Best 2000 Poems
Eeney meany is what I will say
Which God shall I pray to today
It all depends on how I fee
And which one gives the better deal..
IN DECEMBER 2000 WE SAID I DO
In the haze , of a dimly lit dance floor.
Swayed a couple who were madly in love,
They had met at a wedding,
Knew the way they were heading,
But fate had in mind another way,
Certainly not a quick role in the hay!
They dated sometime in the seventies,
Lost touch in the eighties,
And most of the nineties,
During this time each had a son,
For which they thanked God a ton.
His marriage had landed on the rocks,
And hers because she thought out of the box,
Both were divorced,
However,
Their love was about to be reinforced.
At the turn of the 21st century,
Bumped into each and spent a memory,
Charged day,
They rushed off to say I do, and excitedly
Headed for a bundle of hay!
Windhoek, 2000
Nabucodonosor! thou shouldst be living at this epoch:
Namibia hath desire of thee: she is a quagmire
Of quiet rainwaters: slab, blade, and cage,
Inglenook, the courageous fortune of manor and retreat,
Have sacrificed their primeval culture talent.
But those who came before us will teach us.
They will teach us from the wisdom of former generations.
When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.
But looking back we do not find what we left behind.
Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real
Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by
Until all our emphasis befits
The creatures we used to be,
The gaffes we made in our lifetime.
Oh, if only we could see
What we are now that we were then?
May memory restore again and again
The tiniest tint of the minutest era:
Past is the school in which we learn,
Antiquity is the intensity in which we burn.
There's a realm of astuteness in our previous.
Our souls are lost and tossed like a ship unruddered in a shoreless sea.
Our lifecycle is a flair, a gift that only we can give.
Why waste something so precious.
The people inthe world are behaving like insects
they all 7 billion of them want more
they all use the insectnet
they all think sex is the greatest thing
the beatles buddy holly and the crickets adam and the ants
needless to say they are the most successful species on earth
BLACKY - 2000-2012
just a big black cat
but a wonderful black cat
diagnosed cancer
did i weep for our blacky?
yes and i wept for myself
he was family
ate at table just like us
cheered our early morn
greeted visitors at door
asked no favor in return
patient as a saint
he’ll wait at some pearly gate
while they estimate
and when his name does sound
will bright angels gather round
2,000 Miles Away
Sooner than expected, my dear mother died at the age of 70 in 1998; and I, the distant one, was 2000 miles away.
My oldest sister died after an auto accident at the age of 55 in 1999; and I? 2000 miles away.
In 2003, an older brother died before I could arrive;
he was 56, and I was 2000 miles away. A younger sister died suddenly, also in 2003; she was only 46: and I? Again, 2000 miles away.
Another younger sister died in the Fall of 2012; she was 56, and I was 2000 miles away.
My oldest brother was 79 when he died in 2013:
And I was 2000 miles away.
Never distant in my mind, but far away for a long time
All of my family lives in the Midwest and South; and I reside way out West, 2000 miles away.
Many years before, I had chosen to move and ‘go west young man’, 2000 miles away.
I learned sadly, that when illness or tragedy strikes
a loved one, it’s not good to be 2000 miles away.
For 38 years, I have been the distant one in my family. I have endured the pain of separation and often wanted to make a change from being 2000 miles away.
In the last days and hours of their lives, I was never there to walk with them, to talk, to kiss, to hold, or to touch; nor even to say, “Goodbye”.
No. I could only board a plane, and cry, simply because I was far away, over 2000 miles.
02082012 PS Contest, Far Away, Nayda Negron, P5
Ode to Harris
So they showed you
the politics of poetics
showed you how to sculpt
quotations
as if discreetly yours
sure-e-e...
they told you of your godhood
at Harvard
but they crucified you at Rowan Tree
fourteen light stained pages
4.95
6-15-00
__
Watching years go by
like the wax flow of candles
making mountains on
unblemished parchment
can’t help but wonder
what the light was ever used for
11/12/00
Facing South
Dusting off my polarity
I face North
and wonder what force
has brought me here
Concrete
Ehhhkhhkhhkkkk-uhhhuhhhuttuttt
sounds the forming of a citadel
ingredients flow in steps
(Fernando understands it all in Spanish)
The joviality of the foundation
is overcome with glee when
work is done
sitting among the leaves
and unrecyclable debris
I wonder, giving an entourage of words to meaning,
is this not concrete?
but what a venture!
so somewhere down the line
perceived madness will transform
into old age
as greatness is perceived
by those who lost the least
Work Bench
Aromatic flow
in an autumn breeze
smells of home
and 3/4” 4x8 sheets of plywood
fighting the mathematics of a
Taiwanese circular saw
the dry pulp blood
covers my cloths
smiling perplexed by an ancient memory
can almost feel time weathered hands
brushing sawdust from my hair
looking down
the cut clamors to the ground
12/28/00
The sunsets of my loneliness
silent thoughts of what was believed
unbreakable
life’s path is always mistakable
for the consistency of coincidence
to a love alone
The pencil is my heart
The paper is my burden
And the love on this snowy evening
is the focal point of my existence
AN INTERLOPING BIRD’S MIGRATION
Flew the bird from my
windowsill
Floating away like child
blown dandy-lions
Dissipated in the peachy air
of sunrise
Calling, calling “Birdie, Birdie
crash your cresting thoughts over me.”
(In darkness though, words are intricacies
of ice on glass)
Aries child.
Set to burn.
Undressed,
Revealed.
