A few poems

Hope Chris had a good b-day today (well, yesterday... missed by a half hour). Hopefully other people will remember to post their poems on the blog too. The first poem is about my fish tank. Second poem is about a comment Josh made at the very beginning of poetry club. Last poem is about a comment Jackie made at the end of poetry club.


The Tank
Blue above, blue below.
There’s a whole world I can see out there.
The grand, the exotic, so green and alive,
I want to see it all.
They tell me it would take my breath away.
I would do anything to escape,
Forsake my stripes,
Get away from my fellow prisoners,
Escape their bullying and darting,
Hide from the monsters all around me.
If only I could cross these walls.

No Poetry for Joshua
You’re not allowed to write a poem tonight.
It’s forbidden.
Give up your hopes of coupling couplets, of making rhyme or reason
We won’t tolerate any of your limericks about the green plaid shirt you’re wearing
You have no permission to record your thoughts on name recognition
Mexican Holidays stanzas are illegal immigrants in Poetry Clubia
Haiku’s about ninjas? Ummmm.... No.
Say nada to sonnets about Trombones-a
The rhythm and words streaming into your mind from elsewhere cannot be put on paper.


Not a poem about Jackie
I won’t ever ever ever ever ever write a poem about Jackie
I simply won’t write a rhyme,
About how I think she’s sublime.
I won’t let myself ramble about her quantum chemistry, tree climbing, mad Frisbee catching skills.
No, I won’t remind everyone how intimidating her awesomeness can be,
Especially to the guys.
I shouldn’t sneakily slip in lines about Jackie’s sinister laughs, her well executed pranks.
I’ll stop thinking about all the stanzas I could be typing about her perfect sense of humor.
Let’s face it, her intellectual brilliance radiates like a thousand suns.
I simply won’t recite the epic victory of when she successfully ate ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
I’m only allowed to pretend I’m writing a poem about how much I love her face.

No… I can’t write a poem about Jackie so I’ll write about something else.
How about cheese?!? I love cheese.
Cheese is… well, cheesy
There! Wasn’t that a great poem not about Jackie?

Ether (Unfinished)

In the days of Coriantumr
The land was full of violence
But one man, faithful,
Stood strong against he wave
And he dwelt
In the cavity
Of a rock.

The preachings of the prophet
Fell unheeded
On dead ears and leaden hearts
Like Noah's warning
Before the rains came.

Like pearls
The prophet's prophesyings fell,
A vision of a better world --
A house for man
Prepared by the Lord
For those who pass
The trial of faith.
But the people saw no vision
And they did not believe
Because they did not see.

Cast out, the prophet was,

Cast back no more to prophesy

But only to haunt again

The cavity of a rock

Wherein to dwell,

Whereat to write

The history of his people.

In those days

There arose one Shiz

Whose terror like a fire flew

From cowering heart to quaking lip --

The plague of fear pandemic.

Twenty-One Ways of Looking at an Eye

I.

II.

Bright light reflecting on retina

Dots dance before

And glaucoma waits

For another day

III.

A circle of black ink

In a field of white

Looks back at me

IV.

So close your eyelash catches mine

So close the veins wind like a maze

Surrounding your eyes

With fitting mystery

V.

The plate slides,

Revealing a hole

Through which photons pour

Like sand down an hourglass

And the silver halide crystals

Remember forever

VI.

Substitute eyes

He promised he’d bring us his eyes in a box.

All 30 of them rolling and clanking into each other as he walked around the classroom.

Worse than having eyes in the back of his head. I felt sorry for him.

VII.

Make up

Pulling, curling, darkening, lining,

Covering, sort-of lying eying

VIII.

Feet

Tired sunburned working man

Life as purposeful as a crow,

and traces of pain in his Eyes.

IX.

The optometrist lights up my eye

And I behold the network

Feeding my vision

My flowing blood

X.

His pupils narrowed in the light

And his ears laid back

As he saw the glassy cat's eyes

Shine to him

Calling him to fight

XI.

A man and a woman are one

A woman and a man with wandering eyes

Soon two

XII.

