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Best Poems Written by Jeff Troyer

Below are the all-time best Jeff Troyer poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Jeff Troyer Poem

Nymphs

Sometimes 
I write poems about
 Wine and other essential
 Molehills of Life at 
4 AM when 
Bacchus is still awake
Conniving in 
Sheer revelry at the
 Mere notion he invented
Satyrs and other
Preternatural nymphs.
Speaking of nymphs, I relish the whim that at 
4:10 AM or thereabouts, if I rush outside into the
 Oozing Black Syrup, I might brush against one,
Intentionally.

Details | Jeff Troyer Poem

Down the Mountain

Down the pine-studded mountain and towards the sea
Me, mounted on a rickety, swaying, desperately-desiring bus,
Floorboard splotched with rusted holes revealing
tires
Below my feet 
and salted sea wind soon
Breathing down my neck.

The Luzon day stretched before me, road
Singing in it's curves
drowning out Philippine faces painting 
 Collages of
colors and years.

Revealing Spanish lighthouses beckoning
Lost souls and
Galleons
Scattering gold onto
ivory shores.

One hour later,
Nerves frayed from endless bumps,
I tumble onto the palm-fringed beach to 
Witness
Waves cresting like glittering
Champagne and  a 
Delicately worn grandmother  being
Gingerly dipped into the 
Azure Softness like a
 Queen Cat in a 
Cherub's cradle.

Details | Jeff Troyer Poem

At the Vfw Post In Buang, Phillipines

At the VFW Post in Buang, Philippines they know Macarthur
Staggering off then
Swaggering back onto
These Philippines Islands and the
 Wail of Hirohito
Drowning in chorus with the headsman’s gush of 
Bloodstained tears
Upon the occasion
Of Bataan
Remembered.

Then in repose off old Mactan, there still smiles
 Lapu Lapu in his 
Billion particles
Drifting a sea to the 
Portuguese dance of
Forgotten melodies while 
Sugarcane hills
Rise in symphony for Jose Rizal and the 
Three hundred and some odd year smoldering hue of
 Senior Legazpi 
Clutching the 
 Sunrise brilliant over 
Manila
Gleaming.


For the sand still whispers to the 
 Prodigal bow of 
Yamashita’s gunboat and the  
 Mindanao lair of two old samurai 
Forever glistening in the jungle deep as
 God’s Perfection crescendos to the 
Indefatigable,
Invincible,
Infinitely indelible thought that 
Battle,
Broken in all man can make,
Fades
Forever.  

So when does Empire reek
It’s savage 
On the splendid meek
In lands long gotten over
 Purchased souls as the 
Old boys
 Master around 
Three dollar specials and the 
Endless clink of San Miguels join
Hank Williams in an aging jukebox
Carefully laid for one night,
When all the glories of a thousand years are
Wonderfully recited in an 
Afternoon when a 
Sunglass wearing, 
Corn-cob pipe-smoking,
“Look at me now” presence of a 
Gangly man
Dashed ashore in the 
 Post mortem swelter of a
 Gallant soldier’s 
Passing?

September 2009 Jeff Troyer

Details | Jeff Troyer Poem

I Once Awoke

I once awoke in a
Storm of color
When the Persian sky of
Scheherazade made lovers quiver and
Table milk
Spilled in luxury over your
Perfected fingers.

It was only later
When the sweet scent of
Decades dripped from my
Gaping mouth and into the
Wanton cusp of
Persepolis’ urns did I stop to
Ponder your
Magnificence.

Trembling still, I did
Swoon
Not once, Nay
Twice in the
Lore we wrapped so
Neatly beneath that first
Sunrise
Traders
Entwined in our
Foreverness and in the
Oozing chalice of
Wine we
Bore to the
Altar

Details | Jeff Troyer Poem

Luck

Not long ago yet an epoch away
 I lurched upright 
Morpheus interrupted by
Mid night soul fuel running on
 Vapors
Long since evaporated in the 
Still born heat of an
Asian summer
Wanting.

