rhymes – Aremyfeetofftheground

Blackface

When I woke up
this morning
I laid there for a bit
Idly went to scratch my nose
then nearly had a fit

Someone else’s hand was there,
with skin of ebon brown
I ran my fingers through my hair
It felt like eiderdown

I went to find the looking glass
to see what face was there
Expecting not the veritas
that I was meant to bear.

This darkened face
this different nose
this cauliflower ear
that now replaced
my beigey rose
and filled me up with fear

How could I go out like this
and look over my shoulder
Walk in fear and maybe miss
the chance of growing older?

The road is long

In fable days
I took a dare
to try the mortal maze

They shut the door
when I went in
to walk its narrow ways

I felt a fool
and out of school
unlearned in errantry

and suffered doubt
and went without
a thought of parentry

The road is long
I sing a song
in vain, apparently

The cunning linguist

Gimme those geometries,
those triangles and squares,
Dimensional anomalies,
to tesseract my cares.

Compasses and sliding rules;
protractors are the rage.
And, adding and dividing tools
put answers on the page.

So, at my desk, I’m bent upon
the solving of equations.
This genius that borders on
the softest of invasions.

Cunning, no less

whiskers are self-aware
we think
they train themselves
and have a care
and so avoid the sink
the sharpest razor
surest hand
might catch them in the pink
but the smarty ones
just bend, don’t stand
and miss the poet’s ink.

Rhyme and reason

When waking life is webbed with dream,
and what is real don’t matter,
and conversations only seem
unnecessary chatter,

a poet’s heart’s engendering
a majesty of wonders
and thinks upon its rendering
in brightnesses and thunders.

Its rhythm, rhyme, and metering
are things that are concerning,
but when its meaning’s teetering-
that’s when we think of burning.

So take an oath, a poet’s toast
to write your best of pages-
like lost Lenore and Raven’s ghost,
your story for the ages.