Written: November 13, 2025, for contest sponsored by Joseph May.
" Inspired by the song: 'Like a Wounded Bird Trying to Fly' sung by Kurt Vile.
*****************
Like a wounded bird trying to fly,
I flapped through a mellifluous sky—
not quite broken, not quite bold,
just chasing warmth over winds grown cold.
I strummed my soul on an equine red,
while ghosts of my father rode rails in my head.
My mother, shrewd, stitched up our knees—
with eleemosynary grace and teas.
Now I sit where the green ferns grow,
my kids disport in the woods below.
There’s an imbroglio in my chest—
a luculent ache I can’t arrest.
So if you find me, don’t ask why
I’m like a wounded bird trying to fly.
It is only my style of saying goodbye—
to the weight, the waste, the wondering why.
after Ho Chi Minh
I
The stone basin holds
still water. The still water
drinks the arid sponge
as rays of pure energy
slake their thirst on
the ebon wings of crows
II
Yangtze flows from widows peak
pooling briefly in the lock
of a tired eye. Dirt
and salt cry brackish tears
before leaping from sallow chin,
like rain from languid boughs
III
Frogs turn dirges beyond
translucent glass, their croaks
fold and crease the air
putting dusk on the shelf.
Aphids eat the pithy stalks
and drown in sudden morning dew.
IV
No callused hand washes
in the same basin twice
V
The kettle boils, pallid
phantoms push through iron
walls. Prescient tea leaves show
time’s current—fish swim
upstream. Two worlds away,
a young girl draws a bath.
VI
Forehead donning liquid rosaries,
each dawn anoints a king anew
Each afternoon, grains of rice
cling to one another, fulfilled.
Ink spills quickly each evening,
the white page laps at pitch waters.
VII
Eleemosynary sunlight burns
through the keyhole, tumblers
click in the lock. The stone basin
is once again filled with still water.
Drifting
Among azure skies
Needle-like threads
Decry two-hundred wishes.
Eleemosynary prayers
Line the winds of spring
In a cloud of floral snow
One wish permeates the air—
No mouth go hungry, no thirst unslaked.
sawed-off on the
crimson emerald from a cloudy sky
squeal
and, at times, the reason
low-slung why
sparkles of a pearly salver
modicum of encrusted damask mist
befuddles me
albeit
moon, amber, and opalescence
spawn a charming sight
the perspective
strikes each crevice of the flesh.
and psyche advise
shrouded in a cinereous cloud
hapless and helpless, a glum-blue wolf
growls out a bluesy bemoan.
creating a lacuna
of gallivant love touchstone
leaden wails of anguish
rhythmic echoed refrain
plainchants of auric yearning
reminiscent of challah
aiming for eleemosynary seeds
cahoots to germinate and thrive
2nd place contest winner
Written: March 20, 2023
A Strand No 1201 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
gripping the shards of memories
ignoring the bloodied emotions
why do we torture ourselves
with that which we cannot change
these evocations
vivid
disturbing
invisible to others
but our élan spotlit
driven
instituting mostly patronising
eleemosynary projects
perfect recall
subject to
experiences dictated by
accident of birth
the authenticity of memoirs
tenaciously defended
but ravaged by
subliminal influences
a testimony to its perfidy
Who doesn't face upheavels in life?
Survive those, who're operative of the glory,
Succumb those, who get exultant,
Thou shall be eleemosynary when life gives you perks.
Who doesn't face downfalls in life?
Don't hide it, you don't gonna deny it,
Just drink your pain away, a little at a time,
Fight! Gain the strength again to get up on your knees.
Who doesn't face love in life?
Gives you something to lose, and even I do,
But honey, love can knock again, life wouldn't,
It isn't the end of the world, 'amate a ti mismo'
Who doesn't face fear in life?
Face it luv, as cowards die many times
Before their death, the valiant face it only once
And so they live forever, even in the afterlife.
These are just ephimeral glimpse of emotions,
It can't despirit you! You're a conqueror!
It's the life's journey, our naive heart is yet to lead,
It was just a page, the eerie book is yet to read.
In tulips live I,
A little tulip man;
Opening
A cup of stars at dawn,
Drawing
down the sun at dusk;
In tulips live I,
A little tulip man;
Immortal as a drunken butterfly,
On nectar and dew befuddled;
In tulips live I, A little tulip man;
Indelible and senseless
Un-busy as a bee full Of honey.
Maniacal and magisterial
Elemental and eleemosynary
Lyrical and lascivious
A little tulip man
am I.
Published Suite101- 203
Confidence fades away
Clothes to the wind
My cracking glass, the nightscape
Contorted into vixen reds and apparition dark
Seventeen
Kitsch eyes, as kitsch as a child
Crying in a kitchen scene over spilt milk
Shrinking under giant flaming wings of a morbid sun god
A flower in the rocks craving eleemosynary of sunlit droplets
Dew sticking heavy, a glue to papier-mâché the fine parasol
Poverty of any subtle scintella, a florid propinquity or velleity
Slinking into the puissant moon dust but with all the style
Of a dead inurement Sickert slick
My sui generis malapropisms
Cruel bowdlerization of a grouping wall and night
The hard outer shell of flesh
The ladybug, the thumb
The ladybird and stupid shibboleth.
_
Daffy, I said I'd write something called Bugsy :D
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