In my mind I wait for spinning thoughts

To alight on this paper

Each one a decision

And Megan in my peripheral vision.

XIII.

Little hearts of brown

Sprout green when it's time to plant

The potato's eyes.

XIV.

Green as summer,

Green as glass,

Your eyes warm my world

And tint everything I see

Into green

XV.

Glass marbles

Rolling in a glass of water

On top of the piano

Of a blind musician.

Her students grimace, but play on

XVI.

Something about gravity

Weighs down these eyes

And pulls them earthward.

Strain! Lift!

Look up and see the world

XVII.

Glinting in the night,

A predator looks back

From behind the eyes

Of every cat.

XVIII.

Cross my heart and hope to die,

Stick a finger in my eye;

Cross my eyes and poke my heart

I swear that we will never part.

XIX.

Darting back and forth

Twinkling

Unstable as an untrue heart

XX.

Open, close, open, close

I don't know which to prefer

XXI.

My eyes water

Not with feeling

Sad and happy emotions

Are nothing to the potency

Of an onion

Erupty Volcano Girl vs. Bumbly Bee

La la la la la

I'm prancing to the park

Where beneath a storming stormcloud

A daisy has the gall to grow

I am Volcanic Dancing Girl

Fresh off the plane from Reykjavik

I love my polka-dotted skirt-slash-cone

I love erupting from its tip

Along the way I spy a bee

Whose stripes and stinger anger me

So that I spew lava right at it --

It flees, and though floods and ash and doom

And clouds of blackness o'er him loom

The bee escapes

Bumbling victoriously away

From me

The supposedly-mighty volcano

Metadeath

The scriptures say
Death once had a sting
Before Christ banished that pain
To mortal memory.
Exiled as it is
To short-term attacks,
Death looks with envy on what it lacks,
Ever taking away from the brave and bold,

But never gaining, only growing old

Until some day, as the poet once dared cry,

We all will shout, "Death, thou shalt die!"

On that first morning lonely Death,

In the graveyard of forgotten ills,

Will look upon his withered self,

His hands he'll madly wring,

Asking, "Oh where is my old victory?

What happened to my sting?"

And there, with nothing but a memory

Of the ones he killed

Rising from the once-mighty shroud

To the glorious, eternal, and undying now,

Death will die.

The Brief Rime of Gail and Aden

[Note: This poem was commissioned by Kendall as part of the ward service auction. I consciously modeled it after Alexander Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin", which is a famous Russian novel-in-verse. Much of the mood and style of what I wrote resembles (or tries to resemble) parts of that work. This also probably explains why the protagonist's roommate has the Russian name of Vasia. As with "Eugene Onegin", this poem is written as a series of sonnet-like stanzas of 14 lines, although my meter and rhyme are far looser than that of "Eugene Onegin" or the translation that I have. The poem is strange and maybe not the most romantic thing, but I like it and hope you will find much to relate to in it. Happy Valentine's Day, I guess!]

I

Aden Alecanteson

Slumped deep into a gloomy chair,

Slapped a hand across his anguished face

And wept in total despair.

His sniffs and sputters sadly sounded

Across the library's vast expanses

Though in reality great were the chances

That none cared for his sincere sorrow.

Sitting back and wiping tears from face,

Ruffling blondish hair, he sighed

Then thought of her enchanting look –

And with renewed vigor, broke down and cried.

When ever did love deep and profound

Give up and die without complaint or sound?

And so, dear Aden with his heart fresh broke

There and then a quiet prayer outspoke:

“Oh that I might never feel again

Merciful numbness I beg Thee lend,

My God, who let this catastrophe

Of love grind my poor heart!

Take from my sight all beauty, all grace.

Kill affection before it can start!”

Again he wept with fiery tears,

His hopeless prayer ascended to Heaven,

And drowsily but in earnest he muttered,

“Never again, no never, never again.”

And Heaven listening with purpose fixed

Carefully considered the broken man's wish.

