Songwriter’s Lament

The least of me is always on the outside.

My dull side always faces to the sun.

The finest thoughts are hidden in the shadow,

the tenderest moments somehow never sung.

Try as I may to face and force the issue

and show the world the contours of my mind,

the subtleties are faded in translation.

The meanings are misplaced by word and rhyme.

Maybe in our unheard conversations

we’ve found the answer we sought all along.

The price to pay for being fully human

is that we’ll never write the perfect song.

I guess it shows.

© George Phillips, 1973

Famous American Songs
by Gustav Koppé
in Cornell University Library
from Wikimedia Commons

A Christmas Poem

Take me, take me, home,

Wherever home may be,

Oh, take me.

Or toss me, toss me,

in the deep blue sea.

Just toss me.

Could I stand upon a mountain?

Could I look for the end of the sky?

Could I find the safest place

that could ever be?

I've been upon a mountain.

I've looked for the end of the sky.

I've seen that one safest place,

hold no poetry.

Let me, let me, tug

the string between you and me.

Yes, tug too,

so we know, we know,

the connection;

I am you as you are me.  

© Dennis Wright, 2020

A Christmas themed painting depicting
Peanuts character Snoopy and Woodstock on a window.
Photo by Noah Wulf
from Wikimedia Commons

               Book cover photo from Wikimedia Commons

The Empty Page

This time of year perhaps the empty page

Should be black instead of white

Bleak and wet and heavy with hibernation

Lie weighty and soggy on the silent desk

Waiting for some harbinger some hope

To leaven the wintry landscape within

Perhaps the page were better made of ice

That I may strap on the old hockey skates

Once more and finding that perfect stretch

Of cold weather without snow strike off

Across the perfect surface taking flight

Without a single word to shatter the ecstasy

© Bill Prindle, 2017

 

Midas

I surround myself with gold.  Yes, I have the magic touch.

My first act when I took possession of the palace

was to replace the drapes; you’ll notice

they’re in my signature gold shade.  My predecessor,

among his many shortcomings, had no sense of style

or spectacle.  I’ve drawn countless compliments, 

praising my perfect taste.  How did you come up with that? 

everyone asks.  And I tell them it’s a gift.

Women or drapes, I have an eye for beauty.

I see you are impressed.  But that’s just

the beginning.  Step into the royal bedroom, 

its walls festooned with yards of golden silk.  

That painting in the gilded frame above the bed, 

of my daughter turning into gold at the instant 

I touch her, is a genuine Appelles.  Isn’t she gorgeous?  

So sexy!  And if, perchance, you have need, 

take time to admire the gold fixtures on the toilet

and sink.  How they glitter in the light!  

Even the seat-belt buckles in my chariot

are gold-plated—and no doubt you’ve admired 

my initial in gold letters on my many properties. 

My name itself is golden (speaking figuratively, 

of course), which is why I’m besieged with requests 

to license various businesses. Steaks! A university!

My critics—jail them for treason!—claim all of this gold 

is a sign of idolatry and greed.  Or worse, that it’s tacky. 

But gold is good.  Those who lack it are losers,

and triumph is always my aim. Winning and gold

are cardinal elements of my brand.   

The Golden Rule, says the Wizard of Id,

comes down to this: “Those who have the gold 

make the rules,” which makes me a perfect fit 

for kingship.  People who study these things, historians, 

say I’m the finest king this country’s ever enjoyed, 

probably the greatest ever, anywhere in the world.

© Tony Russell, 2020

Knock-off Clepsydra

Humanity, with its habit

          of invention

can fastforwardthroughaday

          if they had, say, 

          a clepsydra

                    and an earthquake

One is easier to make

          than the other

Once filled, the water waits

          wicks, and spills

          with little mediation

Out, clumping, out onto the sand

          hours sloshed on grains

                    lost to a fault’s fault

This is how to cutaday|inhalf

          a sodden simple way

          unlimited to adage

Minutes easily evaporate

          leave you to explain

                    away appointments

          with what time will 

                    tell itself

You’ve lost only what’s 

          allotted, dimension t

          distended particular

It’s easy enough with effort—

          reference for luck and loss

                    but all that’s

out cannot be doubted

          back in

© James Cole, 2020

Greek Clepsydras. Image courtesy of:
https://sites.google.com/a/brvgs.k12.va.us/wh-14-sem-1-greece-ogm/home

Russian Film

They have dug a fresh grave

Just beyond that group of old headstones

Where a lush green forest begins

She plays her bugle

As her father rows his small craft out to sea

A boy half-naked crawls tiredly onto the rocky shore

In his hand a crab he has carried from the depths

The children are beyond gravity

Their bodies grow upright

I do not see an end to their beauty

They hear the strange echoes made from yelling up the rock cliff

They listen for answers the echoes can not give

Still there are echoes they can not hear

They see faces in the jaded rocks

Too high for climbing

Even their young strong thighs and arms could not get them there

He fixes his hair in a tidepool

Nearly losing the little girl

A seagull flies over the waters

And the children dive in off the jetty without hesitation

A group of the boys seen earlier gather on the shore

They want to see her nude body exposed

She hides nervously in the crevices refusing to show herself

But after all she appears shaming the hysterical boys

The boys’ cruel indifference

She laughs as she plays with the phone booth

Fake conversations none can know

The group of boys yell up at the rocky monoliths

They are searching for the boy who was with the girl earlier

He hides high up in the crags and watches the boys below

He calls for the girl lost somehow

The immovable stones give no answer

But she is back again

With her bugle chasing a man’s footprints in the sun drenched sand

Some Russian song is sung as she boards a train for the city

The boy chases yelling her name

But she is smiling to leave the cliffs and the seas with her uncle

She sticks her head out looking forward

She thinks little of the boy chasing the train

© Philip Marlin, 2020

Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons