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. 

Calling All Tone-Deaf Wannabe Poets

Oh, my goodness— 
D'ya hear her, 
Ignoramuses? 

If so, belt it out loud 
And clear, where 
‘Where’ sans the 'w' is out 

Of dumb necessity 'here', 
And not where you are 
By a long shot, dear. 

Right From The Word "Go"

--for John Levy, who’s always on the mark 

Let us take solace in the knowledge 
There are still poets out there who 
Take their reading slow and serious, 
And show us just how badass 
Some poems are and where 

They’re going when quizzical 
Others don’t know what 
To make of them— 

Those misguided ones who 
Think that if they leave them 
Alone, they’ll come back atoned 

For their transgressions, yet still sheepishly 
Dragging what's left of their farfetched tales 
Where else but behind them. 

The Getaway

Someone writes 
And shows you how 
To say what you’ve been 
Wanting in in every way; 
Try though you may, you will 
Never find the words 
To thank him—it’s as if 
He’s your other self now 
Lost in packing up those words 
That always want to get away. 

Haiku: Landlubber's Wholly Daft Spirit

breeze bringing auras 
awash with finny prey sounds 
fishy in your head.





 

To A Boxer Recently Passed

You were by definition
Like most of us who 
Spar in the shadows, there 

Where there are few, 
Too few clearly definable 
Inanimate objects to pummel 

To death, too. 

After Yeats

Ah yes, that old pilgrim 
Soul in you you once thought 
Would never come to rest, now 
By whose bequest and urgency 
Has it given up its quest? 

Getting Under The Surface Of Things

You can bet 
Your bottom dollar 

Wherever there’s immaculate 
Crisp underwear flapping in 

Blinding sun- 
Light, pure naked 

Poetry’s in the air! 

Besotted Seaman's Chambers

What say we drink, lads 

To the clink precious 
Glassy pebbles make as they 
Make their way under- 
Water near fabled shores— 

Next bring up 
That drunken image 
Of a nautilus flush 
With pearls 

Of wisdom scuttled 
On the bottom 
Of some blind poet’s wine- 
Dark sea floor, 

Then drink, drink till 
There’s no more rhyme
Or reason to remain 
Afloat any more. 

Perseverence First Of All

To even think of being 

A poet, right off 
One must remember not 

To try so hard as to forget 
You were not born one. 

The Poet As Panderer

Words come easily 
When you play hard to get— 

When you go soft, they’re just 
Someone else’s bitches. 

Poem Surreptitiously Called "The Susurrus Of Curtains"

Born to be ambiguous, 
Whatever he meant 
By titling it thus, 
One thing’s clear— 

In without his knowing 
It, he would have to 
Talk his way out of it 
Or else— 

Huuklyeand Cinquor On Going In Circles

Someone’s forever
Telling me 

Somewhere round 
Here is a square peg. 



Moderator’s comments: The apotheosis of the absurd in only eleven words; however, what remains of my frazzled logic impels me to peg the odds at 99-1 that prior to writing this “exercise in futility,” Cinquor envisaged the specter of the great Archimedes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes) uttering his famous last words “Do not disturb my circles” just before an enraged, mathematically ignorant Roman soldier “put him in a pine box” for what he thought was insubordination when, in reality, all the good mathematician had in mind was to continue his line of thought undisturbed, outside the box!

 

Haiku: Poet Overboard!

Rudderless craft, why 

Do your gulls keep flying in 
Eccentric circles? 

Stay Of Execution

Living on borrowed 
Time, the words were 

Anxious to say what 
They wanted but without 

Sounding too grasping—they knew 
All too well the absurdity 

Of a sentence truncated 
In midair 

Without pausing as long 
As humanly possible there. 

Haiku: Cause And Effect

Where the words entered 
A rush of canebrake rustled—

The wind stopped to breathe. 

Love Poem Scuttled By Inclement Weather

Once upon a time. . . . 


On Cloud Nine, 
I wanted to write one 
But the ink blotted 
Out the sun and you, 

You scudded so artfully 
Behind the nimbuses 
Of my mind and I just 
Sat there and dawdled, 

Dawdled my life away, one 
Time-worn teardrop at a time. 

LOL: A Singular Poetic Justice Indeed

How I do dislike it when 
A FB post provokes me bare- 
Facedly with the likes of 

“I bet none of my friends 
Will share this poem of mine,” 

And indeed I must concede 
How shamelessly I love it 
When I accede 

To the sender’s wishes 
And don’t. 

Why I Get Up Before Dawn

Why 
In such a world 
Of self- 

Inflicted pain, 
To anticipate 
The morning 

Breaking, and how 
That makes one wholly 
One again, that is 

The why and how of it, 
My still sleeping friend.

You Asked For It, So You Better Believe It

I’m telling it like it is 
When I say he was out 

Of his league when he kept 
Insisting his poetry had more 

Punch than a dullard’s eye could see, 
And boy has he ever got a whopper 

Of a shiner to show for it now, 
You see? 

Reaper's Got The Last Word

You sure you ain’t jiving us, 
You’re really on to something 
Big you’re dying to say? 

Don’t 

Let me stop you—get it 
Over with before you drop 
Dead in your tracts 

On the way. 

Poetic Wanderlust Partly Explained

Breathless 

You of the over- 
Worked beautiful 

Voice never faltering, mind that 
Wanders, wonder not. 

Bottom Line Disconsolate Consolation Prize

Terrible and most dishonorable 
Things too dreadful to mention
Are taking place

Now all over a world rapidly
Becoming lost forever and you— 
All you want is for your poetry

To find itself winning, 
If nothing else in the end, 
Just Honorable Mention.