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Best Poems Written by Howard Dion

Below are the all-time best Howard Dion poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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One Day At a Time

When I was young the stress clouds were more reliable, they came and went just like the light of day and the dark of night. As I got older, the stress clouds became more obstinate, seemed more serious, and stayed in my head as permanent residents. Then one day the clouds stopped moving. The dark foreboding clouds just sat there putting pressure on my body like an unattended pot of boiling water. That’s when I got the first message. One of the dark clouds spoke to me in my sleep and said, get your act together; there’s a difference between family and things.

After that, the stress clouds started moving again, changing their position in my head depending on the time of day. The pot of boiling water calmed down and the things got fixed and faded away into the light of day. But the family stress clouds were different. They had more energy and talked to me every day in the language of dying and the language of struggling and the language of trying. The pot of water continued to bubble around the edges making a painful clamor within my spirit.

That’s when I got the second message.  It came from the bubbles and reminded me of an ensemble of singers. The music was warm and inviting and sounded like elegant thinking. Manage the stress clouds one day at a time they sang with an encouraging voice. Manage the stress clouds one day at a time.

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Daylight Savings Time

Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between what’s humorous and what’s not. It’s like trying to understand how daylight savings time impacts your sleep when you work in your yard or when you’re a cop walking a daytime beat on the street or when you’re old and retired and don’t have to set the alarm on your clock.  When it gets warm and the grass starts to grow you spring forward an hour and when it starts to get cold and the leaves fall from the trees you fall backwards an hour. 

I think if the ancient gods and goddesses knew about what we 21st century humans do with our clocks they’d laugh really hard at how we try to manipulate the truth about time with our electronic clocks. Then again maybe they’d get angry at our daylight saving time antics and decide to dim the light of the sun, or hide the moon from our eyes, or make all the white clouds disappear from the sky because they might also struggle like me with knowing the difference between what’s humorous and what’s not.

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The Color of Love

I noticed that a male cardinal who was resting on a branch of a tree seemed annoyed by the cawing crows and the screeching seagulls that think they’re the only ones that have a personal relationship with the clouds in the sky. So this morning I decided to ponder which species of bird goes best with the color of the sky; black like a crow or white like a seagull or red like a cardinal? Then I saw a squirrel climb up the tree and scare a sparrow who was taking a late morning nap so I added the color brown to my debatable mix.  Then a beautiful female cardinal landed on the branch of the tree where the male bird was perched and I suddenly remembered seeing two swans necking in the lake near where I lived and started to wonder about the color of love.

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Dog Haiku

Dogs sniff the brown earth 
Smell the squirrel and rabbit’s feet 
Bark at skunk feet scent

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Slow Down the Clock

When we get old with arthritis in our bones we make thoughtful decisions about the use of our time. We can amuse our grandchildren while our children inhabit their jobs. We can volunteer to help others like a wolf that knows how to hunt. We can do something creative with our hours and work toward an outcome that warms people’s hearts.

We have options about what to do with our days. We can sit alone in our homes like the last drop of water left on a rock, or we can behave like practiced magicians who can slow down the clock with the snap of two fingers and live like an elder who is not afraid of the dark and be more inclined help our family and friends as they voyage down the highway of time.

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Climate Change

I’ve been trying to figure out why five toes on each foot is considered normal, or why two ears and two eyes and one nose is considered normal, or why when I look in the mirror I look older than I did when I was twenty or thirty because aging is considered normal. Then I started to think about all the animals that lived in the jungle and wondered if they thought it was normal to spend a lot more of time hunting for food?  That’s when the study of biology and mathematics and chemistry and astronomy took on a new meaning. I realized that mankind needed the word normal so we would be able to recognize what was abnormal like the amount of carbon dioxide that was polluting the air or the fact that the snow and the rain had become smarter than the Climatologists who thought they could forecast the weather without considering the word change.

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The Spider and the Fly

A tree trunk spider was listening to a conversation between
An elderly Sparrow and a Housefly and got annoyed with how they talked.
So he dropped down in a single strand of silk and said,
“Hey you guys, birds are supposed to eat flies,
Not talk to them like a member of the family!”
“That’s a myth, a legend, a fairytale” said the fly to the spider.
“No it’s not, its Mother Nature’s way,” said the spider to the Housefly.
Unexpectedly the spider moved his legs like lightning strikes
And used his fangs and ate the fly for lunch.
Then the elderly sparrow flew toward the clouds to hide
And the spider went up his single strand of silk to take a nap.
That’s when I woke up from a long winter’s nap
And began to wonder about this Mother Nature lady
Who invented the rules for who could talk to whom, and who could eat who
No matter the time of day or time of night.

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The Snail That Woke Up With a Challenge

This morning I woke up and thought about all the gun violence in America and how the politicians impede the idea of changing the laws and act like a snail that ate too much yellow fungi before going to sleep for the night.  And, after hearing the morning news about Orlando, I started to worry about the safety of my family and friends and my neighbors and the old lady I saw squeezing oranges in the supermarket.

So I decided to calm my thinking and pretend I was a squirrel that was enthusiastic about digging for snails in a carefully manicured lawn. Then I thought about the foxes and coyotes and weasels that would like to bite hard on my skin and began to wonder how I’d keep the fleas and ticks from infecting my hide. 

And, after that momentary wild animal thinking I began to fantasize about changing the political narration around gun control as a human and asked the Ground Squirrels and the Tree Squirrels to each take a stand on banning assault weapons, which is when the Land Snail woke up with a new challenge and spoke about adding new legislation to the mix so he couldn’t legally be eaten by a squirrel.

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Stars Haiku

Squirrels nest on tree limbs 
Rabbits nest in dark ground holes 
Both can see the stars

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Lifes Compass

Being in the moment is challenging 
To our wandering minds when we are asleep. 
But, being in the moment doesn’t have to be challenging 
To our wandering minds when we are awake. 

One State of Being is like a butterfly’s wings
That flap back and forth between the past and the future. 
The other State of Being is like the power behind the wind 
That drives our thinking about life’s compass.

We can think to the north or the south or to the east or the west, 
Or we can think up or think down or think sideways, 
Or we can think in the moment and hear the ticking of a clock 
And remain vigorous and joyful and steer how we travel through time.