As Any Children Will

Their god was mad when they ate from
The tree but was his fury a result
Of having his children gain their knowledge
The knowledge they no doubt deserved,
Or was it from their disrespect of him?

How often have you seen parents command
Their children but then not explain to them
Why things they do are wrong or give a true
And valid reason for their righteous rules?

June 19 to June 29

What Is True Adversity

Upon opposing true adversity,
    There are two plans the Gods may have in store:
    That after struggling you shall try no more,
Accepting how it was not meant to be,
Assuming you've averted tragedy.
    However, obstacles also insure
    Upon succeeding you'll truly adore
The things that you have gained in victory.
The threat is never that one option's wrong --
    It's that one option's right, and that the choice
    That you will make is sadly incorrect
To that, I say man's willpower is strong,
    And that in these decisions we rejoice,
    And plow on through without time to reflect.

June 29

A Scholar's Work

A scholar’s work can never be complete,

    For by its restless nature it will yearn

    To travel far beyond mortal concerns,

To capture the abstract with the concrete.

The world will always offer reams replete

    With brisk experience: The seas that churn,

    The breathing earth, the trickster suns that burn;

The scholar’s drums shall permanently beat

Onwards towards the next fruitful conquest,

    But when each takes their prisoners of war,

As ancient Romans did when they progressed,

    All captured things, from sky to lowly shore

Shall gain free reign, and never be oppressed,

    And made dear friend as both look on for more.

June 27

Unravel Me

Unravel me -- Untwist me til I am undone
I will not privilege everyone
By letting them untie my knots.

June 26

The Clover Patch

The clover patch
Sat with a clever low cross hatch
And waited for a bee to come.

The aching bark
Was host to an old meadowlark
And mutely waited for a scratch.

The sky was numb
And desperate for whispers from
A wind that cannot meet its mark.

June 25

Seven Years Spent Sadly Unfulfilled

I
With seven years spent sadly unfulfilled
The game’s afoot: It’s time to breathe a life
Matured with airs most clear and undistilled.
I shall not let impediments cause strife
No matter if the calendar is rife
With darkened days or if it is obscured;
There shall be none to wound then twist the knife
Inside of me, for now I am self-cured,
And understand all my troubles can be endured.

II
A smiling face should be bestowed on all,
And confidence considered a virtue
To be rationed for when worries befall
The boiled brow given out for review.
No movement should be taken, old or new,
Wherein a lack of passion dulls the earth;
And those you love, entrust that they love you
In every way that you love them with worth.
Above all else, in each thing find a cause for mirth.

III
This life in quest of further life remains,
As long as life in any form persists,
The noblest one all humans entertain,
The grandest reason why we should exist.
If from this vaunted path I must desist
I know that I, like sunrise, will return,
For upon you I have tried to insist
My way of living is the best to learn,
And your example shall beget mine own in turn.

June 23-24

The Porter

The porter tipped

His hat towards the passenger.

The porter tipped

His hat towards the lady, gripped

Her bags over the barrier

But as she was a traveler

The porter tipped. 

June 23

Pine Trees

Pine trees,
Dead from the neck below, are my neighbors,
Lush in verdant livery
Until they show their knobby knees.

They pack like crowds at winter bus stations,
Waiting for vessels that do not arrive
Unless with snarling maws or crackling brights.

First to arrive, hungry and thin, eager to please,
But so soon shaded and eclipsed
Lingering until their bristled skeletons
Chatter through windows,
Fill my doors.

Finished June 23

I Crawled Atop a Lofted, Craggy Hill

I crawled atop a lofted, craggy hill
With neither safety nor my own well-being
Concerned; With full intent of taking fill
Of the sight offered; To be seeing
A world majestic and so unrefined
That one with poet's prowess would be sore
To not capture its awful grace in mind,
And translate it, stripped from mantle to core.
But as so often happens, any peak
Can be too high for one unlearned as I,
And then an intimate, but not unique,
Collision with reality is nigh.
    Glossed wings of wax could hardly elevate
    That which carries such egotistic weight.

June 23

While Walking in a Grove of Wooded Shadows

While walking in a grove of wooded shadows,
    I startled just to notice, far too late
    That as I strode, each step brought darkened weight
Upon my drawn shoulders, mocking the boughs
That drooped with sunken pride in solemn rows.
    Ahead, a noble break of light was bait
    For all my hopes: It seemed a quickened gait
Could have saved me, so had I chose,
But as I came more near the searing light
    I saw shadows within it, streaked and grim;
The tree I was beneath was such great height
    It made all sights before me shrink and dim;
I should have known my path would so benight
And so obscure intention, wrong or right.

June 21

The Longest Day of Summer

Now what does such a primal heat entail --
The Delphic whispering of things to come
Or merely newborn summer's humid veil,

The sun-kissed arrows of a flower from
The bow of Apollo, in which the heat
Can cause a plant to thrive or make it numb,

Or forged as Vulcan's hammer beats
Where temperature leads not to passion,
But to a sullen, bitter pressure replete

With wishes of what could have been, now gone --
All washed away in the cruelest fashion.

