Author Archives: poemblaze

by

Flutter

The man got three parakeets
so he would not be
lonely.

Yellow and green,
yellow and green,
white and blue.

They chirped on their perches,
flew to food
and from his hand.

Traumatized by training,
he let them be
a communion to themselves.

Two sat high, one sat low.
Two ate first, one ate last.
All three were heard.

Since two is company
and three are loud
the man woke one day

to a loving pair
and one feathered fluff
lying silent beneath.

The blissful two fluttered
and squawked for years
in the language of birds,

yellow and green,
blue and white,

a focus of motion and music
in the man’s quiet world.

Then one perched high
and the white and blue sky
lay low.

The man gave the last bird away
so it would not be
lonely.

by

A Passing Phase

First, bird song rings
through the darkness.
Then salmon dawn
swims in upon the mist,
tints the low lying fog.
Tree tops float.
Forgetting their roots,
they mingle, oak
with pine, cypress
with poplar.
A faint rustle rises
of leaves in communion.

As the sun gains height
and burns off the fog,
the canopy rediscovers
a stolid, brown midsection
and hidden foundation,
grasps tight the earth
it will not yield
except to lightning
or the rot
of old age.

by

Honorific of the Soul of Earth at the Limitless Ocean Shore

A Reflection Arising in Response  to the Lamentable Suggestion That Those Who Embrace People from Different Cultures and the Change Their Arrival Brings Must Do So out of Hatred of Their Own Skin

Shore
accepts ocean,
does not fear the waves.

Whether upholding
pine trees
or coral reefs,
earth remains

itself,

soil and stone,
with a heart
of fire.

=

For Open Link Night

Sometimes those old Chinese poetry titles are fun. ;-)

And not to draw too fine a point on it, but here’s a photo of my kids.

by

Dreamer

I pluck raindrops from the lake
and return them to the sky,
craft some into a dance
of circus animals
around towering columns.

Others become a flock of starlings
which soars, darts, shifts
above the wheat field
and brindles it
with passing shadows.

A castle gleams
with parapets.
The drawbridge lowers
only to drift away.

A knight jousts
a duck.

The images elaborate, build
until earth is starved
of any moisture
and the atmosphere weighs
too heavy to hold its burden.

Roaring rains scour the land,
fill lowlands with lakes
and rivers. Soil sprouts
green anew.

Heaven turns blue,
again empty.
====

Written for dVerse Poets Pub’s latest Open Link Night

by

Playground

White rings, close set,
but we do not hold
and flex, display
our strength.

An endless line suspended,
one revealed at a time.
We reach on instinct,
for the next hand hold

which appears in our grasp
at the flash of this moment,
each with the familiar, smooth
curve of the last.

Yet the scenery at each side
shifts, blooms an alien land.
Strange faces bob, then disappear
mouthing words we half hear.

Wearied of touching
only that which keeps us moving,
we reach for still sameness,
grasp the comfort of earth.
===

My dVerse Poets Pub poem for Open Link Night.

by

500px.com

I am suitably impressed
by a dragon, fire roaring
out his mouth
and ass.

He cruises through
a vast Martian canyon
clutching a damsel
in his terrible claws.

The sky bends
red and orange,
ripples with heat
from the beast’s mouth

and ass.
I suspect Photoshop
yet vote for it
and click “fave.”

Maybe the kindness
will be returned
on my photo of cirrus clouds
over a lone willow tree.

by

Tapped Out

Bones emptied
of any joy in words,
distal phalanges clatter
on computer keyboard
for the sake of the motion.

A bare framework
writes forgotten conversations
when the larynx is gone,
when the self
best serves as a wind chime.

This skeleton
holds together
without sinew.
He begins to believe
he’s typing himself

a new body
that’ll arrive any day now,
with a wiser brain,
with skin and muscle
that don’t dissolve in the rain.