Life, Prepackaged (Haiku)

the famous hashtag
would be better off as a
dispensable pound.

No Strings Attached

it is fairly easy
to lose an old shoe
while you force yourself
to run on unfamiliar tracks

& if the pace you chose
leaves you limping,
you are left with
longing for your old, abandoned shoe
and a wet, muddy sock.

Thin&Stretched

Bilbo once
tape-measured my sanity
but never mentioned that I
was a few inches short

I wish I had known
for I would never have walked into Mordor
without my
own personal Sam

& at the end of the day
it is not The One Ring
that rules us all –
but love, in all its facets.

Ghostdancers

– Miyelo 6, Viggo Mortensen

Tokša wanweglakin kte
Tokša wanweglakin kte
Nihun k’un he heye lo
Nihun k’un he heye lo

Later I shall see my own
Later I shall see my own
Your mother said it so
Your mother said it so

(Oglala Lakota Chant)

***

heartfire roots
grow beneath a crust of modern life
and struggle
not to be forgotten

what we don’t see
isn’t there
isn’t     there
i    s            n    o       t              t       h        e             r                  e
& we firmly grip the leash
on our minds’ journeys.

what we don’t see
isn’t there.
Isn’t there.

a blink,

is it there?

__________________________________________________________________
Claudia over at dVerse invites us to write about Fata Morganas and summer heat illusions for Poetics today. Grab a pen and join us at the bar!
photo credits: Viggo Mortensen

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Lie.alty

from your brown-nosed haven
you watch us flail about
and polish
your Judas coin collection
with nimble fingers.

never count
on a coin-counter.

This Town

“It will be long ere the marshes resume,
I will be long ere the earliest bird:
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred.”
— Robert Frost, Now Close The Windows

This town, a ghost
Haunting; absent shadows
They lie, uncovered
And weigh heavy on
Catatonia;
Mankind’s woven tomb
Absent soil or mourners,
Absent loving words;
No flowers left to bloom ~
It will be long ere the marshes resume

This town, an echo
Driven into stone
By callused hearts,
As if it were flesh;
And mortar tears
Veil the cries of the Unheard,
Now frozen,
Bury words in darkest night;
Brand dreams of summer days absurd ~
I will be long ere the earliest bird

This town, a song
Of long forgotten days;
Of courage, worn away
By rain’s steady trick (trick?) trick-le;
Dancers’ feet now heavy, weighed with years of mud,
Ancient tunes, hollow; stripped and skinned,
Taunt drowning minds
With adjunct notes,
Leave consciousness thinned ~
So close the windows and not hear the wind

This town, a paradigm;
Indifference taped to every door,
Nailed to every soul that roams the streets.
The crosses we bear
Tower high above our heads,
Leave meaning absent word;
So we squint;
Cover eyes with shades of mirth,
Hold on to fraying dreams, now blurred ~
But (at day’s end) see all wind-stirred.

__________________________________________________________________
Samuel Peralta over at dVerse has us experimenting with the Glosa, a form of poetry of the late 14th century. It starts out with the Cabeza, four lines I borrowed from the marvellous Robert Frost, which provide the ending lines for the following four stanzas.  This is my contribution to Samuel’s great challenge.
Grab a drink and join us at the bar!

Modern Health Care(lessness)

promise bubbles
drift from eager tongues,
opalescent;

we stack
our shelves with discarded humans,
label them ‘dysfunctional’,
and turn our backs
on benevolence,
while the door sign
tells hypertrophic tales,
and money-stained hands
drive
the Sword of Damocles home.

The Selfless Fiend

we lick our wounds
with bitter tongues
and face a broken dawn

if minds are forfeit
and eyes
turn on themselves,
should we not change
our putrid views?

Small Bites

there’s a mouse
in the pit

beware of its teeth

you do not know
if it climbed in
voluntarily.

Small World

the horizon of another
might not have
your limits.

think
before you
dress strangers
in your slim fitting habits.

Safe Distance

burning bridges
illuminate
the horizon
until we
(finally)
plummet
from the sky
to grasp the heat
of anger’s flames.

Politically (in)correct

head
is just a metaphor ~
the groomed lump
adorned with fake smile
has long forgotten
how to function;
how it feels
to be human.

shriveled heart in your chest;
if it can be found at all ~
without magnifying glass and tweezers
a fruitless attempt.

my stomach rebels
at the sight of you;
tempted to hurl
your lies
back in your face ~

i suggest
you wear your ass
as a hat
and see if it helps
to improve your image.

___________________________________________________________________
The Panda over at RuleOfStupid from the “Three Nuts and a Squirrel Crew” extended the challenge to write a poem of a journey through the human body, using the words bum or colon (i went with “ass” because it’s fun to use!), stomach, chest, heart and head. Somehow I ended up ‘describing’ a certain Politician who shall not be named here… let’s just say I don’t like him all that much. Heh.

What We Fail To Learn…

Two households, both alike in dignity
nemesis, blood feud of old

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
in our mother’s womb we battle

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
prejudice, evil’s spawn blurs our sight

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
forces hands to do its bidding.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
we are equal; our hearts all follow the creator’s drums

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,
but fall victim to hatred, passed on through the ages

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
unmoved; set in crumbling stone
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
a thousand deaths won’t make the frenzied eye see ~

The fearful passage of their death-marked love

so we tread; siblings’ blood drowns sacred ground
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,

wrath and envy still on the march;
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,

deaths have no meaning, but to grace the news
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage—

stupidity’s tragedy limps through the ages
The which, if you with patient ears attend,

and we remain deaf, dumb and blind ~

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
what Shakespeare uncovered, our deeds still antagonize in blood. 

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Today, Anna over at dVerse Poets Pub invites us to write Postmodern Poetry. She provided this wonderful list of Bernadette Mayer’s Writing Experiments which we are allowed to choose from. I chose: “Type out a Shakespeare sonnet or other poem you would like to learn about/imitate double-spaced on a page. Rewrite it in between the lines.”
I’ve always been fascinated by Shakespeare’s Prologue to Romeo & Juliet… so I took it, fiddled with it a bit and the above is what came out of me (by now you know that I did not end up imitating it.). Hope you enjoy… Come meet us at the Bar!

King Kong

consequence
bares its chest,
to howl,
to rage;
a primate –
conjured by
rash action.

do not act
so surprised…
you had to become
King Kong’s plaything
sooner or later.

Fallen

overload
in crystal cups;
sip slowly…

the voice of reason
is far beyond
your hearing.