Category Archives: poetry

Ingrid

You tugged me from the busy room,
zeroed in on my discomfort.
Surprising in your boldness
(I always thought you quiet)
(We were barely acquainted)
“I’m glad you’re here”
you said,
and spoke to me like lovers do.
Your drug was truth, and then
I felt my youth again.
You held me closely in the stillness of a night dance.
Kissed my neck (odd for a woman to do),
and when the partyers came out,
you were gone with a last glance.
I retired to some corner, in thought.
And, when I came back in,
you were going,
with your unintroduced husband.
Leaving me stupidly standing,
with questions, so many.

Wake me up. Wake me up!

Ghostless spirits fast convening

Faces full of fearsome meaning

Fallen angels, minions of the One

Assembled is the shoreline throng

They’re moaning an unearthly song

In penance for the wrongs that they have done

And I, among them, poked and prodded

By the grinning ghouls applauded

The lake of fire is hotter than the Sun

On weakening knees we mouth our pleas

Our souls absorb a dark disease

The inner onslaught makes us want to run

And now, there is but no escape

They’re closing in, our Selves to rape

“The Fire, or by your necks be hung!”

In sway

I roll down the ghost road
in this time of quickening twilight,
uncaring of the mundane day.
A fifth part of me sober, in control,
but in the main,
I am swayed
by the lowness of the sundering clouds.
The cloistered scene.
There’s a strange sense of foreboding,
of a going down to the dark roots of guarded secrets,
unknowing all else.
This stays and presses,
saying settle, settle.
Though please,
I do not want to know you.
Nor you to know me.

The burglar

Many say I wear a mask
My hands are very small
I have a kin in Notre Dame
But, surely, that’s not all

It’s cleverness I have in spades
I’ll never want for food
I well deserve your accolades
But you’ll always think me rude

I’ve clambered up a skyscraper
And walked a tightrope true
My picture’s in the newspaper
And youtube has it too

Now, there’s a few more funny things
To show you where I’m at
You’ll know me by my many rings
And Davy Crockett’s hat!

May the Force be with me

A metal piece inside the chest

Remembers faulty rhythms

Within the heart’s unquiet rest

I think of embolisms

The days of cruel and crushing weight

They once did come but rarely

But now, upon this latter date

They savage me unfairly

The sleeping drugs I’ve much abused

In fear of something worse

Now far too many have I used

My nervousness to nurse

With aging body’s pains and ills

Imagined or ingrained

The shame of multicoloured pills

Has sorrowfully remained

Things that have been diagnosed

With tests and suppositions

Would be enough to challenge most

and feed their superstitions

So here and now I need the will

The spirit strong enough

Get out of bed, get off the pill

And show I have the stuff.

A Dali in Delhi

As I was walking through the gloom
(a Delhi night without a moon)
I heard a cry, as from a loon,
but could not spy the creature.

“ ‘Tis Whom?” I said, all quivery,
my voice of scant delivery,
my constitution shivery,
(but still could see no feature)

There came a creaking and a squeaking,
as from a chest of wooden drawers.
Then ’round the corner, something peeking
and blood was oozing from its pores.

It had a black sardonic grin.
Its head towards me swiveled.
Its rotting bones were caving in.
Its eyes so dark and shriveled.

Upon its chest and down its legs
were doors and cabinets,
and things of brass and wooden pegs
and ornaments elaborate.

Its breath so foul, but it conveyed
a misery of sorrow.
Its drawers and cabinets open stayed
in want of Souls to borrow.

I stood transfixed, within this alley
and hardly dared to move.
It seemed a creature, made by Dali,
escape-ed from the Louvre.

It creaked and clacked, and came so near
we almost did embrace.
And I, so rooted in my fear,
did stare into its face.

And now I knew just what it wanted.
My essence, it would steal
to fill its drawers and cabinets haunted,
my sorry soul its meal.

 

Gentle hearts

Bring me no dark.
I am of good supply.
No painted smiles
or bogus bonhomie.

In visits past
I have seen,
in your well meaning fakery,
knitted brows in unguarded moments.

No need to work that hard,
my dearest.
If you are in shadow,
or even if not,
just sit by me.
Warm me.
Say little.

I do know you.
We have history.

Just touch.
Only touch.

It may be that we two
could shine a light
of sorts,
in here.

The tree hugger

Old Man Maple
Is pushing a hundred, we think.
Each spring and fall, he gives his all.
Makes emerald hall,
Speckled sun.
Sighs with the whim of the wind.
To one who lays beneath his tower,
Awaiting his star’s communion,
Such things are shown!
Layers of focus, light on dark.
Rustles of sound.
An overture to the divine.

Such whimsy is despised by some,
Pointing to broken branches,
Dented roofs, clogged eaves,
Upset neighbors.

Me?  I do the repairs
And wait
For next summer’s hammock time.