The Poetry Marathon

I was thinking I might take a cruise—

To somewhere with long Canadian light,

Where darkness, deep, is not so much,

And brighter flowers fill long sun hours,

Just south of Alaskan permafrost.

To view the bears, grizzled or white,

and glaciers glistening rainbow-bright,

Both, calving, one in summer, one not,

‘Mid frigid fingerprints of God.

Where spike and spire stand rock solid, bold,

As they’ve always done, since days of old,

And my little cruise ship will putter by,

Unnoticed by the massive sky.

Minute speck on the glacial slate,

Finite glitter, by grandeur great.

My muse drowned.

I thought she was water-proof,

So I mixed her into my cup of ice

and let her sit,

Chilling,

Thrilling at the thought

of gulping her down

in one swift shot,

All effervescent

and bubbly,

Bumping,

Pumping through my veins

My brain,

My synapses,

Electric with the magic

Of word and sensory spark,

To illumine all imaginings,

Like glitter thrown to inky glue.

Sej2022

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I feel most at home in bed,

With my own pillow for my head,

Where snoring signals I’m not dead.

Oh, jeez!

Chester poemmatized about some cheese.

Of which my daughter, Emma, would be mighty pleased;

She’s an archeologist—who consumes history with ease—

Whenever a group works on a dig,

If they find a bit, they flip their wig,

Bits, or 30-pounder big!

The older the better,

Gouda or cheddar,

Wheel, wedge, or ball—

None go to waste. Uh, can I have a taste?

They gobble them all.

Velveeta out in Cairo, in a three-sided box;

Cream cheese in Jerusalem, with bagels and lox;

From Milan to Uzbekistan; Feta down to Whiz—

What you dig, you get to chow; that’s just the way it is!

Pompeiian Piazzos to Rome’s rubble ruins

Cheeses are the thing they dig, and heavily pursue ‘em

Because, of course, it has survived, in a perfect state of aged,

And now it’s been disturbed, it will soon decay.

Sometimes they find them crunchy,

Or covered in blue mold;

No matter who, how blue—who knew?! even how old,—

So, nibble what you can, from Scottish moor and bog,

From mountain top and villa; from desert sand to slog,

As archeology goes, it can’t be very long,

Til all the old-old-older cheese gets dug up and gone!

Oh, dear bank, here is your ode:

I owed, I owed, so off to work I go.

And as I go, heigh ho, heigh ho,

I thank you for another loan!

I carried my load

and mailed out my loan,

So my car won’t get towed;

So the debt collectors will not goad;

Dear Bank, dear bank,

thank you for lightening my load!

I think my rhymer

Was set with a timer,

At 23 and a half.

And the rhythm-ist-ick thingy,

Has busted a springy,

As I cackle pentameter laugh.

I have verse laced with vocab,

That could send me to rehab,

Like last year—and the year before.

And I’ve eaten so much;

Grazed a ten-hour lunch!

I don’t think I can fit through the door.

But that doesn’t matter—

Braindead or fatter—

There’s only one cure for this Peep.

Nonet for the win,

Be it post it or pin,

I’ve gotta catch me some sleep!

God Bless the Haiku,

Marked by tight-metered constraint;

A poem that ain’t!

Will’s

Wisdom:

Love is blind;

Et Tu, Brute?

Till death do us part;

To be, or not to be;

Shuffle off this mortal coil;

Soft, what light, in yon window breaks?

Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

The Moon, full, and pumpkin bright,

glares through my window blinds tonight,

searching past my window pane,

some hidden truth to ascertain,

of keeping nightbourne hours well—

a secret kept and cannot tell—

and pay no homage to the gibbous god

of rest; from tilling of the sod,

from to and frow at tidal whim,

rendering a slave of him.

Jealous of these night-owl words,

he pokes the blinds with golden swords,

seeks entry to my poet’s world—

my freedom from the daylight lords—

whereon the page, his piercing falls,

caressing words. The night-owl calls.

Moon-feathered light, the winged-words fly,

to distant stars in the glistening sky;

my page bereft of captive thought.

Unchained ideas, no longer caught.

The granite sky, he drinks like ale,

and drains the night, then morning pale

refills the goblet with sparkling wine,

as sunlight limbos through the blinds—

drawn tight from dusk until dawn intrudes—

dulling, once more, Me and Moon.

The words, full-weight, fall back to earth,

to slumber on their parchment berth,

where pen and patter of moon-kissed verse

may yet recapture the golden words.