"ginkgo" poems
a love poem, of new & old,
why I am the summer-man!^
summer is winding down,
sky’s multi blues freezer safe stored in ziplock see thru bags,
marked and named by hue, the where and the when,
so when the eyes finally fail, when the squinting don’t help,
when the good things those good blues aroused,
poems, lush and morning thanks for being alive come-not-at-all,
quite the opposite, these cold blues
may help, to recall why it was worth breathing
summer is winding down,
so am I, the synchrony no accident, time,
the Pharmacy kitchen calendar
claiming another victim, willing or not,
those cars and the blue eyed models,
are now but blurred wishes and hopes, even these words, spoken,
not finger scribed, for the keyboard a
jumbled jungle of alpha-numerical
of confusion hellish and
my sons don’t come to clean up my pathetic messes, sending
their little children, beloved concubines of my heart
the daytime watcher, spanglish her native lingo,
tho single words she’s pretty good at too, but that don’t help much;
the grands, toddlers to pre-teens, the eldest a womanly eight,
tries but soon frustration bored, slips away quiet like
replacing her with her two year old sister, who knows her alphabet
which ain’t an exactly a help, but her five pencils stored^ nearby,
tagged with her name, awaiting her poems, her one true legacy
try to imagine her as a grandmother, farseeing the day when she
occupied this too too hard to-get-out-of-by-myself “easy” chair,
making rhymes with her next-next generational descendants,
faint remembering the silliness sorcery that I secreted in her brain;
zingo, bingo, lingo
tango, ginkgo, jingo,
** ** oh no, oh no!
ashes, gray hairy poppy is a silly,
when he is not a grumpy,
old man all fall down!
which she acts out with giggles galore,
adding a teacup embellishment,
a creme fraiche pearly teeth smile topping,
the day watcher agrees, verrry verrry funny,
but time to me *** and take a needed morning *****
no poppy! no poppy! no poppy!
no nap, no *** no *****
thinking the call out is for her,
stomping her feet in an alternating rhythm and rhymes
I, happy poppy, ecstatics drooling out,
foreseeing the rhyme is strong in her,
get wheeled away crinkled and crackling,
*zingo, bingo, lingo
tango, ginkgo, jingo
** ** oh no, oh no!
ashes gray hairy poppy is a silly,
when he is not a grumpy,
old man all fall down!*
a new genre me of gibberish summertime love poems
Aug 22, 2019
Aug 22, 2019 at 5:11 PM UTC
Over-born and too-
Bright for us treacle-bound.
We'll lay sections
Before us--
But I'm stuck-with-
Sasquatch oaks; --ginkgo golems
If only clouds could lift
The moon which frequents
Venus-speech at night.
Needless for dormant-- endings
We've been untwisting,
Thoughts trapped tightly
In rules-
And it's us again,
That can see or forget the darkness,
When keyboards and pens
Tame the light.
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 6:41 PM UTC
Most mornings are not clear.
Most mornings are not the type with a
ten-state view from the top of
Clingman's Dome, and two very expensive
tanks of gasoline. You're welcome.
No, most mornings are battered
by some kind of weather condition -
rains and drizzles and nebulous fogs,
unhappy bedmates, a productive cough -
or else the sun just remits,
stays dozing until it has slept enough.
Then you get that gray sky-
chalkboard, the punitive slap of
humid cold on your early walks, your
coffee rendezvous. Then you have
too many garments at 3 because you put
on extra at 8. Morning, in short,
wishes you ill.
Be aware that if you were born
this century, you lurched into no
midwife's hands, full of love and wet, but
a surgeon's, gloved and powdery,
who spanked you firmly, knocked you
down with a commanding stare, and gave you
the first of many cuts you were to receive.
But for having woken up, let's say,
on the wrong side of the bed (if
even there's a right one), I would
like to think we've done alright,
are not too warm or upset at midday,
not too disappointed in ourselves, our moments
of astounding social gracelessness
that we leave like bits of sneaker in our wake.
Still, though, a question:
where grows happiness? Where sprouts
the silver trunk, the cypress or birch? Or
ficus or orange or ginkgo biloba? Tell me.
I would tap that tree 'til it withers, and die
under its trunk, and the two very expensive
tanks of gasoline it took
to get me where I am.
May 4, 2010
May 4, 2010 at 7:48 AM UTC
This twilight sky
Is like an indigo-orange symphony,
In which the light is absorbed
To be decomposed in corpuscles.
It may be ours until we die.
I may be your tree-woman ,a Ginkgo,
That Ginkgo having a stony trunk
And pure violet spiritual eyes
To look at you,
While the leaves are trembling
Their green sound.
Slowly, you may become my tree-lover-man,
While a star in the universe is dying for our love.
