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523 · Mar 2017
Untitled
Jim Davis Mar 2017
Dark, well I know
Still, a spring tide's shining moon
Guides my way to you
From web
Spring tide
"a tide just after a new or full moon, when there is the greatest difference between high and low water."
522 · May 2017
Existence (5w)
Jim Davis May 2017
I exist
Because of you

©  2017 Jim Davis
518 · Aug 2018
Beggars Haiku
Jim Davis Aug 2018
In our shared end
We are all beggars of days
Wishing for riches

©  2017 Jim Davis
Inspired by my daughter’s medical school classmate making this comment during his commencement speech.  
“We are not Gods, but rather beggars of days! “
Zack Ashmore
Commencement speech - University of Texas Medical Branch
Galveston, Texas
517 · Nov 2017
Where
Jim Davis Nov 2017
If someone should ask
Where to take his ashes
Do so to the lands of his birth
Spread into sandstone waters
Where his mother and father lie
Do so on a cold windy day
Let those in view feel the bite
And celebrate they are alive
To see this glorious day
His ashes blown by the winds
His spirit rising in the sky

©  2017 Jim Davis
512 · Feb 2017
The Moonlight Journey
Jim Davis Feb 2017
Under the shine of the moon,
Hand in hand on the strand,
Listening to the subtlest of sounds,
Of hearts and minds entwined,
And lives tangled together,
With the moon's passings.

A glance, a wink, a blown kiss,
A mist, a vapor,
Disappearing time traces.
Brief fleeting things,
Brought to memory,
In times as this!

A touch, a rub, an embrace,
Whispered words loudly heard.
A sweet mash of lips,
Leading to luscious heights,
With throes of ecstasy,
While standing in dreamy repose.

A fresh love grown old,
Tempered like finest steel,
Against life's arrows and flames,
A love to press on,
Till breath is gone,
And the shine is no more.

© 2016 Jim Davis
501 · May 2017
Anguish of Petals (5w)
Jim Davis May 2017
She loves me... or not

©  2017 Jim Davis
Had to do it!  Lol!
499 · Oct 2018
A Name
Jim Davis Oct 2018
I have not lived all my life
My ma and pa at the birth
misnamed me
I always say poor Curtis Melton
Died at only three days old
I am often amazed in wondering what his life would have been like

©  2017 Jim Davis
What’s in a name - shall we ever know?
To explain further ... I was named Curtis Melton for three days until my parents decided to change it - one can still see on the certificate of birth where the name is erased and typed in again!
495 · Aug 2019
I’m here for one thing
Jim Davis Aug 2019
Amigos,
What are we
doing here anyway
Are we seriously
going to write
some poetry
to save the world
Or not so seriously
to save ourselves
Either way
Let’s get to it

©  2019 Jim Davis
Just a late night rambling!
480 · Mar 2017
Hank Williams Haiku
Jim Davis Mar 2017
Walking in lonesome
Through a winter's woods, hoping
Melt of heart in ice

©  2017 Jim Davis.
Couldn't resist tribute to the Great Hank Williams
475 · Mar 2017
Haiku 4
Jim Davis Mar 2017
Unexpected things
Sound of a frog leaping in
Love's stab of a heart

© 2017 Jim Davis
Oops, I had to edit and add  ("in") to the second line.

Of course, a tribute
To the great poet Bashō
473 · Apr 2017
Blind in Mind
Jim Davis Apr 2017
Poets twist, flip, and stretch words

Into an airy jumbled kind of order

Writing with exquisitely fine care

Love in all zillion brilliant colors

Bringing life to big splashes seen

Hate shown in some deviled words

Oozing, drying, dying, real blood-spill

Arranging letters, phrases, sounds

To flow like ancient fine wines

Scrumptious laid in clear outlines

Feast for all hungry searching souls

Starving for any old spirit's lifeline

Giving a little delicate morsel of

Help for loved, lost, ripped and torn

Wringing out kinda new thoughts

From nothing as it seems to some

A mortal mind's stir of hazed ideas

Attempting match of a holy's divine

Wishing a part of life to live forever

Thought of in worlds not thine own

However, all must truly truly know

The secret of a dead poet's words

Is a twisting of a simple mind into

Strange or loose shapes and forms

Leaving space for a bigger space

To hold a guiding little white light

Gift of clearing sight for the blind

©  2017 Jim Davis
For National Poetry month, and the Hello Poetry challenge - 2nd day, 2nd poem, doubt if I'll keep it up, or want to!
472 · Apr 2017
All is a Loss
Jim Davis Apr 2017
Her eyes were the
saddest I'd ever seen
truly a mind now zombified
in earthbound remaining time
with all of an empty nothing
engulfing her forever dreams

She lost,
more than a thing or two
the loss went very deep
the core of her soul ripped away
stolen by time's unforgiving fate
absconded off by the evil one

All would agree
loss of key
or coin or such thing
really is a common trifling
but loss of all you've got
knowing will never find?

