Tag Archives: Poetry

For Ourrrrrrr Boisterous Friends

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

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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

If the Muse Should Come to Visit

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Our summer road trip afforded me a few good opportunities for one of my favorite activities: listening during great music rehearsals while drawing and writing. Part of me is fully engaged in the music-making, wanting not to miss a single note or nuance even when it’s truly a working bash through sort of session for the musicians. I learn so much about the pieces in hand, their histories, contexts, technical challenges and all that sort of thing as well as what to expect and what might happen in performance that I always enjoy concerts more deeply after hearing them being developed for the performances. At the same time, if the work in hand is sans text or in a language so unknown to me that I can’t get wrapped up in that aspect beyond whether the ensembles’ vowels and consonants, attacks and diminuendos and cutoffs are, well, ensemble, then I can focus my language centers on writing, sometimes blog post essays and sometimes poetry.

When the text is too enthralling or at least too present in my attentions, I can still indulge in drawing. Either way, it’s not so much dividing my attention as letting one kind of artistry inspire and guide another one. One enriches the other. Especially when the music rolling around me is as rich as, say, that being prepared for performances at the Vancouver Early Music Festival in August. I only wish that the products of my sessions were always as inspired as the music undergirding their inception. But my only chance of getting any better is to keep practicing, isn’t it. And I’m lucky that I like the process more and more as I go along, and yes, the better the music is, the more I enjoy my learning curve. That’s inspiring enough.graphite drawing

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

Sonnet for Sisters

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restored antique photoMy Sisters’ Names

Three sisters, three have I, each one a star

to light the night or day with brilliance new,

a spark these shining few, though rare, bring to

the darkest, deepest places where they are–

Fair Wisdom bears a gleaming cup, as thirst

for knowledge waits in ev’ry darkened realm

to sip the learning springing from her helm,

sweet Wisdom bringing in this treasure first–

The next is gracious Kindness, in whose charms

of sympathy and care is safety found

when she with gentle strength wraps all around,

encompassing the world within her arms–

The third with equal radiance inclines

to lighten hearts as much as sun can do;

Laughter‘s her name, and like the other two,

her sparkling wit enhances how she shines–

All three, my sisters light the corners of

The universe: their other name is Love.digital artwork from an antique photo

Learned over Smoked Meat Sandwiches

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Very Delicatesse

A liver-spotted gentleman

Is preferable to younger, when

The latter thinks himself too suave

To say a simple ‘Mazeltov’

Or serve you brisket with a pickle;

Such young bucks are cheap and fickle.

I prefer the well-worn style

That does a mitzvah with a smiledigital illustration

Squirrelly Behavior

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photoSquirrelly, Now and Formerly

Pipkin was a rascal lad who disobeyed his mom and dad

Pestered his teachers, pinched the girls

Among the young chipmunks and squirrels

And threw hard acorns from the trees at passing mice and birds and bees

He chewed on rafters, jambs and screens

Teased babies, oldsters, in-betweens

Stole in through windows left ajar—

Alas! Could not outrun a car.photo

Loves Me, Loves Me Not

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Opposites Distract

Lavinia, dressed in leopard print,

And Leopold in stripes,

Were destined to collide and clash,

Descend to snips and snipes—

She drinks her coffee black; he sips

Sweet tea with heaps of cream,

And every conversation

Escalates to near a scream—

Yet every fray defuses and

Dissolves in hugs and tears,

For they’ve adored each other

Through four-dozen blissful years.

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. . . after all, most of us are fools for love . . .