fall down, up again —
smooth stone skips across the pond
each strike rings louder
on its own trajectory
vaulting bouncing once again
bamboo bends in wind
its defiance scars its skin
but it sways unbowed
dancing with rhythm resilient
on seesaw swinging wide ride
taste ash on my tongue
before the fire sets ablaze
to embrace failure
in bread of my own making
kneading loaves for noble rise
Lying in between seasons is a pause,
To look at what's gone on, what's to become.
In Fall, dreading Summer's last curtain call.
In Spring, vaulting to cheer Winter's demise.
The quad-cycle ride brings its surprises.
It taunts, haunts with clockwork compromises-
When we wake up before the alarm sounds,
Or press snooze, to linger on dreams instead.
Drowning the questions never posed nor asked,
Of why shadows shrink when midday is poised.
Or why they're seen at night when sun has flown.
Who steers this whim and flit of sun's time-span?
See if there was an Olympic Games for drugs
Would the use of every drug be expected
All the MJ athletes still at the starting position
in an endless loops of yeah are you alright
72 hours after the gun went
Might have to call it a draw
Ever coke cola fans disqualified for false starts
That guy hit a satellite with a hammer
Pole vaulting changing its name
Someone in the long jump won the marathon
And now at the swimming one of the swimmers has turned into algae and is eating all the competition
But the judges are allowing it
Back to the basketball
Ron reporting
Nope he’s still not come down
Day 54
Back to the studio
The winter stared at me, hollow-eyed and grim,
flakes of snow draped the earth in silence.
My lips quivered, teeth rattling their cold refrain,
and they danced—not with legs, but with their whole bodies.
Then my head went numb, my thoughts unwound,
consciousness slipped beyond the veil.
I soared like the angels—we all grew wings,
new arrivals, lost among strangers.
Before a great gate, we were set apart,
memory severed, the past a whisper.
The snow had risen~an unbroken white peak,
and the trees stood crowned in frost’s embrace.
My eyes grew misty, each tear frozen mid-fall,
my mind still locked in winter’s grasp.
Like thieves vaulting from shattered glass,
memories took flight, then scattered like dew on rooftops.
I searched for myself in pools of melted snow,
but my past had fled like a startled horse.
No trace remained~no pain, no triumphs,
only the wait to whine or wine and dine.
Yet even if a cup were placed in my hands,
the taste of good wine lay lost upon the wind.
Mondo, Mondo -
Your pole wobbles as you run.
Mondo, Mondo -
Pole vaulting, just for fun.
Lunge I must at the choices I've made
Allowed decline dropped permitting slump fall
Yield I surrender I just give in I let go unbind
Plunging I slip, I slide diminish decline
Allowed decline dropped permitting slump fall
Stumble decrement I wane
Plunging I slip, I slide diminish decline
Gambol vaulting hurdle I skip I jump
Stumble decrement I wane
Yield I surrender I just give in I let go unbind
Gambol vaulting hurdle I skip I jump
Lunge I must at the choices I've made
02/24/23
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2023©
Your Heart I want it back, By Davieo, David Rothchild
Your Heart
I want it back
It was always my fervent passionate art
To draw out your laughter, smiles, track
Your feelings, whims, delights, moods
Awesome emotional baked goods
They have a solid place in my heart
Yours in mine so, we are never apart
Your heart, its crushing
Soul building binding love rushing
Into me, so potent, in every moment
Without it life's an unbearable torment
Your golden thrusting sparkling skies
Of love, will me, fill me, thrills my whys
Sets my lightning sky joys floating higher
Fire after fire, after fire, after fire, after fire
Just your looks, your sparking electrifying touch
Rocking soothing velvet skin, means so much
Your masterful magnetic magical melting smell
A forceful winning spell which mighty armies compel
I can see wonderful heaven in your eyes
Joyous of our vaulting love all angels cries
Ascend, that this love should be a compass
For eternal loves, passions that will always last
By Davieo, David Rothchild
Prisoner mortally confined,
plotting your escape like Papillon,
conceiving freedom like a zoo animal.
Then dreaming on,
you meet a flying child in all your mirrors.
