Author: poetrypause

The days grow short, I walk alone
  On wooded trails that twist
Beneath the browning of the leaves
  That summer’s sun once kissed.
 
From shadows cast in moonlit skies
  Nocturnal creatures crawl,
Aware the season’s at its end, 
  Preparing for the fall.
 
Nostalgic evenings fade to night
  And summer winds are chilled,
Abandoning the atmosphere 
  To dreams left unfulfilled.

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Hard to fathom
Where time goes,
Washed away
In ebbs and flows;
From inception
Baby grows
Open hands
And walking toes.
 
Laid upon
His momma’s chest,
Nourished by
His momma’s breast.
His mom and pop
Will never rest;
The marriage strain,
The marriage test.
 
Baby’s walkin’
Soon he’s three,
Busy as
A bumble bee.
Challenged by
The things to see,
Exploring
Possibility.
 
Socialized
In school and play,
The child responds
To make his way.
Finds a place
Where he’s okay;
Fills with color
All that’s gray.
 
Becomes a friend
To parents who
At birth were all
The baby knew,
Who wonder when
Their baby grew
And wonder after
What they’ll do.

Drawn to worlds
Of disarray,
Leaves his home
To make his way.
Says, ‘Goodbye,’
He’d, ‘like to stay,’
But something calls
He goes away.
 
Rides the waves,
The clouds above,
As timeless tides
Push and shove.
Looks for passion,
Looks for love,
Tries them on
Like hand to glove.
 
In a role
His parents know,
A baby’s hands
In his will grow.
In a sterile
Room aglow
A baby born
To bride and beau.
 
Love and passion,
Hearts deny;
Hearts encumbered,
Hearts that die.
The boundless earth,
The boundless sky,
Beckon all
Who wonder why.
 
Hears the voices
Hears the cries,
Tempted by
Their alibis,
In pursuit,
The whats and whys;
He answers them,
Away he flies.
 
On the wind
He turns to see
The passing of
The parents he
Had come to know
Respectfully
As underpinning
All he’d be.
 
Another’s arms
He puts to test;
Ancient heart,
Eternal quest.
Beating hearts
In measures rest;
Alone he roosts
In empty nest.
 
Buried now
Beneath the ground;
All he’s lost
With all he’s found.
Fainter now
The earnest sound
That tempts the sheep
From where it’s bound.
 
Doors that open,
Doors that close,
Time that’s lost
The memory stows.
Ticking clocks,
The mortal foes;
Hard to fathom
Where time goes.

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“Do as we say and not as we do,”
A phrase that’s familiar to me and to you.
The biggest proponent of this credo I quote?
Politicians elected when you and I vote.
 
First our own governor, while riding along
In a vehicle owned by the state we belong,
Unbuckled and speeding, against laws he’d condoned,
Crashed and the governor was nearly de-boned.
 
And now on the west coast in a state sponsored car,
A senator traveled in the car she’d soon mar
When she smashed the rear end a man with his tot
While talking away on a cell phone she’s got.
 
Last year she approved and voted to pass,
Should you drive in a car and are giving it gas,
A law that prohibits your cell phone in use
And a fine she provided for the statute’s misuse.
 
Their pedigree pure as a Croatian Sheepdog,
With a conscious as clear as a Florida fog,
A breed of humanity whose DNA screens
Into twisted paired couples of duplicitous genes.

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She must be something ugly,
Repugnant to the eye,
For them to charge this lady
And think the charge would fly.
 
It happened in New Hampshire,
A state that’s rather small;
Its significance is minimal
As states go all in all.
 
The charge they lodged against her
Is one you’ve heard before;
Cruelty to an animal,
An act that I’d deplore.
 
Specifically the lady charged
With staring at a dog;
Taunting and harassing it
While in a drunken fog.
 
Confronted by policemen
Responding to a call,
She mocked their German Shepherd
Which threatened her to maul.
 
Ogling the canine,
The dog became unnerved
By the constant staring
The dog felt undeserved.
 
So they booked the lady
For cruelty to the beast,
And off to court they hauled her
But now she’s been released.
 
The judge, he watched the video
Taken at the scene,
Determined cuter ladies
Everywhere were likely seen.
 
He said had she been pretty,
And a quarter of her weight,
The cops would not have booked her
And charged her in the State.
 
Even though she’s ugly
It’s not considered cruel,
To stare without distraction
At animals that drool.
 
The judge dismissed the charges,
And that seems apropos;
Beauty’s found within the eye
Beholders only know.

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The doorbell rang,
‘Twas rather late
And no one visits
At my gate,
But up I rose,
To my delight
An Asian girl
Stood in the light.
 
Was this a vision,
Just a dream;
Delusions that
Awake I seem?
Was there a God
Who answered prayers
And placed this girl
Upon my stairs?
 
I opened up
The door between
The manifested
Dream I’d seen.
Ah-low, she said,
Remembah me?
I know that voice
I said to she.
 
For years we’d chatted
On the phone,
The best Chinese
I’ve ever known.
Years before
She’d come on by
To meet me once
Hello, good-bye.
 
Now here she was,
Upon my steps,
The finest one
Of Food King’s reps.
For fifteen years
The Chinese food,
From her I ordered
When in the mood.
  
