Coming Back Home

This is something I was supposed to post forever ago. Just barely found it again. This first poem is from an FHE nursery rhyme activity. The others are my own work.

The Fall of the House of Humpty

Once upon a midnight dreary
While Humpty wondered weak and weary
"Did I come before the chicken?"
At that moment he was stricken
By the raven and he plunged off the wall
wall, wall, wall, wall, wall, wall, wall.
And Great was the fall of the house of Humpty.

In a city by the sea,
So all the night tide,
He lay down by the side of
All the kings horses and all the king's men.
Who dare not put humpty together
Nevermore- for they feared the beating of the tell tale yolk
Yolk, yolk, yolk, Yolk, Yolk, Yolk, Yolk.
Put together
Nevermore



The Night

After midnight, everything is beautiful
When the world slows down just long enough for you to catch it in both hands.
Gaze at it,
Peaceful, Cool, Crisp
See clearly in the darkness
Focus on the things that matter most.
You wish you could stop the hours rolling by.
Protect the precious night
But dawn always breaks.


Coming Back Home

When I come back home
it feels like everything should be exactly the way I left it.
The way its always been.
Sheltered, protected,
Preserved like a historic brick building
An ancient monument,
Forever in a snow globe,
My memories trapped in a timeless bubble.

Yet each time I come home
I see that fragile bubble has popped.
The businesses and buildings have shifted about like pieces on a checker board
Those friendly old faces seem the same
But the people behind them aren't who they used to be.

New faces are everywhere.
They look at me as if I'm the novelty
They don't know that this is still my place.

College Apps Are A Very Serious Business

Disaster, catastrophe --
I left out an apostrophe
On my essays to Princeton and Yale!
Oh woe is me now
For I do not see how
To avoid an embarrassing tale
Of how I will miss
Out on Ivy League bliss
For my Stanford dreams ere now looked pale.
If my Harvard hopes dim
And to Berkeley seems grim,
'Fore my classmates I'll tremble and quail.
It would be a disgrace
After my S.A.T. ace
If to Davis I creep like a snail!

Palo Alto Limerick

When biking through Silicon Valley
Where redwoods and palms share an alley
Organic-grown food
Puts you right in the mood
To attend the green energy rally.

Palo Alto Snapshot

"Do you have this book in Russian?"
Asks the French mother
Of the Thai librarian
While the taciturn Korean man
Watches Jewish kids scamper
Up the eucalyptus trees.
Across the street, the tennis courts
Pound out a rhythm
For the old men playing chess
Built into the picnic tables
And the skaters acting out
A chess of their own on wheels.
It's May, but it's hot enough
For the fountain the toddlers play in.
This. Mitchell Park.

Chiasmatic Night

Dusk.
Crickets.
The thrill of social company and recreational time use enthrall me.
A light appears -- a star? Nay, a planet. Very bright, large, bluish; must be Venus.
I settle into that mode where at last I know I want to sleep, but it's not too difficult to keep active as long as I am occupied.
Clouds obscure the wonders of the firmament.
Somewhere in the deepness, if I am careful to note it, there is a contemplative moment of communion with the Creator, when he finds my exhausted mental state transparent to his missives.
Now the stars and galaxies shine clear in the silence.
My brain is ... Uh ... Sorry, what was I saying? No, I'm awake ... I think ...
Beneath the stars, the landscape sits dark and silent, through the hours most of humanity dares not to broach.
I am past the hardest part. Though I am dull of wit, my body surges with a new effort.
Birds pierce the silence.
Dawn.