Ode to Poetry

Poetry said
Standing ramrod-straight
Full-force punch in the
Gut of Intuition
Opens the poem and the
Logic springs to life-like
So many jacks
In Pandora's box of
turbid Emotion

Modern # 1: Death by Cappuccino

It begins
With an ending
Living our
Frenzied existence, surviving
On that next-to-last ounce of
Artificially induced pseudo-energy
Losing touch with each other and the past
Forgetting
And we sit alone in our Internet Cafés
Drinking a hot cappuccino
In our post-modern self-center
Listening to a downloaded
Requiem
To the last great
Idea

Modern #4: Nocturne

So tired
That the lights shining brilliantly
Begin to fade in my head and
My stale thoughts sputter like
Cracker crumbs across the expanse of my
Dreams softly creeping in and
I shake the cobwebs out of my
Tired eyes
One last time before I finish
Line is too far away and can't
Keep going on empty or else
I'll crash headlong but I can't stop
Falling, starting, waking, just to
Keep working until I can
Fall asleep

Biologist's Ode

Ah, Drosophila, Drosophila! Diminuitive
Drosophila! Melanogastrous tho'
thou be, I am captivated by
your simplicity!

Your eyes can flash a fiery
red, or sparkling light may be;
your skin a tan as deep as
night or clear as splashing sea.

And though earthbound I am
as yet, on angel wings you rise;
just like the past ten
generations of my research
fruit flies.

“If I should wake before I die
That’s one more assignment I’ll have to try”

Sleep
Calls me through the
Tumbling jumble of
Late-night Overdrive
Just one more research paper to go…

Space

The mystery of nothing
Blackness full of light, invisible
Men fought, and lives were lost
to take a single footstep
Across a secant of the cosmos
And cry with all their race
“We have conquered and explored
the mystery of Space.”

Recursive Ocean

I saw the soft pink of sunset
Glowing above the ocean's crashing waves
Over the sandy beds of seashells, rocks, and coral
All wrapped within the limestone mare
of a single seashell

Winter Fever

Fever burns hot
mind tosses on
smothering pillows
of winter's stifling stagnancy
Longing for the
cooling feel of
Wet Earth

Modern # 2: Insipidity

Shallowness that does not touch the soul
What is a laugh without a dream or song?
Where is your probing lamp of deepest truth
Can a heart dance without the sun?

Modern #3: Finding Your Forty-Two

How can you follow your Dreams
When you're an Insomniac
How can you play to Win
When you haven't found your Game
What is the meaning of Success
Void of the meaning of Life
Or is there Achievement
Without Intention Is
Existence Merely
A Pension
?

Modern #5: Counterpoints-an Interlude

I sat and quietly introspected
While a little man
Struggled to close a
Large green umbrella
And a young man
Quibbled with a girl
Over a dance step

New Year's Eve

I remember, I remember,
On a night in chill December
Like the final glowing ember of
The old year soon gone past
And we watched it to the last.

If you could meet that moment (broken
only by our thoughts unspoken)
With possession of a token key
or riches you amassed,
Could you hold the old year fast?

No, for time is always fleeting
Point of past and future meeting
Nightly are the old sheep bleating as
We're counting in the new;
One by one and two by two.

Song of Time

Stillness is the song of time
Ringing through the endless
Moments; rhythmically following
The succession of each silent
Tick on the face of the Universe
As the spiraling galaxies unwind.

Ode to Goldenrod

Goldenrod
Brings to mind
Summer-fall’s
Memory of
Indian
Sunshine

I Lie Like Spaghetti
A Spoof off a Poem by JC Hearn entitled I Lie Like Confetti

I lie like Spaghetti
Limp like a noodle
Famished with hunger
For dinner I'm ready

Al dent, primavera
And Parmiagiana
With brown meatballs rolling
In Red Marinara

Spaghetti Marzetti
With garlic Bruschetta
Italian Ambrosia
Eating my Spaghetti