Long Hardscrabble Poems

Excerpt from “fake” encomium given years ago... 
at Lake Wobegone High School (my alma mater), 

and recently discovered ridiculous rough draft
amidst plethora of junk emails
while practice reading some lines 
regarding Midsummer Night's Dream 
upcoming performance.

Arch...

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By George (burning hard), I Shaw tried to playwright

offers his unsolicited tidbits 
as scene courtesy 
the following virtually 
staged philosophical insight.

Arch back like 
a professional ballet dancer 
to stand out from other pedestrian applicants 
seeking...

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Across figurative and literal blackened white board...

Where death of democracy writ large,
nevertheless psychological strength predominates
unlike earlier chapters of mein kampf.

Mine hardscrabble existential debacle 
spelled losing game
swept me up in malevolent mindset 
far adrift from harbored...

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It was here,
On the heart of Appalachia
Where the moon and stars shimmer
Across the blue gray ridges,
Where the sunlight reflects the whisper
Echoing through the pines and laurels
Struggling to be heard through the stillness
Darkening the whimsical thoughts
Quieting...

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Happy 68th birthday MaryAnn Sage - revisited January 12th, 2021

Wherever you might be holed up
within this whirled wide web wassup?

Mein kampf still equals board
hardscrabble existence deplored
analogous to Norwegian bachelor,
whose Lake Wobegon nestled within fjord
forcing me...

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a walker, I.


A walker fancying himself
a hiker, on a walk, self-narrated as
an expedition.

The incline is gentle, consistent,
insistent and yet i insist,
as i am inclined to do,
to think it steeper.
In fact, to think deeper,
about most things.

a...

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Reviewing mine writings of yore...

(today February nineteenth
two thousand and twenty two)
helps me to become more adept
crafting literary endeavors.

Remembrance of past circumstances
and/or happenstances,
which trials and tribulations
(particularly warm fuzzy memories)
brings to cobweb riddled mind
a quaint uncomplicated existence,
where...

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Across figurative and literal board... 
mine hardscrabble existential debacle spelled losing game of trouble

Oft times, I experience wretchedness being alive
spurring wonderment whereby thoughts
of my demise doth drive
analogous to buzzfeeding bumbling bees
combing into their hive.

Giddiness prevailed
when...

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Paternal grandmother's headstone - Beth David, Elmont, Long Island

Shaindel (Sadie), variant of Shana Harris
died May 13th, 1959 exquisitely chiseled
alphanumeric characters legibly engraved
sepulchral casket entombing lovely bones
deoxyribonucleic acid repurposed into me
Matthew Scott Harris patronymic protector,
when I...

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Take that road down yonder, she said
Toward the signpost that reads, lickskillet
Turn right up thar and then left after that
To a highfulootin road that’s paved in black

After you see the red store building by the...

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I Wonder if He Wore a Fedora

He passed a few months ago.
I looked through a few pics
of him when he was young.

He grew up in the depression,
so there weren’t many.
Black and whites, no dates.
None of...

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I spent too long away from her driving that rig,
So I gave up the freight line and learned how to dig,
‘cause I knew I could get steady work at the mine.
I was sure that our...

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They laid and built a new road;

in the heat of the day it looks
like a stretched curved spine 
along which newly planted trees 
grow their skimpy wishbones
as they file along the verge.

There is no shade...

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A Soldier That Lost His All

Despite his means, despite his plight
He rendered help to those in need,
No place he had fixed for each night
His life lived in faith and creed.
Dressed in tatters, braved the cold
Ragged...

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gone are the days
when frail old men appeared in the looking glass
to be full of song and wine
they sit back now and spin their tales
on the summer night breeze with knitting needles
and crayola crayons
mischief in...

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He knew how to slaughter and dress a chicken
  She baked bread every Friday in the tiny kitchen
He built their one-car garage from lumberyard scrap
  She grew veggies on hardscrabble soil, for her...

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Tunnels through ancient
Overbearing oaks,
Lined by the still standing
Stone fences built
With sweat and tears
By long ago settlers
Who dragged rocks and
Stones and boulders from
The hardscrabble ice age soil 
To create their farms.
Once Indian trails and 
Rutted cart...

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2 
Grandma's old corn sheller 
rests upstairs in an attic in Portland, 
Oregon; 
Mother got it before 
the sisters, cousins and aunts 
(who got the purple tea pot 
and hand-made egg basket) 
could; 
It could...

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Poetry is the power of defining the indefinable
             in terms of the unforgettable  
        ...

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