Absolute Resolution

Perspective sings these shaded grays awake--
Long not for the surety of your youth
When absolutes were easy ground to stake:
Resolute positions absent of proof.

Maturity brings those faded days to fore,
Introspection births new philosophies,
Incredulity that I was so sure,
Now aware of my mind’s monstrosities.

Black
Black hats in westerns, bad luck from black cats,
Evil easily defined in pictures--
Such simple immemorial combat,
Basing bias on some scripture’s strictures

Shine the light of nuance on certitude:
Social stains once paid such veneration
Often spring from absolute platitudes—
Witness: American segregation.

White
Was a time when polite society
Cherished this immoral privilege.
Racially defining society,
Which is, by any measure, sacrilege

More than race, age, sex, division of creed,
We fall prey to baseless supposition
Showing certitude to justify deed
Seldom contrite of our own volition.

Life presents itself in the subtlest shades:
Chords of certainty birth arpeggios
Trailing our fervent youthful escapades
As certainty fades diminuendo.

Independent thought, born to make contrasts
Examines not just what but also why,
Begging youth's expectations be surpassed,
Asking what purpose Black and White belie

Resolve to witness your remaining days
Examining everything astutely--
Give consideration to all the grays,
Measure the minutia resolutely.

Each Branch A Memory

I love the Christmas season with its twinkling little lights,
Stockings hung and gifts under the tree,
Whose ornaments bring memories of erstwhile Christmas nights
Playing games with all the family.

Young and old would gather round to feast and celebrate
Playing cards and watching football games,
Helping younger cousins set up toys or make a plate,
Taking pictures meant for future frames.

But everyone is older now, or moved away, or passed--
Tradition's hard to hold when we're apart--
The young have grown up, having their own families at last,
Some we only Christmas with at heart.

Reflective now, I glance upon the pictures on the tree,
The portrait ornaments of Christmas past,
And smile to know the Christmases the future holds for me;
Branches holding memories to last.

Tradition

Come the holiday season I stock up my shelves with the items I need for my baking,
I've inherited recipes, methods, and more to make holiday treats for the taking.

When they come into my kitchen they know by the smell that the season has finally come,
For the wafting aroma of cookies doth tell, and the stain of the flour upon my thumb.

In my kitchen the memories of Christmas long past come alive with each item I make,
From my grandmother's meatpies that I alone craft, and meme's pumpkin bread that I bake.

Happily shared traditional delicacies that evoke such memorial hunger,
I shall treasure these recipes all of my days until passed along to one much younger.

Yet for now I create, making family treats, only pausing to let the dough leaven
And I hope that when all of the baking is done that the scent makes its way up to heaven.

This Challenge was about Holiday Traditions. I don't remember exactly what the Challenge question stated, though.

Ego Trip

Freelance, you came along and said,
“Entrance me with your verse,
Parlance so rare it’s almost dead
Perchance reverse the curse!”

Now such entreating shook my heart,
How it appealed to me,
Thou knew that I would, from the start,
Bow to my vanity.


This is an example of a Lento: 8 lines, abab cdcd rhyme scheme, and the beginning of the first four lines should rhyme, as should beginning of the second four lines.

Dressing As Dracula

On each October thirty-first
I do my worst
To scare, and chill
And give a thrill

I sometimes dress as ghost or witch
Though it may itch
My face I cake
A monster make

Blood, when the children reach our stoops
From false fangs droops
So real seeming
Kids run screaming

This is a Minute Poem and won the TPS Quill award for October 2008. This is one of two poems I've had published in TPS Spash of Verse 2008.

To Face Myself

I am at heart the product of my choices
An unrepentant miasma of voices
Echoing my past

What once was a fractured duality
Is now singularly clear

One face for them
Swaggering boisterous typical male
Redneck chauvinistic epithets
Uttered out of expectation

Must fit in
Must belong
Must do this
Must be wrong

One face for me
Crumbling expectations
Shattered plans
Anger
Shame
Merciless self-flagellating
Shame

Must be evil
Must be crazy
Must be tainted
Must repent!

A decade of denial
Prayer
Misery
Bewilderment
Shame

Loneliness

Then a choice
The choice to accept
Become whole
No longer two faces but one

Shouldered tonnage evaporates with
Self acceptance
And finally buried denials

Damned? Not I.
Expectations be damned.