June 20

Chariot Ride

Before you lead me down that weary road

    Please tell me best intentions are in place

    And that your chariot’s fair, measured pace

Will not upset the flowers I have stowed

Upon my blouse – Persephone once rode

    A ride less rude than yours! And Hades’ grace

    No doubt was worth the lumping, cold embrace

As she plunged towards his cavernous abode.

Don’t tease me with these dreams of days gone by,

    And just give to me something fresh and clean –

    I’ll learn nothing if you are not novel –

No ride as this will impress me – Apply

    Your thoughts not as a vague creative machine

    But so that those like me will drool and grovel.

June 18-19

Rules of Poetry

To try to find the words to say --
To put the right words in their place --
To build coherent complex thought --
To make such labor less than job --
And to develop one's own voice.

June 19

A Little Bird Sat Down Upon The Sill

A Little Bird sat down upon the sill
And offered to me all that I could will.

June 17

Backyard Bird Songs

Someday, when not engaged, I will repose
And close my mumbling mouth and eyes as well
And flourish, harking to the birds that chose
My wooded yard and neighborhood to dwell.
Without superfluous tinkles and sounds,
    Without distractive moods,
        Without another soul present,
A study of nature's songbook is found:
    A nourished, mental food
    Overpassing all else that is pleasant.

My hope remains that when I stand, I shall
Be able to identify the songs
Of each and every bird, and so recall
At any time beauty, through crowded throngs,
Through bustling boredom, languishing laments
    And remain creative
        Because within those melodies -
Within each family, all birds accent
    The self-same song - it lives
    In strains with variation endlessly.

June 10, 16

On the Dry Riverbed - Short Story

I have completed my first short story. It can be found here:

On the Dry Riverbed

Total word count is 418 words. There are more stories to come through the summer, perhaps.

The Lazy Eye

The lazy eye is more than just a sign

    Of native physical deformity

    It is a roaming curiosity,

While one is tethered, although not confined,

To solid reason of the worldly kind

    The lazy eye’s adventurous and free,

    A sailor of the lofty sky’s warm seas

A voyager, imagineer, benign

And so often a thing benevolent

    Proclaiming to the world, yes, I may gaze

    But while I speak to you my thoughts are spent

Determining just how the moonlight plays

    Upon the walls and where the lost time went.

    The lazy eye ponders, observes, and strays.

June 15

Opposite Direction

It is far easier to meet
People who travel in the
Opposite direction from
You, as they are turned to face
You. Even though you can relate
Far better to others like you
They are too far ahead or too
Far behind to communicate

June 15

Far From His Canaan

Beyond the downward recess of the hill
And past the sunken garden and graped vines
The morning air was drunken with the wine
Of the clear river's make. And standing still
Against the water's swollen, dimpled banks
Was our fair man, who'd waded through the grime
In some persistent quest towards the sublime
Not knowing how much truth was in the dank
But having found, in spiritual sojourns
Before some sort of primal comfort nested
In the grasses and the trees suggested
Nature once more could provide what he yearned.
The river lazed and fowl grazed beyond
And all around the plants that propagated
But these motions could seldom be related
To the man that held fast; it never dawned
Upon him that he was no closer to
A true solution than if he remained
Uphill and had not ventured out, restrained
The active voice that he'd once miscontrued,
And hence had brought him far from the abode
Where he'd developed and transformed beneath
The sweltered summers' dry, constrictive sheath
And not heeded the symbols that forbode.

Too long ago, the Lord appeared aflame
And at the darkest hour he was weak
The sun long gone, the pallid moon too meek
And so susceptible as he, no blame
Can be given for when he blindly went
Far from his Canaan, and its Georgian plains
And settled by these river banks, a vain
Attempt to find meaning - A lost fragment.

Written May 27 to June 14
A fragment of an unfinished narrative poem - soon to be turned into a short story with more focus and intent.

The Saddest, Faintest Man

The saddest, faintest man that one could meet
Is one who hides within one thousand faces,
Who thrusts a hand, forces himself to greet,
Then turns to whispers, leaving not a trace
Or impression of gravitas, whose glee
Comes not from his within, but his without,
Who crouches deep in personalities
That cast his star in night, and fosters doubt
Towards the luster of its glossy shine,
And smugly sneer that no heat radiates
From this suggestion of the high divine,
This one so forcefully ingratiates
Himself that he is now but a shadow,
We are aware of him, but do not know.

June 13

The Sweetest Thing

The sweetest thing I never saw was there
    That night, when I lingered, did not attend
    That which I had been bidden to by friends –
And sweet! Oh sweetest thing so hid, so rare
That night I robbed myself the chance to share
    In all their revelries! I now amend
    What might have been – I vainly try to fend
Imaginations of that thing so fair  –
And were I there that night would I complain?
    Would I have fought to part with all good haste?
    Now, surely I would have struggled and strained
And bartered to have somehow been replaced
    Now that I know I feel I must explain –
    To lose an evening's to turn sweet to waste.

June 12