Poems

The canopy's all chirp and rustle.
No treetop wants to do without
a busy sparrow on the hustle,
or cardinal, for the devout,
and who could blame these slender birches?
Like steeples of abandoned churches
attracting worshippers to flock,
but absent any striking clock,
they'll settle for a swift or swallow,
avoid the cuckoo and the crow,
as these belong way down below,
and cannot consecrate or hallow.
A nightingale that doesn't sleep.
Too many promises to keep.

Author notes: image generated by GPT

No, no, conductor, seat was paid in full!
I wouldn't travel if it's not first class.
Still getting nauseous, somewhat of a rule.
Supposing, in the end, this too shall pass.

This doesn't look at all like the brochure.
Expected leather seats and alabaster.
If this is gold, it's surely less than pure.
Conductor, any way to get there faster?

The ride is kind of bumpy, don't you think?
I'm all about it's all about the journey,
though 'd rather not get dunked into the drink,
or worse yet, be delivered on a gurney.

Arrived, though by my count a bit too early.
The gates appear more ebony than pearly.

While searching for the worser part of valor,
(and honestly, not knowing where to look),
his face now the characteristic pallor
of one who's studied warfare from a book,
but now, confronted with its truer function,
(dictating, as it does, its truer form),
arriving at the well expected junction,
so common, it must surely be the norm,
that flight is the more natural expression
(and this is where it's apropos to cite
the quote that deftly harnesses discretion
when calculating whether fight or flight):
the better part of valor, but too late
to ransom or redeem his great estate.

Underneath my window
stands a birch, all white.
Shyly clad in powder,
silvery delight.

Off the fluffy branches,
like a snowy trim,
flowering white offshoots,
velvety, each limb.

Sleepily, it stands there,
covered up in snow
as the snowflakes kindle
in a golden glow

And the dawn, so lazy,
pulling up the line
covering the  branches,
newly minted shine

***********************************      *****************
Белая берёза
Под моим окном
Принакрылась снегом,
Точно серебром.

На пушистых ветках
Снежною каймой
Распустились кисти
Белой бахромой.

И стоит берёза
В сонной тишине,
И горят снежинки
В золотом огне.

А заря, лениво
Обходя кругом,
Обсыпает ветки
Новым серебром.

Author notes: Yesenin was Isadora Duncan's lover

painting Mt. Fuji
can so often be kludgy
picture with 2g

Roach Motel posts No Vacancies sign

Ambivalence was trying to decide
if choosing half a dozen of the other,
an option that's so easy to deride
you wonder why a man should even bother
to favor it above the six of one,
where, incidentally, this all began.
Contorted, indeed wracked with indecision,
proceeded, although under the provision
that there will be no on the other hand,
and thus assured, grew confident and strident,
pretending its dilemma is a trident:
perhaps it, after all, had found its voice.
But then again, it had no other choice.

Why seven days, I often wonder.
Why not eleven or not ten.
Was it a bungle or a blunder,
and did he stop and start again?
His ways mysterious and spooky,
he surely wasn't playing hooky,
until the sabbath, at the least,
and having seeded plant and beast
had every reason to continue,
but inexplicably, he stopped,
as though the work could not be topped,
like he was done with bone and sinew,
the whole thing plainly getting old.
Got over it, just like a cold.

timid or confident,
alien, resident,
idiot, genius
steeped in convenience,
richer or poorer,
corrupted or purer,
peasant or courtier,
pacifist, warrior,
poet or sage,
never opened a page,
in tents or in palaces...

we cling to our fallacies

To hear the lamentations of our women
(here "our" is not possessive in the least,
and honestly, possession of a demon
is probably a fate you should resist)
but nonetheless, to hear them, you must fathom
that vive le difference as it's described,
which separated Mother Eve from Adam,
the presence thereof thoroughly proscribed,
historically, from female only venues,
but now a fairly regular event --
(do you remember lady version menus,
designed as such to hinder and prevent
the lady from discovering the cost?
That paradise, like all the others, lost.)

see Aphrodite
come, watch the tide coming in
she is born again

Of all the fearsome creatures of the night,
the werewolves and the poltergeists, the mummies,
there's one that will induce my fight or flight:
ventriloquist abandoned feral dummies.
I surely fear the monster underneath
the bed and even more so in the closet,
and also nearly anything with teeth,
but dummies, of all things? One's left to posit
the presence of some trauma, long repressed --
deep seated fear of clowns is an example,
a healthy disrespect of the possessed
by demons -- there the evidence is ample.
Or is it that I've simply been unlucky
and watched too many episodes of Chucky?