"puzzlement" poems
Mark A. Williams
SEPTEMBER 14, 1962 – JULY 23, 2018
___________________________________________________________
Wow Mark,
Was so, so saddened to hear this news. I haven't seen you in over ten years, but as kids, we had some amazing adventures, didn't we? Partying, camping and swimming at the Hudson lime pits. Mowing down on Pizza and pitchers of Pepsi (and as we grew up, BEER!) at Pizza Hut. (We knew the numbers to ALL the songs on that jukebox by heart!) Hanging out and looking at the stars through Budvido's telescope, listening to Doctor Demento. Laughing hysterically as we ran through Monty Python skits as everyone looked on in total puzzlement because THEY wouldn't discover them until YEARS later!
Building underground forts in the North Woods. You, Budvido, Zeke and I playing pinball at 7-11 for hours and hours. Watching Bands, chasing girls and playing Foosball or Pool at the Touch of Class Teen Club. You gave me my first Imported beer . . . a Lowenbrau. I will always owe my passion for those German beers to you and it was fitting that Budvido bestowed you with that moniker.
All through Jr. High, sharing a seat on the school bus. You, Matt, Tom, Buddy and I cruising around late night on our bikes for hours. Hanging around in the Jasmine Lakes sign with hijacked beer or getting free bags of Burgers from Burger Queen when they closed at night! Jousting with shopping carts on our bikes in the Winn-Dixie parking lot. Sitting up all night in Jimi's room after climbing in through the window or going on endless space cruises with him and Raymond in the Toyota.
(RIP Jimi Carlsen)
Sneaking into the nudest Colony and skinny dipping! Always cracking up at the school lunch table. Swimming in my pool and terrorizing my sister and her friends. (Allegedly) Trashing that crook Fast Eddie's produce stand after he refused to pay us for a full day of picking watermelons!
Good times, indeed . . . Some of my most precious memories.
I can only pray that you know that I wouldn't trade my youth or you in it for anything in the world and you will be sadly missed, Lowenbrau, my old friend.
I hope that where you are, your beers are ice cold and that you and Jimi aren't having to glue the Hookah back together.
Jeff Gaines
July 28, 2018
Aug 2, 2018
Aug 2, 2018 at 7:00 AM UTC
In all my iterations, and my frequent reiterations,
Introspection reflection, run a muck, I find it unnecessary
To talk to God; the reason being quite simple, is
It and I are in constant dialogue, nary a pause, chattering
Round the clock, 24 seven, night and day, sleep interruptus,
I think to myself God has some nerve,
why can't he bother others?
in other parts of the world…
And so he does!
Visitors from far away lands, and languages I do not understand, but applaud their attempts to decipher the English one, that we share in common; if the lands are exotic, the names are more delightfully so, almost ****** It excites and titillates, to greet these kindred souls whose words be greeted by puzzlement, intrigue, like the delight of rediscovering vanilla, it's the same language spoken differently!
and god smiles and says:
"knew you would eventually speak my soul language!'"
Jul 29, 2025
Jul 29, 2025 at 11:23 AM UTC
a man privately asks, can you help?
you say, sure-no-hesitation
let me think on it for a day or two, he says
yet you act even before he comes back,
too late, you say, when he returns,
too late, he repeats in puzzlement,
yup, my check is in the mail,
cause one senses the need is dire plus,
plus you well recall the immutable obligation when
a vague commitment of “just ask” was inked in a long ago message,
a poem born from/in the days when you slept in the car on the street
this vague promissory,
a more enforceable judgement in your own court of law
than any state construct or the judgmental eyes of a silenced god
word, honor, do.
thus it begins, an unwritten contract inked,
an egregious interest rate of 0% proffered and agreed,
commences a plain white envelope trickle,
a check inside, by postal mail, slowly it came,
month by month, inch by inch, Niagara Falls ^
years go by, and then comes a day,
when the accompanying check and its gift wrapped note says,
Paid In Full!
and so much for the tedious minutiae...
