Oh dear Villanelle, I tried, I tried, I tried
To cure you of a stubborn disease; a form
So onerous, it hurts both my eyes

To see you bleeding tears out of your sullen eyes
Words would always have their power to ****
Oh dear Villanelle, I tried, I tried, I tried

My closet holds no aba aba
If I’ve only known better medicine, there seems
No cure for you , so onerous it hurts both my eyes

Iambic pentameter you say, NO
Such remedy I say
Oh dear Villanelle, I tried, I tried, I tried

Your crumpled form, my eyes cried
Tears that I’ve never known
Dear Villanelle, I tried , I tried , I tried
This villanelle, so onerous, it hurts both my eyes.

The little gold
Shines beautifully
Under the yellow light
Shimmering faces
With a cheeky smile

Come four years
A little older
A  little dirtier
But that same cheeky smile
The same little gold

Come another 8 years
The same little gold
Inside
Layers and layers
of dark, black
dirt piling up
No more cheeky smiles
Only masks, masks and more masks

Come another 16 years
The same little gold
More and more
More and more
More and more
Layers piling up
The little gold
No more to be seen
Black, coarsened gold
Masks, masks and
more masks
A heart of gold
But not
a mind of gold

Come another 32 years
The little black gold
ceases to exist.
Under the thousands
and thousands
and thousands
of other layers
But a new layer of gold
forms.
Twas not the gold
formed first
Formed last
Old is gold.

2 deaths in
3 days
I don't know what to say
or even what to feel anymore.
A close friend, first
then
a friend's father
Gone from earth
to the golden gates of heaven
A close friend;
she was
A beautiful soul
A listening ear
That was all she had.
So many moments filled
with laughter
So many emotions
God bless her soul

A friend's father
Oh pain engulfed him
The last of his days
were not the easiest
Pain, blood, torture
Never a day
Had he not brought his daughter to school
Supported her through thick and thin
God bless his soul

Both into the golden gates of heaven

Swords are drawn in soundless night
Above the walls of gold
The winged angels of death descends
A thousand from above
Now Heaven is in its last throe of death

Winged angels of death
Embraced them both
Into its cozy wings
God bless their souls.

September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.

She thinks that her equinoctial tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,

It's time for tea now; but the child
is watching the teakettle's small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac

on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.

But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons fall down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the house.

Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.

-Elizabeth Bishop

I shine
A little light
Within the palms of my hand

It just gets darker
and darker
the little light
losing its light
With every futile effort,
a more disastrous outcome

It's getting
darker and darker
A little by little
The light spills out
from within the palms of my hand
trying to catch it

It gets darker.


It's black now.
No more light
within the palms of my hand.

To be frank,
metaphors scare me.
They do.
I don't know how
but many poems
have metaphors so
awfully entwined in them.
It makes the comparison
a so detailed list.

From the bone for the poem
the metaphor starts
out to the skin
it never ends
it penetrates the human soul
leaves a scar,
a mark -
a clue to the human condition.

And so
still to be frank
metaphors scare me.

Sometimes,
while writing
a poem
My hand starts to shiver
And I just can't seem to continue.
like today
just now
when I wanted to write a poem
about
the lovely ties I made today
and I don't know why
Usually I don't get stuck
But today it
was
literally
brainfreeze.
And my hand started shivering.
And I deleted the entire poem
Because I realized
that I probably can't write poetry.

The poem didn't sound right.
But most importantly,
it didn't sound like
what I would write.

I can't seem to write poetry.