5/9/11

Gluttony, thy form is me,

As I indulge in wonton spree,

With disregard for consequence,

Decorum, tact, or common sense,

And worry not of things to come,

When festivals and feasts are done,

For then I’ll blame all maladies.  

Upon the fool I used to be.

5/8/11

She stuck me with her sharpened pins,

And said the wounds would heal.

Then, penetrating ‘neath my skin,

The needle's pricks revealed,

Ambiguous, unclear, effects.

And yet, to speak the truth,

If pinning down will force my rest,

I’ll take this aid forsooth.

     

5/7/11

Affliction from a backache's tenderness,
Is seen as adversary day to day,
Its stabbing spasms make one cringe and wince,
Its throbbing presence thwarting work and play.
Yet with this limitation of the spine,
And it's restrictions to mobility,
Emerges too, acuteness towards time,
And wariness against frivolity.
For with each extra effort introduced,
Comes impetus to make that stretch worthwhile.
With hurt inflicted after every move,
A fair reward must justify that trial.
Thus every choice we make in pain reflects,
The value which we place on each attempt,
And often demonstrates in retrospect,
Extents to which exertions are misspent.

5/6/11

Someone had a bad idea
And spoke it very loudly,
And those who heard it, though unclear,
Adopted it quite proudly.
With fervor they took up it's charge,
And put their plans in action,
Expanding their pursuit at large,
With great self satisfaction.
Like worker ants they crawled and danced,
About in frantic pace.
Preoccupied in their romance,
None noticed their mistakes.
Then finally, catastrophe,
From their misjudgments came,
And launched their newfound industry,
Deciding who to blame.

5/5/11
A fire cannot be cajoled,
To dampen down it's flames,
A mournful wind can't be consoled.
Hope stops not clouds nor rain.
There is no strength that can prevent,
The smallest wave's advance,
And no quick cure I can invent,
Will change my circumstance.
We are but wards in nature's care,
Enslaved by her design.
But, knowing this, and being fair,
She grants the gift of time.

5/4/11

Adrift upon an angry sea,

As waves tumultuously churn,

In tempest throes of memory,

For purpose we may never learn.

Horizons yield no distant shores,

Just aimless courses we must chart,

While fate and nature wage their wars,

The lost traverse the human heart.

5/3/11
Dismantling one's living room,
Proves quite an exercise.
Like scattered lint and dust we broom,
Our life is swept aside.
All structured comforts we embraced,
Which anchored us before,
Are in a few swift moves effaced.
By this straightforward chore.
And all the conversations shared,
When this space once was filled,
Hang silent in the vacant air,
Invisible and still.
The lives we lead may only lease,
Their presence for a time,
And all the rooms in which we meet,
Are cups of savored wine.
Which hold the essence of the day,
Until it comes to pass,
To have their contents drawn away.
Left only, spotted glass.

5/2/11

There is a child locked in a cell,

Where oft he sits and stares and cries.

It's iron walls protect him well,

From hurtful deeds and callous lies.

Yet, no one comes to care for him,

For no one is allowed inside.

From, time to time, he calls to them.

But none reply, and so he writes.

He pens a tale he cannot tell,

For no one hears.  And thus, he scribes,

About a child locked in a cell

Who often sits and stares and cries.

5/1/11

Today we move the loose debris,

Discarded during lifeless months,

The scattered branches, stumps, and leafs,

That blanketed the landscape's skin.

The fertile earth draws breath, now freed,

From coverings that block and shunt,

As reclaimed light and warmth received,

Infuse renewal from within.

The season's canvas now prepared,

Restores ambitions all at once.

This soft resurgence fine and fair,

Awakens minds and hearts to scheme.

Where once life languished and despaired,

There now erupts exuberance,

As fragrance carries on the air,

Sweet blossomed promises and dreams.

4/30/11

Sitting round a bonfire,

Staring at the flames,

Listening as the shrinking pyre crackles out our names.

