The staff of my Father enjoining the past
futurity’s herding a bleating morass
The bloodline of orphans forever is linked
tattooing the flock with invisible ink
The first time the last time when nearing the end
tomorrow’s ungifted excuses portend
And times better nature is better untimed
beginning and ending forever conjoined
Eternity’s fenceposts hem in with disdain
all future inclemency fire and rain
But just as that last final sheep stays unsold
— my Father returns to re-shepherd the fold
(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)
Categories:
ungifted, father,
Form: Rhyme
Sometimes the naturally gifted
are without a flake of ambition
and the thoroughly ungifted
have the ambition of a raging river.
The wallflower wishing to be alone
seems to attract a murder of crows
a social butterfly's world will contract
into a black hole of pure emptiness
A snake with a taste for blue sky eggs
makes its way through the uppers of discomfort
and the bird must plunk to the ground for seed
only to be pounced upon by the fanged unseen.
The un-writer has a fatal addiction to quill
and the one who paints rainbows in thought
has a chronic case of writer's block.
Gods humor.
Categories:
ungifted, god, humor,
Form: Free verse
What is the age
of reality itself
Older than
a metaphor
Unreferenced
on a shelf
What is the distance
unmeasured from within
Spoken of
but never seen
A poets
dying whim
What is time uncounted
as numbers lose their clout
The hourglass
returned to sand
An abacus
in doubt
What is love ungifted
but feelings’ last excuse
To roam unlinked
between the chains
And blame it
—on the Muse
(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)
Categories:
ungifted, time,
Form: Rhyme
In the deaf woods of curious willows
lies stalwart beliefs of days bygone.
Retribution, restitution, resolution
resolve, beginning our journey.
Blinded by bewares of sours ungifted
lost constitutions coagulate.
Lamenting gargoyles grin in reside.
The lost, given to hateful
brawls detonate heaven and earth.
Solemn potentials greet our solice of
batteredin-betweens. Spores of negativity
parade the sovereign coming storm.
Holy mountains of Nosfreatu thoughts
reek of broken lenses of scum
serpents, a continuous path to an
Event Horizon, a culture of patterned
violence to dog days of uncoiled reckoning.
Leviathan pipe dreams of nauseating
Oblivion, casts a universal dark shadow
How many tears to reflection?
Categories:
ungifted, cancer, death, senses, violence,
Form: Free verse
she livened the world
with her songs
one day the hippo
heard her sing
he looked up
and insulted her beak
she stared at her reflection
in the water
the hippo was right
she was one ugly fowl
she was one ungifted bird
she swore never to come out again
she swore never to sing again
while she sits still
the world is silent
waiting for nightingale
to sing
Categories:
ungifted, bird, confidence, courage, dream,
Form: Free verse
Each expends their skills
upon the ungifted mass
who labor their praise.
Categories:
ungifted, boxing day , character, destiny,
Form: Senryu
My name is unimportant,
I can barely speak out loud.
Your beauty strikes my heart
And I am in a cloud
I love you, pretty lady.
More than the woman that works at Denny’s.
Your hair is like fine straw,
And colored bright like honey.
If I were sw’ave and classy de…bonair,
I would buy a horse and take you to the movies.
I am a little left of right and up from center.
But I know you are the one.
Marry me, Princess of the rainbow.
Color my world with crayons, let them never bleed.
Make me laugh and sing,
My very best friend, My future, My queen.
Categories:
ungifted, age, angel, anniversary, courage,
Form: Free verse
The signpost a warning
a resting black swan
Its flight to perdition
last call from beyond
With roses ungifted,
their thorns bury deep
Last moon a reminder
a reckoning steep
The doctor’s watch broken
your time shorter still
His prognosis a token
beyond suture or pill
He asks if you’re ready,
you say that you’re not
You ask if it matters…
the main lesson untaught
And into the night
you try once again
To find deeper meaning
to reach beyond blame
But those last final minutes
only serve to remind
What the jaded and hoping
—are never to find
(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2014)
Categories:
ungifted, hope,
Form: Rhyme
for Nancy Cockerham
History does not repeat itself?
Oh Yes, She does. She sent me
a sister from other lifetimes, a gift
ungifted in ordinary timelines.
A motherless child needs a sibling
waif, gifted in place with canvas and paint
to my paper and ink, to heal in part
the wounded heart,
and even more, She settled the score
with best surprise, patrician beauty
in the physical guise, conjoining
with impunity positive and negative:
AB and O, as in the blood, so to speak,
a fortuitous mix unlikely to re-
peat and destined to meet--the Giver
not given to common conceit.
Categories:
ungifted, best friend,
Form: Bio
for Nancy
History does not repeat herself?
Oh Yes, She does... She sent me
a sister from other lifetimes, a gift
ungifted in ordinary timelines.
A motherless child needs a sibling
waif, gifted in place with canvas and paint
to my paper and ink, to heal in part
the wounded heart,
and, even more, She settled the score
with best surprise: patrician beauty
in the physical guise, conjoining
with impunity positive and negative:
AB and O, as in the blood so to speak,
a fortuitous mix unlikely to re-
peat, and destined to meet-- the Giver
not given to common conceit.
Categories:
ungifted, friend, friendship,
Form: Blank verse
Beware of the ungifted
and the unreal
They lie in dark shadows
looking to steal
all your ideas
and creativity.
(January 25, 2011 Wausau, Wisconsin)
(c) Copyright 2011 by Christine A Kysely, All Rights Reserved
Categories:
ungifted, imagination, on writing and
Form: Lyric
I was climbing up a ladder on a day
with a cool breeze purring through the roof gutters.
The wind would dip and run inside the open metal
canister then shoot up with the unforgiving wall
at roof’s end…
That upthrust would meet my rising hair
with a foosh reminding me of ungifted rewards,
like spinning windmills our air is happy and free
while I climb the satoric rungs for a vision clearer
than the ground below…
Space between the thoughts is what we are trained to see
And as those continents tread away from each other
The mass of men’s woes storm along breathless air
Like a cannonball bringing to smoke and cinder
All my grasping mills, shuddering in the wind—let go!
I put the ladder away and walk back into the garage.
I listen attentively to my breathing as I open the
screen door that leads to my kitchen that leads
to my living room carpet where I will lay down
and count all my blessings…
…until I fall asleep.
Categories:
ungifted, life
Form: Free verse
Bitten fruit in still life oils
shined by light internal
shows there is no sweet perfection
immortalized eternal
Portraits crunched, pureed and such
by hands dissolved, ungifted
wipe the paint from canvas skin
until the stains are lifted
Soak the sky with thoughts of art
Speak like a simpleton speaks
Scour the ground for a speck of emotion
to hoard in your hollows for weeks
Reconcile to read a book
Bury your heart in it's sleeve
At the moment you feel like a still life imperfect
you humbly ask and receive...
Categories:
ungifted, angst, art, imagination, life,
Form: Quatrain