I may feel that force aspiring the quanta of light
Near you.
Come and be my black infinity,
While this earth is cracking its crust
From time to time
And especially now
As at any end of the time.
Wind is your embrace,
Next to this field of Nepal poppies trembling their hypnotic
Red melodious shadow
And near this ripe wheat field
Loudly shaking its tired yellow.
The wind is crazily singing and dancing around.
I seemingly hear some astral blue songs.
It's like a jazz blues chord progression.
Our leaves cling to its long hair.
I feel the rainbow of sounds,
I feel this love.
Jan 9, 2012
Jan 9, 2012 at 8:42 PM UTC
thousand droplets hang
from the tip of each bare branch
of the ginkgo tree.
Each orb holds the world in it
like the ornaments that decorate
a coniferous cousin, they
reflect me and all I see
today, a curious blend of grey.
Each shed leaf
is replaced by a tear
too delicate for me
to decipher all that it carries.
I am too distracted
by what I carry
to grasp what each holds
suspended so perfectly
making everything it reflects
into a single something solar twinkling,
each cosm capturing
all in need of being captured.
Today
I am left with no color.
The sky, the trees, the asphalt,
and the air I breathe,
in their unified beauty
say nothing.
Sep 17, 2011
Sep 17, 2011 at 6:39 AM UTC
Beijing’s Child points at the white clouds flying, veils in the somber sky, to the moon under the yielding tree’s red lantern, he is absent-mindedly playing with his brown braids. He pictures himself abroad, by other long shores turning the pages of his dear illustrated book when a fired fish jumps up to the skies clad in its rainbow scales, glistering. Under the yielding tree red lantern
Beijing’s Child rubs the green ginkgo Although the snow, winter’s daughter plucks the feather leaves of her silvery coat....
Was it the wind, messenger of the west that brought the Biloba bird until Ta? Under the yielding tree red lantern
He thinks about it sprouting, seed of the past. The Child whose name means pagoda lives over the gates of the shining sun chanting to the elements songs and lullabies,
Under the yielding tree red lantern.
And when Earth vibrates under the storms when the frightened men rise their damped eyes the child wraps his body with the veil of the stars I hear by the mounts his voice and his augurs. But the tree was cut down and cannot offer its sweet sap anymore the red gleam has faded long ago of the marooned torn by time book only one thing remains, and it is a dream.
Because, at bedtime, as the world is sound asleep the child pours a golden powder to the souls. Stay awake at night because the Child of Beijing will enchant you until your morning!
Written in French in Beijing, October 20, 2011. Translated on May 9, 2014 Lyon, France
Nov 28, 2015
Nov 28, 2015 at 9:01 AM UTC
she was Rose
he was a Dandelion
the end.
she was the Moon.
he was the Sun.
the end.
she was a Willow
he was a Ginkgo
the end.
she was a Royal
he was a Peasant
the end.
But
she was the River
he was the Rocks
she was the Lightning
he was the Thunder
she was the Rain
he was the Clouds
she was the Captain
he was the First Mate
she was the Princess
he was the Prince
she was a Mermaid
he was a Human
she was the Beauty
he was the Beast
she was a Reader
he was a Writer
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 7:44 PM UTC
Staring into space,
I sat below a ginkgo tree.
When a leaf caught my eye;
As if a golden butterfly
Lost adrift the blue sky,
Falling gently to earth
To lick at my foundations.
Only to be followed by
A gilded barrage —
Countless ginkgo leaves
Falling in tandem,
As if the tree was weeping
And time had slowed.
A rare performance,
Yet it all felt unfair to me:
Blossoming autumn was already past
For the ginkgo tree.
Each detaching leaf
Reminded me of a missed memory.
Times when she wanted to dance,
But I was too sheepish to hold hands.
Little did I know Lisa,
Little did I know.
Jan 19, 2021
Jan 19, 2021 at 1:18 AM UTC
Enjoying nature’s poetry,
written in vivid colors.
Each leaf speaks to me
in tints of red and gold.
Red leaves of the maple trees
share lovely memories.
A hopeful dream’s etched
on the golden leaves
of the ginkgo trees.
Trees of brilliant colors
softly humming in chorus.
The beauty of autumn,
the gathering of vibrant hues.
Nature’s imperfection and beauty,
Life and nature’s harmony,
Together, they work wonderfully.
Nature’s visible glories and life’s reality,
Us, our colors inside
as humans,
the mere reflection of our humanity.
What beauty it is to embrace
our magnificent colors within us!
There’s no vibrant
and luminous color,
other than forgiveness,
love, compassion
and kindness
deep within ourselves.
