PR-102

So Long, Like the Lingering Lonely Poem

I have long memory
For what I feel
Is precious

So your archly aching smile slips
From some lost ago
And it is still

So sweet
That such a tall song (yet intricate
As when your moonlight kissed my lips)

Stalls so long
Like the lingering lonely
Poem of a sun set to eclipse
 

PR-268

Like an Old Christmas of a Past

Being bright children we push sticky
Fingers toward the pretty and when
Pretty turns to someone else
It costs the heart a pretty

But like an old Christmas of a past
Etched in candlelight it shines on
Mysterious darkly limned though gilded
In a glass-stained surface

And isn’t it hard as blood
Then to red remember
That glass is to see through
And diamonds are harder?
 

PR-279

Its Sweetness of a Photosynthesis

I’m in back of a good sadness:
Of a face fading from a memory
Whose stillness yet I love

But whose silence is it
Now or then was it rehearsal
Perhaps of universal muting

In place before time
In fact a such much older flower or
Other beholder some placeholder

Metaphor for shining like the sun up
To and including you could live off it
Its sweetness of a photosynthesis?
 

PR-311

The Safest Place to Be

Just as Icarus inspired as he was
Shouldn’t have stayed
So long in the sun

Perhaps I have strayed
Too close to you
But please do not worry

I have fallen into love it’s true
But that has always been
The safest place to be
 

PR-345

Heart Also Means Courage

She sent him away
But it came from her heart
You know heart also means courage

Goethe said be valiant
And powerful forces
Will come to your aid

Last time I saw her
She was crying
And powerful
 

PR-387

You Are Being Shadowed

“She greeted him with her slow, sweet smile, and he noticed
suddenly that her teeth were small and regular and very white.
He wondered why they had never caught his attention before.”
          –W. Somerset Maugham  (Of Human Bondage)

You can tell in a novel
When a character keeps reappearing
In the back ground
That the protagonist will marry her

At least in Of Human Bondage
I saw Sally from a mile away
They call it foreshadowing

And if you look around
In this world you can see
(As Philip finally did
Noticing Sally’s pretty teeth)

You are being shadowed
Why?
Beauty is your destiny
 

PR-446

Write Something in the Air

Just come from visiting you
I wipe my eye

I wave good-bye
My hand lingers in the air

My finger pointing
(Not to blame anyone)

It’s wet
Cool on one side

A secret moisture tells me
Which way the wind is blowing

My finger sways drunkenly
Trying to write something in the air
 

PR-475 (Published in The Penwood Review)

The Romantic View

The romantic view
Is that if you give it your voice
It will speak

And also the romantic view
By definition

Reflects the heart
The way moonlight
Glints on glass.
 

(First published by Word Catalyst then republished by Tipton Poetry Journal)
PR–489

I Was a Prince

I was a prince who found you in a pond
Secure beneath a lily pad to hide
Your creamy body from the sun and me

But you squirmed from my grasp and dived so deep
I dared not follow so I placed a net
Which looked quite like a lily pad and I
Disguised myself and sat on top a frog
As any fool could see–when you came up
I quickly kissed your lips and magic things
Occurred like in the fairy tales to wit
I did become a frog and it turned out
You really fancied frogs’ legs but I squirmed
Out of your grasp and dived down deeper than
You dared to follow so you placed a net
Which looked quite like a lily pad and when
I came back up again to sit on it
You kissed me back into a prince once more
And it turned out you fancied princes too

So you apologizing for the frogs’
Legs dinner episode said “Still it was
A lot of fun” And so we lived and dived
Quite happy ever after til one day
You were especially hungry and you knew
That when I was a frog you were supposed
To kiss me but you ate me and you said

“It was a boring game after a while”

 

(Published by Word Catalyst)
PR-490

The Kaleidoscope of Your Candlelit Eyes

“One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace . . . “
          –Lord Byron  (She Walks in Beauty)

As if your beauty
Hangs on the photographer’s art
The good lighting

Instead and no
Rather she (you) transforms
The view

Since inherent bright
Gives its own light seizes
The camera says imperiously

Thus!

Hence blessed memory of that night
When those stars were in your hair
Though not alas your eyes

And mine?
They mined yours for
The translucent tumbling

Humbling dice
Of the kaleidoscope
Of your candlelit eyes
 

PR-619

Do the Flowers Need the Sun?

Do the flowers need the sun?
Yes they miss it on a cloudy day
Does my heart say you’re the one?
Yes it cries when you’re away

Yes I’ve missed you

Does the sun hold back my tears?
Yes it does but when the skies
Grow dark and all my fears
Break forth and cloud my eyes

Do I miss you?

If God came down one day
Held my hand and gently said
“I must take your love away
You and she may never wed”

Would I miss you?
I would cry for all my sun
Which had fallen from my sky
For though God’s will be done

I will love you till I die
 

PR-751

Corollary: I Am Your Instrument

Look into my eyes
Listen carefully

I want you
And to be happy

Corollary:
I am your instrument
 

PR-754

Sing a Kiss Kind of Thing

I set me down and wait
With blossoms on
The breeze or not

Soon it transcends it
Breaks a barrier
Enters another realm of you

Which I don’t understand
But no matter here
And now

It’s not a question of understand
It’s more like sing
(A kiss kind of thing)
 

PR-755

The Wine Enough of Our Eyes

“I take romantic walks afterwards, feeling poetic,
drinking coffee and eating crepes . . .”
          –L J Barnhart (How We Perceive Nudity—Salon.com)

Yes coffee is the key
Not off key or even said
Or sad
Like someone singing

We drink together
Toasting stuff entwined
Winging it with our eyes
We wait and surmise

“Knowing”
Nothing
But the wine enough
Of our eyes
 

New PR-172

I Wonder If Time Itself Is Then

“Let me see your beauty broken down
like you would do for one you love.”
          -Leonard Cohen  (Take This Longing)

Love is magic
Yet it has a locus focus:
When we home in on someone or some

Other beauty some rainbowed flash of fire
Escapes some burning bush
To hold some future pot of gold

Some end in itself we win
And in the mist of this
I want to understand something:

I wonder if time itself is then
To be loved moment by moment
Broken down unto the proverbial now

Just like snowflakes coming down
Are frozen prisms signalling
Some coming dawn?
 

PR3–148
Found Object Street Artists Clean Up Good

“There’s money out there, lying in the streets!”
–Lud Dimpfl

My first girlfriend
(Cierta Roberta)
When we finally broke up

Would tell our friends
“It’s not that Eric never gave
Me anything

It’s just that he
Found it all in the street”
How sweet you may say

Sarcastically
But hey found object
Street artists clean up good