We struggle with the
Metaphor
We mail it out and
Head it for
That unknown gent the
Editor
Who wonders what we
Said it for,
And what, in fact, he
Read it for.
#PoetsandRejection #PoetryHumor #Poetry
From fountainhead
the iridescence springs
no sooner born, beheld
than slipped the fragile snare
#Poetry #ShortPoems
A poet is born, not made.
Yet the poet must be made
once born
the leaven and slow rising
the kneading and shaping
and the baking
heat from the hot, hot oven
before the hunger ease
which is the sharing
the time of feasting
when piece by piece
bread from the heart is torn.
#Poetry #PoetryCommenatary
Bright flame butterfly dream
With burning wings,
Warm me.
#ShortPoem #Yearning
The light turned green
And he shuffled his aimless steps
Across the street
Life-scarred, seedy and soiled
A thing the sun struck hard upon
A stranger from the kinder clime of night
The light turned red
And time and the world roared by
While he lingered perplexed in the alien place
Beneath the tangled hair,
Behind the fire-rimmed eyes
The secret terror tore through to light
From the little boy
Lost on the corner of loneliness,
Locked forever in the body of a man
#DamagedPsyches #Compassion #HomelessPersons
A bright colleen was comely Molly,
The daughter of Paddy Magee,
A feisty lass bred on Ireland’s soil
And determined as any you’d see.
Now, Molly and Paddy were often at odds
So the villagers all opined.
Strong-willed was Paddy, but Molly was too;
They were two of a kind.
Seamus Tashus thought Paddy a fool
And often told him so.
Then the shillelaghs flew and the air grew blue.
But no winners. ‘Twas touch and go.
Seamus was proud of his only son,
Austen, a brawny lad.
But when Austen smiled broadly to Molly
Neither Paddy nor Seamus was glad.
Austen and Molly were kept apart
—or so the story goes,
But the sweethearts found their own grand way
As this tale shows.
On Festival Night at Shamrock Hill
Along the leprechaun trail,
The lovers two did slip away
To the coast where a ship set sail.
Many a one with the gift of Blarney
Will tell in great detail
How Molly and Austen were wafted away
By the wee folk on the leprechaun trail.
And sometimes when heard is the banshee wail
On a wild wind frightful night,
The home folk, huddled by their hearth’s warm glow,
Will mourn the lost lovers’ plight.
But far from Killarney, across the sea,
In a wedding both sweet and gracious,
Our lovers were joined as man and wife:
Molly and Austen Tashus.
#IrishTales #PoetryandIreland #LoveandPoetry
“My home, where is it?”
Pavlova asked
“Everywhere, everywhere
They welcome me.
And so she danced across the wide world
Leaving behind in the hearts
Of her audience
Memories and dreams.
Butterfly
Borderless, unbounded, dancing, dancing
Across the continents
As the years rolled by.
Suddenly, the music ended….
She was fifty
Breathless now, borderless still,
She crossed that other continent
Into New Dimension.
I like to think she dances there.
#AnnaPavlova #Dancing #RussianCulture #WomenInHistory
A Tribute to Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan
In the dark, quiet hours of night,
I thought of you, Helen:
how locked in lightless soundless
prisons
your energies fought their futile wars
until Annie came
and the guided flow of fingers over hand
wrought the wonder-spell of water streaming.
Lighted by Annie’s beacon
your yearning spirit, that indefinable force
brighter than hope
began the splendid voyages of discovery,
freed at last
by the wonder spell.
#WomenInHistory #HelenKeller #Braille
The blood
The slashing of flesh and bone
The snarls
The crashing of men to stone
The waste
The splashing of hope Atone!
I awoke in dread
For men had bled!
And a voice from a box
In a dream had said
Dog spelled backwards is God!
And I remembered then
There were dogs and men
And a curious play called Zone
And a place marked BLACK
And a space washed WHITE
And music: a shuddering moan.
And I trembled awake
For the souls who make
The teeth-blue bruise of hate
And for those who wait
Behind iron-white gate
And call the waiting Fate.
#Selma #SelmaandPoetry #CivilRightsViolenceandPoetry #RacialConflict
Wrapped
we wandered
All winter held:
. A fairyland in frozen time
. a city of sun dunes
. and ice-crystalled trees
. dazzling
. gleaming
. beneath the pale fair moon
It was a silvered time
a tender time
a snow-bright moon-white moment
caught in clockless time
#WinterMemory #LoveandPoetry