She asked not for sad fate's
sudden visit upon her time
rather always hoped keeping life
but with her whole life's blood
drained from the brittle shell
all her soul can do is wait

©  2017 Jim Davis
. For refugees throughout the world!  Also for Hello Poetry's day's theme "Undervalued topics". #npmimportant
469 · Jun 2017
Turn
Jim Davis Jun 2017
A turn of the phrase
can turn the mind
Opening it
to before unknowns
Never to return
To it's original shape
And squeezed limitations.

©  2017 Jim Davis
465 · Apr 2017
The Write
Jim Davis Apr 2017
Struggle in the fight
With the words to life
Throw them to the mat
Wrestle them until still
And start to shine a light

©  2017 Jim Davis
Submitted for HP metaphor theme today #npmmeta
461 · Apr 2017
Bound Book
Jim Davis Apr 2017
It's a funny thing, it is, really for two
To live in so much misery, in love
We know each other in our minds
Like pages held within a bound book

Pages we've lived, throughout our life
Many chapters, times happy or in not
Turning the pages into a long forever
While holding, the one love we took

Knowing the other's coming words
Sometimes with just a quick glance
Finding oneself, often in bit of trouble
Without idea of what was the chance

Upset with each other over big, little
Things of really no matter, such as
A **** in the night or a quick glance at
One of the younger girls by brookside

Feels like we're always kinda living in
A little bit of raving stark madness
Left over from the big, little wrongs
Done another, such a long time ago

Wishing only soothing love strokes
Of proud Leo's ego, in constant preen
Pulling sharp thorn from limping paw
Each time need is from me, of course

Given to each other, in it's holy bond
Everything we had ever each gotten
Or wishing always to keep to oneself
Just a small little part, still in freedom

To let one of the pages go unbound
Left to float in the winds of the world
Although fully well knowing,
no doubt
Sadness within, might be all to behold

Perfection of me with you at my side
Almost, makes it really a love perfect
Yet, perfect we are not, in our love
Not even in we, as one heart beating

Having lived as one in a together
Nearly all of our aged adult lives
Never fallen completely out of love
Knowing well, we soon too must die

Not wanting to live with any other life
Knowing in more misery it may claim
And really a much truer sweet love
Might not again arise in our lost time

Let's get this all right, perfectly clear
Perfect has only been found but once
How we wish and hope, our love is as
Near perfect, before perfect is here

©  2017 Jim Davis
Book love bound Leo ego perfect
460 · Jun 2017
Affirmation
Jim Davis Jun 2017
First from mothers,
Then fathers,
Then friends,
Then bosses,
Then lovers,
Then children,
Then grandchildren,
Then ourselves,
Then God,
The only one of matter!

©  2017 Jim Davis
457 · Mar 2017
Sussarations
Jim Davis Mar 2017
Ancient
Unsung melodies
Arise from within
The unseen ear
Oft of love
Rarely hate
Sometimes fear

All the words
tumbling together
A bedlam mix
Set in confusion
A cacophony
Barely heard

Clarity sought for
Giving life for the soul
To face this world
And fear not
Brave soul
Fear not

©  2017 Jim Davis
susurration
"The delicate-sounding word susurration comes by its gentleness naturally — it’s a very soft whispering sound that can barely be heard."
457 · Apr 2017
It
Jim Davis Apr 2017
It
Is the idea of you, it,
is it, really you

©  2017 Jim Davis
Submission for HP theme today - #npmmicro That's it!
456 · Apr 2017
Garden
Jim Davis Apr 2017
There is a place in my garden
Where I let things freely grow
Never tasting sickle, rake, or ***
A place planted by God's hands
Not mine you see
Always fascinated how his garden
Is always much prettier than mine

©  2017 Jim Davis
Submitted for HP theme today - #hands
451 · Feb 2017
A Pretty Little Bird
Jim Davis Feb 2017
A pretty little
Red tinged bird
was killed today

Struck by the truck
It rolled fluttering
Along the road
In it's death

I did not stop
my journey
Although I'm sure
God paused his tasks

For a moment
To welcome
Into his heavens
The pretty little bird

© 2016 Jim Davis
446 · Jan 2020
She's a Lemon Drop (10w)
Jim Davis Jan 2020
She can be
Sweet as Honey
Sour as Lemon
Depends...

