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Best Poems Written by Leo Larry Amadore

Below are the all-time best Leo Larry Amadore poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Things That Seemed Poetic

Things that seemed poetic were
always sad, though I yearned for
glitter and my dad's guffaw, which
never came. Familiar things were 
always drear -- repeated motions 
in the same old game. There were 
only distant glimpses of budding
Spring, fleeting views of daffodils. 
The strongest poems dealt me 
death and dying. Still, I always 
hoped, never went under to gray 
despair, forever dreaming of a 
garden of love we could share -- 
but those forbidden delights 
faded quickly away. The only reality
I understand is the ever-looming
and final one. Nothing's changed.
The strongest poems deal 
death and dying.

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Things Change

A quote from "90 North" by Randall Jarrell:
"I see at last that all the knowledge
I wrung from darkness -- that the darkness flung me --
is worthless as ignorance:  nothing comes from nothing,
The darkness from the darkness.  Pain comes from the darkness.
And we call it wisdom.  It is pain."

The first bike I ever owned -- 
when I was ten or eleven --
was a Christmas gift
from a friend.  He was receiving a new one
and I was gifted with his old bike. 
He had cleaned it up and brush painted it 
with a nice coat of red paint.
It was the only gift I got that year,
one of my only gifts as a child.
I loved that bike:
it freed me to pedal around so
I could accompany my friend 
as we rode anywhere in our tiny,
sandy, two-paved-road fishing town. 
Before the bike, I ran alongside him.
I was quite accustomed to running everywhere,
especially in summer, barefoot, usually shirtless.   
Most years from first grade 
until we were about twelve, 
we spent our time together,
at his house or in imaginary jungles
or on wild, indian-infested wagon train trails.
We defended those trails from apaches
intent on taking our scalps. 
Sometimes, on pirate ships, we manned canons
or forced reluctant traitors and mutineers
to walk the plank for failures and misdeeds. 
We were never bored, usually outdoors.
On jungle safaris we were frequently attacked
by ferocious lions and tigers and 
often captured by cannibal head-hunters
who put us into large pots to cook us
while dancing all around and brandishing
their spears.  They sang or chanted
amazing, invented language repetitive
verses overloaded with frequent "ughs'
and tongue-twisting nonsense phrases.
His mother served us gallons of Kool Aid,
gave us snacks we ate with relish.
With a child’s trusting nature,
I hoped this could never end –  
I felt secure in friendship and
apparent acceptance by 
my friend’s parents. Of course,
things did change.

But..........I did not.
Not for a long, long time.

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My Sister Says

My sister says
               my father was a good man --
but, how should I, 
                        who never "knew" him
    (except as a far-from-good man)
          buy her stories?
                        Am I, the last child
   of that union, 
              too, too judgmental?
     Too far removed in time from 
                              what she knew 
    and now recalls?
My memory is of a different man, 
              who died when I was twenty-two:
       one rarely present, never talking, 
often jailed,
                      unsupportive -- 
  someone I really never knew.
He was no bearer of familial tales, 
              no imparter of the history
                       now I only wish I'd heard...
Obviously, I differ from my sister 
          about what constitutes a good man.
He never seemed to feel that he
      needed to provide basics --
                  food, shelter, clothing, health care --
  to his offspring -- and he almost never did......
         I do remember how he staggered 
            on the street,
                             fell off of curbs, 
sought shelter 
                       and often could be found
asleep -- or at least 
                  stretched out unconscious --
                                          in some vacant lot; 
how he foraged 
                  frenziedly
                                   about for beer, 
or only Gallo muscatel 
                          (thirty-five cents for the flask).
Should I not ask 
                what makes my sister think
                         I could remember him as does she?
In such a different light?
                                   As victim,
                                               and maligned
              by inlaws or by circumstance?
All I know is what I do remember,
               what I survived
                           when she and others,
 grown, were gone.
 
I do not think 
                that I can accept
                                 or change
(nor in absentia, forgive) --
                        and, no, I do not yet
                                                        believe
            what my sister says.

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Perception

To see ourselves as others see us --
unmasked images, through others' eyes --
half-formed caricatures, perhaps --
or mere grotesqueries -- 
barely recognized, telling
what we thought to hide --
we'd label these as skewed
perceptions, not real truth...