I choose to be honest.

To love
And be loved
As I was meant to love.

To face myself and be free!

Bound Witness

Behind my shuttered eyes I see
Me standing in a field
Constrained to utter voiceless plea;
Calamity revealed!

My nightclothes let the icy bite
Of wind assault my skin,
Though stings distract not from the sight
That ravishes within.

I hear a cracking horror sound,
Head tilting to the sky
A lone and silent mourner bound
To witness hundreds die

I stand a phantom witness born
Of metaphysic means
To feel their many spirits torn
In echoed frantic screams

A thousand booming thundercracks
Of spiderwebbing ice
Describe the hundred breaking backs
That burn in winter’s vice

But icy flames and billowed smoke
Cannot describe the fear
As others drown in bubbles, choke--
Immobile, this I hear. . .

My silent screams are heard by none
Over the crashing sound,
As tears fall silent one by one
Onto the frigid ground

AWAKEN! frightened, gasp and cry--
But tears a mom can heal,
“It’s just a dream,” she would deny,
“The nightmare isn’t real.”

Yet on the way to school that day,
She pulled the car aside
“A plane has crashed,” a man did say,
“With hundreds trapped inside.”

As Luna Cycles

This is one of only two poems I've had published anywhere. It is featured on page 200 of the 2008 TPS Splash of Verse publication.

As Luna cycles so do we, reflecting on the Earth
Through seasons of humanity we seek to prove our worth.

‘Tis only in the days of my own twilight that I see
What similarities apply betwixt the moon and me.

When I was young the moon above did fill my heart with awe,
Her constant gaze projecting love ‘til storms made her withdraw.

In love my heart shone also thus, a freely given thing,
‘Til thunder made of broken trust an end to love did bring.

I sought this empty void to fill by buying many things,
Yet only grew emptier still; a lonely heart that stings.

I thought perhaps that fame would be the answer I required
You may even remember me for I was quite admired

But fame begat in me a pride that did me justice not;
I shone without, but still inside an ache grew blazing hot.

The years passed by, I grew from boy to man and started living;
I sought to learn the source of joy and forged a heart forgiving

‘Til pride and power lost their luster when I found a mate
No longer did I blow and bluster, clashing swords with fate.

Thus ended naïve Spring in me, begetting Summer love
A wife and child, a family, and all the perks thereof.

I went through all the motions, all the heartache, and the joy,
I bought a home in which did crawl my precious little boy

I watched him grow as I had done, not noticing my gray
Until one day my Fall’d begun; just when I could not say.

Yet as my body slowed my mind still shone quite clear to me
My boy grew to a man quite kind and ever dear to me

I sought to teach him as I might of wisdom, worth, and truth,
To hold up those who cannot fight, and counsel jaded youth.

And now my Winter has arrived, my time is running short,
And Luna watches, uncontrived, to witness my report.

What lesson, then, are you to learn? What wisdom from this sage?
What value gained from hearts that burn, then flicker as we age?

Now in my feeble, fragile, form to you I do impart
The only piece of knowledge warm and sacred to my heart:

The time you spend in futile chase of money, fame, and pride
Is better spent by keeping pace with what you hold inside

As Luna cycles so do we reflecting on the Earth
Through seasons of humanity we seek to prove our worth.

Harsh Light Of Truth

Cloak drawn close with deliberate care,
She turned, eyes lowered, hair mussed,
A mue on her face as she took to the stair,
She rejoined her companion thus:

"Though kings have walked these halls in the past
Take care to whom you are speaking
You'll find my patience is known to wear fast
And you were just made for breaking."

No sound was heard but her determined step
As she stormed to the end of the hall,
Not hearing the faint voice say, with mocking pep,
"Well, you aren't the fairest of all!"

There was a picture of a large mirror that was used as this week's prompt for the challenge. If I can find it I'll amend this post so you can see my inspiration for this piece.

A Duet:Lap Full Of Memories/On A Strange Porch, Rocking

I feel the need to preface this post with an explanation. The following two pieces are different approaches to a one-word prompt, the second of which actually won the challenge for that week. The prompt was to write a poem inspired by the word "Quilt." I hope you like the result. :)

Lap Full Of Memories

Glazed and gazing at the sun
Daydreaming of wife and son
I sit, while tears down my face run,
Upon a strange porch, rocking.