Warning us in shadows,

Through the smoky gloom.

'As in life you burn and glow, you too shall be consumed'.

4/29/11

We dine outside our home tonight,
And toast our woes with fine repast,
To mock our demons and make light,
Of toils and trials we shall outlast.
We gather up what has been spilled,
And mend our wounds among our friends,
Then wish and curse and laugh until,
We must endure the world again.

4/28/11

Is patience truly virtuous,
As, through the ages, many claim,
Or does time simply torture us,
In measured days as we maintain?
I find no value comes to me,
Nor resolution as I wait,
And like some virulent disease,
This virtue self-perpetuates.

4/27/11

A fool shall never know himself,
And therefore never once concede,
His weaknesses to someone else,
Nor offer up apology.
Thus, we should nary waste a thought,
On words to sculpt and shape his mind,
A stone, by chisel, may be wrought,
But fool's conceit won't be refined.
Shortsightedness is his defense,
Obtuseness, nursemaid to his flaws.
No argument shall gain against,
A mind sworn to internal laws.
So, hearken not this happy man,
Who lives in self-deluded grace,
Proud of the dark in which he stands,
And strangled by his own embrace.

4/26/11

The changing climate ushers in,
A voice which temperately speaks,
In whisperings of summer winds,
And colors of the living weeks.
A gentle, tender breath that tells,
Of what will come and what has passed,
All chill and ice calmly dispelled,
To free our frozen hopes at last.

4/25/11

We must rise up at times when we are called,
Despite the irony that we may sense,
Because we view ourselves as meek and small,
And helpless in effecting life's events.
But even in self-doubting's deepest throes,
Sometimes we come to find belief restored,
When those who maintain hope despite their woes,
Place faith in those who dare to hope no more.

4/24/11

Upon this day of resurrection which we celebrate,
My mind is drawn to dark reflection on the tides of fate,
To wonder on effects of loss and bitter sacrifice,
And weigh one's blessings versus cost of life's unyielding price.
For some now gone shall not return, despite what we would will,
And left for us is but to learn to have our hearts fulfilled,
By what remains inside ourselves of who has gone before,
So as we live, within us dwells their love revived once more.

4/23/11

Indulgence oft receives self-reprimand,
A punishment for gluttony and waste,
A price our rationality demands,
For straying from processions of the chaste.
Yet excess is a necessary tool.
To overreach our means but now and then,
Our judgement cast aside to play the fool,
Allows the patience charged of civil men.
Is not such fleeting lapse a benefit,
Despite the slight regret that it may spawn?
If not for fickle freedoms we admit,
To what dark thoughts might we find ourselves drawn?
The devil's damage that we acquiesce,
Maintains our tenured time among the blessed.

4/22/11

Such strange endeavors tend to claim our days,
And bid obligatory shallowness,
What matters most of all, we seldom say,
And yet expound on all things meaningless.

4/21/11

We have an inborn drive to build,

To broaden and expand,

A need, insistently instilled,

To crave more space and land.

But is there not betrayal of doubt,

This augmentation casts?

As if the more we may spread out,

The more we shall outlast.

4/20/11

A sunset never tires, although witnessed countless times.

Though blue skies commonly transpire, still they tantalize.

Familiar are the sun and stars, yet often they entrance,

And frequent vistas near and far will conjure our romance.

These backdrop constants never cease to summon wonderment,

And majesty, though they may be an everyday event.

So lives true love, habitual, enduring through the years,

Yet witnessed with enraptured soul each moment it appears.

4/19/11
Today it was a nothing day,
No circumstance of consequence,
No lofty contributions made,
Nor pivotal turn of events.
Just ordinary segments stitched,
Together in dull tapestry.
And yet, I find it fortunate,
That quietness has come to me.
Far better to be unconsumed,
Than faced with frantic woes to bear.
For those today engaging doom,
My boring day is but a prayer.

4/18/11

The tiniest of wounds affect us so,

And ache beyond their scope in heart and mind.

