“Ukraine, Winter of Discontent”
The many winters of our discontents
Lie in trenches with the dead.
Mothers in pain.
Boys lost in vain.
Nothing plainly gained.
What empire will repent?
Saving souls from Hells bloodied gate.
Piled high in trenches is their fate,
As priests lament their deaths
A crown will not relent.
What cause is there so prodigious?
Slaughters all who differ?
Lays waste to metropolises?
Kills without remorse?
From where cometh this hate?
Through what gate?
What kind of man
Leaves babies seeking breath?
Women without life?
Boys piled high in trenches?
Empires laid to waste,
Many without faces,
Many without places,
All for what?
Pride?
Envy?
Jealously?
One man.....
44 million seek redemption.
Let him
Lie in trenches with the dead.
The many winters of our discontents. 3/8/2022
It is important we do not get our knickers in a pinch
And wind up acting like the mean, old Grinch
Especially during this season of happiness and cheer,
Let’s lay aside our nasties and unleash them next year.
Surely if we can be kind and patient for the while
From our critics, we will most likely elicit a smile,
And, who knows, we may even forget our discontents,
For “discretion is the better part of valor” makes sense.
written December 3, 2021
Blank Verse Rhyme
The master said “create blank verse in lines of ten”.
Form five Iambic feet without a rhyme.
“These five Iambic feet you must achieve”.
The verse will have a rhythm you can hear,
when studied closely this will be revealed.
For, lines of blank verse rhyming discontents
the master. “Do it over, take all night”!
The lines of blank verse sing a little song,
each syllable, each rhyme, you’ll hear them ring!
You’ll sing the tune of verses blank and pure.
And now I keep up with this blank verse trick,
I hear its tick ten syllables per line.
It rhymes so soft; I have it mastered now,
so naturally it falls right from my pen.
Oh, where will this blank verse rhyme find an end?
Yet, twenty lines of syllables came out
much faster still than I had thought they should.
I love each rhyme, the timing so precise,
I hope it pleased the eye and ear. I turned
it in, it came back very clearly signed
“Rejected”.
-Tiffany R-2009
Wailing in the city beyond bridge and bog
Austerity choking the dreams in cribs
Loans have dried up, at noon there is fog
Leverage everything, he pawns his ribs
She drinks and staggers to the new trade
Traditions fall apart by the will to live
Recession crawls and curls atop the spade
Economy everywhere has nothing to give
Except for the looters, fat and cool
Teamsters and workers are like barren mule
Heavy in debt, blind, blind the arguments
Owners of nothing no business can grow
Subtle the pipers anethestic of discontents
Thousands are homeless, pension like snow
Amassed and melted under paws of greed
Governments are impotent, bankers rule
Excess they blame on the workers in need
Suffering hides in shame, but dogs do drool.
Face flush with cold,
She comes, wind laughing at her back
Across our threshold once more,
In moments it is as though she'd never left.
Every room brightens with her Prescence.
She moves here and there in her easy ways,
Dispelling discontents with artless word as drops of oil
Disperse across a still lake
She is fully unconscious of her gifts,
So they radiate from her with undiminished power.
Now, exhausted from relentless work and scholarship
She lies asprawl on her old bed,
Dear old cat cradled in one arm,
Cooing softly in her sleep like a dove,
Just as she did when small,
Eternal yesterdays ago.
What can I do with that,
Save retire to my own room and glow?
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