Select Ten

1. Short Pieces

Frozen teeth hang

from roof above

poised to fall

Smoke rising from
behind the hill
lost among clouds

Silken web hangs
from the lights above
who has spun you
and left you in the cold?

2. Short Pieces

Dimly lit path
slush and mud
caution advised

All the world is yellow
beneath yellow lights


Behind dim yellow glow
the shadows wait
the night to claim
ground lost to light

3. Short Pieces

Prospective students

suit wearing children

unaccustomed to wearing suits

Orchestra Concert

one hundred horsetails

run from tiny stick

On Mood

I'm feeling great

Like peaches, cream,

And sauerkraut

4. Villanelle on Villanelle

A villanelle is stupid, wrong, and dull
Why can't we learn more Shakespeare/Robert Frost?
This torment over I, in writing, mull

Such wretched forms the foolish poets lull
into complacency, then leave them lost
A villanelle is stupid, wrong, and dull

In writing this, I feel my talent fall
Such forms, like Arnold, leave me feeling crossed
This torment over I, in writing, mull

This piece doth set a migraine in my skull
Continuing, much ire I amassed
A villanelle is stupid, wrong, and dull

Perhaps I need espresso, double tall
To get this done, then pay the sleepless cost
This torment over I, in writing, mull

Considering its fate (the brazen bull?)
Anon, complete! This poem shall be tossed
A villanelle is stupid, wrong, and dull
This torment over I, in writing, mull

5. Lamassu

By order of the mad prophet
Smash! Sledgehammer bashes stone
Soldiers advance on unmoving targets
Bravely facing carved stone in heated battle
Cameras ready to bring news of dark deeds

All contrary meanings and measures
Smashed! Burned, erased
Whether man or works of hands
To demonstrate resolve for war
Until only cycles of blood remain

The camera moves, the music swells
Smash! Another statue falls
Praise Allah! Hammers in the air
The world watches the destruction
of men long dead, now dying again

For the first time since it birth
Lamassu looks up
Sees itself, head lost to body
Forced to watch invaders
Destroy its home once more

6. You Poem - On the Way to the Tomb (Re-purposed Easter Poem)

Will you return to that place
See Him die again in your eyes?
You heard the clang of hammer, spike
The air was thick with cries of pain
You saw that nails that bound Him
to that tree that ripped Him from this world
Will you return to that place?
Can you look upon His grave clothes-
Anoint His body—the Teacher you admired
and see Him die again in your eyes?

7. Mist

             In the stillness of night

   the mist descends upon earth

            a shroud, like a blanket

just barely visible in moonlight

                    forever wandering

                      yet perfectly still

  the sea of clouds keeps watch

         over the sleeping ground

  until, above sloping hills

The rising sun

a warm embrace of light

 mist fades into retreating night

leaving only tiny droplets

upon the fields of grass

which stretch heavenward

towards the sunrise

8. Id

Trapped
            In this place, there are walls
            Four walls; one ceiling, one floor
            Which make up a room

Darkness
            Envelops this place
            This place with four walls
            One ceiling; one floor
            Which make up this dark room

Fear
            pulses through this room
            The Fear creates Anxiety
            For me
                        Locked in this dark room
            With four walls
            One ceiling, and one floor

Alone

            There is no one with me
            And the Fear and Anxiety in the Darkness
            Of this place with four walls
            One ceiling, and one floor
            Leave me

Trapped

9. Art Gallery - "From Dust"

I offered my condolences

To the senior art major

whose pottery smashed to pieces

before the art exhibit opened

I received a strange look

“Not smashed, but crafted!”

“By the sidewalk, perhaps?”
The conversation ended quickly

“From Dust” the artist calls it

Catchy name, also known as

“A Pile of Dirt Adorned with

Jagged Shards of Pottery”

Sought to copy the technique

Composed a new score, shred it

 meticulously burned the edges

will be a performance to remember!

10. Sonnet

From distant shores, long past from mortal sight

across the waves of now forgotten seas

Great ships, the finest works of human hands

a mighty fleet towards horizon speeds

Ten thousand years or more, these ships did sail

towards one final war against the world

to fight–to stab the heart of consequence

and burn the earth to ash–begin anew

Yet so fixated on the way ahead

Not one would see the tiny ship depart

Though small compared to mighty armament

This ship, the Argo, knows these waters well

 Turns east, like men who have a work to do

Sails on, sails past these sailors doomed to death