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.








 



 

Know Thyself, Brother

Knowing silence waits 

For the busy man to drop everything
And join it, 

But the busy man has other things 
On his mind and does not 

Know it. 

Machiavellian Drawing A Blank At Eighty-five

Said subject in question being 
In his lifetime a village president
Many times over, machinating

Political animal and owner
Of a coffeehouse having 
The only phone in town, thus 

Suspected police whistleblower, 
Spent his last days lying
In bed staring at the wall, 

And never once spoke, 
Not even to the wall. 

Growing Up On The Wrong Side Of The Tracks: Raymond, Washington, Circa 1953

A double set 

Of rails ran right by 
Our house and how 

I never tired of walking on them 
As far as I could, trying 

My best not to fall, pretending 
All the while they were 

Heading nowhere 
In particular save 

To carry each new balancing 
Act a little farther 

Out of there. 

Without Peer

Insistent song 
Bird I know 
This song’s no 
Match for yours, 
Nor will it ever be 
Around as long, 

And yet there’s some 
Thing dumb in me keeps 
On wanting to match 
Your matchless song, so 
Knock it off, can’t you 
See, I’m almost done.

Moonlighter

Following the money 
Moonlit snail leaves 

Winding silver tracks 
Trail behind it.

What The Eye Fails To Take In, The Heart Will

—for Ans and Peter, inveterate birders par excellence 


Not the green limb trembling 
In the still air but the departed 

Beating of wings 
The branch was home to 

No longer there. 

Haiku: Good Investment

What is a word worth 
Spending your morning watching 
Bees gather pollen. 

In God We Trust

Trust me— 

When you said you would 
Try harder the next time, 

Nobody believed you, not 
Even your best friend, 

Your lying self 
To the bitter end. 

Epitaph For A Spaced-Out Astronomer

Love, don’t you be like me 
When the stars got in my eyes, 

I looked for the nearest 
Black hole. 

Ambivalence

Suffering’s well hidden, 
Festering in Everyman’s heart, 

And everyone wants it 
Ripped out 

Without hurting the heart. 

Shall We Or Shall We Not?

Uproot the poem which dares 
Rear its head out of season 

Lest that bizarre beauty develop 
A mind of its own 

And bewitch us. 

How Poets End Up Getting The Reader's Goat

Remember leading that nag 
To water to no avail? Well, 
Your exasperating poetic

Manner reminds me of a nanny
Goat that gives us a milk can 
Full to the brim, then 

Straightaway kicks it 
Over before we can fully 
Take all that wholesomeness in. 

Haiku: Artisan's Well-Wrought Urn Embellishing Mantelpiece

Ashes to ashes. . . . . 


No bones about it— 
Dedicated to an art 
Finely worked to death. 

Quasi-Cartesian Contemplation

Where I can 
Stand, I choose 

To do so, other- 
Wise, I sit. 

No Trespassing--This Means You!

This abandoned derelict has nothing left to say 
Of what went on inside it, years of pent-up anger 
Keep it shut away. 

A Poem Should Be (17)

Finely spun as a spider’s 
Web poised deceptively 
In the morning sun, 

And you an ephemeral 
Struggling captive soon 
To be undone. 

Rub A Dub Tub

More than likely,
The perfect poem is never 
Going to be there when
You need it, even if
 
You’ve just cut your veins 
And are waiting patiently 
For divine inspiration to save you 
From a fate worse than death. 

Stuck-Up On The Way To The Top Of The World

Spellbound to be so high 
You may rightly be but 
Don’t you dare condescend 

To look down on all 
Those flying dizzily past you 
Going the opposite way. 

Facing Down A False Dawn: Song To Make America Great Again

Against the dark dumbing 
Deadening blues now 

Nesting in us, a future 
Brood of sonorous gold- 

Finches soon breaking full- 
Blown out of their pale 

White shells into the glorious, 
Quivering light.