Long Crisscrossed Poems

Skin of Terror
- Daniel Henry Rodgers

(The stage lights come up slowly on Michael's face, which is crisscrossed with wrinkles from his fuming anxiety. He peers out into the gloominess at the wheel and tightly clutches...

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Saturday, September 23, 2023  

Coincides with first day of fall
and Autumnal equinox for said year,
where colorful splash kindled like tinder.

After I riff flecked about thee August
Autumn Equinox 2023,
this seasonal polymath teached you 
fall Equinox...

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The Beast smirked, horns quivering ...
"You know you want to", he said, nodding toward the hills
There, above a dark, gaping wound of earth, Página Sagrada shone.
A sheer, white marble face of mountain, it shamed all...

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Hereafter in the times of tomorrows yesterday,
                            ...

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Beneath the opal white moon, the crying doves shed their precious tears,
Causing the purple rain to fall, melting at the lavender notes of musical dreams,
Camelot’s illusionary ivory towers of brilliant colors, seemingly fades unto the
Violet...

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All. Day. Long.

I sit there, in my chair, All. Day. Long. 
Glaring at people I hate. 
The people who are but mere memories.
Mere dust in the wind.

All that I know has blown away, 
taken by...

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Tough Love

Sometimes with such strict parents, a tendancy to lend;
overlooking boundaries crossed to be your child's best friend.
I love my son with all my heart just as he does his mother.
Tho the path that he...

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"everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucious
 

all she could see were her scars-
painted perfectly upon her chest like
a reverie flowing to her sadness
 
scars are proof of pain and pain is
proof...

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The blood and lapis daylight sets
in ether. How the mind resets
brutality of winter chill
with February's codicil;
what gossamer a dream begets.

I hear the crickets in the dark,
their clicking takes up where the lark
has been. The flagrant...

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"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucious
 

All she could see were her scars. 
Painted perfectly upon her chest like
a river flowing to her sadness.
Scars are proof of pain and pain is
proof of...

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In an Old West Town of no repute
 Came a rider on a horse as if in hot pursuit.

  Into the saloon he ran and shouted aloud
"BIG RED'S COMIN' "...which brought down a shroud.

Out...

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Moving into the deep luscious woods perspiring as darkness grew,
I saw a lovely high tree with soft branches vanish in the green sky  
Climbing up within its branches I saw a sparkling stone drop...

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I had a pair of the most beautiful wings,
But I grew bored with flying
And so I never used them,
Never exercised them or
Stretched them out to feel the
Sun on my back,
That warm glow that lately
I had...

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What the world would have become without gold?
Answers could not be found for platinum
Nor spoken word could be drawn out for diamond
Even the highly depreciated silver-
To the poor is still uncommon like bronze
Money talks before...

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her name was Annie

we were raised together from the cradle...went to the same schools...played all the kids games (yes, even that one) talked and listened to each other...happy and sad for the same reasons...we never...

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My pregnant psyche labors over words
and somber fetuses embalmed in ink.
A restless scribble knots my burdened nerves
with these encrypted ciphers I can't grasp.
Interpretations drip from severed tongues,
absurd perceptions form a distant mood.

My prying, inquisition probes...

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AT THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING 

trucks toil the city’s streets, 
a minuet of practiced precision, 
to the pulsating rhythm, 
to the incessant beat. 

they parade and pause, 
they roll-on. stop. 
roll-on. stop. roll-on. stop....

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crowded, cornered —
   i suss out my special place.

tossing, turning,
   dendrites burning

the insides of my eyes.
   posit the tables

chairs, arrangement
   of girls and boys.

the chatter of calypso...

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MY NEIGHBOR KOFI
LOCATION: Mazamaza, Lagos, Nigeria:
My neighbor kofi, 
The computer scientist
At 34,
He crisscrossed, jetcrosed, redcrossed,
And hobnobbed around the globe:
Kathmandu, Acapulco and the Galapagos 

He dined and wined
Like there was no tomorrow 
He dined and wined...

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Once I drank milk straight from the carton
And guzzled beer out of a can,
When I dripped gravy on my tie, I licked it up.
But though my manners were appalling,
One habit I would never fall in,
I...

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The roads walk upon within my life fells as if they are crisscrossed and tangled like a gigantic knot. 
An enormous ball which has me trapped inside of it. 
Will anyone come here to rescue...

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Cont'd from Seesaw into Space: Part 1

Round the Sun I catapulted 
and away from it I sped.
Then I saw another planet.  
Mars! I thought — the one that's red.

Mars was crisscrossed by long channels....

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  * * *

Outside, delicate flakes are drifting and dancing,
Last night there had been such a blustery blizzard;
But this winter morning my world was beautiful,
As I sipped hot chocolate and hummed White Christmas.

From my...

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She moves in silence like a jasmine breeze

through a moonlit garden walk

She doesn't journey like a star

with a lustrous shine in a celestial sky

But just  like a little rock 

a little limestone rock...

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spring melts into summer’s light
proving wrong that still despair,
chilled in winter’s heart,
has corroded to the marrow

for even poppies bloom
in broken fields and shell holes
bones blanketed in shrouds of moss
trill of larks cross no man’s land

as...

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