BAD GUY IS KENNEY
NO IS GOOD LIKE MTG
AM CONFUSED YOU SEE
How strange to be of the last;
to write in the end and dregs of time,
but must needs believe, as in the past
that many to come might be reading mine.
A part who knows the grains run out
and another hoping for posterity;
with this contradicting mud about
to still pen down some clarity.
It breaks my heart how few might read,
but more torn I’d be if not to write -
for creating in me is a greater need
and I must still try with might on might.
Even if my audience be one indeed,
I will write for Heaven and give hell spite.
It's awesome how the meaning of a word slowly changes.
It is awful when it changes too fast.
Today a person might write the new meaning,
but be taken to mean the mean of the past.
It once was nice to be simple and foolish;
over two hundred years it was dainty and precise.
Pejoration, usage - assumptions in common;
and more centuries turned something horrible to nice.
And yet a fine balance must be struck when defining
our terms - for definition itself may need terms -
and we teeter above a near infinite regression;
and no-one should eat such a diet of worms.
Some may sophisticate to bludgeon opponents
while others will wallow in Orwellian speak,
yet anyone using these devilish devices
reveals an ankle that is Achilles and weak.
The three-quarter angled moon -
like a monstrous, baleful, cataracted eye -
blindly searched the dark beneath
where death was heard in a cut off cry -
nothing else but a rustle in the undergrowth;
a struggle to breathe between two jaws.
Something kicked twice and then was still;
an unseen end in teeth and claws.
I froze to hear both a victory and tragedy;
for something was fed and something died;
and somewhere the babes in a den would be full;
and somewhere the babes in a nest be denied.
The moon will not always look down at creation
cursed to this time of predator and prey.
The lion and lamb will lie down together
because even death will die one day.
Recall with me those wild and free
passionate days of young glory,
with racing pulses at a touch,
early in our story;
when hope met want and wanted hope
and doubt was given blind love’s eyes;
when sounds of discord were drowned out
by laughter and by sighs;
when mystery and discovery
walked hand in hand along the way
and mutual findings, so lovely,
enriched our every day;
when, parted any time at all,
we felt it much too long to bear;
and hunted hungry-eyed until
we saw the other there.
A time of growing surety;
of testing out and finding good.
‘Could this one be the one for me?’ -
and finding this one could.
That spirit found its oaken home.
The years have burnished love to gold;
mellow but stronger than its youth,
though we have grown old.
Peace and joy - and rare sadness -
I’ve loved our walk through time Agnes.
Fresh then full, and promising more,
we’ve shared a life of gladness.
We passed French fields littered with steaming rolled hay
somewhere near the city of Verdun.
Here rain-weary sunflowers stood in ranks
and wouldn't even raise their faces to the sun.
Wilted green leaf shoulders on hunched old men,
all staring down at the mud on their toes;
or perhaps they were in mourning for their comrades
who’d fallen between the shabby rows.
Look up! Look up! The clouds are fleeing
and summer declares its victory.
Sunflowers should not be so sad.
Oh look up, little men, and smile for me.
These fields have known too much grief of old.
Lift up your faces and turn them gold.
We had to be back before the street lamps came on,
our bicycles with pedal brakes and a dynamo-light.
Things were just different when we were still young,
all meeting in the park for a game or clod fight.
We dug several forts and built up dirt ramps.
We found a dog skull near a cold tramp's fire.
We improved my friend’s treehouse with a wooden pallet
and made booby traps out of string and barbed wire.
We competed for height in the avocado trees
and made bows and arrows and spears.
We waged war with the ants using firecrackers
and in the river, we piled deep stoney weirs.
No day was complete without a cut or a roasty
though no one much cried until we got home,
where our mothers nursed us with cups of sugar water
and the stinging red kiss of Mercurochrome.
A cat may look upon a king;
even dare to turn and ignore him;
walk arched-back before the throne;
make the dais his very own;
sleep beneath the royal footstool;
and kings allow the feline’s rule -
for though none crowned the brazen cat,
no-one loves the rat.
More than just the right to be,
the puss has licence to roam free,
with status shrined by what is done
because he hunts what others shun.
Low born, low bred - yet all know that
a king must look upon a cat.
Beware the Cheshire cat
whose advice is here or there
and says there are just two paths -
again I say beware.
Carroll had it right
as he wrote behind that grin:
Alice could also stay put
or go back to her begin.
She ate the cake to grow big
and drank potion to be small,
yet there was always the third way -
not to eat or drink at all.
Beyond the looking glass
and down the rabbit hole,
a heartless queen asks questions -
any answer and heads roll.
Watch out for false dichotomy
and the choice that does not matter
or you’ll be writing on a raven's desk
to answer the Mad Hatter.
(07/2023) See Chapter 6 of ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll.
Only when we have felt, even once,
the clawed caress of strife,
do we value the soft warm hand
of peaceful days in our life.
Give me boredom and humdrum
over adventure and interesting times;
a quiet corner in a calm house
to write and edit my rhymes.
Oh, war has driven the pen stroke
and sorrow versed in the bomb strike,
but I’d rather read all about it
in a book and only imagine what it’s like,
than breathe the smoke of burning -
the death scent of a home.
I do not need to personally bleed
to scratch out a war-time poem.
Better to write of cows and apples,
than Flanders field and poppies;
to write of a Luve like a red, red rose,
than a requiem for the Croppies;
and though the poet much values his words
I’ll bet that each war-torn bard
would’ve chosen to write first hand in the soft
than ink pain in the trench of the hard.
What a fearful aspect in your eyes:
liquid, dark, fierce and deep;
two orbs rimmed with copper and gold,
and I wonder what awesome council you keep.
What is behind that thousand mile stare?
You look like a poet composing a line
or an orator pausing to grandly declaim
something profound for the ill of our time;
or a brave soldier standing guard,
outstaring the sun on Hadrian's wall;
or a handsome lover seeking to hold
a smitten maiden in a smouldering thrall.
Your glaring face fills my mind with wonder.
What are you thinking, hawk?
Hunger.
coconut soup and blue vegetable pie
celery sandwiches, cake made of rye
recipes created from a confident guy
cookies sweetened from a frog’s left eye
the menu makes his grandmother want to cry
corn cob scones that make his mother sigh
Jason, a chef, who thinks rules are to defy
conjuring up new edibles in a cauldron; why?
Strange new neighbor,
Smoking outside.
Comes over to talk,
Pet my dog.
While I stroll by.
Said he had never seen me before,
Walking my dog past his door.
Seems to watch everyone.
Wonder if his brain is undone,
Or maybe just a friendly soul.
Peering out at a world he beholds.
Here lies what was left of Jason Platt
Who fell into a molten iron ore vat
One fatal slip was all it took
And no one got a final look.
Written November 13, 2022
If it is red wine
Jason will dine
Since it is time
For the young to have a dirty mind
Oh brother
Here comes headless mother
Looking to kill my lover
Oh boy am I gonna suffer
Go to the other
Cabin and kill another
While I play a role
That will make Jason fold
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