Tag Archives: poem

Life Cycles

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digital illustration from a photoSo Much Happens in a Few

So much happens in a few

Stray days, cells changed and borne along

Eternally, while growing strong

And old, and yet, too, growing new,

Dividing in their bubbling streams

The wind and sun of yesterday

And all that with it passed away,

From what are tomorrow’s dreams.

So, too, notes dashed off in haste

And then recalled with cool regret

Or penciled into kind words, yet

Not guaranteed to mend the waste,

Join in the fragile and the small,

Still, pale, inconsequential space

Where in the cycles of our race

So much can happen to us all.photo

Now that My Hair is Longer

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It’s interesting, this growing out my hair after about fifteen years of having it fairly short. Suddenly I’ve got wavy hair, and it not only looks different from the super-straight short stuff I had but I kind of like it better now that it’s got white hairs streaking through it here and there. Go figure. Still, that doesn’t make the following poem true. Just sayin’.photoLady Samson

 Her hair’s grown long now; does this signify

She’s stronger yet somehow, or then, have I

Mistaken this adornment so hirsute

For something that a person more acute

Would recognize as only pretty hair?

I’ll ponder it (and hope not seem to stare)

Until a sign arises that this length,

If only by its beauty, gives her strength,

For anyway, I oughtn’t give a fig

E’en on discovering that it’s a wig.photo

Early or Late, Good Sleep is Great

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digital artworkRestoration Drama

Give me dreams, but let me sleep,

In peaceful rest to lie—

Haul off the tossing, counting sheep,

The nightmares passing by—

Yes, make the most of forty winks,

A hundred, if I may;

Remove insomnia and keep

Harsh wakefulness at bay—

No more foul nights as hostage to

Psychosis’ nasty knife—

Now, make a truce and make it true,

Right through eternal life!

Dusk to Dawn

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digital illustrationCoal & Diamonds

Strangely enough, the bond of sleep, that weight of Lethe sitting on my soul,

Reminds me constantly to keep from letting diamond days turn back to coal,

For stillness rejuvenates bone and blood and sinew strong enough to bring me on,

And sleep is a portal through which a flood of musings sweep me forward to the dawn,

So rest is essential, and there I lie, seeming immobile while I dance at speed,

Or mounting on magical wings to the sky, to soar as sweetly high as I should need

To see in sleep, in my mind’s eye, new ways to spring from dark to day’s desire,

To find in the darkness of night what I love most amid the constellations’ fire

And planets and comets’ tails’ dross and stone what I can reinvent as suns for day,

My own coal-diamonds, blood and bone and sinew turned to chasing night away.digital illustration

Friendly Dragons

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photo montageLight Armor

Not everything that’s fierce is cause for fear,

for strength in a good cause is great indeed,

but not intended to make others bleed;

rather, to shield the weak and persevere

Against all odds, to seek the distant grail,

to lead the way when battle’s all around,

and when it’s won, to hold the conquered ground,

protecting treasures fragile, sweet and pale;

For guardian angels, pioneering, brave

adventurers and stalwart friends in stress,

must keep their fiercest watch and always dress

full-armored, so prepared to shield and save

Us humbler beings and what we hold dear;

Not everything that’s fierce is cause for fear!

digital illustration from a P&I drawing

See? I told you they show up unexpectedly; just after I gave you this messenger in another post, I got the idea for today’s sonnet.

For Ourrrrrrr Boisterous Friends

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In honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, I humbly make my contribution:

digital illustration

How d’ye like the swash o’ my buckle?

All Hands on Deck

(and If You Ain’t Got Both of Yourn, Git Along Up There Anyhow!)