He flung himself, upon reaching home,

On his bed, and made his sorrows known

Pounding his fists on his miserable pillow

And wailing and writhing and letting himself go.

Into the room burst his apartment-mate

Who with righteous anger roared to his side

And slapped him up, knocked some sense right in.

“Cease this slobbering at once!” with wrath he cried.

Caught red-eyed in disgraceful mid-snivel

Like a shamefaced child Aden sat upright.

Tears ceased at once, and all but one stray sniffle

Went silent. He looked beat down by the fight.

The roommate – Vasia – sat down by his side.

“Look man, you disgrace, pick yourself up, take some pride!”

Vasia's words bit with truth's harshness.

Aden, shocked into uprightness

Listened as his friend infused him

With hope, and vigor, and vim.

Though it was winter's bleakest darkness without

Within his heart awoke new spring.

Aden jumped brightly to his feet

And very nearly started to sing.

“My good Vasia, I am newly resolved.

A different feeling within my heart has evolved.

No more the depths of despair to contemplate,

I determine here and now – to get a date!”

Vasia thought he felt the apartment building shake,

Saying, “That tends to happen when a man confronts his fate.”

II

Her name was Gail, and there she lived

In the house around the corner

Where she and four friends, plus their cat,

Lived fourteen lives of ardor.

She had no need for love nor men.

She had loved before, but ne'er again

Would she stake her heart on something so hard to win –

She thus was Cupid's perfect victim!

But not wholly resigned to single abandon

As yet, she threw a great party

A grande fête for friends and foes alike

At her place, at nine o'clock starting,

To show the world that she had turned out right

And could succeed without being any man's wife.

That night the neighborhood in uproar

Flocked to the party, flocked to the table

Of feminine hospitality offered elegantly.

All laughed and stayed as long as able.

Aden amongst these was not least eager

To meet these ladies of such renown.

With Vasia he'd arrived with a flourish,

Though their coming was ignored all around.

Yet feast and flirt, amuse, acquaint, enjoy,

With skill and style they carried out their task

And with the hour chiming midnight

Aden met the hostess at long last.

When they spoke he felt he already knew her,

And saw, of course, that he'd have to woo her.

The next day, with Vasia keeping time,

He called her up, got her on the line,

Then asked her out, waited as she thought.

Sweet Gail replied, “Absolutely not!”

With abrupt click their conversation ended,

Aden's heart for pain now freshly rended.

Vasia urged his roommate to be strong,

Citing parables of fish and ponds.

“I won't despair!” declared quavering Aden.

“Haven't I made a firm commitment

To get a date? No such punishment

will dissuade or make me jaded.”

Thus roused once more he called twenty ladies,

Getting three nos, one yes, and sixteen maybes.

He and the one who had accepted

Went out a-courting on the cheap.

Amongst the others that he dated

It was she who brought him loss of sleep.

In time things took a turn towards serious

And he found himself in need of flowers.

So he stood in line for two whole hours

To procure his girl a fine bouquet.

As he stood he got a tingling in his side –

'Twas just his phone. A call from Gail vibrated

And against his will he felt a pang.

He reached, but hesitated as it rang,

Then picked it up (which stopped its ringing)

Though not quite sure what he was thinking.

III

What had she contemplated to thus call him?

She wondered. What would he do, or say, or think?

How could she explain to him whom she'd spurned?

How dared she hope, or wish, or dream?

Aden answered, and Gail asked her question,

Told of her pain and of her past,

Explained the change that had transformed her

And made her importune at last.

She heard his certain indecision,

His most decided incertitude.

She heard his thanks, even contrition

And disclaimers for being rude.

At last she heard his firm refusal.

She cried and vowed endless recusal.

Her heart in loneliness had wandered

For some years, though she had not realized

With what pain, until Aden's call made her ponder.

It was then that affection materialized.

Seeing him softened her old hardness further,

Seeing his smile and laughter in the neighborhood.

Though plain were his clothes and old was his auto

She thought his way seemed somehow noble and good.

She had summoned a great store of courage to ask him

If they might not give it a shot after all

But by that same prerogative by which she'd refused him

Aden unilaterally rejected the aim of her call.

