Friday, December 31, 2010

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.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

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...

Thursday, December 23, 2010

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/

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

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.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

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...

Monday, December 20, 2010

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...