A late March thundershower floats toward me
Like a plucked flower
Handed over on a walk to a lover
With a smile
Down this afternoon path
That breezes past
Spring-born ponds
Erupting
Of Peepers ululating and Chorus Frogs ratcheting
In a wave of Gnawa music.
The surface
Puckers
Diacritic raindrops
Slowly
Softly
Each plop and their purple ripple
Has not enough splash
To generate an echo
From the reedy shore.
The storm not so strong to hide the sun
For long
To move a wind
Or slice the sky with lightning
Rolls by with quiet thunder
Wetting my hair and all the early blossoms.
My spirit lifts while its shadow stoops
Cups the mud.
This gentle stir
Today
Seems to awaken and nudge the air
Just enough
To take His hand
Away
Sets free
The spring Dove
From his fist
Writes its wings in a mist
Changes his mind from Him to Her.
Categories:
ratcheting, beauty, earth, easter, faith,
Form: Free verse
I was born in a landlocked getaway town
Where all the colors were black, gray, or brown.
Jobs at the steel mill were ratcheting down.
It was not in my future to stay.
So, I took a long walk off a very short pier,
An unschooled, untraveled recruit buccaneer
On a quest to cross Neptune’s vast salty frontier.
Hopped a slow boat to China one day.
Underway on the Crescent City, it seemed
The ocean was wider than I’d ever dreamed.
A ship load of sinners, our souls unredeemed
Steaming west toward whatever there was.
Keelung told Hong Kong to call Singapore.
Subic Bay badgered Mombasa for more.
Sea legs, as always unsteady ashore,
Even more so with liquor and drugs.
Bilge water sloshed in the depths of the hold.
The mizzen mast learned what the typhoon foretold.
I was sea duty tempered and Shell Back enrolled;
Wasn’t nothing but maritime norm.
I was born in a hard luck blue collar town.
Half the way broken and half the way down.
But time gifts its renaissance scepter and crown
To a jack tar who’s weathered the storm.
Categories:
ratcheting, adventure, allegory,
Form: Rhyme
The breeze cool and refreshing
colors paled pastel exhibitors
lipstick pinks, buttered yellows, creamy peach,
alabaster whites, orange tangerine, wintery blues;
August cools ratcheting down
the once oppressive heat
relief, respite, balming appeasement,
comforting solace and escape
readying flesh and bone
for autumn colors to return
burnished bronze, pumpkin melons, candy corn mix,
bittersweet crimson corals, mustard green cornsilk;
roan toasted grasses,
ready for winter sleep
dancing in ivory discotheque
escape to renewal and rebirth
as August nears the end.
Categories:
ratcheting, allusion, seasons,
Form: Epitaph
June night, two points shine
claws skitter down waving tail
ratcheting sounds of possums.'
Categories:
ratcheting, animal, june,
Form: Haiku
The sky looks clear and though the temps
Are not exactly warm,
The weatherman's predicting
There will be a major storm.
The blizzard warning's on the horn,
The airlines pulling flights;
Anxiety starts ratcheting
To Xanax-taking heights.
At times I wish for days gone by
When storms were a surprise.
We didn't have alerts
So then we couldn't agonize.
Of course we're better off today
So we can be prepared,
But being clueless, so much stress
Would happily be spared.
Categories:
ratcheting, weather,
Form: Rhyme