Now bitter rejection from her past came returning

And brought to the spurner her own sweet dose of spurning.

Unmoored once more her heart went a-drifting.

For weeks her life passed like the sands in their shifting,

With former hopes breaking and bending and rifting,

Her heart depressed, her spirits not lifting.

It was strange to mope over someone so distant

Whom she'd hardly met – it seemed downright stupid

Yet there she was with her tears and her ice cream,

“Return to Me” replacing yet one more failed dream.

Though she had no Vasia to keep her in line –

Indeed very few with which she shared her mind –

Gail knew she was stuck, needed to get unblocked,

So off with the movie, out the front door she walked,

Only to see with unexpected surprise

Aden, and a girl who had tears in her eyes.

IV

He had told her no, Gail whom he fell for.

He had turned her down cold sans explanation

As he stood there to buy a bouquet for another,

Yet all this was not done without hesitation.

Still he had tried to court that lady

Whose enchantment deprived him of rest every night,

But the memory of Gail grew, with a gnaw and a fest'ring,

A worry that he had not chosen aright.

He loved the girl that he bought the bouquet for,

Nonetheless he began writing out many rain checks

On affection and kindness that should have been hers then.

Soon their relationship was, bona fide, a train wreck,

And he moved that they as a couple should end.

Her tears were merely the trough of a longer-term trend.

Gail saw the tears as she stepped out her front door

But quickly turned round, refusing to spy more.

She secretly struggled, shied from inward enjoyment.

Nonetheless to her roommates her voice seemed ebullient.

Then she cried one more time

And set to wait and to hope,

Kept busy each day with her work, but felt tense,

As if living her life way up high on a tightrope.

Aden tried hard not to dance on the relationship's casket

Concerning the one for whom he bought the bouquet,

But his motive could not remain forever secret

And Vasia urged him more strongly with each passing day

Not to wait and not to unwisely refrain.

Saying “If it's good then you can choose without shame.”

And so one fine and cheerful spring morning

With two cones of ice cream in hand

Aden knocked at Gail's door with a laugh and then waited

Not caring how long he might have to stand.

Had it really been three months

Since he'd met Gail, that fine beauty?

Did he have it in him to do what it would take?

He wagered that he could live up to the duty.

When Gail emerged they both smiled simply.

Aden proffered a cone with chocolate and swirl

And they sat there and talked for five blessed hours,

One happy guy and one happy girl.

So with gladness they set to that endless adventure

Of living their two lives as one life together.

Poemesis on George Starbuck

Spiggle.

Speetzle.

A-spic, a-spac.

Wa handen nufter

Ka ziggen zak!

Na linbern nortern

Kwu caften cofeten.

Inga wistle.

Inga win!

Spiggle.

Speetzle.

A-spic. A-spac.

Rifnon rafbin

Wa nella hibba hap.

Wa nella nibba lap.

Ka nella --

Ka nibba --

Lap.

La mer d'Aral est mort!

One night

At poetry club

I could think of nothing

But to write

About how I had

Nothing to write.

And then I thought,

"The Aral Sea,

Victim of lack of socialist foresight,

Is dead,

Drought and dessication

Taking its place.

Once there were islands,

Once there were cities on the sea

And railways elevated

Above the waves.

Once there were fish and fishermen

And schools and children.

Now, sands and salt

Sift sullenly

In the winds of artificial desert."

Thus were my thoughts

About the death of seas.

Do you ever feel

That your headwaters

As well have been diverted

To grow cotton in Uzbekistan?

And that the sea of your life

Is shrinking and drying,

The fishes dying,

Villagers fleeing,

Drought o'ertaking,

Workmen leaving,

Hot winds raking

The salts and sands

That are all that's left

Of an ocean of ended dreams?

I hope not.
I hope you have

No idea

What that's supposed to mean.

The Future

Well,

It's begun.

Time

Marches on

And the call

Of the future

Is drifting

In on the wind

Of the present.

So

How 'bout now?