*like kindness, I do,
Thank You and Your Welcome
are high on my list of proofs of
daily human extensions existential,*
Paid in Full,
*now rests at the top of the list
let me be blunt, the thrill of being a party
to a deal with no handshake, just coated in the
honorable words waterproof sealant,
with a person I likely may never meet,
made me so better assured of whom many claim I am,
a mathematical proof revered and kept mind inscribed,
it was an aspirational **** an unforeseen monthly blunt,
the best feeling good smile,
a kick in the pants about what really matters
being paid twice over and me,
getting by far,
the humanity confirmation,
the better half of the deal
write too often of honor,
and yet, will instinctual do again,
again overpowering my rays of will,
for there is no deflection, only reflection
for the glorious riches gifted and received,
without compare
the return on my honorable investment the best ever*
oh brotherhood, oh brotherhood,
I am paid in the currency coined from brotherhood...
Feb 26, 2019
Feb 26, 2019 at 11:30 AM UTC
a gift for Aladdin Aures H
from his 3rd follower...
<>><<>
the inescapable need,
unformed firmament
inquiring; am I capable?
the impulse palpable,
the urge to urgent,
to gorge and disgorge?
instead of morning prayers,
precomposed and ordered,
morning poem plucked from
morning fog, gusted breezes,
early-on, newborn sun rays,
progeny of disheveled skies
words fused, in irregular sizes,
senses censured by drowsy eyes,
but the chest beating arrhythmia
means bursts of free verses
superimposed on reluctant eyelids,
jigsaw puzzlement be re-conformed
and the first poem of the day,
emerges from the intersection
of mind, pale dreams, and the
first is special till the neu morrow,
when fresh bursts explode inward
to windward, and the first is just
yesterday's mesh of hash,
once formidable, now last,
pinned, yellowing, purely a
**descendant of the recent,
but always, ancient past*^
Jun 19, 2025
Jun 19, 2025 at 3:13 PM UTC
My cousin came to my house
And stayed after Thanksgiving
I thought that Thanksgiving food was enough
Boy, was I wrong.
He woke me up at noon
At noon.
Didn’t he know I had to sleep off the Thanksgiving meal?
And he said
As if I should have known.
Could you get me the cheeseburger pizza salad slice?
I replied, From where?
Who would have such a concoction?
But I knew him.
He would be the type
To ask for a cheesy gordita crunch taco from Burger King
And look at their confusion with his own puzzlement.
Then when they told him, we don’t serve that.
He would reply, It’s okay, I have the recipe
I can tell you how it is made.
So I get up and put on my coat.
And gloves.
Because I don’t want grease all over me
And start to walk.
And just my luck
The first snow of the season starts.
Not heavy enough for me to turn back
Just enough snow to turn it into an experience
That made me wish I would have slept upstairs
In the closet
So my cousin could not find me.
Its like the Making the Band 2 show
When Puff Daddy tells them
That he wants cheesecake in a different borough.
So I guess my cousin’s Puffy now.
He said he was into producing….
I get to the pizza place
And tell them what my cousin wants
But it took me three tries to get it all out.
They said, I’m sorry, but we don’t have the cheeseburger pizza salad slice
But we have the chicken pizza salad slice
I said Good enough
I’m sure my cousin would be happy
I would regret those words
I brought the pizza home.
And told him that I got it.
He seemed happy
Until he saw that the meat was chicken
Not cow.
He asked me
Had the audacity to ask
Couldn’t they remove the chicken
And put hamburger meat?
I tried to tell him, That is not how it works
They don’t respect your recipes
They have their own
What is the difference?
He then pointed at the pizza and said
Chicken goes on burgers
It does not go on pizza!
I was stunned into silence
By that logic
I don’t know how cheeseburger and pizza go together.
I told him I would eat it for lunch
So at least one of us was satisfied.
The other had his own ideas
But couldn’t find a store to cook them.
Oct 31, 2017
Oct 31, 2017 at 2:21 PM UTC
Her orchards I often dream,
buries of my eye,
lost in my fairy book
of beaten pages,
of sunken tears and of mind.
I kept turning the pages, racing,
racing,
looking for her,
between the lines,
now gone,
gone ... are those
lovely high hanging trees,
elegant and so berried,
swaying and smiling,
her,
her saintly smile,
haunting,
yet shadowing me forever
in my mind.
Each page turned, a sad tear falls
deep and deeper,
for the pages are blank.
