Morning Repast

The breakfast that she makes,

The one I like the most,

Is not the healthy bran flakes,

But hot creamed-beef on-toast.

2011

The Tiger year has loped away

The Rabbit year is here to stay

New calendar and diary and hangover

Otherwise, it's just another day.

Move, Baby, Move!

Life is movement, sometimes fun,

Sometimes a chaotic mess...

So I flap my arms to remind

Me I'm alive, relieve the stress,

And burn my pleasure candle

Brightly, musically, until I find

the happiness, all I can handle...

Sports Shorts

Soccer is really "foot ball",

Mostly it's pin-balling foreplay,

Climaxing with goal-catharsis.

- - - - - - - - - -

The World Series is played in America,

But the World's Best baseball,

Is played in Japan.

- - - - - - - - - -

Men who can't go out and fight,

Become out-of-sorts,

So, instead, they watch sports.

On A Blustery Christmas Day

The seahawk wind-plays,

Wafting and swooping,

Soaring a hundred ways...

And grounded below,

Skyward I gaze,

Bound to the dirt, I'm

Both jealous and amazed...

Winter Sunrise

You look so down and bedraggled,

My old best friend, but why?

Just pause for a winter moment,

And look up at the morning sky!

(Photo by Geoffery M. Hamilton, 1955-2011)

Floating Ash

Sent from a heart's volcano, into the sky,

Dust blown from its embers, long gone cold,

Feelings fret and float, without knowing why,

From a spot in the mountains, quiet and high,

A story whose ending has yet to be told.

(For my wonderful niece.)

The World Is Not Fair

Early morning coffee

Saturday lies ahead, half-planned,

In front of me,

With opportunity, and

The freedom to choose

A thousand ways,

To live and use

Another of my days.

A gift of freedom

I hold by chance

Of birthplace

And national happenstance,

The product of blood

And power and race...

Simple Saturday freedom,

Not always there

For the unlucky others

Slogging-away, elsewhere...

- - - - - - - - - -

Revised version:  https://commonpoemsandrhymes.wordpress.com/2017/01/17/the-world-is-not-fair/

What Birds Do In The Tree-Tops

(Art by Mark Harm Niemeyer)

Under a distant, different sun,

The Crow decides to have some fun

And tell his jokes to the Seagulls…

So he asks them why they live by the sea,

“Well, if you lived by the Bay, you’d be Bagels”

Caw, Caw, Caw…

No… Haw, Haw, Haw…

“Now, why do birds fly south for the winter?”

“Because it’s too far to walk!” he says with a squawk!

Caw, Caw, Caw…

No… Haw, Haw Haw….

“If you’ve lost your tail, and you’re feeling sore…”

“It’s time to go to the retail store!”

Caw, Caw, Caw…

No… Haw, Haw, Haw…

“What figure is a lost Parrot?” asks the Crow,

Well, that would be the Polygon, don’t ya know…

Caw, Caw, Caw…

No… Haw, Haw, Haw…

And so the Birds pass their time in the trees,

They joke and laugh and poop as they please.

Vaguely-Remembered From 1990

The hot Euro-women swoon and scream,

As the pretty boys swing their hips,

They are so sexy-cool, a dream,

Below the boys burns an estrogen fire,

Tingling with sweat and rutting desire,

And all is good till the recording skips,

Then nothing moves, but their lips...

The pretty boys' deception displayed,

In a gasping embarrassing moment,

The lathered women are left tricked and betrayed...

And falling faster than Icarus in flames,

The pretty boys vanish, along with their names...

Evening Monster

Thunderstorm in December,

Out of season: rumbles and growls,

Causes me to stop and remember

Summer's hungry heat --

Then away it prowls...

Waiting For The Final Score To Be Announced

It's like a tightening

Of some sort, tingling

Not painful or frightening

But can't be ignored

An aching highness

Twisting behind the lungs

Up the trachea to the sinus

And it won't go away

Until the result is known

Ruining or making my day...

Japanese Imperial Army Reconnaissance Pilot

My job was to go out and find them,

The American carrier strike groups

Which circled like sharks and raptors

Around my battered mother-land

And they attacked and bombed

Almost unopposed, and at will,

The targets of their choice...

So I was pulled out of school

And taught how to fly,

At an airfield in China,

First at day, then at night...

And was then given a plane,

Twin-engined and sleek

Designed like a German

To fly patrols like an avenging eagle...

But it all ended,

Soon after -- too soon,

Before I could locate someone

To be killed.

Upon Hearing The Who In A Supermarket

In the bountiful aisle of a food store

Wide-space-suburban sublime,

Shopping for something good in a can

The overhead speakers, normally tame,

Play a hard-rock song from a time

I was a younger, wilder man...

Caught-up, brought-back, I push the cart

And my tread has a Keith Moon spring,

As I join in the chorus, past the cereals

Where a woman hears me sing,

She says: "I'm glad it wasn't just me"

So I wink at her and smile

At our shared 1970's thing...

Up From The Dismal Funk

Hope grows back ... a green sprout,

Which pops up, fresh and whole,

From the earthen black of a
Weed-eaten corner-lot in my soul...

It Started With Sony Walkman

Life is better when accompanied by music,

It gives me a rythmn, and boredom flies past,

Adversity bows to my favorite song

As long as my ear-phones and batteries last...

What I Did At Work Today, 20 December 2010

Waiting all day

In front of a computer screen

Ready to send the warning

Of Koreans attacking unseen

From an ocean fog, deathly white

On a cold December morning...

A fog so thick, that peace,

Has become a forgotten sight.

Insomnia

Sitting at my desk

Wishing I could sleep

Clock ticking...

- - - - - - - - - -

Hello, time-piece!

Your lined-face greets me

As I fight myself awake

For a middle-aged pee,

Taking a break from a dream

Which knows me the best --

As strange as that may seem --

And orders toilet-time, vice rest.

7, 5, 3

The daughters, in kimonos, go at three and seven,

And the sons, in hakatas, go at five,

To the shrine -- gate to gods and heaven,

To give thanks for being alive.

Damned Sooners

How can my heart

Feel so sore

Over a losing

Football score...