6/11/11

There’s a painting of a rooster,

Hanging on my kitchen wall,

And it may seem just a picture,

As you enter through the hall,

But my uncle was the artist,

Grandma hung it in her house,

Patty kept it in her closet,

Uncle laughed and brought it out.

When Michelle had us for dinner,

Then the painting came to me,

So, it’s more than just a rooster,

It’s my love of family.

6/10/11

When I was born, I understood,

All that there was to know,

And I would scorn, if any should,

Suggest this was not so.

Yet, as I grew, each thing I knew,

I questioned or forgot.

And now, one thing alone is true:

All that which I know not.

6/9/11

The flesh is such a strange array,

A dense, immense, complexity,

Where countless vessel threads convey,

The fluid breath of destiny.

Where sinews stretch and fibers shrink,

As liquids quicken, pulsed and squeezed,

While,  pounding , empty chambers drink,

Then let flood outward in release,

As endless webs of ticking nerves,

Ignite all life we know and feel,

For this unwitting passenger,

Who mans the helm without a wheel.

6/8/11

A monarch butterfly with brilliant wings,

Collided with my windshield yesterday,

And taking care, as with all fragile things,

I tried to send it gently on its way.

Alas, the impact was too great a strain.

Its wounds were far too deep for it to fly.

I held it gingerly to spare more pain.

And sought a peaceful patch where it could die.

It’s splendor as I held it in my grasp,

Was striking to behold and to delight.

But still, its loveliness was far surpassed,

By those which flutter free in aimless flight.

True beauty when possessed shall waste and wane.

Yet flourishes afar and unrestrained.

6/7/11

We see a face in wooden grain,

Menageries in cloudy skies,

Our mind’s quick efforts to arrange,

The randomness before our eyes.

Thus when existence is unclear,

As chaos reigns and chance displays,

We trade illusion for our fears,

By falling to our knees to pray.

6/6/11

When comes the day we loose our way,

It is life’s greatest gift.

Illusions made, shall go astray,

When comforts run adrift.

Left all alone, a mind may float,

Bereft of certainty,

And anchorless, shall find confessed,

All stark reality.

6/5/11

For just a short moment that flashed in my mind,

I had a quick question, and thought you might know,

And for that brief instant, you still were alive,

Yet, with my next breath, I knew this was not so.

6/4/11

We opened the boxes and sifted and looked,

Through clothing, and magazines, pictures and books,

Possessions and papers spread out everywhere,

With all that you were, yet still you were not there.

6/3/11

What use can be a voice sung perfectly,

When there exists no heart that it may move?

What can the purpose of precision be,

If none appreciate the truth it proves?

Is something beautiful by it’s own worth,

Or through the apperception of a soul?

Machines shall never take our place on earth,

For none exists which love cannot behold.

6/2/11

The year, at last, is halfway done,

And as I stand and recollect,

I see the distance I have come.

Is also where my life bisects.

As I review my time so far,

The path was arduous and long,

My triumphs marked with hard won scars,

By which each weakness was made strong.

The second half shall not be so.

This I must hope, yet realize,

No scene would be more apropos,

To tell myself a halfway lie.

6/1/11

The quilt was stretched, pulled thin and taught,

By those who strove to thwart the cold,

It’s weak seams, strained by those who fought,

To have their share of covering.

Frayed strands were tied by those who sought,

To aid it’s failing form to hold.

Alas, repairs were all for naught,

To halt this patchwork’s suffering.

For each restitching only brought,

Another vacant, newfound fold,

Of healing cloth which might be caught,

By needy grips unwavering,

Such violent yanks which rent and wrought,

This threadbare fabric, worn and old,

By those who never paused and thought,

What comfort could loose tatters bring?

5/31/11

They tell us that jealousy is a base sin,

A selfish, ungracious, uncouth quality.

Thus, rather than envy another man’s wins,

Most grandstand their fortunes obliviously.

5/30/11

They spent days off to clean their house,

To wash and wipe, to sort and sift,

And then next morning, scurried out,

To waste their lives away from it.

5/29/11

The reconciliation of a feud,

Today occurs between two friends estranged,

But, puzzling is, one party never knew,

The other harbored bitterness and blame.

It was indeed a grievance justified,

Although a silent anger, closely kept,

A poignant fury never vocalized,

A thorn the heart ignores but won’t forget.

No declaration of offence was made,

With no rebuke and no rebuttal hence.

But remonstration seldom satisfies,

Remorse is far less common than defense.

Forgiven are transgressions of my foe,

Thus ends this quarrel fought within my soul.

5/28/11

Sometimes it is through gossip that the truth becomes revealed,

Like pieces of a puzzle found, which solve a mystery.

Perhaps, therein exists the source of hearsay’s large appeal,

For idle words will oft preserve the paths of history.

5/27/11

The windows are open,

The heat of the day,

Is carried on breezes and transferred away,

As warm currents cleanse settled cobwebs and dust,

Which hold the stale imprint of long winter months.

The shadows are broken,

By gold, supple, rays.

Dark corners, forgotten, are brightly displayed,

As birdsong erupts through the wind’s gentle gusts,

Restoring the weary to temperance and trust.

5/26/11

They say that we are never meant to fully understand,

The secret purpose and perspective of life’s mystery,

But if all mortal suffering is part of God’s own plan,

In place of worship, should we not demand apology?

5/25/11

Cutting the grass in the yard once more,

Only to stand by and watch it grow.

