OTHER FORMS
I Think Therefore Iambic©
"They are never alone who are accompanied
by noble thoughts."
Sir Phillip Sidney (1554-1586)
English Soldier and Poet
FREE VERSE
WHAT HAPPENED TO LOVE?
"I love you," she said demurely,
"but I'm not in love with you!"
I grapple with this distinction
to understand the difference.
What she really means, it seems,
is I like you...I'm fond of you...
but it's not anything serious
so don't expect any commitment.
I perceive that I am a misfit,
since love means more to me
than just fondly liking someone.
It is wanting to be together,
to embrace, share dreams and plans
and bask in the warmth of closeness.
So I wonder if such relationships
can still occur in today's world?
In my few remaining seasons,
am I just a deluded fool to think
that love can still happen to people?
Ted O Badger
Houston, TX
The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel; its poverty by how little.
William R. Alger, (1822 -- 1905)
American Unitarian Clergyman
BLITHE SPIRIT
Her smile remains with me,
the heartfelt talks,
now, I see, too late
the wisdom in her
compassionate advice -
her hair piled high
upon her head,
a pug, she said
one curl trailed the nape
of her slender neck
sensual a bit to me,
not her; she had no vanity,
pride was what she claimed
in all her given tasks,
and oh, so warm and generous,
not waiting to be asked,
so humble reserved
one hardly knew she passed.
Janet Parker
Leesburg, FL
"How little do they see what is,
who frame their hasty judgments
upon that which seems."
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
English Poet Laureate
A poem written while protesting alone the prohibition of free speech
in front of Walden Pond. He watched poets crossing the street.
heading towards the reading area, totally incurious with regard to
his sign.
Ballade of the Flock Apathetic
Poets, poets, poets
how can you not see
the man in the street
shouting for liberty
accosted
by thugs of authority?
Poets, poets, poets
How you walk on by
so apathetically;
his struggle, your struggle
and this
you cannot even see.
Poets, poets, poets
Your souls sold off
as you
versify vacuously
and
add
to the mirth of good society.
Poets, poets, poets
help he begs of ye,
his eyes tearing
congealed in howl for liberty.
Poets, poets, poets
Why can you not see
at odds now,
you,
like it or not,
with the truth that be...
G Tod Slone, PhD
Concord, MA
"A healthful hunger for a great idea is the beauty and
blessedness of life" Jean Ingelow (1828 -- 1897), English Poet
APRIL CHRISTMAS
Gifts wrapped by autumn, freeze-dried
and sealed by winter,
unopened, even in december,
are finally freed by warming fingers.
song, feather-wrapped in silence, thaws to rApture
in a thousand throats. minute packages
of bud and bulb, marked "do not open until april"
are now revealed as jonquil, redbud, dogwood.
tadpoles, swimming a fallen sky, share the same
opening ceremonies that crack the code
of stone and tomb and let life out.
and we, interlinked on our mound of moss,
share this same rejuvenating power
which now zips open our reluctant chests,
loosens the strings of hurt around our hearts,
and lets us watch love blossom once again
-- john engle
xenia, oh
A P R I L
"Life is tough
but if you know it's tough,
it's not tough."
-- Mom
FOR EZRA
What were you thinking, my good man?
Poetry, after all, is a labor of love,
a hard-won privilege to practice a craft,
not a right to dabble,
a passion to juxtapose meanings and words,
not symbols,
a mime, yearning to be understood,
not obscure,
and to relay thought and plain-spoken truth,
not confusion,
and certainly was not meant
for slackers and lackeys and goldbricks and such.
It oozes laboriously into existence,
syl-la-ble-by-syl-la-ble-and-line-by-tight-ened-line,
oozing like blood, drop by precious
drop,
not hurled up and dumped in bulk,
loosely bundled and trundled in
by the Pound.
Harvey Stanbrough
Pittsboro, IN
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage.
The Human spirit grows
strong by conflict.
William Ellery Channing (1780-1842)
American Unitarian Clergyman
The Tissue Of Artesians
sing the spectrum of the universe, we
painters
of words shape the inanimate
boulders of granite, forests, fields,
the cosmos, Oknos and seas, we
sculptors
of words mold life into our image
birds in flight, cities of human plight,
love, hatred, solitude -- our tools.
sing other lands, other literatures, we
eternal apprentices learn and incorporate
modes and tongues of others past and present
engagés, committed always, we
as individuals, never as dogmatists,
cherish the diversity of thought,
create as poets from the gut of compulsion
on the edge, by the fringes, we
where the occasional droplets of epiphany,
strive to comprehend ourselves and float,
rather than sink, upon the anomaly of being
never for the chimera of immortality
never compromising the integrity of our word
never bowing in the ephemerality of social form
we, mortal--our works dust one day--compose
to share the singularity of our visions, of our worlds.
G. Tod Slone, PhD
Concord, MA
Youth ever thinks that good whose goodness or evil he sees not.
Sir Philip Sidney (1554 - 86)
English soldier and poet
A CINQUAIN
THE IRONY OF WAR
Old men
instigate wars
but then expect the young
to fight, kill innocents, be maimed,
and die.
Ted O. Badger
Houston, TX
You will find poetry nowhere, unless you bring some with you."
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French Moralist
POETRY PHOTO BY JOHN ENGLE, JR. ©
As I sat gazing through patio door
reading the annual poetry of September
written by sun and shadow on the dappled lawn,
a glistening pen, wielded by an elf of air,
suddenly appeared and began
to draw a glowing line
that formed a tiny swinging bridge
from fading maple leaves
to withered hanging strawberries.
On that thin, bright bridge,
from maple to strawberries and back,
a spider poet ran up and down,
spinning a barely visible
flicker of poem announced
in a whispered shout of
“Now you see me; now you don’t,”
playing a hide-and-seek game
with what is left of summer’s light
in a mix of song and sigh
for those who can read
the invisible soul of art
and those who dare to swing
on that thin, bright bridge of faith
before the coming frost.
John Engle
Xenia, OH
STOLEN SPRING
Memorial
Tenth Anniversary - April 19, 2005
A plane from California roared its engines to forget,
over the Poconos, ancient Pennsylvania hills;
the flag which spoke of heritage was on its knees mid-pole
at schools and public buildings and traditional town squares
and McDonald's.™
In Connecticut communities, the festive stars and stripes
hung mourning everywhere, as life carried its own weight.
The little rented car saw Massachusetts weep; each tiny town
spoke its respect at the funeral of America, on the road to
Emily Dickinson's abode.
Planted daffodils, unplanted robins formed a group
of courteous outsiders, stood in silence on the gloom.
Wheels crossed the bridge to New York by mistake.
The toll man laughed, "Four dollars, please," and said,