Stuck constant,
Like stars.
Placed in blue,
Deeper shades.
Exposed,
Alone,
Afraid.
Lost in poetry.
Spoken in verse.
Broken heart,
Was mine.
Lost in space.
Dark ,
Sealed.
Only comfort;
Being unknown.
Its 2017 and my odyssey is far from begun.
Nearly ending every yearlings dwindling
Found above ground without Mona Lisa's lungs.
Without air is mortality.
Anything else is air mortality.
Painted on a picture is a mural on a bar stool room wall. Blank faces stare beneath the counter.
As I drink myself under the taker.
Only to arise with the power of ten thousand men—Truth be told, that’s about less than ten thousand women, infant and children.
Elderly has forgotten and our honest approach takes a step forward.
How is unthinkable. Why is unimaginable. Anger is intolerable garble and forgotten is an ancient power that is truly god-like...forgotten
1-20-2017
…undeniably tattered and shredded
my itinerary compromised by being
considered as prey and being
expected as a masochistic self-flagellator
losing revenue to the big gun’s atrocious tillage of the mind’s phosphorescence
I bagged the boy’s brigade for being bridges
and then being able to be
nearly my own cerebracy and again
appreciating my own celibacy …
in a rational loss of solicitude for
those obliquely using or anti
I built ramparts against the banality
of the ill-advised and the
ephemeral lacy streak of zig-zaggers
and water-diviners
and lost the locality so as to bequeath my
solid grade before I pop off into
the space of the grey morning light
Now don’t get overstrung
2000 friends on your Facebook profile
something is missing from your life
a hole within empty for miles
something nice you’d really like
social approval keeps you cool
a mountain of people met once
stalkers and perverse fools
10 friends the rest punks
My hands count those who matter the most
your friend list keeps getting fatter you boast
Invite them all around for a Sunday roast
show em love as their Sunday host
You don’t care about these people
and they don’t care about you
you’re needy and easy to ridicule
1 friend for me will do
The Good Artist: Carl Barks
(1901-2000)
(for Donald Duck)
The wry old enchanter wove dreams
For the thousands of children now grown,
Immortal fun enjoyment that seems
The dearest that we’ve ever known.
He took us to everywhere fun
Atlantis—the moon—at top speed
And now his last pages are done
We read and re-read and re-read.
He made sure the heroes prevailed,
At least every time that he could;
Though sometimes they stumbled or failed,
The laughter, and lessons felt good.
You feel restricted from the world,
detatched from reality.
In a sense of the word, freak comes to mind,
craziness is what you see.
Scattered thoughts run through your head,
thinking to yourself, "What's wrong?"
Not knowing what to do, where to turn, or how to fix it,
trying like h*ll to be strong.
Knowing you limited when it comes to trusting someone,
stuffing it further inside.
Keep your head low, with a quiet voice,
how much more can you hide.
Are you loosing control? Your mind is slipping away,
you sense it, this overwhelming fear grabs your life.
You don't fee human but filled with all this anger and tension,
you could cut it with a knife.
Wanting to trust, share your fears,
confide how you feel.
Something is missing, there's a void inside,
only emptiness & grief to fill the holes and that is what feels real.
There has been sadness in your life,
heartache & disappointments, everything you have seen.
Issues with trust, friendships and live,
true friends are hard to come by, certainly few & far between.
Fronts
Has coldness
jarred this rain to life?
or warming earth
given it motion?
do leaves have a season to fall
or does the earth just need
a blanket in the winter?
Leaves are sprouts again
Spring
having no real reason to ponder
warming earth
just to go outside,
playfully hold intellectual conversations
with freshly sprouted tulips
should ease away the solitude of winter
__
In the cloudless sky
of memory
Your face shines through
my consciousness
Reveling in the
illuminated forest of thought
I ponder...
---
We used to be Greasers
Seen your face fragmented today
in passers by
(yet I fret)
still cutting pizza pies?
(reclusive still
timing a reclusive past)
Popular Water
A school of fish
turning together
(underwater spinal shimmer)
in the wake
of an awaking whale basking
in early morning
asphalt waters
four lanes
35 mph
6-5-00
Love lost over oceans of time
oh how Maria
used to sit so close
counting crows
a game she introduced me to
how long
since your face
was fitted
to verse
New England
Pollens fallen
on the green grass growing
crows perch vertically
horizontally scanning
naked brush
Barren remnants
of a preposterously
warm winter
Snow fell
in indignant flakes
to the frigid ground
gone today
spring churns onward
as April turns to May
Nature has developed
seasonal insecurity
As the odometer had read that day, nine seventeen seventeen
Least in my head, but not knowing really what it would mean
Then after a few weeks passed it clearly came into such light
For that's when the votes will be cast, by evening on that night
Here on the eve of that very day if passed it will not bode well
As I sit here and continue to pray and in so going about to tell
If you have NEVER tried to pray before try to just start tonight
For whatever may be in store you need to set your family right
Oh I see fire and I see rain, I even see the devil in a blue dress
But mostly I just see pain as the whole world's become a mess
I have called out to you before, but never with reason so stern
Absolutely no one can be sure but all should be able to discern
Sixty seven votes the Senate will need which they may not get
To where all this will eventually lead as with what will now beset
But all of it was written down so one should know what's ahead
All the Glory of His Crown! He meant every single Word He Said
Isaiah 18
And your covenant with death shall be disannulled,
and your agreement with hell shall not stand;
when the overflowing scourge shall pass through,
then ye shall be trodden down by it.