
Of light 
Years away. 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Sunday, November 22, 2020

Playing For Keeps

We know 
How diverse verses come and go— 
 
The easy ones quick and eager 
To show their facile faces; the hard ones 
 
Hard at work while hiding, keeping 
Those hard-won profiles low. 
 
 
 
 

 

Thursday, November 19, 2020

Discriminating Behavior

 
Like eggs gone bad, unsavory 
Politicians on their way 
To becoming rotten to the core 
Maneuver straight to the surface 
When immersed in a pot of water; 
Taken for granted and yoked 
To one another by dumb gravity, 
Their out of it constituents stay hale
And hearty stuck to the bottom. 
 
 

 

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Down But Still Not Out

 
It’s when you feel
Troubled and out
 
Of place and the only 
Place left you can go to
 
Is the home you left 
In the first place.
 
 
 

 

Sunday, November 8, 2020

Still Mellow Yellow At 76

What if 
 
I told you quite 
Rightly I fancy these small 
Yellow croci blooming 
 
By the side 
Of this narrow 
Path leading 
 
To the small white 
Chapel on the top 
Of the hill 
 
Overlooking my sun- 
Lit home village remind 
Me of a song 
 
Of my youth, would you 
Indulge me this not 
So farfetched fantasy? 
 
 

 

Friday, November 6, 2020

Catch Me If You Can, Chumps

The whereabouts of where 
Your promising poetics were 
Headed at any given time 
Were clearly present 
And defined by 
An artful aversion 
 
To working hard 
At nothing save how 
Fast and easy you could get 
In and out without 
Ever delivering 
The promised goods. 
 
 
 
 

 

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Saturday, October 31, 2020

Mistaken Presumption

The poem does not ask to be 
Taken for granted simply because 
You think you’ve put it down so 
Rightly in black and white— 
It wants to know if you will 
Ever learn to tell the difference 
Between that which is before you 
And that lying between the lines 
Left in pieces behind you.
 
 
 
 

 

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

A Poem Should Be (21)

 
Fiercely and mercifully just—
As balm is to a wounded heart,
And bane to an incurably sick one.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 
 
 

 

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...