ElzoHarm Art (No. 12)

I am hurt, and I need to heal,
Where can I go, where can I rest?
The pain is spiritual, but real,
And it keeps me from sleeping, lest
My dopamine dreams conceal,
The answer, the cure, the blue-green vale
Of pine trees, and grass, and peaceful air,
A portion of nature, pure but frail...
And I lay me down on the pine needles, where
The shade of the branches cover me,
To protect from the rains of mystery...
And I relax amidst magic blue-green trees,
Arboreal peace, an enchanted breeze,
Cooling, calming, curing the disease...
The trees are like gods, so I pray, on my knees,
To the quiet of the hollow, its being to cherish,
Every day, every month, every year, 'till I perish.

Gray Mist Of The Soul

A fog flowing in the woods,
Softly suggests of vagueness

Uncertain directions and
Intentions headed to dust...

Like drivers, we can't see too far

Past the headlights, and trust

We’ll arrive, wherever we’re bound,

Babbling-away on the phone in the car,
For drive into the fog we must...

So, we find comfort on familiar ground,

Flow-on with cycles of holy events,

Keep habits, gadgets, and lovers around, 

Which give illusion of order, peace of mind,

A rhythm to carry us forward,
Groping, hoping, cozy, and blind,

Through our one-time only,
Remorseless, earthly grind…

A fog in the woods, touches everywhere,

It still can caution, it still can scare,

And can hide what's not really there...

(Art by Mark Harm Niemeyer)

Origins

Where did the word come from?
That appeared upon this screen...

From a mental memorandum
That exists unheard, unseen?

Expelled from synapse and cell
Perhaps, like an idea-sperm
Which swam through mental jell,
And psychic isotherm,
Down my arm and to my hand,
Then in my consciousness to land...

I type the word in consummation.

A minor miracle of creation,
Completed in a magical way,
I can't understand to this day.

Women's Progress With Cosmetics

As a teen, her make-up is for the dance,
In her 20's, it's for a man to find,
By 30's, it's when she has a chance,
In the 40's, it's for her own kind.

Bird Steals Sandwich From Man

Seahawk, Seahawk,
What do you see?
Soaring above,
And looking at me.

Seahawk, Seahawk,
Dives for the land...
Aims for the burger,
I hold in my hand.

Seahawk, Seahawk,
Does a mid-air munch,
Flying away
With my former lunch.

MOSHO 猛暑

MOSHO is Japanese for heat-wave hot,
As in humid-sticky August air,
Which cooks things in a summer rot,
And beckons sweat-springs in my hair,
Which then drip-down around my ears,
To soak my shirt with sodden smears...
Each day, until the Autumn nears.

How Men Got Learned

To run out and hunt for something to eat,
Was considered a blood-skill and mannish thing,
Men killed and gorged on mammoths' meat,
Which thereafter caused their vanishing.
Then women stepped-up with nuts, roots, & wheat,
To save humankind from famishing…

Which is how men came to turn in their spears,
In return for shovels and garden shears.

Senryu For A Sunday

(Derived from nuggets discovered on the Internet cloud)

If, after the first time,

You don't succeed,

Redefine success.

Good health is merely,

The slowest possible rate,

At which one can die

While confession is good,

For your conscience & soul,

It's bad for your career.

Is reading in the bathroom,

Considered a form of

Multi-tasking?

Seen it all.

Done it all.

Can't remember most of it.

A conscience is what hurts,

When all your other parts,

Feel so good.

Radioactive cats,

Are thought to have,

18 half-lives.

Consciousness is:

That annoying time

Between naps.

Give me ambiguity,

Or give me,

Something else.

Eat Your Vegetables

I want to eat sirloin, as much as I can,

But I'm stuck with a serving of yogurt & bran.

I'd love to eat pizza, 'til dusk, from the dawn,

But I can't shirk the sensible diet I'm on.

The things I could do to a tray-full of pies,

Would make you turn red, and roll-back your eyes.

Instead I've got cabbage and beans vinnagrette,

Which have NO chance of making my stomach upset.

Neurotic attentive to calorie detail,

I chew at the bars of my vegetable jail,

Dreaming of meatloaf, to no avail.

After An August Rain

Pasted to wet pavement,

A late-summer thing,

Cicada wing.

High Waters

A handful of men stroll through their lives,

Well-meaning, with jobs & children & wives...

But oblivious to sartorial taste,

Wear their pants too high on their waist.

Fishing Fool

A crow dived into the ocean

To catch a fish like a cormorant,

A risky action and notion,

Which bordered on abnormarant.

A cormorant, watching the folly below,

Cried: "CAW CAW" ("Hey stupid" in Crow)

2010 College Football --- Bring It On!

Nebraska ranked in pre-season Top-10

Where it's supposed to be, again...

Block & tackle the Big-12 goodbye,

Then, let the future begin...

Rural Reality

Run-jumping from the

Tired, city-stained car

I burst-out with a joy-cry

Into the spectacular green

Of the farmland meadow

Ahhhh!!

The air is so clear and clean

That it almost hurts!

"Squish" goes my polished shoe...

