Sad Monster Sonnet

Clunky boots like monsters wear
Old clothes, frightening hair,
Sadly shuffling by the stair,
There’s no one around to scare

What’s the point of being
Like I am if there’s no one
To see me. What’s the point
To be me when I’m all alone.

Can I be just who I am?
What if I didn’t dress and do
The things that matter
When there is you?

Shuffled off to change into a flowered dress
Arriving home scared me half to death!

Praise drunk on itself

I love your words
As they frantically jitterbug
Across my somber attention
Dancing horses on point
Fooling around with my
Chalk and white board markers

A grown woman in her my little pony hair
Showing she can count
And neigh for hunters at
A proactive road kill dinner
Stalking the drunkenness and porn
Hate/love testosterone

To tell on her life
As we mad laughing live it

Dacha

Spending seven fastidious days sorting freshness
With my lungs. A sea of air shifting
Eternal sands, in a place where time
Has a quality of energy about it, not
Because something must be done but
Because it can warm and cool your skin
Like sunlight. Tea in the afternoon in the
Yard from the smoky samovar, cold cuts,
Cheese, hardy bread, lettuce freshly
Picked and washed, sweet cherry tomatoes,
Still smelling like sunshine on the ground,
Hands that smell like summer rain in the trees
After you wash them in cold, clear spring water,
I am healed where doctors can’t check.

Show’s over

It was in the dining room;
It hung from the curtains
In his study.
It was so palpable when
He worked, which he
Always did. He had
A place to kneel
But almost never got the chance.

At night when dreams
Would torture me with doors
That wouldn’t go away,
I’d walk the hall.

The setting moon would
Put a pale, light rectangle
On the study floor,
An ended slide show
With the projector on.

The snake would seethe within
Me, I would never be
Suitable. I would always be
A lonesome ghost in that
House which is forever lost.

I’m an inverted image
Done in a box with a
Hole in it; the light
Would come from without
My life would play within.

She let the snake out dad,
Don’t give in!

Ah! Magic Café

In the throes of success
The blind dishwasher
Intuits stains the seeing
Can barely spot.

The late night café
Leans sideways to
Accommodate a customer
Who, having induldged,
Needs a different angle
To match his walk.

The cook has a nose
Like an elephant’s trunk
And concocts aromatic
Pleasures of delicacy
And balance that
Mobilize circus tent
Sized appetites.

The waiter’s face
Looks different to
Every customer like
A close old friend.
He knows everybody’s
Name even if they’ve
Never been here before.

Customers often offer
Him their wallets but
Their happiness is the
Only tip he wants.

They take credit cards
But it always seems never
To subtract from your balance.

The music fits each dish
And the desire of people
To talk and the mood
They want to have
Surfaces like a smile.

You never need a reservation.
Your favorite table is
Always ready and
Everybody you have
Been wanting to see
Is there waiting
To say hi to you.

Things Given, Things Got

Her storm on the brow, looking up a word
I remember myself, reading
The dictionary, a geologist
In the cave of light.

She looks up and that whole apple smile
Makes the teacher’s day.

The boy in the group of guys
Is working hard. He needs everybody’s
Attention. He’s worth it; they all laugh.
But I see how hard he struggles with his

Need to be seen and celebrated not
Drawn close and loved. He wishes he knew it

But is afraid to go for the final
Prize which she always wins with accepting
Eyes. He’s angry, frustrated how can there
Be another throne in the hall, a seat

He’s afraid to get to without his fierce
Army. Don’t give me what I must fight for.

for sue and our students

dont trouble me about
punctuation
spelling

i am looking for
meaning
not exactly

those who serve rules
might not be served
nor understand

our students know this
after meaningless tests
to find out who is

the best
but at what
and for whom

yes i am peevish
but no im not bad
(just not a bureaucrat)

yes i break rule
looking for more
than I found at school

lament for gulnaz

come here from wherever
you know how hard a burden you bear
tears sit like pain behind your eyes
it troubles you
this complexity
that you are things
you do and
dont like
that today isnt building
a tomorrow you want
and you dont know when
the future begins
and endless today is over

you are tired
of resting
and yearn i to introduce you
to meaningless happiness

a day for my angel

sparkling quiet in the halls and rooms
cat and dog curled up
student gone
books gathered

tonights lesson plan freshly printed
stars and moon out of sight
plate and cup drying in the rack
the world is in my nose ears and eyes

neighbors greeted
dog walked
poem saved
chores after noon

the cat knows i will lie down for
late morning nap

search party

every moment spent searching
gravel unusual little details
door ajar
hat pin on top of blank paper

counting things
changes in size and color
empty slot for an egg
words in their places

searching the cloudless distant sky
stars
cosmos
cat asleep on my pillow

looking for God in meaningless details
finding Him in my heart

Passing Time

Of all the troubles I have ever known,
The harvest of time so slow of a haul,
It’s worst to be unoccupied alone
With stupid to do or nothing at all.

