Pantoum I  (Rhymes now; repeat lines unchanged)

I took my diamond to the pawn shop
that didn't make it junk@
I didn't get much money for it
that put me in a funk

that didn't make it junk
it wasn't just a shiny bangle
that put me in a funk
our lives were just too tangled

it wasn't just a shiny bangle
easily swapped or traded
our lives were just too tangled
our love became too jaded

easily swapped and traded
yet not so easily dropped
our love became too jaded
I took my diamond to the pawn shop

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pantoum II (Now longer than two verses; repeat lines unchanged)

I took my diamond to the pawn shop
but that didn't make it junk@
didn't get much for it
value, it seems, had shrunk

but that didn't make it junk
unlike us, it had no flaws
value, it seems had shrunk
there ought to be a law

unlike us, it had no flaws
yet, like us it was a flop
there ought to be a law
this really had to stop

yet, like us it was a flop
all the pretense, all the sop
this really had to stop
I took my diamond to the pawn shop

seven pennies
fourteen dimes
two friends visit
candy shop

sweet smiles
sharing
candy bar

Pantoum I - Non-Rhyming

I took my diamond to the pawn shop
but that didn't make it junk@
though I didn't get much money for it
just enough to buy a meal

what makes something junk
when you come right down to it
if it buys you a meal
and can satisfy a need

when you come right down to it
what value can we give
to satisfy a need
when we swallow down our pride

what value is there really
in any things we have
if they swallow up our pride
like useless diamonds pawned
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pantoum II - Rhyming

I took my diamond to the pawn shop
but that didn't make it junk@
didn't get much for it
value, it seems, had shrunk

pawning doesn't make it junk
if it satisfies a need
even with its value shrunk
pawned diamonds make you free

We travel carrying our words.
We arrive at the ocean.
With our words we are able to speak
of the sounds of thunderous waves.
We speak of how majestic it is,
of the ocean power that gifts us songs.
We sing of our respect
and call it our relative.

Translated into English from O’odham by the poet.

’U’a g T-ñi’okı˘

T-ñi’okı˘ ’att ’an o ’u’akc o hihi
Am ka:ck wui dada.
S-ap ‘am o ’a: mo has ma:s g kiod.
mat ’am ’ed.a betank ’i-gei.
’Am o ’a: mo he’es ’i-ge’ej,
mo hascu wud.  i:da gewkdagaj
mac ’ab amjed.  behě g ñe’i.
Hemhoa s-ap ‘am o ’a: mac si has elid, mo d.  ’i:mig.

My mother never forgave my father
for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time
and in a public park,
that spring
when I was waiting to be born.
She locked his name
in her deepest cabinet
and would not let him out,
though I could hear him thumping.
When I came down from the attic
with the pastel portrait in my hand
of a long-lipped stranger
with a brave moustache
and deep brown level eyes,
she ripped it into shreds
without a single word
and slapped me hard.
In my sixty-fourth year
I can feel my cheek
still burning

ROBIN REDBREAST

It was the dingiest bird
you ever saw, all the color
washed from him, as if
he had been standing in the rain,
friendless and stiff and cold,
since Eden went wrong.
In the house marked FOR SALE,
where nobody made a sound,
in the room where I lived
with an empty page, I had heard
the squawking of the jays
under the wild persimmons
tormenting him.
So I scooped him up
after they knocked him down,
in league with that ounce of heart
pounding in my palm,
that dumb beak gaping.
Poor thing! Poor foolish life!
without sense enough to stop
running in desperate circles,
needing my lucky help
to toss him back into his element.
But when I held him high,
fear clutched my hand,
for through the hole in his head,
cut whistle-clean . .
through the old dried wound
where the hunter's brand
had tunneled out his wits
I caught the cold flash of the blue
Unappeasable sky.

All summer I heard them
rustling in the shrubbery,
outracing me from tier
to tier in my garden,
a whisper among the viburnums,
a signal flashed from the hedgerow,
a shadow pulsing
in the barberry thicket.
Now that the nights are chill
and the annuals spent,
I should have thought them gone,
in a torpor of blood
slipped to the nether world
before the sickle frost.
Not so. In the deceptive balm
of noon, as if defiant of the curse
that spoiled another garden,
these two appear on show
through a narrow slit
in the dense green brocade
of a north-country spruce,
dangling head-down, entwined
in a brazen love-knot.
I put out my hand and stroke
the fine, dry grit of their skins.
After all,
we are partners in this land,
co-signers of a covenant.
At my touch the wild
braid of creation
trembles.

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

I dreamed that I was old: in stale declension  
Fallen from my prime, when company
Was mine, cat-nimbleness, and green invention,  
Before time took my leafy hours away.

My wisdom, ripe with body’s ruin, found  
Itself **** recompense for what was lost
In false exchange: since wisdom in the ground  
Has no apocalypse or pentecost.