Cow-pie.

Message Received At Edge Of Next Galaxy

I am Voyager, and

I bring a message to you

From a worn-out planet

Colored mostly blue

Populated by beings

Called man...

Run, while you still can.

Freedom Of Movement

Stuck on a traffic jammed road

I look up at the clouds

And wish I could

Travel in a wind-blown mode...

Why Travel?

The allure of the road,

Is not where you go,

But how you get there.

Mahalo For Blissful Ignorance

Welcome to Island Time and Aloha land,

Where things slow down to a sun-tanned view

Of rainbows and waves and fish, from the sand,

Where you might try to run, if that's what you do,

Back in the east, where the time-clock is king,

And progress and stress vein-through every thing,

But not here, Bra, watch the Hula and chill,

Forget all the deadlines, and go where you will...

{As the sharks circle-in for the kill.}

Downtown Dinner Drag

I found out, later on, we went there because

Of her memory of love-long-lost, it was

A locally-famous 4-Star grill,

Where the view was ocean & tropical-nice,

And the food was fancy, but basically swill,

Dished-out at a cheeky exorbitant price...

Once seated, I gaped at the stilted menu,

Then wished for a chance to escape from the venue,

But, deflated, defeated, and trapped in-place,

I grinned at the waiter, and tried not to think

Of the bill, and our girl with the pretty face,

Who snapped photos of her blue-colored drink...

Resigned to my fate and degraded digestion,

I toyed with the artichokes, fennel, and bisque,

And waited for a chance to make a suggestion,

That we finish our entres and flee, lest we risk

An assault by dessert, at the hands of Steven,

Who'd been bringing our food since the evening's inception,

And now pushed sweet-pies, as if to get even

For some sin unnoticed, or fiscal deception

By previous guests, who ate but excluded

The tip, assuming "gratuity included"...

And how could the uncle, who brought us along,

Be at once both so happy and utterly wrong,

Heaping praise on the restaurant, service, and fare,

While ordering cream-cake, and insisting we share

Over coffee, which signaled the end was in-sight,

And the torture was stopping, but try as I might,

I could not feel better the rest of the night.

Benny Decker's Statue, Yokosuka Chuo-Koen

The bust of a former Captain from the Navy

Famous back in occupation days

Is placed and postured so his stoney gaze,

Looks over the edge of a bluff, where maybe

If he could still see, he could watch the waves,

Of Tokyo Bay, which lap against the landfills

Which have long since buried

Yokosuka's beaches... But the verdant hills,

Remain, with an ageless message, carried

By spiders and kudzu vines, who attach

To the Captain's statue, in a slow embrace,

A small signal from nature, which somehow I catch

As I pause to wipe the sweat from my face.

Time's Relativity

It bothered me that the city park's clock

Was wrong -- 10-minutes fast, "What's up with that!?"

I spat, and continued my morning walk...

Yet more proof that bureaucratic fat,

Fed by my taxes, can not manage a task

As simple as keeping correct time

Yet yearly it comes, efficiently, to ask

For more money, down to nickel & dime...

Just then, the morning siren blew,

At 8 o'clock sharp, as it's programmed to do,

That's when I looked down at my watch to see

The one with the wrong time, actually was me.

(Comment: I'm just glad I didn't go ahead and start a Tea Party movement about it. I could have been refudiated.)

In The Days Before SUVs

I remember all of us crowded in

The stationwagon-back-end space,

Like monkeys in a padded bin,

As we drove to a distant scenic place

Playing games with cards, and spying

License-plates, and singing songs

About beer bottles on the wall,

The time flew by without even trying...

Driving the country roads: two-laned, long-

Stretching concrete strips, westward lying,

And leading to nothing at all

But the promise of mountains and swimming and fun

Under a summer vacation sun.

And no I-Pods or cell phones or DVDs,

We did quite well without any of these...

(Thanks to G.H./"Imager" for the inspiration. Check out his Blog at: http://ofratsandmen.blogspot.com/)

Footfalls With Pisces

Morning health-ramble, middle-aged motion,

Calories to burn, scale to be faced,

Along a quiet seawall siding...

I glance down to the ocean,

To see I'm being paced,

By a sting-ray, quiet & gliding...

We jog together, fish and man,

It in the water, and me on land,

Opposite ends of evolutionary span...

For a momentary Zen,

Which may never happen again.

Ten Quotes From Napoleon Bonaparte

A leader is a dealer in hope.

A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.

A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.

A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.

Ability is nothing without opportunity.

An army marches on its stomach.

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

Old Edo Trail In Shioiri, Yokosuka

I walk up the 400-year-old road,

Which climbs, narrowly, through the green

Overgrown slope, rising above the quiet homes,

Still asleep, on a humid summer morning...

I imagine what it must have been,

The road, in the days before cars,

Where business, routine or urgent,

Was conducted on foot...

And boy, how they must have sweated,

On a morning like this,

Walking, with purpose, through the crow calls,

And walls of bamboo, to reach their

Goals and destinations and assignations...

I think they would have remembered

This small stretch of road, only

As something best completed, not repeated.