©  2020 Jim Davis
445 · Jun 2017
Dog House
Jim Davis Jun 2017
I have another little house in back
A kinda smallish, white brick place
On a smallish flat hill with front facing
A small, greenish, kinda deep pond

Where I hang all the time in thought
Big piece of my kinda smallish heart
Built first for our loved sweet Mamau
Before us leaving her ashes in winds

In the small pasture, across the way
Surrounding, and beyond green pond
Bucks, does, mares, squirrels, foals
Scamper away, a big part of each day

None live there in long roots, you see
Coming, going, only by arrangement
I keep the place up, ***** and span
Decorating so as she would much like

Lots of lace in doilies, edges, or such
Victorian era mostly, in all very much
People, families, kids all come and go
But when none are staying night over

Then I'll often sit the porch awhile
Watching dragonflies fly and such
Then when the evening sun turns late
I'll stiffly rise to ring the front doorbell

Knowing she would, but can't answer
And I'll go on past threshold, till then
Hollering out, in loud, to ring the clear
"Ma, I'm home, again"

To eat some good gnocchi or such
And take a bit of rest, from the wife
Sorry, I meant of course, a rest
From this rough, tumbling, hard life

©  2017 Jim Davis
We now rent out the place on AirBnB (Mamau's). All who stay there love the place!  I forgot to paste last stanza previously, and renamed again from Mamau's to Dog House!
Jim Davis May 2017
...
I
...



©  2017 Jim Davis
#(1w)
Jim Davis Dec 2018
Take a slow look round
See what you can see
See all is a lie
Truth lies with your heart
Trust your heart to know
You must live the life
You are meant to live
And die much too soon
With the thought of me
As your best sweet hope

©  2018  Jim Davis
Just found this in my old notes!  Don’t remember writing it, but I am getting old!  Not meant as an ego trip but as a celebration of love!
433 · Nov 2018
Jewel
Jim Davis Nov 2018
She is a jewel
In an avalanche of
Rocks and boulders
Glittering in the light
With her smile
Warming my heart
And refreshing
my life anew

©  2017 Jim Davis
431 · Dec 2020
She (5w)
Jim Davis Dec 2020
Finally... she destroyed his poetry
430 · Apr 2017
Clown Faces
Jim Davis Apr 2017
When the traveling circus
Stops and is in town
It's really not fair
One is soon to realize
That underneath love's
big top circus tent

With the ring master's pronouncement
Over screams of the crowd
Brass band playing on
Having missed a catch, truly
Missing that moment in time

After falling down from
Spotlighted great heights in
Love's high wire flying trapeze
Fallen, crumbled, broken,
Critical, ones living on
In dire, screaming, need

Do not always jump directly
To the head of the triage line,
For repair of broken parts
(Unlike, under any medic's tent,
Where even an enemy would!)

And if actually go on surviving
The long fall amongst elephants
Jugglers, lions, tigers and such
Then joining the clown troupe
Expected to cause laughter
With painted on, really sad faces

©  2017 Jim Davis
424 · May 2017
Part of Me
Jim Davis May 2017
I have a sweet home, where I softly live
Thankful, with the big loves, all who still live
Loves not lost to time or failed in trust
Expected to last forever, they must

I have an idea, in some long ponder
To live on, just a bit, in time longer
Impossible! you say quickly to me
Well, let me explain, how it's so easy

I have a long hallway, in view, without art
At my home, where I lay my feeble heart
Blank walls there now, with absolute nothing
I'm really considering, for something

Hanging a few, framed and held in clear glass,
Poems mine, arisen from clear blue, mind gas
How long will they stay hung on a line
To seep into loved, a little light shine

At least possible, I hope, till I die
Then, I hope, at least my words left, will fly
Alighting in those, I had so so loved
Who read them in quiet, then sense a heart moved

Words that were thought finely written, by line
Thoughts that were in time, almost all of mine
Carrying tunes to not forget, ringing
Within their minds, forever lingering

Also to show to all their gifted,  young kind
Phrases from a deep in thought, poetic mind
And then, I may live a bit in longer
In many houses, with loves held stronger

Thoughts, in their still time, in quiet reflection
Happy thoughts, to drown those of depression
Holding a part of me, not gone rotten
And be a little more, unforgotten.

