For you are nevermore.
Your eyes' last light
never illumined mine.
Death prompted us
to be hasty -
curbed childhood,
sped me past stop signals,
headlong onto adult carousels.
But we must agree over how these hours are
moving against our wills.
I've remained.
Grasping a rumpled-up grocer's receipt
with this budget-buy, multicolor pen
confident of words
I have space to admit now
and bury in poetry's
kinetic cemetery,
I'm sure I loved
your false teeth's scattered English,
its determined guidance.
I wished my life
had been adequate
to cover your shortfall
as you had covered mine
back when I was all but a novelty.
sometimes coffee in an Antigua cup
or red,
not often, tea,
loose or bagged.
does the string stop the drowning.
occasionally, dandelion,
bitter, mildly unpleasant;
such as a visit
to the deck, tidied,
vacuumed, except for a corner
kept with leaves
waiting for a spouse
to hurry up and finish up.
a three-way
confusion, static;
like a bus-hop,
it’s no party, not even
an old-fashion
party line.
not likely to listen
to reason, cutting
remarks, saturated
in control.
chocolate cream, distilled sips
in a cordial glass,
stem pinched by thumb
and pointing out tact.
sometimes wine, red
in a heaping purple goblet,
only a quarter full;
I’m no fool.
falling into the coolness
of rain, insane
how things change, shift,
stay strangely the same,
and out of order.
hey, while I listened,
a lingering trash bag
disappeared.
this is why
complaining is
for nought.
perhaps tomorrow
will wake up sunny,
and exhausted,
rumpled and relaxed.
a three way cheer
of tact,
bittersweet parched.
At first, I was all hunger and knees,
a rumpled sleeve dragging through the leaves~
until the day I woke inside a rumor,
stitched myself into a silent room.
What a way to learn patience:
wrapped in the dark with only
the sound of my own heart
unspooling like old thread.
Then~
the metamorphosis, the slick emergence,
the trembling assembly of wings
still sticky with the glue of becoming.
Now I hover above my former life,
its slow, leaf-bound arithmetic,
and wonder: was it me
who chose the air,
or the air
that chose me?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The fluorescent hum doesn’t bother her.
Neither does the line winding past aisle three,
the man who taps his foot like a metronome, nor
the mother bouncing a fussy child.
Her hands move gracefully~
meticulously counting pills into amber vials,
smoothing wrinkled labels,
turning each bottle just so
so the instructions face outward.
She knows Mrs. Putzer forgets her reading glasses.
She remembers Mr. Kim’s allergy to penicillin
even though he hasn’t mentioned it in years.
When the young man with trembling hands
asks, again, about his dosage,
she doesn’t glance at the clock.
She unfolds the leaflet slowly,
points to the bolded text,
says take your time
like she’s handing him a cup of water
after a long walk.
Some days, the world is a rumpled prescription,
filled with smudged ink,
but Mary is the angel in blue scrubs
behind the prescription counter
*You may this poem’s companion story here on Poetry Soup as follows:
poetrysoup.com/short_stories/an_angel_in_blue_scrubs_13589
The bedraggled beget bedfellows with
Tangled hair, tattered sleeves, a sea churn chaotic.
Comfort is found in a rumpled, ruffled unkempt state,
Shared by a weary soul and a heartless sea sat beside.
For sorrow will draw in where sorrow has been.
Churn will discern a likeness for agitation,
Beyond the calm that demands order, prim, proper, neat.
For it's disorder that makes a ruffled mind
Seek solace in a ragged heart, torn, and well worn.
A squirrel got into the homestead,
it picked a lock with a dry thorn.
The smell of dank fur clung.
We carried small talk above our heads.
Nothing put away but still dangles.
Denim droops, snagging
the arms of rumpled shadows,
fusty jeans gander and loll.
Calico and cotton are rescued
the soggy separated
from the mildewed.
Soon front steps will be scoured,
tails and collars made to flap
while medium-sized back-yard critters
flounce and fluff.
If a blotting wind returns,
the squirrel will bail with a flick of its tail,
we will wash bathtubs,
fully clothed with yesterday's suds.
a cool spring Midwestern morning
the preacher started his sermon
a guest preacher known for fire and brimstone
the little country church was filled
censuring the flock about their sins
claiming to be sin free himself
he said he was perfect like Jesus Christ
and that's when it happened
two large front doors blew open
gust of wind raced down the aisle
happened so fast and ended so quick
the little country church was dumbfounded
his hair a mess his papers scattered about
with Bible in hand and rumpled suit
he walked down the aisle and out the door
the little country church sat in silence
There's a pile of sullied threads on the floor
from muddied quarrels of our yesterdays
Remnants of life that we stripped bare
like sheets from a bed needing laundering
It's a hoard of soiled and frayed toggeries
too foul from words to be properly cleansed
I thought of trying to bury the lot of it
but shoveling the hurt left blisters on my hands
Invasive memories haunt many of my dreams
They are suffused deep within my thoughts
An inured scent of us will linger, unbleached, abused
like worn jeans as long as they remain unwashed
How long before I can ignore them lying there
gathered and rumpled in an alcove in my mind
Dark stains that only bring me pain and discontent
Too tainted to be purified by dirty human hands
Summer Quatrains – Swap Quatrains 6-19-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Summer Quatrains
Silk ribbons of ice melt into wellsprings
With jubilant serenades, heartfelt,
Frozen heartbeats freed from rime flow on wings
Into wellsprings silk ribbons of ice melt.
