Best Pined Poems
SONNET FOR KELLY
The Spring has come a little late this year
Siberian winds and rain have chilled the soul
Though calendar proclaimed that April’s here
No tiny leaves yet rimmed the Elm tree bole *
But One brought inner Spring to heart and mind
And raised the spirits strength to face our chore
Providing us a warmth for which we pined
Then gave us boost that we might start to soar
With raven hair and sparking ebon eye
A glittering jewel on grey cold cloth she shon
Then life here was revived till by and bye
The long awaited Spring gave a new dawn
So we’ll recall long after our departs
How she allayed the cold and warmed our hearts
April 2018
* Reference to Robert Browning poem: ‘Home thoughts from abroad’
There once was a man from Duluth
whose habit was spinning the truth.
He had told the same tale
(every day without fail;
'twas getting quite long in the tooth).
He sat down to drink in a booth
then ordered a double vermouth.
He said a tornado
shaped like a potato
had taken his poor wife named, Ruth!
The men in the bar yelled, “Forsooth!”
But one woman thought it was truth
(the gal was a newbie
who'd just smoked a doobie)
and sent more vermouth to the booth.
“The first time I ever saw Ruth,”
he said, toasting her with vermouth,
(Though usually crisp
when he drank he'd a lisp),
“wath back in my youth in Duluth.
“She'd one perpendicular tooth.
When she withled came her pet gooth.
It wath love at firth thight
and we wedded that night
with her gooth on top of a mooth!”
“We honeymooned outthide Duluth
in a cabooth, just me and Ruth.”
He then heaved a big sigh
(he was getting quite high)
“And of courthe the mooth and her gooth.”
He took a big swig of vermouth
and said that they never found Ruth.
“Just an arm at the mall
and her foot on a wall,
pluth one thingle tooth in Duluth.”
He wept as he pined for his youth,
so the gal ordered up more vermouth.
Then the telephone rang
and the bartender sang,
“It's Ruth, your ex-wife in Duluth.
It's I telling you the sad truth
about her and 'who goothed the mooth'!
Now she wants a good check
that won't bounce, you old wreck,
like the last at Bank of Duluth!”
The new gal cried, “Cad, You're uncouth!
You gave your eyetooth it was truth
of poor Ruth and her gooth,
the cabooth and the mooth
in Duluth, and all for vermouth!”
The man said, “The truth in Duluth
and why I keep hitting the juithe
ith that Ruth and the mooth,
the cabooth and her gooth
were a nooth I had to cut looth!”
The new gal cried, “There weren't no gooth,
nor mooth or cabooth in Duluth!
There was just poor old Ruth
and some nooth that was looth,
plus a drunk who soaked up the juithe!”
The man from Duluth knew the truth,
“Thereth no more vermouth. Whath the uthe?”
So he crept out the back,
but the rest knew the tack:
he'd be back next day for vermouth!
How blonde he was! How smooth was his veneer!
My poor heart raced whenever he was near.
He was a wizard! His blue crystal eyes,
if fixed on mine, would surely hypnotize!
Did I turn crimson when he gazed on me
those first few times before obscurity
became my lot? How many months I pined
for something sweet I wished with him to find!
He’d wanted me! That was no masquerade.
Yet later, no attention was I paid.
He grew aloof and turned his face away,
while not opaque, my heart before him lay.
HIS heart was ebony and hard as coal.
I had to suture mine because my soul
felt close to death. Years passed. . . I chanced to see
him, but his eyes, cold glass, sliced right through me.
Dedicated to Chris F.
Eddie currents confused the conduits in this mind
How can the transformers in the brain go not blind
Confusing is the light, direct me as it's straight shined
Hundreds of emotions imprisoned and confined
Thoughts going back to teenage years deeply pined
Worrying about the love effects totally enshrined
Consider this cancer, your thoughts are far too kind
This melon has been carved deep, right to the rind
Missing all that I've lost, forever rightly defined
Penned for the world to read like riding bare on equine
A century, now I've given the soup all I have mined
Mentored by Sotto, DT, Mo, Anaya, and P. Hind
Mused by Constance, Brandy, Sunshine, Anna, I've refined
Influenced by Gershon, Paula, and Dilly, like whine
Holding fast to FJ, Charles, Eve & Deb my heart relined
My love for you all wide openly is to remind
From your invalid's bed
You pined for the beach
Too far out of reach
For weakened feet to tread
He gathered devotion for the quest
And packed obligation
Atop expectation
For your smile's beauty to express
He strained beneath the boulder's stack
As frost bitten wind sliced his skin
And fingertips split where blood ran thin
When that frigid mountain fought back
Then he rode on deserts of fire
Under the sunburned moon
He bridled the dunes
For your hopeful eyes he aspired
At last, salty sea allowed his descent
To glitter of exotic shores
Lustrous shells from wave filled floors
Captured in jars, mighty ocean's scent
Here is a man who follows through
But all you saw in your hand
A dirty case of sand
If you only knew, you fickle fool.