©  2017 Jim Davis
Written as my first Decasyllabic quatrain

From Wikipedia:  Decasyllabic quatrain is a term used for a poetic form in which each stanza consists of four lines of ten syllables each, usually with a rhyme scheme of AABB or ABAB.  Examples of the decasyllabic quatrain in heroic couplets form appear in some of the earliest texts in the English language as Geoffrey Chaucer created the heroic couplet and used it in The Canterbury Tales[1]
422 · Oct 2024
Falling
Jim Davis Oct 2024
in and out...
within seconds of time...
now... now not... now...
petals falling...
till no more...
hung...
flower...
still seen?

© 2024 Jim Davis
409 · Dec 2020
The Line (3w)
Jim Davis Dec 2020
Frankly...my dear...

© 2016 Jim Davis
Best three word movie line there ever has been... so far...!   Arnold’s “I’ll be back...” runs for a close second place!
406 · Jun 2017
Grand Life Haiku
Jim Davis Jun 2017
Just when life most grand
Death saying, "Now, I almost
Forgot about you"

This was prompted today by a tiny (one and a half pound), cute Yorkie puppy named Chance.  He came in to the EC after being sick at home with vomiting and diarrhea.  He was collapsed, nearly unconscious, ghostly pale, blood glucose of 28 mg/dl, scratching at death's edge.  We stuck catheter in bone and we brought him back.  He was doing well through the long night, jumping up to greet me, wagging his tail.  Just as I was ready to go home, off my shift, he cried out a big whimper, and fell over dead.  We tried to revive him, to bring life again, however, same as any of us, death had it's last say!

©  2017 Jim Davis
403 · Mar 2017
A Wish
Jim Davis Mar 2017
Have you ever leaned against
Blowing howling blinding winds
Watched sunsets yellow turning red
Just to get a feeling of a short cry
Howled long at the shining moon
On a bitter cold winter's night
Jumped at the sudden sound
Of a thunder's shaking boom
Hid in the arms of your best love
Danced with happy in pattering rain
Caught a frog by it's jumping legs
Measured time with an inch worm
Blown dandelion fluff to float in
The middle of a forever summer
Chased a pretty drifting butterfly
Wishing you were one too
Only just for a moment or two
Like you did as a young child

©  2017 Jim Davis
In New Mexico, as a kid, I did all this, I know I'm not the only one!
401 · May 2017
Selfish (5w)
Jim Davis May 2017
I only want to me

©  2017 Jim Davis
401 · Oct 2019
Decisions
Jim Davis Oct 2019
I don’t much like weddings
But nearly always they will have cake
usually punch, sometimes nuts
kissing the bride is always nice
I pretty much like all that

I also don’t much like funerals
But almost always they will have
A nice song or two, a glance at the corpse
A tear filled remembrance or three
I pretty much like only the memories

So I’ve pretty much decided
I’ll stop going to these kinds of events
weddings and funerals
Even my own
Unless I’m forced

©  2019 Jim Davis
395 · Apr 2017
To Live (5w)
Jim Davis Apr 2017
Be loved
When you die

©  2017 Jim Davis
My 2nd 5 word poem
389 · Sep 2017
Strands
Jim Davis Sep 2017
Holding a love
Between one
And another
Fibers unseen

Some strong
Some weak
A look alone
Can break one

A word can
Break two or three
A few words can
break forty or more

Replace those
Strands of
Love and
More in hope

For unless
New bonds
Love breaks
One falls

©  2017 Jim Davis
388 · May 2017
Discovery
Jim Davis May 2017
I think
I've written
Poetry
My entire life
Thoughts dropped
In dark crevices
Quietly dormant
Catalyzed to
Blazing luminescence
Then airy effervescence
Bubbles incandescent
Rising lost thoughts
Awaiting discovery
Ahead of any
Chance of
Death *****'s
Pop to nothingness

©  2017 Jim Davis.
388 · Apr 2017
Jump the Line Haiku
Jim Davis Apr 2017
Death to all arrives
Sadly to some still waiting
In long lines for love

©  2017 Jim Davis
387 · May 2017
Prayer
Jim Davis May 2017
Some friends of mine
lost their daughter's fresh beauty
Others, a young son's raw courage
I say lost, but not lost as key or coin
They know where to find them
Neath headstones, marking graves

Each day awake, living, not to forget
The one who rests the sleep of dead
The life, the light, to grasp upon in
Our ancient lives, hard paths to come
As end of days, were to come near
Instead, in old age, in shadows live