Her absence ferreting out
blackness,
skeletons and silhouettes,
the pages turning,
weeping ...
my heart pains
for the book of love
unwritten and unfinished.
The wishing well of ink unspent.
Her essence forever corked
from my heart ...
I now lay arrest,
peas in a pod,
aberration and distortion,
for
lovely those high hanging trees,
elegant and so berried,
gone.
Sullenly the music plays
to a different song.
Indelible was happenstance,
our chance encounter,
a special one at that,
puzzlement lays a longer shadow
... of why she walked,
without any words.
Logan Robertson
11/09/17
Nov 9, 2017
Nov 9, 2017 at 7:35 PM UTC
"I am truly losing faith in humanity." This is the phrase that provokes so much frustration in me. Tell me how this does not hurt you just by being okay with speaking it or writing it. Are you not humanity, are you not of the same bones and flesh as me. Do you not battle through struggles and have the livest moments as me. Have we not mourn the same when we lose something precious or realized the hate that tries to consume our people? Are we not one race of people? Tell me how you do not sit in puzzlement having stated that you do not have faith in yourself. Do tragedies put out your flame so quick. Instead of rising to conquer change no matter the time or loses, you crumble. My sisters and brothers, I am Honduran but my love does not stop at my roots. My kindness does not only affect people of my own ethnicity or skin color. We're a human race and no I do not speak that we should be blind to our cultures and each other's beginnings. I speak that being so different does not mean we are not as well immensely similar. Recognize my skin, recognize my language, recognize my roots, my religion, my traditions, my scars. Recognize all of me. And LOVE me still to no end. These tragedies will not further prosper when you have faith that, with a race with this much diversity, we will find the solution and stop these hate-crimes that make some of us even ponder the thought of defeat. I have grown to learn that this is the change, seeing the enormous difference in each other but seeing all the similarities and having it urge us to close the gap with knowledge and understanding. This is our peace. Learning of one another. This is our hope.
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 1:37 PM UTC
the girl was always strange...a little different from the rest...she stayed to herself in her room after school...and loved animals the best...talked to them out loud in funny voices...her long hair covering her face and eyes...so one day it really came as no surprise to her to find she was growing a funny bump on her backside...that sorta looked like a tail...at first it was easy to hide...she stuffed it in her pants and no one was wiser...except it felt a bit strange sitting on that thing...and when she was happy, darned if it didn't start to wag...all by itself...a few weeks went by and that tail started growing...longer and furry red like a setter dog...at least the back part anyhow....and her parents wondered why she never wore shorts anymore...one day she answered a question at school...and a happy bark slipped out of her mouth!....classmates eyes round looking at her...teacher smiled and thought it was a joke...of course that is how she passed it off...but by golly if she didn't control... her cheers for a team....yips and growls popped out in excitement...her friends really thought she was strange...but the more it happened the more the girl liked it...she enjoyed being different...and by golly...her dog loved her just the same (as he always did.)..but her folks wondered why there were furry dog hairs inside her clothes...just down the one pants leg...hmmm...
well that gal grew mighty strange...funny things like barks and howls sang out in the middle of church choir....they started calling her wolf girl at school....and darned if her ears didn't start pointing at that remark...at night she'd stick her head out the door...gaze at the street waiting for a bark...from a little yorky across the street...and when that dog caught sight of her... man...the barks went crazy...all from her!....soon she got the urge to run...so down she went when no one was about...and raced like the wind on all fours...man she could rip...faster than her dog...they'd zoom about the back yard...after a ball...and she caught it first...parents watching her one day...seeing her playing like a pooch...worried the heck out of them...they wondered what to do...they took her to a doctor...doctor saw that growing tail...well he scratched his head in puzzlement...and darned if the girl didn't lick his face!....and offer him her hand to shake...like a dog!....well time went on since then...that girl is still stranger than strange...running round barking scratching at fleas...got a collar now and tags that say her name....guess she's got the best of both worlds..being human...and being man's best friend...''
by L B
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 3:06 PM UTC
On the first night
of the full moon,
the primeval sack of ocean
broke,
& I gave birth to you
little woman,
little carrot top,
little turned-up nose,
pushing you out of myself
as my mother
pushed
me out of herself,
as her mother did,
& her mother's mother before her,
all of us born
of woman.