Only to realize
Where is love if
Anger wells   
Magnanimous
And me
Fortune's fool compared to
Hmong refugees hidden
Jungle deep in 
Northern Laos as
Armed soldiers hunt them 
Like Pennsylvania deer
Caught in the headlights of the
Machine?  

And here I am 
Incarnated 
In whole
Lucky lot of six billion
Or more
Stars lined up
Vishnu smiling
While the not-so-distant memory
Of lost friends
Mingles 
With thoughts on 
Carpe diem and a
Modest man
Sari wrapped
Spinning Thoreau 
Still firing shots of peace across the bow of
Humanity.

Jeff Troyer March 2008

Details | Jeff Troyer Poem

Cambodian Cote D'Azur

“Cambodia is
Cambodia but not really
Cambodia.”
That’s what some say
As the years roll on
Forty years or so since Pol Pot and his pals posted
‘Year 0”, 
Sent the whole thing to the wash,
 And it came out 
Red.

So now I recline on
 Sun built beaches
Night into Day 
Sandwiched between gaggles of
 I-pod armed youth
Just escaped from a 
Lifelong sentence,
At least for a summer,
Dazzling at spectacle like
Fire girls twirling Prometheus though
 Black holes in moonlit nights
Starless
Sipping 
50 cent beer 
While the unmistakable drift of 
 Marijuana 
And Xanadu
Sifts my senses into 
 Now.

While on the hill
 There lies a Frenchman,
Freshly stabbed,
 Epee-like
By a speed crazed barmaid
On a pockmarked lane where 
Money meets desire
In the still born heat
Of an Asian night
Falling.


.

Which makes me reconnoiter
 Deadwood and Dodge
Earp and James 
When law went desperate
Beneath a hangman’s noose
And the certain pall 
Of afternoon death lay
Reeling
In the century or so since
The requiem. 


But can this be their
 Cote d’Azur as
 Newly dubbed Khmer warriors like
 Sable Palms 
 Surge skywards beside the
Sensual rhythm of 
Casuarina trees 
Purging the past to conjure
 Bygone glory a
Millennium or so ago
At a place just up the road named
 Angkor Wat
Soon to be renamed
Disneyland Cambodia?



Jeff Troyer (2009)

Details | Jeff Troyer Poem

Once

Once, 
About ten minutes ago in the year 
2006 or 
2549, depending upon which avatar or
 Messiah is consulted, I  
 Tumbled out of my bed to the 
Untranslatable 
Predawn
 Cackle of 
Frantic voices
Descending.
 
So, with urgency
 Rarely experienced since the 
Evacuation of my spirit
From the Land of
Possession Addiction, I was called to summon previously 
Unknown prowess 
Chancing traffic choked streets
Of Nakhorn (used to mean “New City” 700 years ago but not sure now) 
Chiang Mai.

So there I was
Aboard my mostly pint-sized for a European descendent Kawasaki 112,
Red-blooded American head 
Protruding 
turret-like out of an
Undersized helmet that,
If nothing else,
 Officially pronounced me foreign
 Blazing a jutted path around 
Decrepit trishaws,
Ubiquitously red baht busses and,
Not the least, a motorcycle with a sidecar bandaged to its
 Aching side just in time to witness a
Spit-shined just out of the wrapper BMW 
Brusque aside a
 Sardine packed dump truck
 Loaded, 
Not with dirt, but five dollar a day 
Laborers.

All this and more
 Just moments before
 Mounting the silted Ping and
 Stampeding city gates, I glimpsed
Censored Snippets of TV reports blurting something unintelligible like
 “Bangkok coup”,
“Corruption”,
“A King”
And
Somewhere,
Quite uncensored, of a not so pleased
 Laozi,
Lotus splayed in
Meditation
Kneading the Eastern soil one 
Daoist grain at a time,
 Before ancient city walls
Rose up,
Monolithic in my path. 

And then the recall that
Centuries before,
Burmese raiders
Resplendent in warrior garb
Plundered the palace and soul
Of the kingdom Thai before stealthily
Creeping back to their lairs,
Buddha-fat with riches.

