Uriah Heep
in skulking hunch
lifts away
from scavenged lunch
umble pie
for every meal
wardrobe stark
funereal
counterfeit
his beggar’s ways
devious, wheedling
low sashays
piercing caw
reveals the rub
to wreak revenge
for umble grub.
With thanks and apologies to Charles Dickens.
And more thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
And so it begins
genesis
triumphant bow
or nemesis
the garden that was
the one that will be
hover in mind
tantalizingly
evolving in increments
slow, heuristic
I allow a trifle
narcissistic.
And so, dear reader, with this first purchase,
begins the adventure of turning someone else’s garden into mine.
A promise wears
hopeful complexion
ever hints at
forward direction
friend of bright cheer
foe of dark doubt
and that’s what a bud
is all about.
Thanks yet again to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
Well, dear reader, here it is Poem-In-Your-Pocket Day, and I have nothing for my pocket and nothing for yours. This year has been the first in several when I haven’t cared a lot about Poetry Month. It’s been one of those writer’s slumps which maybe you understand.
I can’t even figure out what poetry is, and am nearing the conclusion that poetry is such a subjective thing that there must be a different definition for each of us.
I often meet something called a poem but to me it seems like prose. Why is it a poem?
I try to use rhyme in my poems — if such they are — because I like the discipline imposed by rhyme. (I admit I also like the entertainment — trying to rhyme can be hilarious.) But I know that rhyme doth not a poem make.
I have read that the root of “poem” is a word meaning “to make.” That suggests that a poem is something deliberately crafted. I have heard that poetry is acoustic, that the sound of the words is part of its essence. I have heard that poetry captures a moment. But have you ever read Mark Twain’s descriptions of the Mississippi River? If those aren’t crafted and acoustic and immediate, nothing is. Yet they aren’t considered poetry.
Someone told me that if you think you’re a poet then you’re a poet. Really? That’s all there is to it?
So it all seems a bit ambiguous to me. I’d rather it weren’t.
Maybe I’m trying to define the undefinable. Maybe you get that, dear reader, and so I hope you have a poem for your pocket even if it isn’t from me.
The tulips languish, sodden,
(those not by rabbit eaten)
jonquils merely leaf
cold-weary, winter-beaten.
A miser’s hand apportions
the flowering of this spring
there’s scant delight in the meadow
and nary a daffy-down-dilling.
But from windless cozy house
a trumpeting four-in-one
sings out to the colorless garden:
“I’ll show you how it’s done!”
It quadruple megaphones
“You can be like me, yay, verily!”
the concerted garden response
comes back somewhat raspberrily.
With thanks and apologies to Shakespeare.
“Don’t even think about it!”
warning instantaneous.
Maternal looks can make words
banal,
extraneous.
More thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
And to the D.J. Berg choice of forsythia wreath obviously coveted by the dove family.
“Seek and ye shall find”
applies in wintry spring
seeking signs of life
yet finding not a thing —
and then low-growing star
of lavenderish-blue
evokes a constellation
glitteringly new.
In palette vast
the earth enhues us;
with awe and wonder
it should infuse us.
If we grow smug
and shrug,
incondite,
it will rouse us with
loud peals of white.
Thanks more to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives for this glorious Earth Show.
May we come closer to stewardship on this Earth Day.
Away to the left
in a swatch of bright blue
patisserie aura
is hidden from view.
It’s easy to miss
if you don’t know it’s there,
but once it’s discovered
it’s a rapturous lair.
In its own mythic nook
removed, set apart,
it revels in oven-birthed
edible art.
And thus did these words
bring tears to my eyne
when I read the decree
on the world’s saddest sign.
Thanks yet again to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
And thanks to Rene’s Bakery, in the Broad Ripple area of Indianapolis, for its incredibly wonderful offerings.
I’m lonesome for a garden
so I try the produce table
but Nature never made
a tomato with a label,
so it doesn’t scratch my itch
or cure me of my ails;
I need to meet some worms
and see dirt under my nails.
Oddments 