An Invitation

Please, poet friends, caption this with a short poem. I am interested to see what others would do with it…

Starry Night

Water frozen, like
Time suspended, a moment,
None like another,
Transient, fleeting, unless
Observed and recorded.

Sigh

Oddly annoying
Waking to caresses from
Shih-tzu’s leather tongue.

En Gardé, Windbag!

Here I am, waiting,
Again for my physician
To fail me, again.
How difficult can it be
To strike those keys, fill that script?

Apparently hard
Does this task a disservice.
Incomparable
Complexities unknown to
Lesser, merely mortal, men.

Seven days may seem
Unreasonable to me,
But I’m assured,
“These things take time” as patience
And politeness are taxed.

Again, Where Angels Fear to Tread

Which is worse the guilt or sorrow?
This I, truly, do not know.
But neither rivals, I assure you,
The anger that consumes my soul.
There and done, an explosive impulse,
Once again, after all this time?
Years of effort, struggle eroded,
For no good reason and no rhyme?
I would rather die than say it
To those I love and hold most dear,
“I’ve fallen back into that blackness.”
Confirmed again, their darkest fears.

Clutch the hand that grabbed
and dragged you back into the light.
Know that with them here beside you,
You’re strong enough! Rejoin the fight!

Labor of Love

It shouldn’t be that hard
Assembling a computer!
That’s what I told him;
That’s what I said.

My head is aching
My back is cramping
My eyes are burning
And so are my ears.

My knees are throbbing
My stomach is rumbling
My fingers are shaking
And so is my head.

But my heart’s filled with joy and pride
And, on the happy note, I’m off to bed!

Sewing the Wind

I think I’m slowly learning that, none
to gentle, art ever so useful in our battling of words and wills.
A certain linguistic aikido
that encourages you to
believe that you are
winning while
your doing
exactly
what I
need
you
to.

Lifeline

Spun letters
Braided syllablles
Woven words
Knotted phrases
Ropey sentences
Together they form
The halyard to hoist
The sails of our salvation

Directed Effort

When the time is right,

small actions have big impact.

Opportunity

knocking, when no one is home,

is just more annoying noise.

An Electronic Model for Humanity

Holiday greetings to all!

UPS delivered to my son, today, his Christmas present. Nine boxes, 21 items, all electronics, and all totally useless. It will only be through patience, diligence, persistence, and great luck that these 21 items will come together into an awesome new computer.

As I look at this giant pile of boxes and contemplate the effort and the familial bonding ahead, I am struck by the similarity between this project and building a human community. All of these things are interrelated but without each other they are, individually, totally useless. In this way, they are quite like people. Each of us, has a purpose to serve, a mission to accomplish, and actions that we need to take in this life. Whatever that purpose may be, it require the interaction, assistance, and participation of other people to have any lasting meaning. In short without other people, we, like these electronic devices, are incapable of fulfilling our purpose and are thus, totally useless.

So, in this holiday season, this wordprocessing program has this to say to all of you out there: I need you, motherboard. I need you, CPU. I need you, sound card. I need you, video card. I need you, hard drive. I need you, ram. I need you, power supply. Without you, I can accomplish nothing.

Thank you all, for being other indispensable components of this amazing thing we call humanity. May we all work together, harmoniously, toward something spectacular!

Corral of Condescension

There is no -ism,
no tag, no description, no
convenient short hand
arms wide enough to hold me
inside it’s embrace
and begin to capture a
scrap of my identity!

Box your meaningless
labels instead. They serve no,
true, helpful purpose.

Spare me your petty,
pejorative intention.
I decline to wear
your misused and undefined
demeaning attributions.

Poetic Entanglement

“I just don’t get it”,
he said about poetry.
A scientist, he
studied quantum mechanics.
“Friend, it’s just the same!
Spooky action at distance
except with words not bosons!

A Ninth Beatitude

Blessed are the ill.
Struggling in the face
Of adversity
Proves the mettle of the soul.
Honor those who suffer so.

An Unexpected Face of Christmas

It’s freezing +1 and a driving rain
Peppered with shotgun blasts of sleet.
As I linger at a light, up beside me pulls
A mask of misery in dire need of heat.
Soaking on the running board,
Clad in saturated yellow,
Behind the garbage truck,
Shivers a most frigid fellow.
His visage drawn and tight
And muscles tensed against the cold,
I am suddenly quite certain
His tale of duty must be told!

He, like many others, labor away in misery
Struggling to meet the needs of their family.