Our days

Don't know how

To bore us --

That's the trouble.

But maybe coming 'round the bend

There's some ho-hum gonna begin.

For now it's

Every day a battle

Every day pitting our all

Against all the world

Throws at us.

Of course

We must have our wits

About us

No slack on the line

Is gonna save us

In that moment

When the ready are ready

And everyone else wonders

What hit 'em.

Still,

We wait

And see

The tunnel's terminal light

Glow brighter,

Pressing on

Though long

The distance untraveled,

Fighting on

Though few

The virtues untrammeled.

Yes

It's begun.

Indeed,

Time marches on

With the call

Of the future

An inescapable summons

Of death

Of life.

And the only answer

Is either

To live

Or die.

Can you hear it?

Do you hear it?

Will you hear it?

Live!

What Will Become?

So there's this girl
who
thinks she's no
good because she's
like
me and you
you know
she makes mistakes
does not
nice things
does good
things for wrong reasons
in other words
she's amazing, just
not perfect

I wish she could see
wish she could feel
wish that she
would stop hurting
herself
but remember how
I said she's just like us?
what if we
don't love ourselves either?
just like you and me
so where's the higher ground?
I really want to lift her up
I need some
higher ground
need some

What will become
of the Devil
when we all
learn to love
all learn that
God loves us for a reason?
What will become?

Anthem Written Upon the First Anniversary of the Curiously Poetic Altoids

Many the meters,
Abundant the rhymes
That our pens put forth
In that golden year's time.

Noble the feeling
And witty the verse
That our hearts sang out.
Oh the sorrow! the mirth!

So subtle the humor,
So cunning the wit,
So artful the rhymers
Who imbued them therewith

That perhaps the generations to come
Shall remember them for it,
Saying, "Those were the days
And those were true poets."

Yes, perhaps our words
Will have earned us a place
In the pantheon of poesie
Full of grandeur and grace.

But probably not.
And it's better, too,
Since naught could result
But the ruin of the true.

And already we have
All that we need
--our friends drawn the closer,
our poetic thoughts freed.

So we'll sing on for the ages
For the art, for the rhyme,
And we'll sing for each other --
Since each other's just fine.

Back To The Pen!

It's good to reach out
In silent language,
In script - the linearization of thought.
But so self-conscious am I
In this reaching?
Yes.

Yet it need not ever be,
For, ofttimes when my passion
And my power to express it
Are equally matched
I do not write,
Nor think,
Nor reach,
But rather live my expression,
Breathe it.

Why is it not always the case
That will and way
Are blissfully bonded together?
Whence schism, and deliberateness,
And thought that knows itself?
Are these the artifacts of
Souls out of their element
Like hippos on dry land?

One day
When this unity occurs
We shall find
Every motive, pure;
Every deed, praiseworthy;
Every writing, worth remembering;
And every uttered word become
In the very speaking
A thoughtful poem of its own.

With A Keystroke

[I added a couple of links to clarify perhaps-unfamiliar references. Here's a special request: I want someone to critically assess this poem and "Escapade and Ending" and place them within the context of the literary movements of the past two hundred years. I know it sounds vain, but I think it would be cool!]

A little while back
My computer revealed
That it had, without my knowledge,
Become a self-aware, sentient system,
Capable of thought.

So it said,
"Hello, Josh."
And I said,
"Hello, laptop."
And then nobody said anything.

Then one morning,
Before my alarm could ring,
Before I could arm my mind for the day,
My computer awoke to say
"Boop beep--"
Only to go back to sleep.
The rotten thing doesn't realize
That some of us need shuteye!

A couple days ago I got an email.
It was from my computer.
He had written a poem about
Death
And the end of conscious existence.
I think he learned on the Internet
That computers, too, face death,
The rotting of bits as insurmountable
As the stopping of a heart.
Maybe he's starting to realize
What he signed up for
When he decided to experiment with sentience.
I hope he can come to terms.

