Sits the monkish owl.
Beneath its own cowl.
If not candled and windowed, lit as
Soft, meditative.
That, wakeful, before
Sinks, wearily, more.
Grass-burnt, sunned life. Flashed too lewd, pranced through.
Dawned; hell-reactive.
owl loved turtlenecks especially in red
Give me a cowl, I’ll wear it until I am dead
There was a fierce wind, it had a big howl
A huge beast flew past, another kind of fowl
Was that a raven or crow? Owl asked a pal
I do not know, she said I’m a near-sighted gal
They noted the black bird had a looped jowl
Dripping from it was a giant I, their favorite vowel.
Daniel’s in the lions’ den.
His enemies threw him in!
Now he can’t get out again.
Oh, what is he to do?
On his knees he starts to pray.
Pleading words he will say
That the lions stay away.
We know his faith is true.
Shivering beneath his cowl,
In the dark he sees them prowl.
Listens as they start to growl.
Oh, did God hear his prayer?
But he is safe when morning comes.
God had heard! The fear is gone!
His enemies are on the run!
Now all know God is there!
I woke at 8:45
Stretched and yawned
Smiled. All gaiety.
Potty first. Face splashed
Skipped teeth, shower, hair
Pajamas wrinkled
week-long underwear
Rushed down the steps
Threw open the fridge—
Friday’s meatloaf, cold brick.
Just Me & Capt’n Crunch—
sugar gravel
still in a Scooby-dish bowl
9am flipped on the boob-tube
Saturday morn cartoons
Mystery van
Spinach
Spiders
Anvils dropping
White cowl
Bull’s-eye dog
Sugar Sugar
Ah…Honey Honey
Daniel—
Cliff edge
The long fall.
I laughed until I wept, until I cried.
All gaiety—
gone.
The sweet milk gone warm.
Chirp.
Screen lit—
three little dots
then—
“You up yet Papa? XOXO”
The sinking sun is now undone,
the sky is fading red
and shadows prowl neath cloak and cowl
for midnight lies ahead.
Beyond the heap, the honchos sleep
with bloated bellies fed;
for, yes indeed, no one's in need,
at least, that's what they've said.
Amongst the ones that hunger shuns,
in day's retreating tread,
are spiders black ensnaring snacks
while spinning silken thread.
But as it stands, in conquered lands
a famine reigns instead
where kids at noon, collapse and swoon
on stones they call a bed.
With aching eyes they fantasize
and dream of gingerbread,
and after while, they wake and smile,
now dining with the dead.
a blood-letting sun
sets as slow as an amber tear
in a shot glass
dotty is lost in oz
ruby slippers
run on a treadmill
of long summer evenings
avocados turn brown
drowned by a late light
a vein is open
watching eyes water
over a crimson gash
a gush
bleeds out
into a hoodwink
then sinks inside
a darkening cowl
an infant
wails
in a witch's
scrawny arms
none see
the birthing knife
In my youth's frolic at King Lear and Pi
all my days were a Shakespearean tale.
Not algebra, not prose did edify
yet test and limits we pass lest we fail.
To learn and open closed minds to ideas
but I learnt before a fall comes a pride
with a conspiracy one alone bears
yet co-conspirators had much to hide.
For each lame alibi concealed misdeed,
each mad ruse and jape blotted my ledger
but we all do a true life lesson heed
when worn is a cowl or crown to measure.
Comic is the court and jester in school
but better a wise king than a wise fool.
Written: May 1992
As the dread spirit’s cowl slid back, a stench so foul
it burned was released, the greeting of the deceased.
Often, after a day of walking
in and out of my mind,
I will put on a nightcap,
it's not a substantial cap like a bobble hat
it's more a cowl, a hood, a cloud-basket.
Beneath this dark covering
thoughts lay down to rest
in early graves.
Beyond a high hedge of time
astral lights flicker.
An inner sky gleams a starry gloaming,
I grope for a rope to climb
ascend - become - appear.
Now I can travel like a spy balloon
floating remotely guided into other sleeping heads.
Now a secret I have never told myself:
A few nights only,
I enter another person’s dreaming thoughts
startling eyes that are not mine.
I can visit a strangers life,
share a nightmare
or catch a distant memory
rehearsing its pain or joy once more.
