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Best Poems Written by Garth Von Buchholz

Below are the all-time best Garth Von Buchholz poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Harnessed To the Sun

(Excerpt from “The Dreadnaught”)

We are all harnessed to the sun
Strapp’d to fate’s elliptical orbit
Held by a captor so immense, so torrid,
That we’re flung to each moment,
Delightful or horrid.

Little slack has the harness of fate
Every ripple of change becomes, by its motion,
A billow in Fate’s turbulent ocean
Like Philosophies created by idle notions.

Often wishes pervade the air
For reversal and for altered direction
Of our destined path, for a predilection
But this would cause a dark inflection.

Time the embroiderer weaves our thread
In inimitable pattern till the fabric is done
(As poignant as love, yet lethal as a gun)
Let us not unravel a single one
For surely it is better being harnessed to the sun.

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Coral Reef

Blot this glassy water
With clotted blood;
Dive down, screaming;
Wish upon a starfish;
Stretch my gills and make them lungs;
Make me man, not manta;
Wipe the seaweed from my lips;
Save me, tangled, from your coral.

I have never seen the coral reefs,
Yet I am certain
It is a barrier, 
Cuts the flesh of drowning sailors,
And is as deadly pretty
As a woman’s hair.

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Mad Shadows

Mad shadows dance in the corners of my room
See them sink like paint into the walls 
Hellfire! If they had caught me unawares
Where’s the game in that, my friends, I’d be dead but

I have eyes in the back of my head.

All shades have names, and histories, too
Once crouched like me in shells banded by light,
All definition’s now gone, sparest contrast, and color
Imperceptible new moon black, ultraviolet, infrared…I know, for 

I have eyes in the back of my head.

Ragged words, a crone’s alkaline snicker, 
What do they know, what have they learned, what secrets
Have they witnessed with a hanging jury’s bored deliberation
Though I have smoked their schemes, in my dreamless bed

I have their eyes on the back of my head.

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O Salamander

(A Dream)

O ripe delicious Salamander
Thou beast-fruit
Thou art mine!
O moving morsel
Dangling sun-blessed on a tree
Perching there so sweetly
How I love thee!

Climbing high, the picker’s hand
Snatches forth to capture
The living fruit?
Greater than the others
Greater than the apple, pear or grape is he,
My Salamander.

O walking melon!
Sit still now in my palm
Thou smiling fruit,
Thou art mine!

I slice thy ripe skin cunningly
And cut by cut I love thee
I suck thy simple life
The nectar from thy bloated belly

O tasty Salamander!
Noblest of all tree-babies
I live for thee, my urchin fruit
My melon Salamander.

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The Lean Old Men

The lean old men in my vicinity
wake to find themselves a day older
then turn away from the mirror to reflect
on their miserable circumstance.
Then they masque their decay with cologne,
snap on their one-piece spandex sportswear
and wheel off to meet their ancient colleagues for tea.

Along the way they blast glances at a car
that dares to edge past with its foul exhaustion
until at last, snapping locks onto spoked wheels,
the knights errant mingle at tea, glorious
in their molded aerodynamic helmets.

They are one for all, and all for themselves,
and their speed dials connect to the bank, the spa,
the athletic wear store, the restaurant, and the escort service,
for after their sweat grey romp across town,
they whirl into the finest hotels by the harbor where they strip, shower,
wrap their wrinkles in snow white terry towel shrouds,
and await the knock of their Tuesday morning girl.

From their Victorian styled suites with golden phones for service
they call their brokers and shuffle stocks in their decks till
check-out time. They glare at an insouciant desk clerk
whose obeisance has not been forthcoming and, quickly insulted,
call the general manager and have her job, as promised.

Long, long is the bicycle ride home that stops them for the evening.
wife the third proffers white wine in fluted crystal, laments her
feverish responsibilities as a Matron of the Arts (ignored, of course
by the lean old men who slide into their pyjama suits
and slumber by the fire while Rachmaninoff plays his Second.)

They will die—just not today,
for tomorrow is still their fat child,
waiting to be eaten.

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Hole

(There’s a hole in my heart the world passes through.)

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To My Sister

What lines of mine
can bind you into symmetry?

Can a fence stop a shout?
Silence, a light?

I watch you pass above my imagination.
My words can only lie here
and play at naming 
your shifting shapes.

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My Beloved Is a Makeup Artist

My Beloved is a makeup artist
who once had a vision of Jesus:
head bowed, meek, mercygiver.

She keeps her bruises in a jar
beside the bottle of blood
where she can reach them.

I have a vision of my Beloved

She weaves her crafted strands
into buds and braids,
beards and brows.

Her laughter chimes like
sinners' prayers
to the ear of Jehovah.

The laughter of my Beloved
is as loud as the dead stone
that rolled itself away from despair.

My Beloved knows the face of love
by the reflection in His eyes.

He strokes her short hair as she weeps
He keeps her bruises and her blood.

where He can reach them.

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Elegy To a Hanged Man In Birds Hill Park

And if the winter comes
It will come too soon for autumn
But a branch shall be the angel’s arm
To raise me from the bottom;
I shall not sink into the snow
Nor feel the winter’s dark white breath
For here my eyes shall always open
To the sun; it, to my death.

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Slaying Dragons

In my daughter’s world, fraught with danger,
Sharks swim at the deep end of the community swimming pool,
Long-clawed demons roam the hallways after dusk,
Sea lions emerge from wooded trails to snatch young girls,
And deadly dragons soar over highways. 

In my world, fraught with danger,
Kids crack their skulls on cement and drown in a local swimming pool,
Rapists crawl into bedroom windows and abduct dreaming children after dusk,
Cougars prowling wooded trails clamp little sun-kissed heads in their jaws ,
And deadly drunk drivers explode family cars into red metal on the highways.

Don’t worry, I promise with a half smile,
I can slay dragons.