I am the second daughter
of a second daughter
of a second daughter,
but you shall be the first.
You shall see the phrase
"second ***
only in puzzlement,
wondering how anyone,
except a madman,
could call you "second"
when you are so splendidly
first,
conferring even on your mother
firstness, vastness, fullness
as the moon at its fullest
lights up the sky.
Now the moon is full again
& you are four weeks old.
Little lion, lioness,
yowling for my *******
rowling at the moon,
how I love your lustiness,
your red face demanding,
your hungry mouth howling,
your screams, your cries
which all spell life
in large letters
the color of blood.
You are born a woman
for the sheer glory of it,
little redhead, beautiful screamer.
You are no second ***
but the first of the first;
& when the moon's phases
fill out the cycle
of your life,
you will crow
for the joy
of being a woman,
telling the pallid moon
to go drown herself
in the blue ocean,
& glorying, glorying, glorying
in the rosy wonder
of your sunshining wondrous
self.
2.2k
body genre
at a carnal address
sensory and sensuous effects
materiality
digital images
anthropology of desire
she tied a knot around his ****
a wedding band made of licorice shoelaces
for the art of tongue and ****
driving it in her pink throat
back and forth
like a shift stick
flared for the retina
a puzzlement and fascination
haptic screen of fiction
adventure of being pinned down
an unpremeditated punctum
fucktum sucktum
the stadium of desire
a shop window
banality transcending banality
the literal transformed
into the ******
a ****** smiles red
girl in a suitcase
with a hole to ****
a treasure chest
the leaky boundaries of erotica
sing in
musical blood whistles
I packed her up
limbless and threw
her on the bed
and with tender kisses
of endless
wet permutations
banged
three oozing holes
into finger ponds of oblivion
she taunted
age play- ageless
***** class
a weird ethnicity
from Timbuktu
racially motivated lust for a
conveyance of
fleshy intensities
way past help
a big **** dips
a tender dimple
like a barnacled whale
in a deep dive
the violence of
a preemptive strike
for everything imaginable
across raw lips
in her cosmos
of swinging hips
and cross bone riddles
oh happy *****
suicide ******
at the computer screen
**** bullets birthday cake
in a River Styx of flames
Jun 21, 2020
Jun 21, 2020 at 4:40 PM UTC
In this place poets care, share, and like
Encouraging each other along.
Lifting hearts up from deep trenches
of Ignorance, ill traditions, misconceptions and lies.
Drawing back curtains, just enough
to quench the masses ceastless wondering,
"There must be something more?!"
Your creative holy work has a great purpose!
Escorting the hopeful aspiriant to the place
Where the shadow dawns into explosive light!
Gently nudging, englightening cognizence of new awareness
As pieces of puzzlement merge into a glorious whole!
Dear Poets, you matter
Nevermore, doubt your place!!!
You are among the Inspiritors of the Earth!
Dec 28, 2021
Dec 28, 2021 at 6:14 PM UTC
“the unbound unbinding: an admixture of words and swords…
that will cut a newborn cord of reciprocity of thee and me,
miracle!
thereby, an unbound binding that ties and frees us from
and connects us nonetheless by our shared senses…”
<!>
these words, recalled well,
for they but a newborn issue of a few days, and the notion of binding that
frees us into reciprocity yet buzz~hums
in my brain
the contradictory nature of a cutting
which ties us together,
that an unbinding binds us even more tightly,
I struggle, to better understand the nature how an unraveling
of our connection somehow ties us closer
but re-envisioning
Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel in my mind’s eye,
that sparking space tween God’s finger outstretched
to bring the enlivening of his spirit to His first enervate, Adam,
the original of we humans,
somehow sates my confusion
***to touch each other
at the most primitive basis,
we require a space
between us, in order to fulfill,
a contract contact
of completion and binding***
and this bestills and bestirs
my puzzlement,
a space electric necessary
to permit us to
close the human circuitry
!***and I am contented,
the contradiction
no more, I sense the
need to close gaps
tween us certify our human resources
for it is the permanent invisible grasping
of our loving minds that transcends
overpowers gaps,
bringing tears of joy to my eyelids,
even as I write these words,
and greet this morning
with
optimism
that every space
brings a richer
closure!***!