That leaves the Siamese of 1935
 And me, to wonder
Where is freedom
When we travel so far 
Pell mell and
 Peril, only to discover
 In a fleeting brief moment the road to 
Iniquity marked, rather
 Erroneously, with the signpost to
 Promises?

Details | Jeff Troyer Poem

I Wish I Had Time For Poetry and Plays

I wish I had time for poetry and plays
My mind allowed 
As I watched the same aged, bespectacled monk
For about the fifteenth time this month
 Patter his bare feet
Upon the pavement
Of the dust filled lane.

 Leaving me again
 To contemplate
  Broken shards of yesterday
In a faraway land that reminds me of
 Secret Pacts made
To myself
 In the time when
Getting too busy was never an option.

These the promises
 Made in Nepalese skies
 below the Lost Horizon
Of the Dalai Lama
Where,
I could not see
 The coming years that would
 Tumble earthwards
Like over ripe plums.
Nor the red Lama
Perched on an Annapurnan cliff
Chanting
Melodic verses
Centuries old 
 Tying a 
Red ribbon round my
 Wrist and soul.

There they lay.
 Meditations that never were,
Given by Siddhartha, Confucius and, even a carpenter, from
Somewhere
Around
The Middle East.
Additionally,
They have even appeared 
In soiled books, 
Ashrams on the Ganges,
Scribbled on bar room napkins and
 Occasionally
 Confessed to
 Unsuspecting passersby.

Where are these ruminations now
As the pages stick 
Like books rarely read
In villages unseen
By streams only heard? 
When all I want 
Is a little respite from the traffic that
 Hums next to the
 Lane that is just beside my
 Patio where that same monk will 
Rise up 
Early, don a saffron 
Robe and greet dawn both eyes 
Smiling. 


Jeff Troyer
2006 (Chiang Mai, Thailand)

Details | Jeff Troyer Poem

Where Will We Be? (One For Ms. Becky)

Where will I be?
When your plane bursts the clouds
On its way back home
To your boys’ embrace and Asia 
Dissolves
Like a forgotten stopover
On another ticket to Destination 
Life.

So where will I be?
When the softness of your hair 
Cascades gently into your 
Tall form to 
Tilt its magic and I suddenly remember it’s
Just a memory in the 
Faded album of my 
Never taken
 Photographs.

Think too,
Where will I be? 
When dearest Julie asks,
“Is Ms. Becky coming back?” 
As the dots on her page
Won’t connect and I can’t find 
You,
 Freud, or even 
Carl Jung between 
Them or 
Me
For that matter.

 


Where also will I really be?
As Friday light fades to black
And thoughts of you,
Sabbath and all,
Pour across me like 
Overflowing wine
Not to mention the
 Jewish motherhood article you 
Lovingly slid in the
 Inbox of my soul
Only later to be taken out when 
Fatherhood gives me the
Long awaited 
Call.

Where too will I be?
 When a simple moment on a 
Simple day 
Meeting you in the hallway
Turns 
To a not so simple but hugely important
Discussion on writing and other tidbits like 
“God”
That we somehow managed to sprinkle
 Surreptitiously on our path to
Everywhere.


Where oh where will I really be?
When I can’t find the words in
 Tattered poems that
Float 
Flotsam and jetsam
In the notepad of my mind
When all I can think of is 
You
Outside some brownstone in Brooklyn
Same lean, same smile
Arms probably crossed
Hail a taxi to 
Another way station of
 Tomorrows.



Which leads me to what I really think which is, 
Where will
We be?
Ms. Becky Ann Schecter
When
 Ten years on,
Another continent, another school, 
Years 
Oozing the truth, a Lakota elder,
Face
 Grooved to perfection reminds us in 
Sioux, 
 “There is no word for goodbye.”



Jeff Troyer
December 2007

Details | Jeff Troyer Poem

Feathers

Like feathers gliding
Snowflakes greet amber earth
Winters´ faint  hello.