Trimming it like countless times before.

Waiting for next, when it must be mowed.

Why does this ritual act console?

Is simple vanity our only drive?

Must living things somehow be controlled,

So we may make ourselves feel more alive?

5/24/11

When one is being medicated each and every day,

It tends to lend the world a veil of fog as you’d expect.

The interactions that you have, the things that people say,

Are like an image out of focus as a film projects.

Yet, maybe then, one’s acumen is actually enhanced,

And if the world seems skewed and garbled, making little sense,

You truly see reality, within your walking trance,

And now appreciate the pointlessness of most events.

5/23/11

Each person has a little bubble which they float inside,

And know the world as it exists for them as seen within.

This bubble holds their lives and loves, their passions and their pride,

And all belief in what they see is filtered through its skin.

But often in adversity, their bubbles turn opaque,

When they are shaken up just like a child’s Christmas toy.

Now blind to others, their fine bubbles swerve, collide, and break,

And in this moment, each of our illusions is destroyed.

5/22/11

When something is no longer made, it is forever lost,

The methods of its fabrication been consumed by time.

Once vanished from humanity, its wake brings mournful cost,

As knowledge of its making is eroded from our minds.

Much like a deep amnesia or confusion forms with age,

The memories are lessened.  Details slowly fall from view.

Our common history, forgotten, faded, worn away, 

And all the lives employing these lost things will vanish too.

Each time an object once engaged and loved is tossed aside,

We have discarded nothing less than pieces of ourselves.

And thus, we must be wary of our progress and our pride,

Lest who we are is so undone, we disappear as well.

5/21/11

 

An automated mechanism banging strings and drums,
A marching band within a box, that sings, and strikes and hums,
And measures, in harmonic pulse, the gleeful melody,
Of raucous nickelodeons and brash calliopes.
But as I stood in wonder and amusement as they ran,
It slowly dawned that, watching them, this ordinary man,
Was not unlike these things he saw, but more or less the same,
A jumbled group of instruments, within a box, contained,
That calls and shouts and thumps without a purpose to its song,
Except, perhaps, the chance that someone else might sing along.

5/20/11
Kindness should be simply given out and simply met,
Tainted not by stains of shame, encumbrance, or regret,
Dwelling not and fast forgotten, quick, concise and brief,
Lest both sides be punished for the generosity.

5/19/11

Bad news somehow always seems to catch us unawares,
Every time misfortune interrupts our grand designs,
But instead of dwelling on how life is so unfair,
Should we not expect receipt of sorrow half the time?
Life delivers mirth and mayhem hopelessly conjoined.
Highs are counterbalanced by those moments which are low.
Should we not regard each day the flipping of a coin?
Then perhaps ill tidings would not disappoint us so.

5/18/11

I went inside a tube today,

And then the tube looked inside me,

And as it watched me where I lay,

I wondered how much it could see.

It saw through clothing, hair and skin,

These things were nothing to behold.

And then it deeply delved within,

Observing muscles, blood, and bones,

But can it’s metal eyes define,

Inclusive images of man?

Though flesh and fingers type these lines,

From whence they’re wrought shows not in scans.

5/17/11

The first thing people try to do,

To overcome their fear and shock,

When they encounter something new.

Is try to fit it in a box.

And if the substance, shape, or size,

Cannot be fit efficiently,

Containers shall be customized,

To keep the thing from roaming free.

Not everything is so defined,

Or permanently set in stone.

Or clearly one way all the time,

Alas, some things remain unknown.

Yet still, so many must insist,

Each has it’s place and nothing bends,

And they will, no doubt, argue this,

‘Till someone builds a box for them.

5/16/11

Flying about like a leaf in the wind,

Flittering, one undone task to the next.

Each chore resolves as another begins.

All. it would seem, achieves no great effect.

Volleyed and shot between desperate demands,

Speeding ahead, but still falling behind,

How much insanity must I withstand,

So I might give someone else piece of mind?

5/15/11

Upon a truck somewhere that spans a road from West to East,

A carefully collected group of artifacts is sent,

The fragments of a man's existance, numbered piece by piece,

Each one bestowed with great import, to help us not forget,

A feeling, a remembrance, or an odd envisioned scene,

Invoked by these few talismans, on which we count so much,

To take past moments, now become but something like a dream,

And bring them once again to life though objects that they touched.

I only hope someday the things I owned will be as this,

Effects both kept and cherished for the comfort which they hold,

A wooden chair, a lamp, a hanging picture, or a dish,

Which tell how good a life I lived by how much they console.

5/14/11

When someone pays for something, it becomes a work of art,

For those who estimate it's value in their minds and hearts.

Though it may move them, shock or soothe them, still they shall behold,

The ramblings of an amateur until the work is sold.

5/13/11

The dropper loves to mention names,

Of those he knows, who might impress.

His friends are fabulous and famed,

Yet his own worth, we're left to guess.

For names are just a cloak he wears,

To hide his simple, common skin.

A garment, threadbare, showing tares,

Betraying nakedness within.

Without it, he is left alone,

And must be seen for who he is,

To stand on merits of his own.

And not his great acquaintance’s.

5/12/11

We seek to solve life’s deepest mysteries,

By trying to unlock them with our pasts.

But such attempts are fraught with fallacies,

Our memories are magic looking glass,

Which shows us only what we wish to see,

And gives us comfort in the form of lies.

The answers we have sought are yet to be,

And as we live, our searching never dies.