Lost in sight, yet never lost to mind
Such weight to bear in life remaining
Why does such fate arise while alive
Hope on hope in selfish thought
Never, oh never, my birthed loves
To first part, cruel world, for paradise

Life, has sure tragedy, one must bear
No head bowed or knees fallen in
humble request for answered prayers
Although prayers are what saves best
Those lost in life, in loss of their own
As who would know best, than him

©  2017 Jim Davis
383 · Jul 2017
Self (10)
Jim Davis Jul 2017
Learn to live
with self
before living
with any other

©  2017 Jim Davis
379 · Jun 2017
Dream Sack
Jim Davis Jun 2017
Is my greatest nemesis
He or she or they
Or someone
Known all too well
As only me

Me not taking
Dreams to true
As easily could
If not for me
Holding them trapped

Dreams carried
As creatures
In a little sack
Glowing bright
With drawstrings
Pulled tight

Dreams given
only to me
By the one above
Hung round the neck
Carried year after year

Heavy as millstones
Pulling one down
To the depths in despair
If only thrown far and free
Would take flight to reality

Dreams brought to being
Formed to true
In the time left
Minute by minute
From raindrops of do

Tear open the sack
Throw the dreams far
Taking me with them
To those places of happy
Waiting patiently for me

©  2016 Jim Davis
376 · May 2019
So long (10w)
Jim Davis May 2019
Turns out...
I only loved...
thoughts of you...
not you!

©  2019 Jim Davis
Is it really... only the thought of you...  I love?
374 · Jun 2017
Daily, Maybe
Jim Davis Jun 2017
A poem a day
Helps keep
Despair away!
But
I tried getting high
I tried getting low
Still, words hardly flow
Looking for life's sight
Before the life light fades
Life becoming all shorter
All night comes nearer
Glow gone to where
In time I don't know
Patient in wait
For soul's life
In one more write

©  2017 Jim Davis
Reading backwards sorta works too
373 · Jun 2017
The View
Jim Davis Jun 2017
Come with me to the deep tan desert
In the dark, far from bright city lights
Lay outside, with any up view to sky
Feel the dry breeze across the eyes

And believe me, you must all know
I'v been there, I've almost nearly seen
Can you see the rent torn within
The curtain parted away to reveal

To actually see the world not here
Know it is there in your sight
So that when your wings sprout
And in the fading light of the days

You go flying away past the sun
Floating the new sky revealed
Entering dominions of wild dreams
Knowing answers without questions

Before you die and crumble away
Leaving only ashes of thoughts
and memories only in floating love
Have undying belief, it is really there

©  2017 Jim Davis
371 · May 2017
Soul Date
Jim Davis May 2017
Where do our souls within arise
from whence does one's soul come
Is our soul hatched from underneath
Or born alive, yet hidden by the sun
Or are we like our God, I am,
and will forever always be

Always there
And always was there
Coming with the beginning
And lasting until no end
Love defined, love for all
Gifted to all, actually for free

Anyway, Is there a carrier of souls
Down from the heavens above
Angels with wings perhaps or
Unimaginable stuff flying from there
Or perhaps there is some soul ***
Where two can easily become three

Romancing all those new souls
I want a little part in that adventure
Some of us could soon enough see
Our first date in heaven's long bliss
Doing nothing, swinging and singing
Praises of glory in all different ways

One more slim chance of a kiss
Can one start to kinda imagine
How great that will all eventually be
That alone may give ugly ole me
Ecstasy's sweet heavenly bliss

©  2017 Jim Davis
364 · May 2017
Love Is
Jim Davis May 2017
Love is touching me
No
Love is touching you

Love is to be held
No
Love is to hold

Love is kissing me
No
Love is kissing you

Love is taking
No
Love is giving

Love is angry
No
Love is happy

Love needs
No
Love provides

Love waits a minute
No
Love waits an eternity

Love takes away
No
Love gives away

Love holds firm
No
Love gives way

Love argues
No
Love agrees

Love laughs at
No
Love weeps for

Love takes two
No
Love gives all to one

Love is
No
Love is
YES!  

©  2016 Jim Davis
355 · Aug 2019
Dreaming (10w)
Jim Davis Aug 2019
Touching you softly
to know
my dream lives
as you

©  2019 Jim Davis
Dream Dreaming Touch Touching
Love Loving Live Lving
353 · Dec 2019
Don’t (10w)
Jim Davis Dec 2019
Don’t form opinions on yourself
Based on opinions of others

©  2019 Jim Davis
Kinda stole the idea... and it doesn’t rhyme... but ... I love it!
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