When we share of our time it goes so fast.
Start pleasures finish so quickly complete;
Soup’s soon to dessert and so quickly past.
Sidewalking laughter echoes on the street.

The singing of songs all memory now
The toasts to the host with vodkas raised high
Superficiality asks us how
We could do so; we must even ask why?

But we know in the night’s troubled empty
Glad we would spend endless hours so simply.

father abraham

in this house of life
happy lives its master
threads sew day to night
with value and respect
work important money plenty
time to relax as well as work
friends give honor by their joy
if more is asked more is given
the love of God here is found

frankenstein sonnet

you know your little darling
cloned vengeance
night pretends to close its eyes
category five mounts

madness embarks on lears valley
granulated quiet
some dumb drops
youll beg for death

distance doesnt separate
limbs supinate
lies you create
suppurate like exploding transformers

canibalism becomes you
you were your first victim

depressed scales

there are eyes in glasses
one fierce one kind
beard like cut grass
hair roots are in the brain
growing wickedly
you must wash faucet handles
after he washes dishes

he poisons those who dread day
stealing with stained smile
teeth he can count on
his life is a museum of garbage
with a lethal bar inside
he comes from night
and goes back there
in darkness that frightens
cats scurry and grow furtive
dogs whimper

warts grow healthy and ugly
trying to imitate his vigor
no matter how fast they grow
they can not match his strength
when nice people grow ill
he gurgles in his dark bed
like a barrel filling up

he will never die
nor be ill
when he is gone
something dark
will have taken him
on best working broken wings
eyes in glasses will see
new place in need
of pain

not big but no longer small

sand lot boy and girl
two years ago in the
sand box
this year on the slide
sitting on some cloth
to protect tender skin from
summer hot steel
in a couple more years
with baby brother or sister
toddle small and compact
the small feet
in too stiff shoes
the falls
hot angry tears
and that wounded shriek
that tells us you didn’t
deserve their trust
they looked up to you
but you failed them

five more years and that
metal and sand universe
will be a bizarre moonscape
only containing that
desperate hope
that he or she will love
you back
and can be trusted
not to let you
float away some
cool spring night

my burden is light

i like to move easy with dawn
the hours and moments of my life
blow through a
wind tunnel
as i watch

i see nothing passing
but i feel the absence
how can this precious
be less tangible
than its absence

how can these words
be no more than a
record of our thoughts
yet our thoughts be of
such stuff

that can anchor a
moment to pleasure
so solidly it cannot
be moved by even the
strongest

or sorrow
close up a life with
tomb like stones heavy
as the pyramids
solid

ignorant
yet only that sense organ of the
mind can touch them
just as we touch each other with our eyes
more tenderly than any hand

devils lament

so today you stand before me
so very guilty of your crime
you loved and were so innocent
time and again you wont repent
time again i have to try you
the sentence always is the same
to be drunk dry by the ageing
vampire who shuffles slowly by
eyes dim as misty time itself

drinks in gurgles careful not to
kill you only leave you stumbling
weak so you cannot strive again
so your innocence is not your
fault so i can take from you what
you wont abandon your strength is
offensive in extreme so it
will be sucked away and your love
can be taken from you without
your giving

in the end too weak to rise
vampire sadly close your eyes

caesura

spring fall lurch
together
on a day
that’s neither
but feels like
both

solemn is
hollowness
in the yard
with proud moms
and pops

drunken red
nosed stumbling
around the
children who
slide and run
while uncle
barely can
walk

rain puddles
filled only
yesterday
tiny new
swaddled tight
dreaming what
they heard in
mommas womb
wondering
what is this
dry and new
world so

