Illusive Lantern

When you write 

Poetry, they ask me 

 

Do you do it 

In the morning,

 

At noon or night? 

And does it make 

 

Any difference 

As long as you 

 

Do it right? All I can say is 

I’ve spent most 

 

Of my life, right or wrong, 

Looking askance 

 

At that slant glint 

Of piercing light, still 

 

Waiting for the first sign 

I was right. 

 

 

 

Miraculous Feat Transpiring

To happen 

To see 

 

A star falling is not 

So exceptional 

 

A thing, to see it 

In broad day- 

 

Light is far 

And away 

 

Quite another thing. 

 

 

 

 

To An Ancient Behemoth Recently Passed

If only you could 

Step back 

 

Two colossal steps and step 

Forward one, you might more 

 

Fully appreciate how ruthlessly 

Advanced your state- 

 

Of-the-art trajectory was, 

Seen from the dizzying heights 

 

Of seem. Why just yesterday 

You were but knee-high 

 

To a grasshopper and now 

You’re rubbing elbows 

 

With blind Homeric earthworms 

And wide-eyed grubs! 

 

 

 

Brown Hair and Grey Matter, Metaphorically Speaking

That shock of curly locks adorning 

Your forehead aside, it’s abundantly clear 

That esoteric space between your ears 

Still remains empty for lack of ideas to fill it. 

 

But don’t take my word for it— 

 

How long ago was it when 

The poem you so much wanted 

To write (but never did) turned 

Your hair white overnight? 

 

 

 

 

Valentine's Day Sleeping Muse

--for Eleni, everyday

 

The love of your life looks

To be dreaming again, breathing

Softly next to you, be gentle—

Wake her only

To show her how

Truly she is.

 

 

 

 

 

There, There Now, Brothers Jekyll and Hyde

Where there was always

 

Caged somewhere upright 

Out there, and which was where 

Those precious promissory 

Notes (you mistakenly thought you had 

Dispatched to your other self) ended 

Upended within

 

There.

 

Brainwashed

Take heart all you diehard versifiers— 

Putting down a poem in your head’s not hard, 

Flushing it out of your system is.