Poems

Of all the Lost & Founds across Creation --
you've ever been to one? Me, once or twice --
One stands -- a most peculiar location --
smack dab, right in the heart of Paradise.

While others sport id cards, bags, and wallets
or phones that do not answer when you call,
In this one, 'tleast according to shibboleths,
you'll likely stumble on a lucky soul.

Once lost, now wholly salvaged and recovered,
it takes its place among the grateful host,
ideally, exactly where it hovered
before it got, for cause unknown, so lost,

but if that slot is busy, where assigned.

The place's tagline? Seek, and ye shall find.

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to Gemini

Enchanted by a witty turn of phrase
my hand delays, mid-hover, on the page,
as I reread the sentence. It conveys
so much in so few words. Were this a stage

a thespian would surely mouth it off,
the weight of every syllable in gold.
Enunciate each snicker, every scoff.
Performance captured, never getting old,

a highlight reel on YouTube, played, replayed,
the hearts and likes to mingle with applause,
and Googled if mistakenly waylaid,
then bookmarked, or on tab, on playback pause,

available and ready to be shown…

The phrase, of course, entirely my own.

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to Gemini

My nightly quest to find oblivion
is not unlike a tired daytime soap.
Late. Early. Drink. Don't Drink. Keep TV On.
I wake at 3:00 AM to sulk and mope.

No, I'm not one of those who need four hours.
I want my eight, and no, don't wear an Oura.
I'll lie in bed and use my rhyming powers
for sonnets on them Sodom and Gomorrah.

How strange, our brain? Not giving it a rest,
when rest is so most fervently desired?
It's not as if it doesn't know what's best,
or lacks a definition for "I'm tired."

Dear God, I want to sleep, perchance to dream!
A talking head talks changing the regime.

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to Gemini

between Heaven and Earth
some say roughly halfway
where they tally each birth
where no angel holds sway
nor a demon delights
in original sin
where -- a late poet writes --
life is yet to begin
between Heaven and Earth
no decision yet made
I await my rebirth...

Passage having been paid

Author notes: Image generated by author prompt to Gemini

Belatedly, I've understood a truth:
Life's naught but the displacement of an ache
well-masked by the euphoria of youth,
so one can be permitted the mistake

of failing to discern, to pry apart
its meaning: Pain that jumps from limb to limb,
to settle, when it chooses, in the heart,
and not in fault or error, on a whim,

but by its grand, elaborate design.
Awake, in bed, examining your pains,
your mind, exhausted, searching for a sign,
as blood continues coursing through your veins,

that it is not yet time. That it still hurts...
Until one day, no breakfast. Just desserts.

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to ChatGPT

When God apportioned horns and tails and hooves -
ran out on wildebeest… You've seen a picture?
For like the platypus, it's in the proofs
Creation hadn't strictly followed Scripture.

He had none left for demons and their ilk -
The Devil, a significant exception -
and so, though none have tasted mother's milk,
look just like you and me, defy perception.

Or could we be the demons? We were last,
the pinnacle, the pièce de résistance,
in all of God's domain, however vast,
so we assumed, it's always been our stance,
that we are in His image, missing tail…

and not that it's an inventory fail.

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to ChatGPT

I’m using my poetic license
in lieu of government ID.
They take it since I cannot lie. Since,
as Abel or as Zebedee,
despite the lateness of the hour,
I speak of only truth to power,
a truth that wouldn’t be denied,
nor could be, even if I tried.

A pseudonym, that great invention
which lets a poet speak his mind
without a fear of being fined
or worser still, an intervention,
thus beating any pair of docs.

Unless you’re doxxed. A paradox.

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to ChatGPT

Beginner's luck, perhaps that's all it was.
Ask any child -  they'll say: He started it,
but our existence's sole, Primal Cause -
who'd left few rules when He departed it
for parts unknown, or so it would appear -
continues to receive all manner praise,
although it's more than clear He doesn't steer,
and takes no credit. Not for sunny days,
nor for the wars he technically abhors.
Yes, luck indeed. Create, then wash your hands.
Believer, do not say that he ignores
your sad and sorry plight. No, he intends,
had always meant for all of this to happen,
and isn't sunning, frolicking, or napping.

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to ChatGPT

If history is written by the winners,
our victories, though biblical, are few.
We celebrate them with familial dinners,
where everybody has a point of view,

and none of them the same. Our temple teachers
will use a certain phrase, Tikkun Olam:
Go, fix the world, for us, and all God's creatures.
They cite the scriptures, back to Abraham,

remind us: you're the people of the Book.
Raise toasts to Life, and bless the sacred wine.
Remember: your forefathers undertook
to challenge, to demand of the divine
to bring joy to the world. So, so much joy…

A festival of lights. Each night, a toy.

“Is there a word you treasure above others?”
my lovely wife had asked me with a pout.
“You write, right? Well, then, had you had your druthers,
is there a word you wouldn’t do without?

A word you would include in every sonnet,
in every composition, every ode?”
I told her I must really think upon it.
Was this a real question, or some code,

some test for me to pass, a trickster’s riddle?
A husband learns that words can be a clue,
but poets, bent on matching cat to diddle,
can often be as clueless as a ewe

about to become dinner. That is life.
“Of course,” I said. “One word. Four letters. Wife.”

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to Gemini

When asked: what's the point of it all
Is it sex? Is it drugs? Rock & Roll?
It's not that it's not
he simply forgot
and said that he couldn't recall

on the subject of pigeon and dove
only one stands for Lord from above
but the other -- the pigeon
is what rhymes with religion
while dove is stuck rhyming with love

Author notes: image generated by author prompt to Gemini