#0126 - Suppertime Evasions

Meat and grains and vegetables:
Grandpa's cooking on the table.
From the lawn, the kids arrive
and, seated, scheme and duly try
to eat as little as they can.
They try to reach the frying pan
to get their food back off their plate—
return it to its rightful place;
they wait for Pa to leave the space—
to Grandma they will plead their case!
Success! Success! They quickly leave,
for they have fin'lly found their peace.
     They come back to their sleeping racks,
     where they have hidden candied snacks.

#0125 - We will dance

through fires,
and frostbite;
‘neath sunlight
and starlight.

We will leave footsteps
—pellucid relics
of spirits lifted high
and worries hung to dry.

There’ll be paths where we’ve been:
Waltzes in the frost of snow,
Polka ‘pon the coals of fire,
Charleston in the sands of time.

The world will tell
a simple tale:
Entranced,
we danced.

And everyone will wonder
how, in darkness immured,
we laughed in the night
as we kept our sights centred
on the light of our gaze
and our endless embrace.

#0119 - A Moment Amongst Sunlit Waves

The sun-streaked waves, they roll across
the ocean's tranquil, sapphire blues.
The sun, while watching many ac-
-res, colours skies with splendid hues.

All moments turn to memories;
although they're gone in rapid time,
their lucid shadows never cease
to paint a landscape in your mind.

So take your senses, dive within
the sky, the sea, the sun, the rain—
they won't again, while you still live,
appear the same as on this day.

#0111 - 30 Days

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 30}

These varied rhymes
'cross 30 days
have found their way
through different styles.
The month has gone,
but coming times
should soon bring on
new written lines
continuing
to sing like songs
or strum like strings.
Rights and wrongs
     will always ling-
     -er 'mongst these things.

#0110 - Musings

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 29}

I

I wouldn’t say I’m sober now,
But neither am I liquored up.
I guess I’m just preoccupied
With existential thoughts.

And that is why I seem distraught:
While part of me’s awaiting death,
The second part is clinging on
To this simplistic life.

I’m floating by and trudging ‘long,
I’m hoping that a glimmer of
Enlightenment will find its way
To this imprisoned mind.

I wish I were a bird because
I’d have to move through air instead
Of trudging through these expecta-
-tions, sorely overwhelmed.

II

You’d think that air would rightly be a breeze to travel through.
But something ‘bout these sounds and stares keeps holding back my feet:
These horrid expectations that are always finding me
I’d rather have replaced with clubs or knives of crimson hue.

This populace is filled with people that refuse to care:
A massive presentation of this world’s fatuity.
These ersatz feelings pave the way for thoughts that torture me:
That everyone is simply waiting for my mind to tear.

The stares devoid of any thought replace the dreams of past;
Forgetting what they once lived for, these people are now grey—
Their dull indifference seeks to spread its deadly grip to me.
I’m chained and beat by glares and stares, but hold my ground, steadfast.

III

There are a million paths through life, and e-
-very one is forked to form a million more.

At every gateway there’s a second door
To lead you faster to your final end.

It offers you a short respite, an end
To all the gloomy things that may assault

Your mind and propagate your countless faults,
Which never cease to bring torment and doubt.

Thus, Death is there, awaiting your last bout,
Which drives you grimly, quickly ‘cross the edge—

That ever-present scythe with sharpened edge,
That cloak of darkness standing motionless.

Don’t let yourself be drawn by what Death says;
It’s easy to be happy when some nic-

-eties find you, but not so otherwise.
If life were not made up of darker times,

The better times would not be so sublime.

#0103 - Student's Plight

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 22}

This massive flood of texts and books, so bland
Cannot prepare a student to go on
Or even just to start to understand

The things in which they wish to play a hand.
With frantic grip they must for life cling on:
This massive flood of texts and books, so bland—

It threatens, makes one wish to quick aban-
-don hope and with their tired wits abscond
Or even just to start to understand.

If we say knowledge, wisdom, are both land
On which we must survive, then is it wrong,
This massive flood of texts and books, so bland?

Or is it for each woman and each man
Required to within this life move on,
Or even just to start to understand

The shifts, changing, always moving sands
That form this life's eternal, abstract song?
This massive flood of texts and books, so bland,
Is nigh-impossible to understand.

#0102 - "Patience"

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 21}

If patience lasts for centuries
and rashness lasts for only days,
then which of these is always bound
to go a longer way?

#0098 - Kickstart

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 17}

Acres of mire and
pitchers of fire can't
shift my direction much
more than a breeze. || The
day's here to seize so I
make it my mission to
thrive in this grind and to
leave doubts behind.

#0097 - "J'ai rencontre un homme"

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 16}

J’ai rencontre un homme:

En un café rempli des démons et monstres
il était assis, espérer que le temps
passé avec sa peur, son stress
restaurerait sa innocence épatant.

«Je sais que je suis une proie,» il a dit.
«Je me demande seulement qui
me chasse maintenant; je fais face mes peurs,
mais je trébuche sur formes nouveaux des douleurs.»

Mais il craint quoi; ses vices voulusses?
Son humilité, ou caché égoïste?
«Tous et tous; ces et plus—
c’est l’espoir, c’est la vie.»

#0093 - To Know

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 12}

If I could know a hundred million things,
I don't know if this craving would abate;
or even if an end to these stirrings

can truly come... Can I myself satiate
this cursèd cluelessness? Or am I, now
and always, doomed—wisdom's prison's inmate—

to only, always humble, lowly bow
and, seeking, pray to some enlightened mind
and hope that I can grasp some knowledge? How

am I to keep from staying dully blind?
Or am I to be with this void aligned?

