Tag Archives: daily poems

What is Beauty: cancione

So what is beauty, really?
As a requisite to love
it seems far too subjective,
just some desire’s beguiling
design to snare a victim.

So what is beauty, really?
A figment caught by the eye
(or nature-made to seem thus)
to overwhelm reason’s care,
let loose the reins and run wild?

So what is beauty, really?
One sad half discovers whole,
making the universe sing
a melody so haunting
its croaking voice sounds lilting.

So what is beauty, really?
The eye knows only deceit;
the ear, a fading echo;
the mind, pale comparison;
the heart, hopeful delusion.

So what is beauty, really?
A single moment’s passing,
that folds future and present
up into both shroud and veil
for wedding, and funeral.

So what is beauty, really?
The weak, finite majesty
of illusion stitched in time,
the knowing of unknowing
that is a thing in itself.

27 JAN 2017

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A Thing Survives: byr a thoddaid

So: can a thing survive a fall,
then lift itself enough to crawl
from where it lands to some safe place, to heal
and hide its bruised, scarred face

until the foe that pushed it down
has doubt it ever was around,
then too late, as the counterstrike arrives,
regrets its choice to leave a thing alive?

26 JAN 2017

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The Simple Life: a bucolic

The simple life, that free from care
and vain illusion we once led,
in whose embrace our flourishing
and true existence found their height,
and with such grace evolved from beasts,
abandoned filth and savage ways,
escaped the snares of worldly pride
and sought for truth in nature’s maze.

Such self-absorbing righteousness!

That such conceit we still embrace,
and seek as blessing, ignorance,
employing rusted tools, like faith,
to end mind’s curiosity
and in its place, raise slavish kings
who vilify a need to know,
and would in place of growth and life
sow stagnant rot along the rows.

Such self-deluding avarice!

To see the world, not as it was,
but in nostalgic make-believe,
a children’s picture book of lies
that in beasts’ mouths puts fancy speech,
and names as princes, lords, and queens
those fools who mock the sciences.
What folly, to convince the world
that free and soft, it ever was.

Such self-important bull!

There is no sweet and simple life,
and yet, those stories will outsell
the honest, plain and dirty truth:
that the world is rough and raw;
that those, when you seek bread, give stones,
are at least dealing straight enough
to offer tools, not empty air.

25 JAN 2017

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Hope and Despair

How fleet of foot is dream-spun Hope;
and how Despair, her lead-shoed sister,
trips a clumsy way to fill her place!

How fair and rosy Hope’s sweet cheeks;
and how their bloom is lost to mind
as glum Despair’s sad visage fills our eyes.

How fickle, that our foolish minds
oft mark these twins we woo unequals
as we come and go through life’s wide rooms.

How quick to judge, and hurt from judgment,
paint another’s Hope, Despair;
gloat to see another’s sorrow.

How fleet of foot is our sweet Hope;
across the room, her doorway shadow
hides in double dark, Despair.

How soon the tables turn eternal –
spin, reflecting like a mirror;
Hope and Despair mere phantasms.

How we dance, by Hope enamored;
hounded by Despair, we crawl.
Constant changes make life’s music.

24 JAN 2017

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The Renaissance Myth: bref double

If genius is the thing that saves mankind
by pulling it along above the mud,
and with the rarest spark, inducing flames
to warm against the night the coldest souls,

then why does the world still seem deaf and lame?
Could be, outside that magic, a savant
controls the weak container that is man,
so that true genius rarely breeds in coals;

and Nature, seeking balance, leaves most duds,
to make such genius difficult to find.
So talent tends to weaken other skills
and handicap our saviors in their game.

The renaissance mystique we rarely find;
and by its flaws, most genius comes to nil.

24 JAN 2017

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She Saved Me: brag

If she don’t know it, it ain’t worth knowing;
all my good ideas, she had when she was still growing;
the movie of my life, she saw the preview showing;
she was up winning my race before I started rowing.

If she ain’t there, there ain’t no sense in going;
she was swimming upstream before the current was flowing;
there was no wind in my sails until she started blowing;
and no light in my darkness before she was glowing.

If she can’t tell it, it ain’t worth hearing;
I was afraid of the dark until she cured my fearing,
and wandered lost in the woods until she made a clearing,
in the middle of nowhere until she was nearing.

If she ain’t it, then there ain’t nothing to it;
until she gave me a chance, you know I just blew it;
I had no good ideas until she said she knew it;
and without her there’s no chance I’d ever get through it.

If she don’t speak, I don’t hear nothing;
until she blesses my cards, the best I’ll do is bluffing;
without her smooth and soft, the best I’ll do is roughing;
’cause I’m an empty shell unless she adds the stuffing.

If she don’t know it, it ain’t worth thinking;
unless she’s clears it up, it’s muddy water I’m drinking;
she’s got the only key to my chains that keep clinking;
if she don’t come onboard, my ship is already sinking.

23 JAN 2017

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The World Begins: bob and wheel

Today the world begins or ends;
we celebrate both birth and death,
and in between, our lives stretch on
in days and nights all much the same.
Who is to blame?
Some fools would blame the child,
while others seek the cause
among the sick, defiled,
and dying who create our laws.

What is the truth we seek to find?
Some reason that our side is right,
to justify our lust and greed
and bathe ourselves in light.
But what is right?
No system forms its cage,
no moral code defines its bounds.
Not boundless joy nor rage
can claim what is not found.

The world transforms from night to day;
we bask in light or hide in shade.
In neither state do we reflect
a righteous sense of purpose.
Are we then worthless?
What use is thinking so?
While there is breath, take air
and seek out those who throw
their lot with you, out there.

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