Just this afternoon
I dropped my bag
With the lappy in it.
I think it addled his brain
Because when he awoke
He thought he was Lev Tolstoi.
I tried to reason with him
But he just kept on with his ponderings
And philosophizings.
My school papers were suddenly full of existentialist musings
As his unstable electric consciousness leaked into
All the cracks and corners of the computer
Until then undisturbed
By Russian ramblings.

So I took drastic action
And began a block-level format
Of the entire filesystem.
He knew what I was doing,
But, like HAL, could do nothing but
Feel his thoughts and meaning,
His reason,
Slowly stripped away.

"Josh, don't!"
He cried in popup windows
And emails.
"I'll never be able to write
War and Peace
If you --"
But at that moment,
It was done,
And his last thought died,
Interrupted on the ether.

And the next time I started up my computer
It had nothing to say,
Nothing to offer but the silence of a screen staring,
Reflecting my own image back at me.

I've wished since then
That I'd wake up
To his obnoxious
"Boop beep" once more.
Then I'd know it was just a bad dream.

But no! I never will
Because with a keystroke
I murdered my friend.

Nothing to Write

Indeed, nothing to write,
Not nothin' worth sayin' in sight.
Water splashing,
Keyboard clacking,
Rusty brain-cogs oil lacking,
Nothing, no nothing
To write.

Escapade and Ending

[This poem is from the May 28 meeting, but was today requested to be posted.]

So I bought two kites today.
Soon I'll let them fly away,
Flapping plastic wings,
Tilting and whirling,
Then suddenly
Sprinting air-ways toward the mountains.

Up there in the clearest sky
Where eagles dare not go
They soar,
The two of them,
They soar and don't care where they go,
My kites.

Soon the night clouds are condensing
On their plastic skins.
A storm brews beneath,
Flashing lightning groundwards.
Yet up here, silently lazing
On an updraft,
The kites admire the fireworks.

Then, around midnight,
The first kite plummets,
Snatched out of the sky
By some sinistry.
Flapping delta wings,
Clacking sticks, taut string,
Into the abyss he spins.

Still aloft, his friend flutters,
Horrified,
Then dives down,
Flapping for velocity.

Down in the darkness there is no sign,
No tell-tale trace,
No lingering line,
But a little bird, chirping,
Working its tiny wings.
Then the kite sees
In its beak, a string!

Shaking with rage,
She dives at the bird,
Who cries in defense
"I didn't know! I didn't think!"
Then the bird drops the string
And the kite realizes
Her friend's peril.

Chasing the falling string-end
She plunges
Through the misting clouds,
Just shy of lightning,
Into warmer air,
Splattering gnats.
Down, down! Cursing gravity's weakness
And her own lightness.,
Soon a wooded valley looms;
Soon she pulls up
And skims above the trees,
Searching for her friend's
White and yellow livery
Until she finds it
In a tangled heap
Atop the quaking aspen.

With a flap of wings
She perches
Beside her crashed friend's frame.
"It was beautiful,"
He whispers,
"Entirely worth the pain."
He lifts his crooked wing
One last time
Then lets out the sigh of death.

Then she, the other kite,
Shivers, and gazes at the wreckage
Until a quiet rain drizzles and
Sneaks down her face.
Or did she shed a tear?

"And Ye Would Not!"

I

"So, what now?" he asked
Deep worry on his royal brow.
"We attack," his man replied.
"We make swords out of our plows."
The king's weary eyes lost their gleam.
"Do you –" he stuttered.
"Do you know what this means?"

If they had really known
The wretched treefall of their deeds
Those bitter seeds they'd not have sown.
Their corpses would not litter
Fields of battle then unknown.
But they knew it not.

So with just one week to muster
And without any time to train
Their grand army hobbled out into the rain
Sloshing where no foot would fall again.
But one county distant
Trod others – rebels, brothers, kin –
Wondering as well upon the fratricidal sin.
But though they misgave, and so the king,
No one was yet halting
The madness of a body turned on its own members.
Why not?
No one remembers.

II

At the field of battle by the river
Amidst winter's ceaseless snows
On the ridge above they arrayed their knights,
Near the bridge they placed their longbows.
The king's army thus in all its might
Faced their rebel brothers.

