so many gallons of it, of highest quality,
smooth but potent: where did it come from?
the servants who filled the jars with water
have the clue, but must keep mum;
most guests, incurious, gratefully quaff it
he’d first refused his mother’s hint, but she
told the servants to do whatever he said,
confident, it seemed, in his generosity,
not to say frivolity, in using such power,
towards hospitality, even drunkenness
since this time and place, wine
can claim religious respectability,
and must be on the menu of any posthumous paradise,
as ambrosial at least as that at Cana,
with the tasteful byline ‘a little taste of heaven’
When the byline was my line, I soared past the skyline
When my line was the bye-line, I boarded the Sioux Line ...
_______________________________________________
Note: The 'Sioux Line' was a railroad line that ran between
Illinois and Wisconsin in the 20th century. Its trains
were known as 'milk trains,' because they traveled
in the wee hours of the morning, and they stopped
at every stop... It used to take 14 hours to travel
from Wheeling, IL to Hayward, WI. (I did it twice.
What an experience!).
The Unbiassed Media
Bombs rain on Gaza, the youth throw stones, the Israeli soldiers killed
or maim stone throwers, a dance of death.
What do the leading media say? Not very much,
the Gazans must be partly blamed; the victims are guilty
of the strength of being Palestinians defending their right.
In Hebron, the settlers are razing houses, killing goats and setting fire
to olive trees and daily is the death of those who get in their way.
The media might have a byline about it, that’s all.
If Israel is criticized, it unashamedly invokes the sacred Holocaust
and calls us antisemitic
Should a Jew speak up, he/her is called a self-hater
and be banned from entering the stolen land of Israel forever.
Said a man returned from the moon
“I fear I have come back too soon,
For I left about seven
On my journey to heaven
And here it is now only noon.”
written, Winter 1972
edited June 29, 2021
[first published in The Hoosier Challenger, 1972;
republished in ByLine, Summer, 1989]
It was my own thought
My own poem with a novel quote
I smiled with a poet’s pride
I let my pen bleed and slide
I wrote it down
Framed it for my wall
Familiar words caught my eye
A strangers name in the byline
The poem was many years older than mine
Is it an unintended recovery from subconscious mind?
I’m distraught
It is too similar to call my own
I've been wondering about our secret selves...
The vegetarian smoker
The introverted joker
The soldier with the peace sign
The anonymous byline
The accountant with unfinished sums
The deaf musician's steel drums
The blue collar millionaires
The conservative who dares
The scientist who prays
The vagabond who stays
The man who kneels to take a stand
The female poet who's a football fan
We are all more than we seem...
12/26/18
Submitted to 'Honourable Mentions Worth Mentioning' contest
Sponsor: Richard Lamoureux
(I like playing with the idea of secret identities, which started me thinking of how everyone is both Clark Kent and Superman, we all have a face we show and a face more private and unseen-)
Sanmati, my source, is completely mine
As she never missed going to shrine.
Nor does she move slowly like a bovine.
Much was done to munch through byline
Against me or her to bypass or to confine.
Thanks to expedition that made her whine
Inner talents, flairs, bents and gifts fine.
Jain are we: active is she; before deadline
All her work is complete – quality divine.
Illegitimacy! Come thou and pour wine
Near those who still soar for heavenly design.
here comes the buzz
here comes the feed
don't bother with facts
there's really no need
if you're looking for stories
to sensationalize
if you need entertainment
just fill it with lies
and where we are going
is anyone's guess
as we fill in the byline
with anonymous
saying we heard it from sources
we can not confirm
but it still is our hope
you believe every word
though you may have your doubts
about what you just read
we've still placed that thought
inside of your head
I know I'm supposed to be off till the end of January but there's too many juicy current events to rhyme about! Plus I'm a wimp!
Noel Neill passed away,
No Superman to save the day.
If unfamiliar with her name,
Then you're too young to know her fame.
But those of us of certain age
Can see her byline on the page -
"The Daily Planet," where she worked
And Superman, she gathered, lurked.
