Discovery
I think it is like,
If you walk through a field of long grass,
And reach your hands out to push it aside,
And find you've reached the edge,
A cliff below you, and a view,
Oh, a view that makes the concept of 'a view' make sense.
The first person to call it that must have seen something like this.
Powerful enough to construct a noun.
Rivers and valleys and mist and jungle trees and birds you didn't think you'd ever see outside a documentary.
And it is all novel.
And it never runs out.
That's the point, I think, for me.
Reading a passage from a new book, or learning a fact about my friend.
These are the birds that flutter, newly discovered, across the canopy.
And yet they are still distant,
I still stand up here gazing like it's all separate from myself,
I think I will begin to walk down.
Maybe I'll fly with them, too.
Bugs
Legs legs legs legs legs legs
Licking leaves underneath
Til the day turns hot
Creeping up the aphid covered grass
Til they cover me at last
With their tiny little limbs
flower friend beside me eaten he is not
crawled upon by the crass
open up my stems to lay your itty bitty
eggs eggs eggs eggs eggs eggs
Limerick(s) of the Week #54: Forsaking Limericks for Ballads — getting away from the AABBA
That limerick of the week I'm to write
Should not be so unique it's alright
That it comes later than
Every seven days can
Such that my readers up'n'left, downright
After a year I've fallen behind
Gone out of sight and out of mind
It's just that I'm so sick
Of writing the limerick
I hereby up and resign
Where did they all get me?
Awash in kinky debauchery?
Maybe on paper
But not with my neighbor
Off the record they all rejected me
Though for a year I've gone the distance
In weekly consistent persistence
Doing the jig
And rhyming each gig
I think I'll just free-verse, perchance
A sonnet a week, a haiku a day
The other paths I could as easily sway
With wordsmithing well played
More likely I'll get laid
'Cause a ballad makes powerful foreplay
Sure I'll miss double entendres
The innuendos and allusions to congress
But talking dirty
Just ain't as flirty
As assonance with my sexy accomplice
Size doesn't matter
Hyperbole makes organs no fatter
But slip in a spondee
Or a fricative, and you'll see
The poetry will make her wildcatter
Dancing with Light
Today I clean the room where my soul resides.
I sweep the floor and draw the curtains,
Wash the windows and wipe the table.
There is, in the room of my soul
A shadow in the corner,
Where the light comes to hide.
In that little dark hole.
I bring it to the light.
It has tiny hooks under my skin
Small, strong, and tight.
I cannot break it with all my might.
The spot says “my-self” and
Each tentacled hook proclaims its name.
Self-pity says one,
then doubt, fear, and pain.
Others mourn sorrow, anger, and resentment;
They churn and feed one another in turn.
I squeeze and squash that dark corner
smaller and even smaller.
Until I see in my hand,
a tiny grain of black sand.
I inhale the sun,
the fragrant air.
One gentle puff is enough.
Gone is the speck in my hand.
Where once it was dark
a tiny bright spark
invites me to dance.