But, no matter -- when once
I thought myself unfairly judged
and asked "How so?",
I was reminded of the obvious,
i.e.: all outcomes are determined
by perceived attitudes and actions.
Not truth, but clear perception,
pure appearance, guide others' thoughts
and so create the world we live in.

Thus,  however harsh,
"Perception is reality."

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A Random Moment

--- Matamoros, 2:00p.m., December 6, 2014

I sit at this table
(as I have done many times)
wielding a ball-point pen,
with insufficiencies of
thoughts and words --
out of place.
All the while
the two dogs --
Guero and Princesa --
shower their affections,
licking and nuzzling,
in return for caresses,
pats, and gifts of food.
They respond in kind
to attention and gentle treatment.
A nearby train
sounds its horn,
blocks a street,
further clogging traffic
in this unhealthy border city.
The day goes on, time elapses slowly.
It is very warm.
I exchange minimal phrases
with the occupants
of this house.
The owner has just
returned from visiting
his dying elder brother
at the Social Security Hospital.
We leave to visit
an acquaintance in the countryside.
A random fragment
from a life.

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For Suzanne, Green and Golden

“The October night comes down; returning as before
Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease
I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door
And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees.”
----- “Portrait of a Lady;” T. S. Eliot

A golden afternoon,
Late October, and my thoughts
Are all of you, Suzanne…
Vestiges of your being
Appear on visages of 
A hundred different people;
But none are you, not one 
As green,  as golden.

Hard it is to know no miracle
Will mend, no giddy hope assuage,
The scourge that slowly puts an end
To our valiant green and golden girl.
Memory takes us to days of indolence,
Of innocence, of children lying on a levee
Deep in lush, green, summer clover --
In sunlight almost as golden
As your hair -- beside a flowing river
Bearing away your golden hours
And the painless green of youth.
 
Now, in your green room, reclined
In shadow, our golden girl reposes.
Your courage lights the coming night
That does not dim the gold and green
You always shared, and still you share.

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Bill

R.I.P. William Dale Eubanks
d. July 1, 2012, aged 68 yrs., Tennessee Ridge, Tennessee

Death came as no surprise
the first Sunday in July;
it claimed you, on a ridge in Tennessee,
with kin who took you in and waited with you
through the last hard days.
You kept what fears you had well hid,
did not betray with loud complaint
the fate you could not but know awaited.

A smile, a joke, a hug – exotic meals –
And genuine interest greeted all you met.
And you were, certainly, never boring
but well-traveled and smart beyond the telling.
We’ll miss your wit, your bright demeanor,
and will remember all you freely gave ---
and what you took from us
with your passing.

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What Fools

"You shall know the Truth, and the Truth
Shall make you free."


We wait for what will never happen;
the consequences of inaction
may overtake at any moment.
Vaguely felt suspicions foment,
feed uneasiness; words half-formed
hang in air, hover just out of reach,
didactic, but never really heard --
misunderstood, despised, ignored,
or ridiculed...One must not preach!
But harken back to days of yore:
attend, and hear repeated,
as before, and yet once more:
"What fools these mortals be!"
How perfectly descriptive -- of me!

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Louisiana Bayou

"There are those to whom place is unimportant,
But this place, where sea and fresh water meet,
Is important ---"
From "The Rose", by Theodore Roethke

Chilly late October;
thin morning fog banks
the roadside, cloaks
a trickling bayou...
in the thickets of dense trees,
the wispy tufts 
top man-high
goldenrod, Queen Anne's lace,
dried-out thistle stalks...
A school bus, solitary,
yellow, passes on
skinny black asphalt
where wet spots reflect
the newly risen sun.
Rustles of high,
green cane fields and 
intermittent bird songs
interrupt pervasive quiet...
Timelessness, and solace --
calming, soothing --
a Louisiana bayou:
Bayou Sale.

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Human Frailty

...Apologies to Heraclitus and W. H. Auden...

We, defeated by the merest things,
in defeat, endure...for now.

No abiding truth in faith:
origins and destinations
we cannot differentiate,
all random, unguided
by any prescient power;
but, not illogical
(there is no illogic.)

We impose all universal order,
influence what subsequently occurs,
to learn, or not, through endless repetition,
endless failure...and we are
but a current iteration,
here for now -- in constant flux,
defeated by the merest things.

Courage and nobility derived
from continued confrontation,
continued endless struggle,
let us show an affirming flame.