Perhaps these slight offences swell and grow,

Infectious, left to fester, by design.

For if life’s trifles may be amplified,

And pondered by the soul obsessively,

Our deeper injuries may be denied,

Distracting us from greater misery.

Perhaps an unjust weight is thus bestowed,

Upon the lighter pains which we may feel.

The tiniest of wounds affect us so,

Lest we should anguish that which never heals.

4/17/11

A person with conviction can’t be  reached,

For he becomes a prisoner of his mind.

The arguments of truth may be beseeched,

But cannot pierce presumption’s iron blinds.

It’s vain to whisper reason or to shout,

For deafness shall afflict the satisfied.

Each time, somewhere, a man abandons doubt,

A piece of wisdom everywhere has died.

4/16/11

One month ago we cursed the snow,

And wished that it would finally wane.

But now at last, the cold has passed.

Therefore, we damn the falling rain.

Then once the Spring has taken wing,

Heat shall receive our censuring.

Is comfort rare, or to be fair,

Is it our solace to complain?

4/15/11

When someone tells you they don't like a thing,
It's best if you refrain from asking why.
And if you ask, it's best not arguing,
Against the reasons that they might provide.
Then if you argue, you should not insist,
And force it on them once they've made their case.
Concede your own dislikes, and each man his,
Lest you become the object of distaste.

4/14/11

A telegraph tapped from within the mind,
To warn our paths away from worldly harm,
Electric networks, threaded and entwined,
Protecting flesh through guidance and alarm.
Advising us of varied stimulus,
That consciousness, perhaps, has not perceived,
And every point our fragile skin may touch,
Awaits the cold reply of honesty.
But once our other senses grow aware,
And know from whence a wound originates,
To let it's trauma linger seems unfair.
Should not our pain more readily abate?
What purpose does it serve that hurt extends,
Beyond initial scope of injury?
It may be to remind us once we mend,
The lesson of our own fragility.

4/13/11

Some artificial flowers on a table in a vase,

With nature’s semblance caught in cloth, time helpless to erase.

Its beauty trapped eternally and yet we must confess,

For all its loveliness unfading, still we love it less.

Is it the lacking fragrance?  No, sweet scents can be applied.

And clever crafting of synthetics clearly fools our eyes.

What is the flaw of frozen blooms which we cannot forgive?

The curse of that which never dies is that it never lived.

4/12/11

Another year of weighty taxes paid,

And what have we received in equal turn?

Can any of us claim we’re less afraid,

Of loosing comforts, arduously earned?

Has anything discernibly improved?

Is anyone informed or less misled?

Have legislative cancers been removed,

Or do they amplify when aptly fed.

What purpose serve these dues for which we’ve toiled,

To guard this manifold from breaking down?

What use is keeping mechanisms oiled,

When those who tend them leave the springs unwound?

4/11/11

As creatures sleep to bear the winter’s cold,

And gardens keep their seeds safe ‘neath the ground,

I too must be withdrawn and rest my soul.

Until relief of warmer days is found.

Inside a shallow, hollow place to stay,

Where no one shall go follow in my steps,

I’ll weather sorrow’s harrowing dismay,

‘Till I may know exposure from the nest.

When nature’s brutal scourge at last abates,

Perhaps I shall emerge to kinder fates.

4/10/11

To stand upon a precipice,

And be not too afraid to leap,

Is often seen as fearlessness;

To brave the cliff despite how steep.

But whether bravery or might,

Shall bring one fortune in effect,

Depends upon the ledge’s height,

And what is worn about the neck.

4/9/11

Our Saturdays are for the things we don’t get done all week.

We promise all procrastination will be put aside.

But so many distractions turn our streamlined aims oblique,

We must plan next week following to mitigate our pride.

And if next Sunday we should find that nothing’s been achieved,

We'll blame our inconveniences, and obligations met,

Pronouncing, manifestos, of our productivity,

Till all ambition turns to grief and, piecemeal, we forget.