We often take for granted
What’s familiar in our world,
Without the need to wave the flag
We rarely have unfurled.
Yet tourists sometimes help us see
How fortunate we are.
By looking through their eyes we know
How high we’ve set the bar.
I spent the day in Central Park,
New York’s most precious jewel,
Though many locals get there
Not too often, as a rule.
Our visitor from out of town,
Amazed at all the trees,
Made me recognize the beauty
Landscaped perfectly to please.
The shady walks, musicians
And the turtles in the pond,
Plus the people-watching chances
Took us to a place beyond
All the urban sights we pass each day,
Infusing them with magic.
Taking Central Park for granted
Is not very short of tragic.
Swept the living room tonight
dog hair central, quite a blight
broke vacuum cleaner with their hair
while they reposed in the night air
If this was yarn, we would make a coat
perhaps a long sweater or a giant tote
if this was wood, we would build a garage
this hair from the vacuum cleaner will not dislodge
That shady spot
in Central Park
was our hangout
on long afternoons
as we watched balloons
rising higher than a hawk.
In that bench on Central Park,
we hugged and laughed
so mindless of a passerby;
we heard a hungry baby cry,
his mother caressed him
the usual tantrum:
a game of Drive Wild.
Those kisses of spring delight
mixed with soft sighs,
hummingbirds came around,
they stopped and watched;
weren't they amazed
by our smooching?
We sensed their craving,
it excited their sight.
On that bench in Central Park,
we had the keck of a wild time,
ready to quench
the flame burning
in the magical serene twilight...
while butterflies were flapping.
Who could wish for much more
in such a perfect, calm scene?
Is it now the same one
as yesterday so vivid and keen?
I realized being too nice doesn't pay,
I have ended up being used,
am now shading my skin,
if i behave in a way you don’t understand,
just know I realized all times I was taken advantage of
and now like dust I will rise.
being nice is not being weak,
it's not being afraid,
and it's not being pathetic,
it's strength to carry someone else burden.
let me now travel on the road I never took I see the difference it will make.
Plato says that Heaven is perfect things,
that nothing pure or good exists on earth.
We leave the Ideal World when, at our birth,
like ants who've briefly flown, we shed our wings.
All infants cry, in Shakespeare's view, when first
they leave the womb, to find this Vale of Tears
is what they must inhabit four score years,
dreading hardships into which they've burst.
Our human life, so Seneca would say,
is prone to failure, suffering and pain.
The only shreds of solace that remain
are stoic calm, acceptance of decay.
They're wrong, of course, to tend towards this view:
but then, my Perfect Girl, they didn't know you.
Joint pourings of nations,
All from different nations.
Funnel of diversity,
Cultures melding in.
The station holds the might of nations.
Flowing round pillars,
Through the gates to the station.
Different dress from all the rest.
Strides unique to note.
Voices raised in sound.
The station is grand.
The train pours more talent,
Into our land.
Cultures blend in elation.
The Grand Central Station.
"...in spring, the most delicate feathery yellow of plumes and plumes and plumes and trees and bushes of wattle, as if angels had flown right down out of the softest gold regions of heaven to settle here, in the Australian bush."
— D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo
Paraboloid totems of evergreen hope, upside down,
Sparkling white trinkets, sparkling white dears.
‘What do we need to do now?' you ask
I got my husband’s winged gift around my neck, a blue stone dragonfly.
Isn’t my green dress an ornamental kingly shroud?
Both stormy and luminous, the cuts on my arms are still caked in dried blood;
You are sad: your heart bleeds into mine with a bit of emerald dust and ruby red sunrises;
The doctor is the Rose; I am the Flame.
You are all marble, Plato, self-contained;
I am grotesque, decaying, Lilith-born.
My scars are greyhound clouds or maybe trim poodles
Whose slightly wolfish eyes will bleed
A blazing cornucopia of yellow wattle sprigs;
Doctor, your heart is a gold mine and joyous as Spring.
Written & Posted, 3rd January 2025
For the International Contest, CHOOSE A 2025 POSTED POEM
Sponsor, Brian Strand, Judged 4th January 2025 (Second Place)
Poem of the day - 5th January 2025
I checked my watch and checked my phone,
but everyone’s in a different zone,
Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific,
maybe I should be more specific,
the dollar says in god we trust,
but love thy neighbour bit the dust,
I wasn't feeling all too great,
after that late night altered state,
shining my leather mourning shoes,
watching weather and breakfast news,
a gunman shot the truth today,
the eagle had been blown away
so had the snow white turtle dove,
won’t somebody tell me, what time is love?
Wicked wily woke.'
wikipedia..'
Is one old; bad joke.)
Central Park pigeons were concerned about Walter M. Leed.
He usually brought them seed, nuts, and other wonderful feed.
They conversed among themselves and formed a delegation.
Flew to his house, to see if it was a funeral or weird celebration.
It’s my anniversary, he said, do you want to stay for the party?
They served all kinds of snacks and desserts hale and hearty.
Those pigeons had such a fantastic time, they decided to move in.
His wife moved out the next week; so let the party begin!
Sixty-seven cats marched on Central Avenue Today
In the rain, for it is April, so hey, hey, hey
They had a mission, wanting kibbles and bits.
Some of them were demanding in spurts and spits.
There was hissing and stomping in yellow boots.
These cats were an army, in strong cahoots.
We New Yorkers were intimidated wildly today.
Cats of Central Avenue are serious and here to stay.
The great bird feathered harpoon
Flung from one shore to the other
Soaring over the Caribbean green of Torch Lake
Flies at the bow of my speeding boat
Or should I say more accurately
I race on the morning frill of waves
At the Blue Heron’s pointing wing
20 miles per hour
On the nose
Skipping stones lake to sky to lake
How to explain why flowers trees and birds
And even man with her pyramids
Are driven upward?
The sun’s draw more powerful than the iron grave of gravity
Behold Goethe
The doomed mathematics of the boat beneath me
Opposed to this bird
Born free to fly in one with majesty
How I wish to be all of thee
The rising slopes stop my boat
Heron looks back
Glides atop and over the hills to Central Lake
As if he was but a trick of the wind
And me a sleight of hand.
I answer to the norm
the strangest decorum
in the Northern Hemisphere
I have a longing to be free
Burning seeds
their husks weep
In valleys of sleep
Two tulips niggardly cling
to the hereafter
Vultures visceral and cruel
Trolls the words of Kings
Jabberwocky on surfeit fleets
Mirrored in the midnight Sun
Teeth chattering
shadows in the midday furnace
interlaced with solemnity
Primal flights of fear
sanguine coloured dreams
Deep brown rocks
we found shelter
The Moon appeared
The Goths in Penguin suits
jaded past the point of no return
"Train Ride to Central"
After the performance,
opera
never tasted so good
kissing all the way
back to Central
the platform,
home base
if you will,
time to gather in
everything-in-between
the train ride
fast and smooth
but never clean
windows entranced
life lingers between
the touch of fingertips
on your surfaces
unpolished
secrets passed
between lips
all signals dripping
ultraviolet
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
She pranced herself into the men's toilet
You see almost anything in Central Park
It is possible that she is illiterate, I'll bet,
I've been told it's commonplace after dark
She might've been playing Russian roulette.
Written July 22, 2022
Submitted to "Bite Size Poem No. 50" Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Line Gauthier
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