For Noel Neill was Lois Lane,
Reporter with Clark Kent, her main
Contender as the Man of Steel,
Without that super sex appeal.
His glasses let nobody see
His actual identity
Yet Lois - nosy, sharp and wise
Could penetrate his weak disguise.
Other actors played the part
But Noel Neill, pert and smart,
Will always, in our minds, remain
The one and only Lois Lane.
“Nature Lover” my byline,
Hell, I even like girls
But where I draw the line
Is mosquitos and squirrels.
Love how bug zapper spark fries,
Pellet gun is so nice,
Squirrel’s carcass on ice,
Tiny smoke clouds from trap rise.
With the clean sent of ozone
Starting off each new morn,
Longer lasting than ****,
Hanging bushy tail tombstone
That now decorates plum tree.
This is really no vice,
Just some friendly advice,
That for me is eye candy.
Maybe you think me shallow,
This world diamonds and pearls?
Sure as hell is below,
There’s mosquitos and squirrels.
Brian Johnston
June 26, 2016
There was a moment
in time and space no distance
can erase when she was standing
on an island in the middle
of Times Square, cars whirling around
from all directions, their Technicolor
taillights additive to Big Apple
illuminations, and she,
the conductor of this current
of motion and light thought she
was somewhere over the rainbow,
someplace called Manhattan,
imagined since 7 or 8 or 9 or 10,
a crystal country there, where
some dreams come true
for a small town girl, her byline,
a poet of a faraway island
of no skyline.
micro-fine is the line
time by line, byline
-
grain by grain by grain
it passes discrete with
total indiscretion of desire
slow down, speed up,
turn around and float
up the venturi to come
again so that I may BE
there again with you
the gravity of sand
grain by grain by grain
blasting the present,
into some past, some epic
chipping time's paint
to a smoothness of line
easily discernible
if you look real close
© Goode Guy 2014-01-04
ekphrastic for 2014-01-12 at
the Charles Taylor Art Museum of
"Hourglass Vase" by Chris Skibbe
My muse did her fealty recuse
My honor she did stealthily reconnoiter
My discourse was grounds for divorce
Finding my writing no longer enlightening
My blithe parlance no longer my mistress did entrance
With my prose she did forthrightly dispose
Each short she did subsequently abort
Each regaling verse did prudently disburse
Each perforated line truncated with lackluster shine
Each conjured sentence only increased my penance
Each glamorous byline she did smugly decline
Each dilated phrase with a bridling border did encase
Each gilded stanza a burnished extravaganza yielding no artful bonanza
Each tethered word coagulated into a stolid curd
Each bloated quote sunk my creative float deeper in the moat
Each lofty rhyme labeled too smarmy and sublime
My metric time no longer struck a concordant chime
Each literary device neatly spliced would not even a novice entice
Each repetitive, stagnant metaphor made my verse a bore
Each strained, tortured simile engendered no empathy
Each supplanted metonymy a shock wave lobotomy
Heart's cover sealed in burgeoning prime
Fading leaves folded in the book of time
Follicles of love blanched on the pages sublime
Billowy blades dulled with eroding sands that modulate and slime
Bleached, seamless threads spliced in the deep recesses of my mind
Glossy words overgrown, strangled with thistle and thyme
Each, dilated syllable devoid of reason and rhyme
Each segment underscored with a stagnating byline
Every, amorous allusion deconstructed; devoid of design
Each, sterile refrain resounds a doleful chime
Remaining, truncated edition a lapsing memory; requited pantomime
Words that echo the sublime
Each syllable resounds a doleful chime
Accentuated by a bleak, monotonous rhyme
That skews the cadence and scuttles the time
Words that filter through, then prime
Heart's engine to slowly pine
Fueled by structural anomalies; sick, semantical serpentine
Break lines that throttle, then realign
Soul's transmission shifts in gear to divine
Sorrow and suffering in every byline
Each strut, an awkward bounce that jars the dragline
Leaky, cracked manifold manifest in every squeaky note, sign
Incongruent parts renovated to shock by design
Tales-end, toxic fumes will every literary splice twine
Finish will be sealed with a lackluster shine
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