#0086 - Forbidden

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 5}
{Prompt: "Taboo," from Poetry Riot! on Tumblr}

Perpetual Earth:
our home and our hearth.
The disk of our sun
not turning 'round us?
Forbidden.

A dark-coloured man:
him, owning the farmland
that's littered with soil
upon which he toils?
Forbidden.

A woman well-dressed
and clever, no less:
her, raising her hand
or taking a stand?
Forbidden.

A man and a man
to walk hand in hand?
A lady and lady
in shared bed asleep?
Forbidden.

So many things that have been labeled taboo;
are you still surprised that the judgement continues?
Not surprised, I would say,
just a little irritated;
Saddened.

#0085 - Rhetoric of Numbers

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 4}

These numbers and dry formulæ may be,
By blasted inexplicability,
A better piece of poetry to read
Than any word or phrase written by me.
If words in poems are indeed to veil
A meaning that by pond'ring eyes' assailed,
Then digits can be easily availed
To cause these ardent ponderers to fail:
Replace a thought with π or e or 4
Or any of a frankly endless score
Of varied symbols rarely used yet more
Elucidating than one's lingual lore.
     But, rather than with maths be so enraged,
     I'd like to just read poems off a page.

#0082 - Thoughts

{NaPoWriMo 2017 ~ Day 1}

Flowing through the crevices within my mind
Establish reality, which I survive;
To fall or to thrive is
A question of mine and
Whose answer is lost in some ditch of my mind.

#0077 - On Undue Extravagance

I feel as if it isn't hard to write
A poem that can tempt the genius mind.
Weave stories of a turtle with a kite,
And soon in such a mind you'll likely find:
The turtle is a slovenly reject
And, as such, lumbers like an ugly slug
Presenting sloth as something to reject
Else one's life passes like that of a bug.
The kite is brilliant opportunity
Forsaken by a lazy, useless beast
That though we easily can view and see
Flies off into the vastly empty east.
     Though, truthfully, I only wanted to
     Write something for a child in preschool.

#0075 - Nighttime

The window of my darkened room
gives way to moonlight's lunar rays,
and as I sit here, grimly think-
-ing, peace leaves me while silence stays.

Here I think of all and no-
-thing, mind confused and soul attuned
to this strange night where I have quick-
-ly found myself a sullen lune.

I think I think of something, but
I'm not sure what I'm thinking of.
The gears within my head are shift-
-ing as the shadows dance above

my head that rests upon this pill-
-ow softer than my hardened feel-
-ings, catching all my unknown doubts
in restless peace, in restful sleep.

#0069 - Advice

I promise I am not controlled
by failure or by fear.
I simply take advice where I
can find it, far or near.

And I have learned a simple thing
about others' advice:
that those who give wise words are oft-
-en scarred and bruised by vice.

The best advice will come from those
who've rolled and bathed in mud,
and those whose countless leaps of faith
have colored them in blood.

The best advice will come from those
who've felt their kind hearts shatter,
and those who stare at blades and rope
and into murky water.

The best advice will come from those
who've screamed and fought and cried,
and those poor souls who've been betrayed
or to whom others lied.

Though when the times are good the on-
-ly thoughts I need are mine,
in darkness I'll take words of those
whose times are worse than mine.

#0052 - "My mind is often thinking of an end"

My mind is often thinking of an end
To all I hate and, more so, all I love.
I think of how I could somehow append
More time to life: I fear both goat and dove.
Yet flowers never wish they could live on
Once seeds of theirs have spread across the land:
As soon as offspring are assured 'pon yon-
-der hills, they quick succumb to time's bleak hand.
Old canines, felines, insects and the Jay,
Once coming near their end, they simply lie:
They do not dramatize their deaths, and they
Don't mope 'pon knowing that their time is nigh.
     It's strange to know that death I always fear
     When everything its end must one day near.

#0049 - "Don't trick yourself with tinted looking glass"

Don't trick yourself with tinted looking glass.
Experience the passing time with ardour,
For even sun and moon will one day pass.

Though one can't see the Earth in all its mass,
Nor pinpoint each and every linen pucker,
Don't trick yourself with tinted looking glass.

Do not think never-ending growing grass,
Do not think never-ending florid verdure,
For even sun and moon will one day pass.

The world can falsely pretty be. Alas,
Perceiving what it truly is is harder:
Don't trick yourself with tinted looking glass.

Be wary of assumptions quick and crass:
Your moments, gifts, are ephemeral succour,
For even sun and moon will one day pass.

Don't give yourself to thoughtless, dull impasse:
Live in the moment with an innate fervour.
Don't trick yourself with tinted looking glass,
For even sun and moon will one day pass.

#0043 - "Green is not the only hue of nature"

Water flowing through the wooded acres,
Carving paths through Daisy-littered grasslands:
Visions I consider ever sacred.

Feel the grassy carpet with your hands and
Do not fear the clouds that fill the distance;
Knowledge, beauty: both are framed by bookends.

Find your place within this precious silence,
Fearing not the storm that's soon arriving;
Rain is part of nature's peaceful parlance.

Drizzle, rain, for now you're steady falling.
Fill this lush verdure and florid pasture,
Fill this landscape with your silent roaring.

Green is not the only hue of nature.

#0039 - "While walking through this sunlit glade"

While walking through this sunlit glade
Well-brightened by this sunny day,
As I was passing, 'long the way,
I chanced upon a fresh bouquet

Of Daisy, Lavender and Rose,
Whose florid odors filled my nose.
From this bouquet my vision rose;
Among the trees were scattered does.

With wary eyes they stared at me,
Who in their home they first time see;
They wonder who this beast could be,
Residing in their forestry.

The flowers are of lovely hue,
But stirring fear I'd quickly rue;
And so I move along in lieu
Of picking florid red and blue.