Poem #9 (something for a queen [among others])

I can recite it accurately and precise:
What is loved must be sacrificed
I stay awake when I long for slumber
I take joy in painting so I should be a plumber
Joy is my condemnation
Venus stands painted on the walls of Hell,
Lucifer is the beauty of the nations,
Art is a sip from the devil’s well,
Irony is his chief tool
Humor the brightest jewel
In his paper crown
And we Earth-bound suffer his rule
Of stiffest, iron frivolity in happier towns
Painting friend of idols
And I am just sitting here idle
If the heaviest labor doesn’t quicken me
I waste the heavenly
and display evidence of graffiti against me
On virgin paper sheets
Where falseness is easily
Seen that I am of the least.

Poem #8

One tower outside
Town, minarets have crumbled down.
One tower, an icon of
Decay, an idol of happier days.
Come see Ishtar at
Home, like Venus
Beneath a crystal dome,
See paradise that is yours
To own.
See the harlots, the idol’s clones.
Ishtar’s bridegroom is any king
He has usurped the lion’s place and willing
To pay the asking price and take
For a wife, a mummy at
Night, but a demon in a fight.
Ishtar lies beneath Iraqi sands
Waiting for her lovers and princes
From far off lands.
She waits beneath
Her headstone, a ruined tower, a promise of
Paradise waiting to
Flower.

Poem #7 (e-harmony)

Poems on screen,
Etched in Silicon by
Electricity and plastic
Keys.
Are poems on computer screens,
Rhapsodies of robots?
Mindless generations of
Times New Roman text?
Do you hear the android’s
Singing? With songs of wit
Gone cold and where passion
Is stale?

Poem #6 (Thanksgiving)

In my hand
A fruit from the tree
You saw it and said there
Was nothing to worry about,
Laughing, you said there was no serpent,
And your house is not Eden,
But I was still unsure.
I am blind.
I was spinning on
A carousel and swirling by
The moon and lovely Venus,
Then I was mysteriously stopped;
Forced to stare at the Sun.

I was blinded, perhaps by a smokescreen
Of words, Full of intention
But not meaning;
I have never been worldly
Just wordy;
And now I cannot find my way
Maybe blinded by you
I don’t know, I just know
You planted a seed
In a garden of thorns
Now I hold fruit in my hands
I cannot comprehend.

Cowboy Poem #2

Midnight lighting, from the east
Strikes once out west
Seen only by a lonely woman
Who could not rest.
She ran to the horizon
Eager and unafraid
She only saw an outlaw
On a dark-spun raid
Riding a white horse
Beneath a blazing tree
She climbed into the saddle
And they rode away
As mourning bells ushered
In the day.

Saturday Cowboy Matinee (Cowboy Poem #1)

A man I know walked into
The desert, no one knew why
He walked among the cacti and sage
With a Colt .45 aimed at the sky

Heard nothing but silence
As he walked without firing a shot
No lead flying at God or the Sun
Though God made him and the sun
made him hot

He had carried the gun through
Bloody fields of the Civil War
Fought for Lincoln to kill Johnny Rebs
Killing seven and four score

In the desert and nothing was heard
Trigger-finger tense on the gun
As his spurs continued to clink
As journeyed silently beneath the sun

Poem #5 (not a good joke)

Please,
Can a word catch your
Golden ear?
Can a word dispel your
Righteous fear?
I plead to hear from your
Lips, something of
Life and words about your
Viper and Dove?

I take your crown
And melt it down
The building hands tearing down
Your blue tower to the ground

Grip so strong
After holding on
Onto this
For so long

Now my hand
Is burned by a rope of sand
Of lies
Fabricated by my hand

I strayed beyond my cell
But could you just as well
Toss the rope
Where I fell

Is it wrong for a pawn to have a queen?
Is it right if he has sought
The source of the living stream
Away from our routine thought?

God’s stream is so close by
Climb a ladder into the sky
Into Love
I was born beneath its angles
And the angels
Have given me leaden wings to fly
Through the sky
To Love.

by bd and rz

April Fools!

That poem I allegedly wrote was actually penned by Bob Dylan. The song is called “When the Ship Comes In” and was recorded for his album The Times Are A’Changin’. I’m glad my friends are warming to Dylan’s poetry.

P.S. All “poets” look like fools next to Dylan

Poem #4 (ts and ah)

You’re staring at a fresh grave,
Beneath is someone cowardly or brave
(I don’t know).
Staring at darkness with a carpet cover,
Love lost to a rapacious lover
(That I don’t know).

I’ve never seen a vulture descend from the skies
Clad in black, glowing coals for eyes.
Shift flesh from blood and fire to stone,
Then gnaw on the marrow of broken bones.

Only seen an wizened man with an ashen face
courteously escorting great-mama to grace.

I have yet to see a leech with a slow fire
Sucking blood with ravening desire.

I cannot understand
How it is to lose this man
In the covering windblown sand
I do not understand.

Once I saw your eyes begin to fill
And I began to see you standing on a lonely hill.