Materialization

How to say those things
which we have in our minds
that this is the season of change
and it is our lives
and no matter what we do
this today which seems so familiar
is really a slightly different
tomorrow which we dream of
or dread
the breath that is the breeze
is scuttling bits of paper
across the ground and we
follow them looking for some
larger meaning analyzing the broken
stick with the white grip like end
that was Excalibur in a better
moment but is now just
part of the morning trash
that swells the ground around
popular places like the little summer
house that is romantic in the dark
but rusting metal and empty bottles
sullen dregs in the dawn
and assures us that all is
exactly not what it isnt
and very not really as
it appears

nice hat teardrop

he is trusting the shadow
that it will not hold him back
so natural bright will burn
lazy sleep that will make
shadow itself incandesce
and expel him from its
womb of death which plays
toy like with the brighter
dream and lures him down
like a beaten man into
numbness

the sleep that comes to weary
souls even they are only
weary of their own uselessness
and comforted they sleep through
workless days and nights
or become so busy with
dangerous doings of no
meaning that swallow all time
and effort which they talk
endlessly, complaining about their
troubles and hardships which
they have done to themselves
or possible chance that they
might be done harm or that it
could happen to someone they
say they know

gobbling time with wasted
breath which was sour from
within and possibly just
needed to escape they grapple
for control or to try and
trouble others for they
think this gives satisfaction
without the trouble of
meaning to lives
wasted on useless pride
which giving opportunity
draws no benefit which it
only could if they ever saw
something besides their small
and useless selves

and knew a larger picture in which
the train arrives and people
move about doing something
or nothing and somewhere somehow
there is a word to add that makes
it light or draws a picture hat better
than the one they are wearing or
could ever buy or dream of
in little lives that try for the
nothing they achieve

but to try is tiring and
the question is always there
burning like a black hole in empty
being the same empty he is trying to fill
but to stop trying is to
fall in line and fall asleep
doing that joyless dance at the
Zombie jamboree
and therefore not to try is
to loose all hope of any joy

thoughts

Whats there to
think about, a
lifetime of
victories and
mistakes
hangs suspended
in air like
a tortured prisoner
and all that
wasted time
spent fighting
boredom
is the fire
under his feet

I will not
quietly
succumb
to that whichs
like all else
just because
thats whats done

God save us
from drowning
ourselves in this
pool we pour
full of
mediocrity

change the sheets
in this
bed of life

Torture
metaphors
squeeze
similes
shave
phrases
for every
drop that
heals this
dull sentence with
enervating thought

Thanks Gulnaz!

This is what Gulnaz gave to me and I gave her all that I got. Now I give it to you! Visit Apple Pathways and enjoy!

The quality of color

There is a green that
smells like rain clear air,
that puts shoes
on my feet and
takes them off,
it calls to me
from the mountains
in the earliest
days of summer.

quarter time hymn

and in the new lit dawn
you shall enter
the glorious
spreading out
anesthetized cities
sleepy with dull electric light
left on like an afterthought
of the tomorrow and the
today that we are
already forgetting
as you have
written your poems
and stories to
tell again and
anew against
empty coffee
cups and large
salons where you are
comfortable strangers
on the collective
loose

to tell of
things which
we all can
see if you
look at us
in the stark light of
morning past the
dawn that tells of
you and always
has
for you are poets
story tellers
and fools who
have night for
dinner and
dawn for
lunch with
humble biscuit for
that is
your part in
dirty city
trash collection
doubtful
hopeful
dawn

where you
stumble to
crash in the
trash dumps
where we wont come
because it
isnt done like
a mountain busicuit
or pot of rice
still hard
still you are
dark and
frightening in
our view
because you
have thought
something frightening
about us
and you
and tomorrow
which is far scarier
for it is our
kids for which
we tolerate
today

with patience
behoved of God
for you know
no such
form with
our fast
flying bullets
against slow
porch swings
self hate
slow kid things
that pace our lives but
tell us nothing
which is all they know
for tomorrow is a
duck
too late
im shot
song

it is here and
its gone
and you
were there
hot tears
like candle drips
singing this
first light
late night
song
and we
were in
your arms

Uncountable You

Every poem is a mirror
That takes you where
You’ve always been
In ways you sometimes
Don’t expect

The glass can show
Like riding on the
Bus and looking
As the city passes
Seeing things you
Know are there
Telling you you’re
Going home

Not lost but
Traveling.