I wept for my youth, sweet passionate young thought,
And cozy women dead that by my side  
Once lay: I wept with bitter longing, not  
Remembering how in my youth I cried.

Matchless beauty
O-shaped, our home
Traversing an endless "sea"
Holding us tight, yet leaving us free
Ever forgiving though we don't deserve
Rotating gently, never a swerve

Ethereal blue when seen from afar
Arched splendor in space
Regaled by the stars
Taciturn, yet giving so much
How can we repay her sweet loving touch?

There once was a man who liked to eat grunion
he ate them with ketchup and onion
he ate them for lunch
he ate a whole bunch
he ate so many they gave him a bunion

There was a lady who liked to eat cheese
but when she ate it she started to sneeze
she'd sneeze and she'd cough
till her hat would fall off
and she developed a terrible wheeze

There was a young girl who ate cantaloupe
while she rode on the back of an antelope
she rode along fine
and continued to dine
till her antelope tripping, slid down a *****

There was a boy who liked mango
when he ate it he did the fandango
he'd throw out the peels
then with a click of his heels
he would dance a beautiful tango

There was a lady who loved carrots
but so did her large group of ferrets
if her ferrets were there
she had to give them a scare
to keep them away from her carrots

There once was a man who liked to eat soup
but when he did it made his ears droop
it was hard to recoup
with ears covered with goop
but he just couldn't give up his soup

There was a young lad who liked waffles
Though they made him feel really awful
he ate them with butter
then he would sputter
and develop a terrible cough-ful

There was a man who loved to eat stew
but when he ate it his face would turn blue
it was truly a ghastly hue
he looked like he had the flu
as if he was sick through and through

There once was a lady who liked custard
she ate it with pickles and mustard
a strange combo, she'll grant
since she's not even pregnant
when she was asked she'd always get flustered

When you get too quiet
I worry
my friend

Did I say something
to offend?

If I did
I surely didn't mean to

But I'm left here
wondering

wishing I could ask you

Be gentle with one another
the world is harsh enough
Be gentle with one another
think the best without judgment
pass on praise and caring
softer words chosen carefully
Be gentle with one another

Be gentle with yourself
accept your faults and imperfections
Be gentle with yourself
think the best without judgment
Let your spirit be free, your heart peaceful
Be gentle with yourself
listen to the voice inside...
but...

   only when it lifts you.

......................Though
                             your
                                smile
                          ­      is broader
                                  tonight
               ­                 you look
                              lonely
                       ­ moon

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
Billy Collins

again...

a thought
pursued freedom

gone forever

from my mind

.........All
               I  
                  can
                    see
                       to-
                       night
                      is your
                    sly
                 side-
               ways
          smile

tonight's early sky
hung a poem

for the capture

but my muse's
net wasn't
woven tight enough

to hold that slip of a moon
or its partner
that one tiny star

talismen
           align
               'neath onyx skies
                         lift
                           crystal *****
                                     filled with
                                                visions
    ­                                                   of
                                         magic,
                        malevolence
             musings
alchemy
               creates
                       golden chalices
                                                to hold
                                           the wine
                                 of illusion
                    sorcerers
             casting
spells
      pixies
             sprinkling
                               dust
                                       spiders spinning
                                  orbs
             whose gossamer
threads
                      capture tales
                                           of
             ­                                    kings
                       ­                                      castles
                   ­                            princesses ~
                                 wizard wands
                         meander
               across
the night sky's
                     wilderness
                              rearranging stars
                                               into patterns
                                                        ­   to be read
                                                as words ~
                            cryptic languages
                        wishing
                 insight
              into
mysteries
            opaque
         ­               clouded
                                      hidd­en
                                                    locked
   ­                                       within
                                  soldiers
                   and samurai
seek the key
                 while dragons
                                      breathe
                  ­                                   flames
                                                          ­ of  passion
                                                    ­     into
                                      the cauldron
                              that lights
                     the banks
of a river
              of dreams
                        cliffs rise
                                along the edge
                                     casting shadows
                            that plunge deep
                         to nightmares
                 hearts climb
and fall again
                   caught by
                                      the jagged edges
                                                           ­     of love
                                                  and bitter
                                    melancholy
           ­              climb and fall
                  again
bewitched,
                beguiled
                         becharmed
                                        by incantations
                                     to
                   the moon
goddess

Did you ever consider
that the amazing work
The Ingenious Nobleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha
"Don Quixote"
could be thought of as
being "tilt-illating"?

Spring

is it finally here
with its softly pleasant ways

Spring

with blossoming cherries
and balmy days

Spring

breezes calm and fragrant
with petals replacing snow

Spring

blue sky, warm earth
where many colors grow

I'm ready for all of this
but Summer take your time

Sometimes you get
carried away
and create too hot a clime