10/25/20
On March fourteenth, the day of pi
I pined to buy an apple pie
A python spied me at the door,
a sharp-eyed pirate on the floor
Oh piebald pipe of piety
Do not aspire to piracy!
A spiny pain will occupy
My poor pylorus pining pie
Pied piper pyromaniac
Porkpie in hand, applies attack
A pyrite spark to light became
Papyrus lit and fanned the flame
The python backs, afraid of fire
The piker fears a funeral pyre
He'd be expired and unprepared
To cipher circles pi r squared
Our pineal glands made pie-eyed plans
And Pontius Pilate washed his hands
A pile of pilots can't deny
I occupied my day with pi
October 25, 2014
Rhymed iambic tetrameter
There are 35 "pi" sounds. Can you find them all?
I rose not like flower or like tree
Not like eagle's hubris in the sun
Old skin shed in the divided city
Last clone of a manhood almost done
And so I tasted the salt that lingered in blood
When the sea was pushed to the edge
And the land was wet and squirming in mud
I was in the litter of its self-knowledge
I know my city better now, where met
The passions of my birth, life is beautiful
But shallow here, much to regret and forget
But I will exhume me from the bountiful
Shallowness and litter, I will my heart
To the silent stars and write my life
In words of truth. Montego Bay, let me start
In you, the doldrums where the fear was rife.
It was not the wind, but the fire that sent
My mother descending through smoke of tears
Along the pavement hard without lament
And her three children pined at crowded stairs
My brother was swallowed by the city's mire
My sister's drug was her desire, she called
Eight from her flesh to mother's feast of prayer
Thank you God for your mercies that enthralled
That's context now, while I bleat my life
From the ghetto's battlefield to stable and school
Something provoked my hunger and strife
Something led like a pen along the edge of a rule
For I have smelled the cordite fumes of death
And the magic scent of ganja on slum night air
I from school have fled and gasped for breath
Along a street where splintered blood appeared
So I dispense this news for you struggling child
Wriggling sand to walk out of my burning shoes
Soon I shall strip away the mask pile by pile
Promise you will dance, dance slowly to my blues
I give you more than wax feathers for the sun
For old Sisyphus by labor endless was worn down
And did not see the rise sinking to the run
In each man's failure another man's victory abound.
It must have felt like love at first,
The clinging of the ivy vines,
Until his rich red heart had burst.
Her tendrils slaked an ancient thirst,
The tender touch for which he pined.
It must have felt like love at first.
Too guileless to suspect the worst,
She speared him with her soft green tines.
Until his rich red heart had burst.
Her coils so patiently she pursed,
He never guessed at her design.
It must have felt like love at first.
Crazed with cracks, its strength dispersed,
From end to end the wall declines
Until his rich red heart had burst.
So new to love, so poorly versed
In joy, so baffled by her signs,
It must have felt like love at first.
Until his rich red heart had burst.
Quantum leap, material mind,
learning curve steep, perceptive mankind,
this earth inherited to keep, in the depth eyes shined,
the karmic benefits we reap, after money too long pined,
in the shadows they did creep, by our light left blind,
hearts awaken from their sleep, each ventricle gold lined,
More awake each enlightened peep, open hearts, contemplative minds; you'll be amazed at
what you find.
Been crawling, now it’s time to walk, too long the masses talking the talk.....
Your warm hands hold mine,
That with desire both shine and shiver.
Like the moon, looking for a silvered river.
Oh, how long for you I pined.
Sparkling burgundy wine, in tinkling crystal glass.
Hypnotized by your Arcadian, invasive eyes.
This moment, under clear San Francisco night skies.
That time still lives eternally, which nothing can surpass!
Your sweater, soft and dark, green like a sensuous forest.