Nov 1, 2019
Nov 1, 2019 at 12:20 PM UTC
bp bp bp bp
footsteps nearing me
why do i get nervous
bp bp bp bp
wait
i’m alone
my heartbeat again
bp bp bp bp bp bp bp
i haven’t been sleeping
but i sleep good when i do
lots of dreams lately
but they’re all too realistic
i’ve been daydreaming about vietnam:
i’m following this lady
who sells bananas on a bike
she’s leading me through the bazaar
to find man who sells spice
spice man just cracked a watermelon
the juice running down his hands
the aroma strong, clean
i can’t speak vietnamese
but i wonder how much he’d haggle
on a wedge
this morning on my cold walk
air blew back my rusty hair
i was purposeful tardy
but i was happy
i saw the browned ginkgo biloba leaves
limp by my feet
-they’re lucky you know, the ginkgo leaves
and i wondered if banana woman had ever seen ginkgo
Dec 2, 2019
Dec 2, 2019 at 6:41 PM UTC
So they showed us the trees,
And told us to write.
Beauty and
overly-accurate descriptions
Expected.
Write about trees, they said,
But not about trees.
Write about roots,
And families,
And graves,
And anything you can stretch to
Relate to a tree.
But that's not my thing,
So I'm going to write about
Something else.
The people are staring at me.
Glaring, almost.
They don't want the teenager
On her phone.
Oh no, she should be
LISTENING.
They don't know
I'm writing poetry,
While they look for faults
In the tulip tree.
They nod their heads in agreement
To infections of the olive tree.
I'm on the ground,
So I look at their shoes.
You can tell a lot about a person
By the shoes they wear.
So they learn about trees,
While I learn about them.
I play Sherlock Holmes
And try to guess their
Personalities by their appearances,
Not really listening to the
Ranger man
Tell us about the
Growing process of a Ginkgo Tree
He talks about a Smerf,
And I absentmindedly ignore him
As I stare at the eyes
of my favorite type of tree.
I give him credit for trying,
Because while he doesn't have
My attention,
He appears to have everyone else's.
Soon, we gather around another tree.
He calls it 70 ft.
I call it big.
The sprinklers turn on,
And we laugh and move,
And we watch the squirrels
Play in the trees.
He makes a joke, and we laugh again.
It was a good time.
So I learned a lot today.
And while I came here
To learn about the trees,
I learned a whole lot more
About the people.
Apr 23, 2018
Apr 23, 2018 at 12:12 PM UTC
Now I see,
How I'm falling
Joining all ya'll lovesick fools
Battling tears from,
Memories held captive
To all my desires and rules
Like a fight with an enemy
Claw of a lion cutting deep
Love that's always unseen
Only to be forgotten
Under the ginkgo trees
Like the wind stirring leaves
This love I hold for thee
Causing discourse and sickening sweet
Smooth going as honey tea
You're a tragic lyric in my head
Silly and forever on repeat
An unknown book never read
Sep 23, 2025
Sep 23, 2025 at 8:16 PM UTC
the young ginkgo
tender yellow leaves
how they tremble
little duck feet
Nov 8, 2016
Nov 8, 2016 at 3:24 PM UTC
Beneath my feet,
A carpet of smiling, yellow
Ginkgo leaves,
Caressing each step
To just
A plush,
Plush, plush.
Jan 5, 2018
Jan 5, 2018 at 12:34 AM UTC
This was meant to be a haibun. After the
first sentence, I folded the list of rules into a sparrow. I go for a walk,
pass by the place where people write haiku
and roll juxtaposition into irony
as they eat their meals with the wrong
ends of their chopsticks.
he lifts gari with his left hand—
a slot machine jangles
A patron’s nearly full dish of wasabi sits amongst sushi platters that, except
for the left behind rice-explosions,
have been emptied. Around the corner,
a shaman stands near the clocktower
where the grass has died from a winter’s salting. The shadow of a ginkgo leaf flutters on his face like the wings of Buson’s moth. I want to turn off all the lights so that it can see.
The systems are broken. **** The systems are failing.
Further up Beverly St., an autistic boy
plays with Lego on a front porch. I try to remember his true name, and hope that
he can help break down the foundations, raindance his mind around the blocks’
angles and lines to solve an equation with a variable that is the shaman understanding
why the boy pretends to not see us.
Turn off the lights so that we can see.
Nov 12, 2021
Nov 12, 2021 at 11:19 PM UTC
By not listening
to the voiceless,
I was hurting myself.
Taking off the
golden ring-
to become a monk.
Crunching the leaves
of ginkgo-
to remember my eternal pains.
Time to pack your
nothings. Intrigue has
endorsed the white lies.
When I become unknown to
you, will you erase the
scars of the sunset?
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 8:55 PM UTC