Hello Poetry!
I have decided to keep
My poems here.
Rather a few be read
Than keep the lot
Penned up waiting in a sales ring
With no buyers,
Starvation coming....

Children, fresh as bib lettuce,
Green and tender,
Stand before me in my rocking chair,
Pearled new teeth,
Wisping hair, golden, brown,
Embarking up a stair way
That I am going down.

"Papa, can we go out to play?"
I look out the window
To see the kind of day
Before I say,
"Would you like to take a walk?"

As she emerged from years of abuse,
Became aware of the ******* he'd placed,
She knew it was time to go,
Filed the papers,
Moved in with a friend,
Tried to see another end.

Love does not die easily;
Her heart yearned
Some better way,
But ends must come
When there's nothing left to say.

She left everything to him;
He'd forced his will in choosing every piece:
Furniture, fixings, knife and fork,
Appliances, decor, automobiles....
She wanted none of it anymore.

Love does find a way
To die, though the dying may be slow.

"It's good we didn't have any children,"
His mother said. "We didn't muddy up
Our pure Norwegian blood line."

Love finds a way to die.

We trudge the fetid jungle,
Thinking our green way
Must be an overgrown trail.

Dampness pervades our clothing,
Soddens our shoes,
Drips from leafy branches,
Fails to cool us in the tropic heat.

We ascend gingerly,
Hoping for cooler air,
Realizing the immensity of time,
Of memory moving on ahead.

Shrieking birds unseen
Foretell dooms imagined:
Snake and lizard fangs,
Feral creatures' claws and teeth,
Unseen traps waiting to inflict
Sudden deaths or slow.

Silence arrests us,
As we stumble to a cliff,
Gasping for air,
Longing for coolness,
Stopped in our breath as we see....

Climbing the ranges ahead of us,
Above, and arching up and down,
The great dragon's crenelated back
Undulating over the mountain ridges,
Disappearing into the past.

This, the generation
Of the Trampling Bull,
The trodding of the Crop,
The headlong raging run,
With never any stop.

Having pulled the stakes,
Dragging tethers;
Pawing unchecked,
Throwing clods above his withers;

Fence posts falling,
The corners cave.

Town boys chase him
With sticks,
Unable to check or to drive
His rampant run,
O'er suffering fields.

Where are the men
Who'll come to force him,
Bellowing,
Back into civility?

Where are the men?

A good day
For worm travel...
And bird feasting.

I am dressed gray,
Walking in clouds.

Vapors cool
Fog my vision,
Slow my journey
Through moods of contemplation.

Yet, there's Life here,
If I can slow
My splashing rush
To let the dampness sprout.

I met a girl named Winter,
Skin as white as snow,
Heart as sharp as splinters
Iced and cold.

I met a girl named Autumn
Suffering on the brink;
Dying embers made her glum,
and made my passion sink.

Summer was a girl I met
Just a little after spring
And though we danced,
Twas just a little fling.

When e'er I think of Spring,
Her fitful temper flares....
She promised everything,
Then flitted off somewhere....

"I'm done with seasons,"
Then I said, "Elsewhere will I look."
And so I sought a little song
And found one in a book.

Her looks so fair; her words so sweet -
Our voices found full harmony;
My happiness has been complete;
My heart has found its Melody.