Down at the bar we sit and wait,
as if our glory days, so great,
still might return anon.
We act younger throughout the night,
so we forget, while we get tight,
that halcyon is gone.
And all the girls who tend the bar,
pretend to laugh, but just so far;
it’s hard to hide pity.
Last call, they turn on all the lights;
watch us shuffle into the night,
mumbling something witty.
1 MAY 2017
Posted in Poems
Tagged #BookofForms, age, drinking, French verse forms, glory days, illusion, poetic forms, rime couée
Who tears apart, but never builds;
in summer, says he prefers chills;
proclaims “I won’t” when others will;
expects to never pay the bill?
Who tends to “no”, withholding “yes”;
predicts more failure than success;
looks to curse rather than bless;
just compliments under duress?
Who finds the flaw in beauty’s whole;
un-masks delusions in each role;
runs not to praise, at best, cajole;
and celebrates his self-control?
Who gets no joy in dance or song,
unless detailing things gone wrong;
and sits aloof, above the throng
who sway and smile and sing along?
Who in the end has only words;
an empty theater of absurd;
gray stones that never turns to birds;
and empty echoes never heard?
Who condescends, too proud to bend;
see only foes, and not one friend;
from years of living to offend;
alone, unwanted in the end?
The Critic.
28 APR 2017
Posted in Poems
Tagged #BookofForms, criticism, critics, illusion, negativity, poetic forms, relationship, riddle, self-denial
Don’t want to be an American idol,
good for a season and then tossed away;
held up like Jesus and the King James Bible,
blamed for the country’s future going astray.
Don’t want to be an American idol,
hawking potato chips and new Chevrolets;
starting out starstruck, ending up suicidal,
shriveled and spit out prematurely gray.
Don’t follow me thinking I’m headed somewhere
you’ll recognize on TV.
Don’t waste your time trying to be somebody
who only wants to be me.
Don’t want to be an American idol,
shrink-wrapped and candy-coated fantasy;
sold on the corner at a dozen a penny,
bootlegged in mixed degrees of quality.
Don’t want to be an American idol,
famous for being a celebrity;
pretending at a something somewhere near vital,
believing whatever I’m supposed to be.
Don’t follow me thinking that I’ve got something
to make life easy and free.
Don’t waste your time trying to be a somebody
who only wants to be me.
26 APR 2017
Each new day is so fleeting:
like a busy bee flitting
between its sweet hits, floating,
never slowing nor quitting.
Life’s made of days flying:
sighed hellos and then goings.
Through each room we go gliding:
near colliding, then dying.
19 APR 2017
Posted in Poems
Tagged #BookofForms, brevity, illusion, Irish verse forms, life, poetic forms, rannaigheacht mhor, time
Some folks who wax nostalgic will believe
that all the future’s answers can be found
back in a yesterday that never was
which lingers, like some land of make believe:
a place where truth and justice are dispensed
like manna from some wise heavenly host,
where doubt somehow is the only unknown,
and right and wrong are both clear and well-defined.
Like paradise, a place they’ve never seen,
just around some past or future bend,
this sentimental halcyon of yore
becomes the drug evangelic shills
use to addict, and thus enslave, the world.
14 APR 2017
Posted in Poems
Tagged #BookofForms, blindness, fate, ignorance, illusion, nostalgia, poetic forms, quatorzain
The world of late is full of crashing sound and blurry vision,
a thunder crash inside a cloud – lost in indecision.
Some claim that sunshine lurks around the corner, only waiting
for those who dare beyond the haze, past the senseless hating
of those who in the darkness loudly curse the coming daylight
that strips away the fog’s disguise; the night conceals their blight.
To be afraid just draws the darkness inward, more and nearer;
thus hate intensifies and grows – in that distorted mirror
your sense of what should be and how things are is set askew.
You must resist the ease of it. It seems, but isn’t, you.
Some say the world is what you wish to make it: good or bad,
a nightmare or fantastic dream; if so, then why so sad?
Step out into the light and choose a path beyond the din.
Who knows what you will find out there? A new way to begin?
12 APR 2017
Posted in Poems
Tagged #BookofForms, alexandrine, confusion, darkness, fog, fourteener, hate, illusion, poetic forms, poulter's measure, sight
Some say that simple ways are still the best;
as we add complication, things decline.
How we live puts that principle to test:
it’s so subjective, what one thinks is fine.
So, adding complication wreaks decline?
Stop making babies; that’s simple enough.
It’s so subjective, what one thinks is fine;
applying principles yourself – that’s tough.
Stop making babies; but that’s not enough.
End all this mad charade of cheating death.
Applying principles yourself is tough;
it’s work that needs more effort than just breath.
End all this mad charade of cheating death!
The purpose of this life is growing old.
it’s work that needs more effort than just breath;
those simple ways, if possible, are best.
11 APR 2017
Posted in Poems
Tagged #BookofForms, illusion, life, living, Malayan verse forms, pantoum, poetic forms, simplicity