Nearly weightless, pulled in every gale,
lifted like a kite,
catapulted high over every trail.
Then dreaming on,
you are the drafty power of your path,
the easy elevation of your flight.
This embedded skill is never forgotten.
Deep within the hippocampus,
your winged Poseidon,
the flying child in all your mirrors.
Then dreaming on,
soaked in sleep, reverie’s seahorse.
Flying child,
free of worldly constraints,
free of torment and angst,
free in oceans and skies,
your tourist anima continues vaulting.
But then, eyes open in the dim grimness,
You remember this cell,
these sad limits of the corporeal.
Yet, how is it that your dreams know more?
Prisoner mortally confined.
Accepted for Publication: The Opiate Journal, spring 2023
Life is a tutor that never ends his speech,
Untiring and zealous,
Life is a door that opens of its accord,
One door leads to another,
Life is walking through a meandering alley,
Fraught with hills and valleys,
Life is pole vaulting over a wall,
The longer the pole the higher the push,
Life is sailing on a sea,
The monsters can't forever be pacified,
Life is standing in the middle of a coliseum,
So many voices and an enemy approaches,
Life is an unseen world,
Mystery rules the day,
Life is a battlefield,
Hope and courage are the weapons.
Life is a race,
We don’t know how far we can go.
August 3, 2022.
Jubilant Joy
Soft
Petals
Of divine
Animation
Bloom when joy births bliss
Jubilant delight in
Ruby radiant clear streams
Then disappears into kindness
To vocalize a portal for hope -
Revelry for souls tormented trials.
Joy’s
Treasure
A frolic
With merriment,
Pure distillation
Of hope’s sweetest nectar,
Solutions for enigmas
A pledge for vaulting elation
Heaven’s child leaps in declaration
To resolve dusk’s sad solitary chords.
2-16-22
Contest: E Forms – Etheree
Sponsor: Constance La France
Poetry is less about form,
and more about content;
less about tradition, and
more about personal light
and revelation –
such penmanship,
truly missals of meditation,
cannons of Spiritual-occasion,
for celebration and sharing –
Seeking less to entertain
with common particulars...
but more, to write refrains
worth a soul's imagined
eternity –
The thrust of autograph, always a sacred
attempt at breaking down prescribed constructs
of punctuation – vaulting walls inhibiting
a heart's true emancipation – the freedom
to be you.
Olympic stuff ain’t easy
I’ve false started many times
At the traffic lights
At meal times
Conversations in the office lounge area
And other events I’d rather not mention
Alright go on then
Let me fill you in
At McDonald’s
At the flipping birds
At peristerophobia
At the park
Pole vaulting is not a dangerous sport
But the internet has told me
Even though a pole requires
A hefty investment
It is necessary
Masterful!
lordly framed
picturesque rain stain
ing icy cap summit’s height,
vaulting off grassy green
pediplain’s sloping foothills,
impinging azure sky’s obscur
ing clouds.
blazing sunbeam painted
freshet rush to where river-rocks
are the fairest.
rosy-finch, gray-crowned,
bathe cross-winds breeze clink
ing conifers lazing at the frost rich shore,
river flow, embolden splendor.
the poetics surrendered?
ingest’d without disturbance,— by us,
graylings are of abound... thus!
This guy didn't waste time hitting me round a hedge
Pole vaulting has its ups and downs
Brian Blessed in costume is that a blessing in disguise
started counting 24 hrs but i called it a day
Went to see the hairdresser at the bend on the road but he was cutting corners
really tired after hitting a bag think i will hit the sack
----------t
-------n
------e
sha b pe
the wether
under
that again
that again
kicked a guy and then told him he was ugly
if my name was block would call my son chip
---e---
---c---
---n---
bl o ue moon
all my poems come with a grain of salt
Volcanos split the earth
Venting the heat within,
Vaulting upwards at rim.
Vermillion-burnt magma
Vrooms the molten lava-
Vailing, melting all paths;
Verily, countless deaths.
May 6, 2021
~2nd Place~
Contest: Pleiades V
Sponsor: Kim Merryman
Judged: 05/07/2021
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