In my drive
Her car was parked,
Beneath the moon
Her dark eyes sparked.
I sell my store
But new one bought,
I fix you some
When food is sought. 
 
Food King’s number
I’ll take out,
Off my dialer,
Have no doubt,
I said, Replace it,
With your  phone;
The new food king
Upon the throne.
 
She touched my hand,
Ahh, thank you much,
You so kind,
Her hand I clutch.
She turned to leave,
Beneath a star,
The Food King girl
Climbed in her car.
 
Into the night
She drove away,
No other stops
She made this day.
Thanked the gods
While in my bed,
That to my door
She had been led.
 
I’d order her
By the pound
But on the menu
She’s not found.
For beef and broccoli
Can’t compare
To having her
Upon my stairs. 

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She slips away from memory,
She slips away from thought;
She slips away from gravity
She slips away uncaught.
 
Into the ether of my times,
Into the ether flows,
Into the ether she now climbs
Into the ether goes.
 
In her wake an absence filled,
In her wake the weeds,
In her wake a field’s tilled,
In her wake it seeds.
 
She slips away the spirit’s hold,
She slips away from me.
She slips away into the cold
She slips and she is free.

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People all around the globe
Deal with divorce;
Some places it is easier
Than others are of course.
 
Because it’s so expensive
To live in homes alone,
In Moscow couples parting
Will share the home they’ve known.
 
Not a good arrangement
For couples prone to fight;
Living with the each other
Produces further spite.
 
Forced by order of the court
To live together still,
A Russian couple three years spent
Acrimony filled.
 
Tension mounted everyday
And finally reached a head,
When she was found him in a chair
Naked, clothes he’d shed.
 
The television blaring loud,
A vodka bottle near;
She’d had enough of this ol’ fool
And snuck up from the rear.
 
Spilled some vodka on his lap
And threw a match she’d lit,
Suddenly he’s hot for her,
The bull’s eye she had hit.
 
The court’s have now reversed themselves
And separate lives they’ll live;
Though soon unlikely it will be
His ex- he’ll soon forgive.

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(circa 2007)

The little fellow in Iran,
Who claims to be the president,
Has now invited every foe 
To test his will and his intent.
 
Poking at the paper tigers,
Captured him some Brits to flaunt;
In the streets, parades ‘em ‘round
While marching Brits, the masses taunt.
 
Like so many craving power,
Diminutive in stature stands;
He’ll bite off more than he can chew,
His ego every year expands.
 
Front and center this man was
When once they took Americans;
Held ‘em hostage, eighteen months,
Tied and to their heads held guns.
 
He’s shrewdly plays the cards he lays
And calculates a western state
Won’t risk the lives of hostages
But hem and haw and simply wait.
 
A bully knows but one response,
An act in kind would fit the bill;
But here’s a guy that knows his foe
Has neither stomach nor the will.
 
Diplomacy the Brits will try,
Then search between the lines for clues;
But through the ages, wisdom shows
The hesitant will always lose. 

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The Straits of Gibraltar,
Portugal, Spain,
The ocean’s a danger
For boats that remain.


Too many trawlers,
Dinghys and such,
Intersecting with whales
Leaving wounds when they touch.


So concerted in effort
These mammals the like
Of large killer whales
Prepare for a strike.


In mounted revenge
Of whales whose back
Has been cut by the rudders
Of boats they attack,


They circle the vessel
They target and then
Attack with a vengeance
Again and again.


’Til the boat is disabled,
Upturned or destroyed
Then leave like a posse
That one should avoid.


We travel together
In pod or in fleet
Each with our kind
’Til another kind meet


But finite the earth
In resource and space
Together survive
When we each know our place.

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From Waukesha, a news report
That’s very strange indeed;
Alcohol, a cashier’s check
And pants are all you need.
 
A gentleman had met his son
To drink away the night;
At the local drinking hole,
They grabbed as well a bite. 
 
Then this warm Wisconsin night
Mark Stahnke left for home;
Bid adieu to his young son
And toward his home he’d roam.
 
A cashier’s check for forty grand
And hundreds more in cash,
Mark Stahnke carried bundled up
A handsome bit of stash.
 
He headed ‘cross the parking lot
And down his street he turned,
But that is all he can recall
‘Fore consciousness adjourned.
 
The morning next, this man awoke
Upon his neighbor’s grass;
His shoes and socks were all in place
But he’d no pants, alas.
 
His cash and checks were missing too,
No memory had he at all
Of how he’d come to be like this
And how’d he come to fall.
 
He reported what he knew to be
The truth to the police,
Who said to him quite skeptically,
“Mr. Stahnke, please!”
 
Enter Mr. Curzan’s dog
Who found the missing pants,
Retrieved them from a roadway then
To Mr. Curzan pranced.
 
Collected all the evidence
They’d gathered for the cops,
The dog and Mr. Curzan go
Downtown, the stuff to drop.
 
No one’s certain what occurred
Nor knows the circumstance,
Of how Mark Stahnke woke that dawn
Without a pair of pants.
 
But all has ended well for him,
Though mystery yet surrounds
The time elapsed between the bar
And waking on the ground 

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