In and Out of Time

***

091020

WITCH-DOCTOR'S ORDERS (for Kate)

Tell you what, my little Munchkin,
when your grades say you are flunkin',
when your life gets stink-stank-stunkin',
go dress up like an Egyptian.

Find a party, drink some punchkin,
plunk your head in apple-dunkin',
carve yourself a happy punkin'—
that's my Halloween prescription.


MYSTERY AT SEA

Am I the sea,
the bottle or the note?
Who is the messenger?
Who’s the message for?

Am I the wind,
the sailor or the boat?
What is the message?
Who wrote the note?


PARTNERS IN THE DANCE

Clouds float in air,
flow on air, with air.
Air floats and flows
on land, on sea.

Sea floats, flows, and glides
upon, against the land
which floats upon its
self-made magma sea.

Storms. Volcanoes. Ice and rain.
All is done by gravity
in a dance with levity.

Clouds and air, air and sea,
sea and land, the magma sea
float and flow, enfold, embrace;
in a dance of majesty.

Waves. Tides. Morning dew.
All is done by levity
in a dance with gravity.

[ASIDE: Well, it sounded okay at 1:00 am.]


IMPLEMENTATION

Pen, you will have to do
the writing tonight;
my basket-brain is empty,
sifted, drained—
except to the extent
of forming letters
and noticing that my implement
is a pencil.
Pencil, you will have to do
the writing tonight.


091019

SCHOOLED

What, my child, did you learn today?
Did you learn your numbers: 1-2-3?
Did you learn your letters: A-B-C?
Tell me what you learned today.

I learned, the same as yesterday,
how mistaken I can be.


MERCY!

When people die
horrible deaths
after, or not after,
horrible lives,
the tendency is to think
there must be
some horrible reason.
That’s horrible.


FRAGILE

Oh, little dew-drop world,
unto yourself enfurled,
soon, I fear, you’ll wink away—
heat and hate won’t let you stay.


RICHER BY THIRDS

A pome! A pome!
My kingdom for a pome!

“Now is the whiner of our discontent
made glorious summer-upper
of your tale, non-victorious.”

There you have your pome, your words.
My pay, like Gaul, divide in thirds.


ESCAPAIDS

One benefit of writing,
I’ve heard many a
published author say,
is linking to like-minded souls
who look at life your way.

Hmm, as I write these very words,
distracting myself
from chores and scares,
I envision a host of kindred souls
distracting themselves from theirs.


EPITAPPED

Empty, still, here I sit;
all my write done writ.

Quiet, still, here I lie:
I done writ, but why?


TIMEBOUND

Change has come;
swift, profound,
bizarre.

Nowadays,
clocks aren't wound—
we are.


STUDYING FOR FINALS

Let the school burn down!
When young, didn’t we wish it?
Lessons were so hard to learn.
Let the darn thing burn.

Let the world blow up!
Now older, don’t we risk it?
Home-and-classroom: let it blow?
Armaggedon? —No!


EVER’DAY POTE

I make a pome ever’day,
sittin’ home or on the roam,
seein’ woes a better way;
turnin’ ever’ gloom to gloam.

I make a pome ever’day.
I make ever’ day a pome.


091018

CRITIQUE

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
you reflect me not at all.
With the stresses weighed on me,
I should look a hundred three!


AT THE DOOR

Expecting Death
and my demise,
I open to his heavy knock.

“Your time’s not up,”
God’s workman sighs.
“I’ve come to wind your clock.


091017

CRUX

Enemies—
lovingly offer them
your hearth and your heart.

Love may seem a kind of death,
but there’s no survival apart.


091016


TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES

Sort the truth?
Let things be?

I wouldn’t care,
particularly—
except for how
the truth may be
particularly bad for me.


091015

NOTICED

Life is partly what I make it,
partly what I allow.
And how I experience my future
is how I experience now.


091014

OUTRAGE

These losses, these changes
(so feared and so hated)
should not occur!

But are we so sure?
Which cosmic laws
have been violated?


SCENE YESTERDAY

One crow
and three buzzards,
in circling flight.

Oddly, the crow
was picking a fight.


091013

AUTUMN EXCURSION

One slight departure
from our daily-duty itinerary
creates a further one—

taking us farther away,
looping us into the next,
and so on—

till we find ourselves lost

in each moment’s timeless speed,
gliding down a curving country road;
slipping into fall.


***