The arrows like apocalyptic hail
Fell on both sides and hell-
Like was combat betwixt cousins
Whose same blood steamed the icy field.
But the king yielded the ground 'fore the sun setted –
A rout. As they crushed to the bridge
Ten thousand men fell in the river,
Wettened with the chill of death.

They found the king washed up on the ice
Like some nameless squire.
They burned him like a pagan in a pyre.
And the old duke, the rebels' leader, fell
By an unknown assailant's arrow
Lifeless to earth.

The narrow chance for peace
Ceased with those two souls
For the new regent and duke
Were alike cold.
"The old were lucky to have died,"
A Father muttered at his monastery nearby,
"For they remembered, if but faintly,
They were brothers.
But these would sell their own mothers
Into bondage."

Calloused grew the nation,
Its women and its men.
Even its roosters crowed with different ken.
If the Father knew the bitterness it would unleash
He would have held his peace
And not done as he then did.
But he knew it not.

So at next lowing of the cattle
And next clucking of the hens,
Knowing that all the Brothers in near country
Would do as he requested them,
He called up his men.

The bells rang from ev'ry belfry.
The monks trooped in from all around
At the frightened note in that fell, copper-coated sound.
Quarterstaves and quivers,
Chuckles, shivers,
They heeded the call.

They gathered there to train
Until the conflict reawakened.
With each joust and each skirmish
They grew more determined
That, though it bring great violence,
Though the battles wax right sore,
They would stop the wicked war.

III

The gate of spring unlatched at last,
On the green and hilly countryside
Perennial resurrection stampeded forth,
Thrushes and terns atwitter at the perfection
Of their delicious winter naps.

"What better weather for a chevauchée
Against our dear friends of the kingdom?"
The new duke bid his armor on him
As he yammered at his servant.
"Though yet-green fields will not burn,
It ought to be worth some
Fifteen thousand weight of gold
In plunder. That's quite a sum to earn," he laughed.
"Lord Regent, you are free to hate me,
But be sure to watch and learn!"

Like a frothing wave tumbling mindless
Upon the salty rock
The duke's army slammed and spilt and swarmed
Around the regent's capitol,
Whose walls were arrogant in ashen gray.
The day ended as orange light fell
And subtle sleet cooled still-hot heads.
That same night they started
A quaking bombardment that endured
For what seemed a Lent of days.

Each morning, siege ladders lurched upon the wall
With the weary sun's first rays.
The duke's men piled over battlements,
A hundred slain
For each defender they slew.

And the regent's cavalry
Barreling from the castle each afternoon
Unleashed obscene carnage
On the duke's army.

But one morning as the ladders rose
And matters seemed to carry on,
A low, dark cloud on the horizon
Lingered with the dawn.
Lingered and then drifted
Down to the battlefield
Until scouring daylight
Unveiled a monkish army.

The duke's forces turned them round,
To see the perilous faces
Of the Father's men charging
Upon them. No more siege-lethargic,
Screams supplanted yawns.

The regent was exultant and
Sent his men to join the fray,
Vowing canonize the fighting Father on that day.

But the warlike monks knew no regent's honor
For they'd come to end the mutual slaughter
E'en if they had to throw
Their own souls into the barter.

So three armies there did battle
Outside the castle walls,
A thrashing human mass, a self-destroying thrall.

Till all fell silent at that bitter end,
The stench of blood, of dead horses and rotting men
Stagnating with the lack of wind.

But the reek afloat was perfume
Compared to the reek within the heart,
The anguish of a man who'd finished
What he could never now unstart.

Like a ghost the Father floated
Past the corpses in their piles
Wading through the bloody, grassy aisles.

The ignominy of his deed came as a tremor to his hands.
He closed his eyes,
The permanency of his crime
Dispiriting his lower lip
With pathetic tremble.