Methinks the parley perilous with pirates gaudy, garrulous,

spectacularly scare-ulous, with too much time to spare;

That’s when the day gets dicier, the swordplay sharply spicier,

and nastily not-nicier linguistics fill the air,

For pirates, though a jolly sort, think keelhauling the keenest sport,

‘n’ walkin’ the plank, starboard or port, a fine means to such ends;

So watch your tongue (and your nose ‘n’ ears) when a peg-legged, cutlassed cur appears

and he with his Hook-fist henchmen nears, for they are risk-fraught friends

Who’ll trim the hedges about your garden without so much as a beg-yer-pardon,

then trim you to size without regardin’ your nat’ral breadth or height;

So parley with care, and watch your purses, as well as the strength of your pirate curses,

or fall beyond reach of the leech‘s nurses ere day drops into night.

All this aside, and despite the urge a pirate may feel as a dramaturg,

he might invite you to join the surge toward a pleasanter thing to do:

Join with his crew, ye smirkin’ smarty, drink and be merry and join the party,

and dance and laugh like a loon most hearty, and talk like a pirate too!digital illustration

Another Totentanz

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digital illustrationTo Rest in Peace

Alas! for shadows carve my collarbones

and misery is lapping at my heels;

Death’s machinations turn, wheels within wheels,

and grind me for its grist between cold stones–

And yet, as dust-dry as I turn, breath blooms

persistently, a torture to my soul

when I had rather be devoured whole

and go on into Peace’s empty rooms–

Still, here I stay, lie atomized, forlorn,

forgotten on the fringes of what life

and loves I knew once, when my days were rife

with possibility as a new morn–

Let me die now, not live without a chance

of altering this endless Totentanz.

Lest you think me suffering myself, or pessimistic, I assure you I am alive and well. It’s just that I have seen many others struggle with prolonged and pitiful end-of-life dramas and was reminded this June when I saw the beautiful antique gravestones in Boston of how different things are now, when we have such nearly unbelievable powers to keep ourselves alive for tremendously long lives but have lost touch with when it’s acceptable or even desirable not to do so. If our skills for ensuring or encouraging genuine quality of life are far outstripped by our skills for lengthening it, what does that say about us? Generations removed from our forebears, whether in Boston or elsewhere, who knew much more primitive medicine, greater physical dangers, irreparable injuries and the concomitant shorter lifespans we have apparently long since forgotten, do we know how to accept death as a natural end to life and treat dying as a passage to be eased to the fullest extent instead of forbidden?

Time Circles Back

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digital image from a photoIf Memory Serves

If memory serves

It serves us right

To swerve first left

And then to right

To right the ship

And shift our weight

See changes flip

Both small and great

As fools it’s true

But happy ones

And lighted through

By moons and suns

As endless time

Follows its curves

To roll away

If memory servesdigital illustration from a photo

I’ll Tell You a Little Secret

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You shouldn’t be surprised, if you’ve been hanging about this place at all, to learn that I’m very fond of living in my imagination, and that as Ruler of it I am happy to say that reality is highly overrated and being a distinctive (or weird) creature surrounded by distinctive (or weird) happenings and insights is a far superior sort of happiness.graphite drawingWeasels Ahoy

There once was a stoat in a velvet coat

Sailed off in a sterling silver boat–

Yet here’s a clue: I don’t know about you,

But I think some things are too good to be true,

And just as a logical soul should think,

That shiny boat was bound to sink–

At least in a Normal world it would,

Yet some things are simply too true to be good,

So I live in a world that I much prefer,

Where stoats wear velvet right over their fur

And captain ships of a platinum hue;

I think it beats logic by far, don’t you?

The End of Us is Not the End of All Things

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photoHer Bones are Glass

Her bones are glass; the diamonds in her eyes

Now shining dust, yet still and otherwise,

Though time says that she must, she still decries

The need, opposes it by effort, will

And awful grief and rage at what would kill

Her body, spirit, mind and heart, until

She mounts the ridges of that final hill,

‘Til battle’s over and the victory won;

So while she harries them, Age sets her sun

A-fade, Time lets her hourglass empty run,

Approach the space where sleep and she are one;

The sands thin silently, passing to less-

Than-empty, right to utter nothingness,

In view but fading, to her pale distress,

Her winding-sheet already worn for dress,

‘Til battle’s over and the victory won;

Comfort she needs, yet I can offer none

‘Til battle’s over and her victory won.photo