I do not know now where I am
Like a baby in a pram,
And no one seems to give a damn;
No visitors come knocking.

Enfeebled hands defy and shake
Despite the pills they make me take
And then the memories; a quake
Of patchwork glimpses passing.

On my lap in boxes square
Memories; how I despair,
Oh, would that I could still be there
Inside their love surpassing.

Like when John made MVP
Or got his college degree
My wife and I and son were three
Memories come flocking

Sweet or sad or bittersweet
In memory I would retreat,
But soon enough we three shall meet,
Not on a strange porch, rocking.



Free Verse Version: On A Strange Porch, Rocking:

Rocking on a strange porch
Yes I took my pills

Visitations few and far between
Can’t blame them
What good is an old man now

Feeble mind and quaking hands grasping
Patchwork memories
Like
John, my son, winning the MVP trophy, or
Maggie gazing her last into my eyes,
Cradled in my arms after she was hit by
That car on the way to the mailbox

Sweet or sad
Or bittersweet
I assign the moments of my life
To neatly boxed-in portions
So I won’t forget

It works better than the pills
Or so they tell me

And I sit here
Rocking on a strange porch
Covered in memories.

Open Window

Leaves fall upward from the ground
Catching fragile branches
Windless dances without sound
Autumn makes advances

(Setting sun at early dawn)
Sun lights hidden places
Passes by a doe and fawn
The crisping air braces

Sounds of honking overhead
Lonely embered fireplace
Cold enough to wake the dead
A chill upon my face.

This was a Weekly Challenge entry at TPS. The Challenge was to write a poem that read backwards.

Birthing The Verse

Birthing the verse is a difficult matter
Slipshod constructions of letters and thought
Poets must often be mad as a hatter
To venture forth baring creatures they’ve wrought

These are my children, these poems of wonder,
Playing with patterns they’ve not tried before
Rending most obvious thoughts quite asunder
Seeking new truth behind each stanza’s door.

The smallest of poems, they tend to be wise,
The tallest are often most ponderous,
The twins play in couplets that oft feign surprise,
And all use devices quite wondrous.

Some are full of laughter, others are quite sad,
Some shift in meaning day by day by day,
Some speak of love they’ve never known or had,
Others speak not but hope to simply play

What do I wish for them? What should they become?
Why are they here, and where are they going?
Shall they impart greater insight, then, to some
While others read words without the knowing?

I hope they are cheery, I hope they are bright,
I dream they spring forth earnest, fully formed;
I pray that they outline love’s long, lost, pale plight,
Or touch a heart that has not yet been warmed.

For these are my children, these cradles of verse,
Bundled in beauty and rhythm and rhyme,
Out, then, I send them, for better or for worse,
So they may stand, showing truth for all time.

Somethin' Scorchin

One September morning before light of dawn
The stars in the heavens a’ twinkling,
A shriek from above to which all eyes were drawn
A streak through the dotted black, crinkling

Then, “BOOM,” stirring suddenly all those around
Who rushed to the place where it landed
The fauna departed, quite scared from the sound,
And villagers answers demanded

“BEHOLD!” came a bellowing voice from the throng,
“For this is the promise delivered!
See shining there darkly, as sought for so long,
A piece of our heaven unquivered!”

Clad greatly in robes of all colors and cloth
Strode forward a figure, majestic
The bearer of promises, fortunes, and wroth,
‘Twas he who ruled all things domestic

“I say,” dared this king, “that today marks the time
Our people shall finally flourish!
For this piece of heaven, cast down from above,
Our lands shall allow us to nourish!”

With this proclamation, the king, he then knelt,
And bowed his head til he was prostrate,
And, touching it gently, the king a burn felt,
Causing townsfolk to call him apostate!

The land, it did prosper, the people as well,
The stone from the heavens respected,
‘Twas thought that the king had been tainted by hell--
The burning these evils rejected

This black piece of heaven still sits to this day
And people still seek out its fortune
But children are warned not to touch it at play
Or heaven will send something scorchin’!

This was my first Challenge Entry at TPS. I believe the Challenge was to write a fable of some kind.