The brooding nimbus bows to solstice’ clouds
Dandelion days doze in clover now
As the Dayspring moon chants reveries out loud
To solstice’ clouds the brooding nimbus bows.
The rumpled season rides on wings of change,
Dancing in the ether where dreams abide,
Somersaults o’re a wishing star’s exchange
On wings of change the rumpled season rides.
In summer’s sunlight winter’s rose arises
Past the melancholy veils of dark starlight
Opens silky buds, rapture’s surprises,
Winter’s rose arises in summer sunlight.
As the parched earth sighed
Mother nature orchestrated
The grandest show on earth
Thunder rolled on invisible drums
Cymbals of lightening clapped
As dancing raindrops lined up
To cool down the heat of the sun
Curtains of dark clouds parted
As dancing raindrops twirled
And descended unfurled
Smoothing out the rumpled leaves
Sliding down window panes
Smoothing out those heated frowns
Dancing raindrops whirling into town
A raindrop catching it’s breath
Sitting on a blooming flower
Sparkling in the twilight hour
Raindrops hurdled together
In little muddy pools children
Splashing laughter so cool
Catching silent raindrops in
Little hands with little help
From the wind reeling out
Raindrops from a giant spool!
18.6.24 ( FIRST PLACE)
He would eat puddings and pies galore
And kept swelling and swelling some more
So when his stitches popped
That's when his britches dropped
Rumpled and crumpled up on the floor
One More Day
Always amazing
how well this life
goes right on without us
New images tread
where shadows have fled
old memories in the dust
Nothing left behind
but words to remind
we chased the Tiger sure
Out of the jungle
into the light
—hoping for one day more
(The New Room: February, 2024)
A Finer Point
Simplify
and clear
Simplify
and clear
Not many
years left
— simplify and clear
(The County Line: February, 2024)
Trapline
Could — Would — Should
poetry’s triumvirate oxymoron
(The New Room: February, 2024)
Goodbye
Walking the wasteland
tracking the miles
rumpled old notebook
pain has compiled
Closer to yesterday
lost to today
Voices of promises
I shouldn’t have made
Trouble ahead
troubles behind
Providence follows
in only my mind
My pen almost empty
eyes nearly shut
One word to write only
— midnight has struck
(Villanova University: February, 2024)
Free Given
It matters least
that when I die
What strangers say
what ladies cry
It matters more
the ink run out
My words free given
— whose passion shouts
(Villanova University: February, 2024)
The disordered sands of entropy,
churned by the wheel of chaotic time,
settle on the stratified shelf of the disorganized life.
In moments moving with perturbed dispersed dust,
the truth of trust oscillates in tumult
on the ruffling ripples of mayhem.
In the bewildered efflux of errant disarray,
everything rumpled changes in nonplussed instants,
except for the notion of change.
The mystifying alchemy of metamorphosis
reveals the real façade fragile
of the perplexing psychic transformation.
In the baffling squall of divesting dismay,
my mind disheveled in befuddled moments
into a dishabille state of confusion,
splinters the leitmotif of the embedded emotions.
The confounded cascade of consternation
carries them away to the abyss of oblivion.
Yet, when my castle of sand on the shore of yearning
tumbles down in a clutter of dispersed debris,
in its disorientation I discover discombobulated
the emotive flute of dormant feelings,
play the tune of unfazed ecstasy,
making the lucid music of mystique memory.
The dawn sky of life splashed blessed beams of bliss
on dream buds that unfurled joy in my eyes,
rapture took me to rare realm I didn’t miss,
cloud of sunset storm heaped at edge of skies.
Splintered by the flicker of tinged twilight,
in spasm vortex I saw my sky decay,
crumble with my dreams in abyss of night,
in dark depth I found the end of my way.
Flushing garden turned to rumpled debris,
the buds didn’t see the new sunrise in spring.
I prayed for God’s kindness to make me free,
I could fly devout on sanctified wing.
When I travelled to London Town
I never expected this to go down
Artful Dodger came out of the dark
Smiled at me, as if I was a lark
He was rumpled and crumpled, this tallish boy
I did not know what to say, so I said “ahoy”.
He put one finger in front of his mouth and faded away.
I was glad I had come to London Town on this day.
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