It is the lairiest of epochs
Ignore slop do a pop vox
Chock a block with shocks
But the scariest of tik toks
Snapping like hungry crocs
Another spate of hate docks
Photos that everyone clocks
Those ones who girls mocks
Are as deadly as small pox
Aren't all as strong as an ox
Shaking from online knocks
Drowning in instasham lochs
Stinks like young men's socks
Mistaking that a cure’s botox
Crowning a theory I defrocks
That faking makes you a fox
Solution sells comes out a box
Lies stir fries in corporate woks
Smells fishy like out of date lox
Why jog cheat the elite flocks
Fatty injections vanity smocks
As the poor everything hocks
Pharma firm flogs all its stocks
Not just peahens also peacocks
Androids on steroids rippled jocks
Muscle bound like the Springboks
Why are so many blokes.. cocks?
How about all go on a long detox
Take note your boat you’re the cox
Winner is the inner you which rocks
Fashion rations compassion is bollox!
When day care classes take a stroll,
In line with lime green smocks,
They look so cute while navigating
New York City blocks.
With grown-ups at the front and back
And sometimes in-between,
They move along, accustomed to
This urban life routine.
Though yesterday, I passed a group
And heard a teacher shout,
“Shoe stop!” and so I turned to see
What that was all about.
Apparently, one little boy
Had stepped out of his shoe
And kept on walking, unperturbed,
As children often do.
The teacher held the sneaker up;
The kids looked at their feet.
The owner found, the class continued
Marching down the street.
The way the kids responded
Told me this was not so rare,
Though hopefully, the kids go home
With both shoes of a pair.
This little city sighting,
As I wandered on my way,
Was a tiny taste of urban life
That often makes my day.
Listening
As grooves whirl
A familiar track,
Once familiar refrains
Recall the vintage
Of innocence.
Scratched
In almost forgotten places,
The sound is altered ...
Yet I hear a cadence of the time
When sweet flowers grew
In an English country garden.
Inspired by a folk song I listened to while growing up during the 1960s : English Country Garden as sung by Jimmie Rodgers (can be found on YouTube).
From the song:
How many kinds of sweet flowers grow
In an English country garden?
I'll tell you now of some that I know
And those I miss you'll surely pardon:
Daffodils, heart's ease and flox
Meadowsweet and lady smocks
Gentain, lupine and tall hollihocks
Roses, foxgloves, snowdrops, forget-me-nots
In an English country garden
Should I, mere a rabbit of sand, shiny hair,
sport a shock of fur mired in clay,
they from gofer mounds, propped on to peer, would sound warning
through the sun glades and sleep grotto shades.
“A pall fellow lights whereupon we here graze.
See ye lithely to him yield path.
He in bone pastel smocks with such likeness to bare
plodeth sloughs dank, decay’s fell morass.”
“This chap’s marks are slurred, kindred ‘s smudged,” they’ll say,
“in a mud that is not of our warren.
He looks sullied by drear earthen labyrinths far ‘way,
perhaps fox hole, cat hovel, or den of wolves’ coven.”
For when foul skies do strike, marring trees with their curses,
rains fall to douse scintillate branches.
A pungency hovers where a torrid sludge cools.
Its paste casts forbidden clan hues.
Now the wolf craves not easily his like or lean.
He is wary of ghouls in his ranks.
“Gaunt swagger, I see,” he’ll think,
“This one leave be, who with me, shares the gore and the grisly.”
For in drab sheens to drape, shall the countenance daunt.
Browns besmirched will, in ashes, urge, “Yay,
it is he colored wolf.” In airs Lupus, I’ll steep,
strutting meekness purged, brave in cloak gray.
An Omniscient being
do not need the use
of any eye, even if
it being only one.
'Tis a benefit for mere
mortals sense of
reasoning away mere
suspicion, or perhaps
superstition.
A map of the universe
in need of explaining,
are given names to
silence the majority,
is but a ruse.
The true magnitude
that encompasses the
unknown, offers a
challenge none dares
to confront.
The mockery of the
vastness beholden
by the cosmos, is
but a mockery of
simple minds in
little white smocks
that pierce the
heavens through a
looking-glass in
search for answers
to nonexistent
questions for they
are incapable to
express themselves
truthfully, but
quick to settle with
whatever knowledge
that they have had
encrypted based
on earth standards,
hence, THE EYE OF GOD...be
Date: 06/13/2019
Everyone in town knows
Philmon is a mad scientist
It's not his little hunchback buddy
Or the crazy smocks in which he's always dressed
It's not the lighting clouds over his house
Or the strange sounds from which his basement grew
No, it's not any of those things
That gives the town it's clue
It's not all of the darkened birds
That hang out on his fence
Or his subscription to Weird Science Weekly
And on what it is his time is spent
Not even when things always turn up missing
Down at the local graveyard
No, it's the "HONK" if you love Mad Scientists sticker
On the bumper of his car
Drop cloth dreams
It has been found that given enough time
failure will find this destined loser
lurking in gallery tints
and watercolor fault lines
semi gloss replaced by flat
Painting abstract nothings
on a canvas made of words
Broken brushes stain the existing
balance with a voice that collects the remnants
speaking tarnished silver when silence should be golden
Pop art wastelands of dotted balloons
float above the ground where his face falls,
shamed and hidden, in plain sight
with eyes holding quarters of bygone years
melting clocks keep time with his idiocy
Impressionists laugh at his existence
in muted tone chuckles and turpentine snickers
Stretched on easels of dislodged glances
with splattered smocks tied in double knots
one size fits all
This palette of mixed memories
resting on mainstream notions, waits
for the end is sure to come
finding him alone with an empty imagination
and nothing but drop cloth dreams
6/1/17
For the JUNE PREMIERE CONTEST Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Brian Strand
Everyone in town knows
Philmon is a mad scientist
It's not his little hunchback buddy
Or the crazy smocks in which he's always dressed
It's not the lighting clouds over his house
Or the strange sounds from which his basement grew
No, it's not any of those things
That gives the town it's clue
It's not all of the darkened birds
That hang out on his fence
Or his subscription to weird science weekly
And on what it is his time is spent
Not even when things always turn up missing
Down at the local graveyard
No, it's the "HONK" if you love Mad Scientists sticker
On the bumper of his car
Everyone in town knows
Philmon is a mad scientist
It's not his little hunchback buddy
Or the crazy smocks in which he's always dressed
It's not the lighting clouds over his house
Or the strange sounds from which his basement grew
No, it's not any of those things
That gives the town it's clue
It's not all of the darkened birds
That hang out on his fence
Or his subscription to weird science weekly
And on what it is his time is spent
Not even when things always turn up missing
Down at the local graveyard
No, it's the "HONK" if you love Mad Scientists sticker
On the bumper of his car
J ackets made of wool and wearing heavy socks
A nother winter Jack Frost has come to visit
C onstant protection with hand made smocks
K eeping the winter season quite exquisite
F reezing cold weather with temperature personified
R ime incrustations of crystal ice droplets
O paque snow floating above pines to glorify
S un shining through mountains like a coverlet
T hat lavishly Jack makes a perfect couplet.
Date Written: November 27, 2015
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