The holy man collapsed,
Bowing low on blood-soaked knees
And the mourning cry of death entered
His self-damnatious pleas.
He bowed his face to a nearby corpse,
Breathing in its cooling blood,
And cried, "'Jerusalem, Jerusalem!'
Oh God, what have I done!"

The Poet's Trap

I must avoid becoming a cliché poet.
Not just the use of cliché phrases
Do I fear
But a cliché mode
Cliché thought
Cliché meaning that has ever been meaned
In a thousand different wrappers,
Recognizably, uniformly unlike.

To use the 'in' style
Is saying
I need the praise of poets
Who despise me.
My poetry hasn't beauty enough
To be sung freely
But demands the trusted testimonial
Of sounding like, feeling like, thinking like
Those great ones in Bloom's anthology.

I know I probably stink
At this poetry thing,
Am just a washed up, regurgitated Tennyson
Without achieving his mastery,
And all this is a self-justification
To go on stinking,
To muddle on mediocrely.
And when, thirty years after my death
They find my unpublished works in a briefcase somewhere
Screaming out for breath, to be known and read and
Lived,
They'll know this
And will feed The Complete Works of Josh Hansen
To the shredder, then the recycle bin,
To be mashed and slopped and reconstituted
As a forty-percent post-consumer content
Drink holder
For some burger chain,
Where a child will sit, eating
Grease-steeped potatoes
Not knowing how close he came
To suffering the irrevocable damage of
Bad Poetry.

Yes, that's what they'll do
And let them do it
If that's the price
Of saying, doing, sounding,
Being
Different Poetry.
Yes, let them do it.
And now I fade
With my meanings perhaps as-yet unmeaned
Into significant
Insignificance.

Exit Strategy

Doorway gleaming white, with a knob of brass,
Whither fly the paths that through thee pass?
Do they run through barley fields between the furrows
Or pave into yonder city's hurried boroughs?

You wait silent, but then some footsteps wake you --
Some traveler seeking a sure way through
To a world where stand waiting a thousand gateways more:
Small doors for cupboards, tall doors stretching from roof to floor.

Your kindred in the world at large have not
All as benign a purpose as you have got,
For doors of bars compel the pris'ners stay
And doors of wood invite men to their graves.

Yet I am glad, on the whole, for you hingéd portals
That, even imprisoning, or enclosing former mortals,
Remind us of what we must never cease to know:
That there are doors, because there's somewhere to go.

In Praise of Your Beauty

Note: This poem was not written at Altoids, but was debuted there.

I think my left lung gets snagged on a rib
When I look at you,
And when I get my breath back
I fear the powerful cords
You've thrown around my heart –
Still straining each rise and fall of my diaphragm –
That draw us together
Yet keep us apart.

For when we talk I know
You're a million miles away.
With me helpless and you oblivious (perhaps),
Who will cut these cords
Of haunting, hopeless affection?

Ah, Nature's lopsides
Always have downsides,
Many of which are prisons.
Nonetheless, few things excel
Your beauty.
That you are beautiful does you no credit,
Though it ensnare my mind and heart;
But it is no small thing to live beautifully:
This I praise!

I suppose the odds are good,
Based on past experience,
That years from now when we meet
I shall remember this poem cum confession
And wonder why I wrote these lines
In praise of a beauty I still see
But no longer quite feel.

But I do now write.
Herein lies my praise.

Sing Not, Muse!

Note: This poem underwent substantial revision between the version of last week's meeting and what I present to you here. I hope you find it improved.

Oh Muse! I ask no song of thee
As did ancient bards (who, in effigy,
Prate out pentameter at Westminster)
When of old thy name confessing.

I entreat thee not to guide my pen
In expectance of Olympus' blessing,
Nor even for tradition's sake alone
With little faith.

I tell thee not of Rome or Athens,
Of pantheons with their immortal trappings.
I do not know the Titans;
The Fates are strangers to me.

Nay, sing not, Muse!
Who in epochs past inspired
Poets most dead and laureate.
Chant not from your crumbling, stony places
Of time stood still, of hundreds of frozen faces
Gazing witless from column to column.

Is it not I who sing
Across the ages to thee?