Sep 17, 2023
Sep 17, 2023 at 7:36 AM UTC
A poem that will celebrate
all the wonders of my man's hair.
A poem that feels sorry for
his hair no longer there.
A poem that shows puzzlement
from him at women's weaves.
A poem that sympathizes
with his hair-line as it leaves.
A poem that says a "YAY!"
to the people who are bald.
A poem that blows a kiss and says
"I'm sorry dear, that's all!"
Jan 17, 2015
Jan 17, 2015 at 9:54 AM UTC
I remember creeping reverently past
The yawning maw
Snarling braches, overgrown foliage
Sad eye sockets
The defeated roof
Listing drunkenly to the left
The black spirals on the ground
Where the fire had scored earth bare
Crouched from the sanctity of the sidewalk
Damp palm snaking back to
Clasp tight
My best friend’s hand
Fear skittering up our spines
We skirted past poisonous green weeds
That swayed in the yard
Unkempt and our eyes
Darted, seeking, feral
For movement in that open doorway
Her shadow
The witch
Years pass
Looking out into suburbia
Manicured green boxes
And cookie-cutter plans
From my own cracked window
My newly acquired reno,
I spot a flash of moving colour
From beyond the overgrown hyacinths
A tousled flash of curls between the green
Puzzlement ripples as
Three lanky preadolescent forms
Snake from the protection of my shaggy firs
Thin chests taking a breath before
Their whippy arms point accusing
And I barely see a flash before
The clutched rock leaves the
Stupid-looking red headed one’s hand
Crashing through my upstairs master
And I hear it
Witch, witch, where’s the witch?
And I feel it.
My eyes beadily narrow
Peering over my bulbous nose
Shoulders hunching
Toes curl
And I reach for
The broom leaning next
The painter’s cloth
Grabbing on with knobbly fingers
Hurling myself
Out
Of
The door
Their eyes widened
Disbelieving
As they spot me
And thumbs clutched between index fingers
They run
Leaving me cackling
Breathless
While my familiar
Looks up from
Sunning her black self
On the step.
Sep 2, 2009
Sep 2, 2009 at 7:49 PM UTC
We named you Daisy
for your white fur, because
we liked to name our cats after flowers.
But you were not only a white cat;
you were "odd-eyed white",
one orange and one blue.
Everyone loved your beautiful quirkiness.
You lived as our other cats did,
tame house-cat in the day,
but free to come and go;
half-wild at night,
following your instincts,
even if they were dangerous at times.
Then, one sunny morning,
I saw you from the bedroom window,
running back home, across the road,
and that time it really was dangerous,
as a car came past, exceeding the speed limit,
because in a race between speeding car
and running cat,
in the event of a tie,
the cat loses.
I ran downstairs and found you
by the gate,
warm, unmarked,
but unmoving, unbreathing
Carrying you gently to the back garden,
I laid you on the ground,
preparing to dig your grave,
as Marmaduke, our tomcat, came by.
Not the father of any kittens,
but surrogate to all our females.
After a birth
he knew what to do.
He would visit briefly,
sniff the mother, sniff the kittens,
walk off, apparently unconcerned,
and a day or two later
return with a mouse for mother.
That’s what father cats do,
even surrogates.
Only that day there was no birth,
no kittens,
and this time
he sniffed at you,
sniffed at the hole I had started digging,
and walked off
in complete puzzlement.
This time he did not know what to do.
Feb 11, 2019
Feb 11, 2019 at 4:27 AM UTC
I miss feeling you.
Your grip on my thigh,
you caressing my hand,
you biting my skin,
you playing with my hair.
Wiping the grass of me
after trips to the park and
both your hold on my hip and
the bottom of my spine.
I miss hearing you.
The sound of your voice,
your attempts at sarcasm and
the way you’d laugh
when you really find something funny.
How you’d always swear in French
and speak to your Mum in Bulgarian,
the exhale you make when you’re happy
and when you’d sing in the car.
How your voice is barely audible
late at night and early morning.
I miss seeing you.
