Best Friars Poems

The scent of lavender and Rosemary 
In the hedgerows as I walk 
The fox disappearing so quickly 
Into the hollow caves of chalk.

Within the old oak acre 
The trees reach up to meet the sky 
A humming bird providing magic for 
A little boys enquiring...

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I stopped there, and saw two showing high rate
Of their will, on their face, to join with me;
But were hampered by narrow street and weight.

When reached us, with their eyes awry to see
Then looked at me without saying a word;
Then they turned to selves, and...

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Silent, alone, with no mates at all
We went on there one forth the other back,
Like the minor friars a narrow way crawl.

Of the Aesop’s tale was now on the track
My thought after the previous seen fight,
Where he had to speak of  frog and mouse...

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The Bad Priest
In Lyons (I think it was Easter, 1438),
I was a priest and somehow can recall
the dim church, the heavy clouds of frankincense
and the knights and the peasants lined up for communion.
I chanted the magic words
and did the magic gestures but
instead of the wine...

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Lacy tablecloths
Sweet music
Red ornamental vestments
Gold tapers flickering
Red bound book
A sip of wine
White cowl on red
Bowed heads, folded hands
Ruby wine sipped from chalice
Folded white linen napkin
Genuflecting nodding heads
In pious agreement
Brown robbed friars faces
Cynosure of white ribbed 
Black cassocks
Little circle of bread
Piously put on tongues
Again and again
Row...

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Midnight at Blackfriars 
  
The city spires are hidden, 
It’s getting colder fast, 
It feels as though we might have 
Some snow this month at last. 
The wind sweeps keenly through St. Giles(1) 
The hour is getting late. 
Fleeting forms across the scene, 
Are...

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Written: January 10, 2025

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Wenches of Whimsy and Woe
In the world of the fiddled gruntingly,
where micturitions dance,
and arty yawning plurdled gabbleblotchits,
lurgid bees buzz with...

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The helmsman sings a merry song:
Haec est vera fraternas,
and downs a cup of something strong,
Hick, vera, hick, hick, fraternas.

The sailors dance a lusty jig,
forsaking sails, crow's nest and rig.
Young princes and their ladies fair
join in the drunken helmsman's air:
Haec est vera fraternas.

Commoners with nobles prance.
Friars...

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Verily I say unto thee,
The subjects of kings are not free.
They answer to all the king’s court.
Submitting a yearly report.

If rulers own part of thy time,
With a tax on every dime,
Then thy freedom and liberty
Is a fallacious fantasy!

Canst thou even speak to thy kings?
Nay! Thou...

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Hello and so
How are you
You you you
Cats and pills
All the ills
Of being still
Playing games
Naming names
It's all the same
Shame, shame, shame.
Love and lust
Who can you trust? 
Prepare for the just.
Look at the state
Of the union relate
To the god who leaves us
To free will and fate.
Give me...

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On the side of the road to the Small Mission
Of Nuestra Senora del Los Milagros
A white rose stands under the shadow to peace all divisions
Protected by a majestic Eucalyptus with branches we cannot dose

Adeline was a girl whose name reflected the rivers’ streams
White soul and...

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Machines With Madmen Groaning


Machines with madmen groaning above me at 10 thousand feet,
Grumbling and growling like maniac sky monsters slurping on bloody prey,
Those steel dragons of yore spewing fire and corpses into the excesses,
Like Rodan and Godzilla maiming each other in the frozen spasming countrysides,
Giant...

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Some poets, who have faith, die of old age...
observing profound beauty:
give them that privilege!


Living as friars of the Middle Ages,
the observers write true words
on remarkable pages!...

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An active adolescent auld adored
before bipolar behavior began,
articulating anger all abhorred,
became Beelzebub’s best boogeyman.

Called clergy congregated, confident,
discerning deep down, devilish divide;
collectively cajoled - concomitant
deemed demonic delivery denied.

Extinguishing exorcism’s effect,
(for fiendish foe, ferocious, fiercely fought)
escaping existentially erect,
found friars’ faith faint-hearted, fairly fraught.

Gregarious, ghost gracious greeting graunts;
hereupon,...

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Who knows who would 
'true valiant be'
when you can't see 
beyond the end of your nose?
who knows?

It has to be Sunday some day
and today is some day for some
hymns and hers (towels in the bathroom)
down the stairs
toast and preserves in the conservatory
not mandatory 
but it's...

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