Stop time in this place~ no, there is far more ahead for us.
We, in love, so totally, eternally obsessed.
I felt like your goddess in a golden, Greek, love-!bodice!
3/5/2021
~6 ~
Quatrain
A,B,B,A
Do I Still Dream
dreams !
do i still dream?
not without tears in my big brown watered eyes
not without a blindside heavy blacked heart
and not without thinking I've lost
the best years of my life
that I never had
what a waste of time
to cry over time that
has been stolen
but it is my time
and
I soak the time away
in my own tears of
lost unknown could
have been moments
and I push it back
and it pushes up over
my cracked
soul
moving up over my head
inching slowly
seconds by slow second
stretching over my pined shoulders
on its way to crushing my chest
with all my freaked out fears
till I'm caved over in some
out in out mind dance
and tears are raining
all over my feet
that if my chest wasn't in the way!
and I thing
what the hell
I am great
at least in my
could have been dreams
and maybe someday
someone will know
it too
maybe it will someday be you
There was a time in the beginning
When everytime that I saw you
I pined
I yearned
Every breath I took, I took for you
Then we hit what I would call
The frustration stage of marriage.
Please don't think that I don't love you,
And please don't get me wrong
If we make it through this rough patch
It will make us both very strong
We hit stage three
Which is just basic confusion
Which way do I go
Which way do I turn
Do I stay and guess what is going to happen;
Or do I turn around and run away?
At stage four, we have now become way too routine,
Everything we do,
Everywhere we go.
I can now tell you when, where and for how long,
The same types of movies,
The same restaurants around town,
Week after week after week.
There has to be something that we can do;
To break this aweful streak.
At stage five, it becomes personal,
Almost comparable with the five stages of death.
You would then call this stage acceptance,
Which is why I will keep my word and make my stance.
Warn path through time
Covered with nettles and thyme
Sprinkled with relics sublime
Sated with memories from my prime
Bridges crossed, harbored mined
Valleys forged, mountains climbed
Rivers forded, hollows divined
Peaceful pastures forever pined
Showered blessings o'er charted course
Thunderous trials skirted with every resource
Shining beacons along the road did hope reinforce
Clouded dreams abandoned with some remorse
Now channeling through life's narrowing pass
Peering longingly back at the quilted morass
The quiescent oaks shiver in the cold
Their fugacious leaves blown away in the breeze
February will you bring me closer to spring bold
If anyway possible would you please
Now the susurration of winter's wind
So different from sighing of the pines
How I long for angular sun's warmth, my friend
For time in the sun, how I have pined
There's pale gray wool flung across the sky
A cold white shawl draped upon the lawn
Before the sun rises to warm by and by
When sun illuminates the crack of dawn
Chilled daffodils tender shoots peek through the earth
Seeking the sun's early light and warm touch
Once more to refresh the bulbs' life with mirth
Invite early insects to tickle its trumpet and such
Jefferson Randolph 'Soapy' Smith was the wiliest scoundrel in the west!
He was invited to leave numerous towns since he wasn't a welcome guest!
He swindled gullible dudes throughout the west endin' up in Colorado,
Where he earned the sobriquet 'Soapy' and where he found his El Dorado!
He'd set up a soap display on a Denver street and invite folks to gather 'round.
His spiel began: "Buy a bar for a dollar and inside money may be found!"
The rush was on and suckers fought to buy bars of soap, gamblin' on a win!
Cops were even called to the scene to maintain order and to quell the din!
Folks tore at wrappers and one feller hollered, "I got a hundred dollar bill!"
Little did the unsuspectin' boobs know that it was 'Soapy's' planted shill!
Dupes lost their dough and with a five-cent bar of soap they were stuck,
He pulled the scam time and again and that's how "Soapy's' name was struck!
'Soapy' pulled up stakes in Denver and migrated to other towns out west.
He was successful with the soap scam and was adept at hidin' aces in his vest!
He made his way to Creede where he established the Orleans Gamblers Saloon.
There, 'Soapy' was involved in nefarious affairs and left town none too soon!
The gold rush was on in the Yukon and he pined to go there ere it was too late.
He arrived in Skagway and later on in Juneau where he was to meet his fate.
'Soapy' met his end in a gunfight and his final words were, "My God, don't shoot!"
Thus ends the ballad of 'Soapy' Smith, that swindlin', cheatin', rotten galoot!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
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