Seeing you cook,
seeing you drive,
the look of puzzlement
when trying to remember something
or the look of happiness
when you hear a song you love.
Seeing you buzzed and rosy cheeked
after a couple too many drinks.
Seeing you snug in my bed
at the end of the night.
I miss kissing you.
Lazy kisses, limbs tangled
in the early hours of the morning.
Kisses in the back of your car and
rushed kisses when saying goodbye.
Kissing your nose, kissing your neck
and you kissing my neck.
Kissing in the park, kissing in cafes
and kissing in art galleries.
Toothpaste kisses, prickly kisses
and kissing in one another’s beds.
I even miss the things that once annoyed me.
You always correcting my words,
getting frustrated when driving
and when you’d tease my lisp.
How’d you get up to change the song
in the middle of getting it on and
finish every intelligent ramble
with a defeated “I don’t know.”
Your need to check your hair
in anything reflective,
how you’d drink all my water
instead of just buying your own
and pick all the food I didn’t want off my plate.
I miss everything about you
and I hope maybe you miss me too.
May 2, 2016
May 2, 2016 at 6:20 AM UTC
I'm three years old,
my mummy asks me?
"What ya wanna be when ya grow up,
"A serial killer mummy,
After that she hide the knifes?
[Puzzlement] covered my face, now that's
a big word for someone who's three, spell
check if you want to see.....
"Baby you ok?
[Puzzlement,] "I know go me. She looked
as I did was this look was it somewhat
[contagious] "I know I'm three,
"Yes mummy I'm a cereal killer. I plunge
my spoon in to my breakfast till it seeps
milk then when I've finished I bury it.
"Bury it, yes in the bin mummy there
remains rot and make fertilizer.
"My mummy looked relived,
But I didn't tell her I bury them in the garden,
in the little black bags in the flower bed.
Decaying cereal feeding the flowers nourishment.
May 6, 2017
May 6, 2017 at 12:56 PM UTC
Countless words are painted into eternal stars above
Inspiring my soul and waking me anew
With wondrous eyes, I see verses of sweet love
I learn them by heart
And paint them too
Words of dreams with visions rare, I see painted too
Twinkling from shadow dusted rays
Softly held within a precious lighted view
Calling to my tireless pen
Come and play
I view a canvas stretching into an endless sea
Completely full of mysteries unsolved
Faintly crying out to all this ink inside of me
To ponder all their puzzlement
Until they are resolved
Countless words are painted into eternal stars above
They greet my pen and paper every day
With a wondrous heart I smile back at them in love
Begin painting everything
I can see them say
Oct 18, 2010
Oct 18, 2010 at 5:01 PM UTC
I once had a hand-basket filled with red
roses, and gave it as a springtime gift
to my love. She called them beautiful, but
an unvoiced disappointment seemed to reach
out more clearly. I did not understand
what more the basket should have contained, so
I asked her if she liked better yellow
or pink roses. She told me that color
was not the source of discomfort, rather
that I had called her my love when she had
yet to know who I was. I began to
stammer, shocked by her sudden ignorance,
but I didn't have a chance to explain
before a store clerk ran up to us. He
grabbed the roses and called an officer
over because they were not payed for. The
officer grabbed my arm and asked how I
had gotten out again. I inquired
as to what I had gotten out of, but
we were already inside the car. He
mumbled numbers into his radio
and we came to a wide white building that
I seemed to remember from a dream, but
the large blue words over the doorway were
both foreign to me. PSYCHIATRIC WARD.
Mar 8, 2013
Mar 8, 2013 at 1:13 AM UTC
the voices scratch at the paint work
Of my soul, these voice howling
in my mind gazing at the stars of
Confusion above my head.
Can a thought swim in tongues
Of obscuring waves, sink or swim
With no buoyancy as voices pull
At my body and at my mind.
I walk on puzzlement, shards of
Thought bleed under foot. I read
My last moments of sanity as they
Evaporate and all now I have left.
Jan 12, 2016
Jan 12, 2016 at 7:32 AM UTC
“If you grow old, it is your own fault,”
I say to Terry as we climb
the mountain behind his cabin.
Terry is wearing a device that transmits his heartbeat
by cell phone to doctors at Stanford.