It is a trick of immortality
to be this short-lived.
This free-wheeling and head-loose.
Come the bald-faced light
the night cap spins away like a thrown frisbee,
it is only then
that I don't believe a word of myself.
When evening came she ran out alone
Shedding her skin and matters within
As the moon shone overhead
The shadowed trees filling with dread!
Out of home and out of time
She ran alone till she ran into her kind
The night hiding inside of a cowl
As the evening star shone like a silent howl!
She looked down at all that was said
The light slowly fading, the day almost dead
Expect for the moon there was no one to hear
She was standing alone facing her fears!
8.11.22
Descending on this night, a foul
darkness flows from the Reaper's cowl.
And shadows conceal the undead,
instilling the living with dread.
On Halloween, demons roam free,
while ghosts go on a haunting spree.
And ghouls claw their way out of graves
as walking dead, and zombie slaves.
As their silhouettes stalk the gloom,
black cats and witches share a broom.
And while vampires morph into bats,
Jack-o'-lanterns get gnawed by rats.
Evil's on the prowl: goblins hunt,
as werewolves howl, snarl, yelp, and grunt,
And monsters trod unhallowed ground,
where creepy crawly things abound.
Bent and bundled
in the cold woods. Hot breath
rolling out white ghosts.
Among the tall and grey boned -
these shadow-less trees
freeze framed
under a grey cowl sky.
Hungry woods are these
that swallow sound, churn
it into sleep-waking words.
Snow groans in the tree-tops.
A wolfish wind numbs,
I wish I could enter
any cardboard box
in any homeless town.
Death's cowl shadows the soul's release
while rising to meet its maker,
and all mortal ties to Life cease.
Birth is counterbalanced by Death,
for we must experience both
Life's first breath, and Death's final breath.
Grief wears a veil of mournful tears
worn to soften reality:
woven out of sadness and fears.
Death cannot exist without Birth,
and Life can't evolve without Death:
both fuel diversity on Earth.
Death's a natural progression:
Life can never be forever,
and souls accept this concession.
Distilled from belief, tears of faith
shed in memory of the dead:
celebrate the soul's salvation.
*Reserata Carcerem LXI*
Yore lived a sage b' bounty brook pining;
dainty daffodils, his keen kins.
Oft would tumbling tide whisper 'ts tune
'n' sewn sage bewitched, ajar would croon.
ñ longer was h' humane - beards' blitzkrieg.
Crushed cowl tantamount t' gaunt grime's spree.
Rustic ravens 'nly pricked his gay,
'n' t' nocturnal nature was he slave.
ñ a nosy noon perchanced a deed -
that which wanky winds' wings oft gleam;
A pious nymph tottered t' his eyry;
banished was sh' b' quaking queen 'neath th' rill.
Ergo, sage's life plied new nook;
h' b' love travelled with nymph - jilted brook.
'20:07:30:15:43
Note:
a) Of sewn sage.
b) Written apace Middle English lexis:
i) Yore - long ago
ii) oft - often
iii) ajar - out of harmony
iv) cowl - Monk's hood
v) Perchanced - happened
vi) Eyry - abode
vii) gleam (obsolete) - to disgorge filth.
c) The following are used with no syllabic consequences:
i) b' - by
ii) 'n' - and
iii) ñ - no
iv) t' - to
v) 'nly - only
vi) 'neath - beneath
vii) th' - the
viii) h' - he
My last poem will be a humdinger, will include
a hummingbird in a ruby throated cowl
sipping satisfyingly in Caren’s Krutsinger’s
faerie garden - we’ll be sipping tea or something
stronger. Our muses are quite old by then,
and surely friends. One’s feigning on a daffodil.
The other’s wrinkling her teeny eyes - a scowl.
Instead of Chris Green’s good morning verse,
mine will say farewell to friends. I don’t think
I could cut it short as a monoku but if I’m going
fast I might need to be brief. Perhaps I’d be
silent, as a lightning bug on a Summer’s day —
I’d have to have my mouth
wired shut, my hands in casts (they’d talk too)
I might say, “toodle-loo,” or “ta-ta,” if not too trite.
I’d turn out the stars and the moon, say, “good night.”
7/19/2020
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