Terry has a flutter, nothing serious, probably.
Terry has a great heart, actually,
something serious, warm and wise.
We ascend this hill on Tuesdays every week
discussing poetry and plumbing, our twin passions:
the gathering of mountain water funneled into pipes,
delivered to homes,
the ordering of words funneled into pages
delivered nowhere, sadly.
We discuss friends fallen or falling,
the arc of marriages, parenthood, oddball relationships,
each a story and a puzzlement,
webs woven of love and rage.
That, and motorcycles, we talk,
pacifist veterans who walk still seeking sense
of an incomprehensible war that shaped our lives.
Objectors, conscientious, we realized too late,
not an easy path but better than following orders.
We walked away from war.
He, the Air Force; I, the draft.
Branded dishonorable.
So we hike, hearts pounding,
the simple friendship of two old men
seeking the hilltop
again and again.
Nov 19, 2017
Nov 19, 2017 at 1:44 AM UTC
When I was a child, we’d lived on the edge of some woods,
Slightly hilly land, crossed with the odd stream or cowpath.
I’d walked there frequently, aimlessly,
Throwing the occasional stone here and there
(Skimming the smaller ones off the surface of the creek,
Displacing mosquitoes and dragonflies,
The larger rocks reserved for thickets of trees,
Rewarding me with a rich thwack if the missile found its target.)
Once I had tossed a great gray projectile
(All but shot-put sized, probably nicked and nibbled
By fossilized trilobites on its edges)
Into a stand of old horse chestnuts,
But the sound that emerged was not the woody report expected,
But an anguished and almost astounded cry,
Nearly human in its astonishment and pain.
I’d winged (more than that, in truth **** near killed)
A hawk sitting inexplicably low in the branches.
In my panic and puzzlement, I’d wrapped the bird in my jacket
(The hawk all but shredding its lining,
Adding to my mother’s already fervent agitation
Over having a wild bird in her kitchen not destined for the oven)
And taken it home, where we’d put it in a cage
(Not a bird cage per se, but the old crate for our dog
Who had wandered into these woods
A few months before when she’d sensed her time was at hand)
Where it sat silently for a couple of days,
Refusing food, water, or any other succor,
Simply staring at us with a searing look conveying a hatred
Which transcended species, language,
Any and all experience a child may have been privy to,
As, in those fresh-scrubbed, clean-linen days of youth,
I had nothing of the hawk’s knowledge of cages.
May 11, 2017
May 11, 2017 at 9:21 AM UTC
I hunger,
For my youth.
For those lazy,
Hazy, crazy,
Sperm-filled days.
When my eyes
Feasted with devilment,
Instead of mockery,
Upon the young
School of nymphs
That swam up
And down the corridors
Like silver darlings
Of the sea
The wonderment
Puzzlement
Of the flesh.
Memories of
Soft bouncy buttocks,
Budding *******
Licentious legs,
That tormented,
Teased, pleased
That frenzied, wild
Stirrings of my *****
How i loved life then,
With it's silent promise
Of great things to come.
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 5:06 PM UTC
Definition: Poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter
Free verse is not just poetry
Free verse is an expression
Free verse is an escape
The beauty in free verse poetry is it's lawlessness
Poets become Jesse and Billy; they break rules, they break hearts, they break tradition.
The difference is their words are far more cutting than a bullet can ever be.
The beauty in free verse poetry is it's adventure
Poets become Columbus and Sacagewea; they break barriers, they explore new lands, they become wild.
They explore the boundless blank page rather than the limited natural world.
But the real beauty in free verse poetry, is it's structure.
The structure of a free verse poem is new and varying every single time.
The reader not only yearns to find the meaning of the poem, but the dual meaning of the structure.
Definition: self-expression and puzzlement of the mind and for the soul
Jun 17, 2013
Jun 17, 2013 at 10:15 PM UTC
she talks about things she believes I wish I could do
I don't ask but she shows me her portfolio
casually sidelong I say between sips
"I am not running anyone over
But if you're in my way I will hit you"
and her expression changes from puzzlement to anger
I take another sip and flip her off
Mar 3, 2016
Mar 3, 2016 at 1:11 AM UTC