Tag: Poet

Hometown sonnet

Hometown
Life used to bustle round our stately square …

Hometown Sonnet

The old hometown is aging, as am I.
The once wide streets grow narrow with the years.
As night descends, you all but hear a sigh,
For what once was has gone, and twilight nears.
 
Now, friends and kinsmen number fewer too,
And memories fade like the painted sign
Proclaiming that the city “welcomes you!”
Strange how one’s soul and place so intertwine.
 
Life used to bustle round our stately square
’Til commerce shifted to the edge of town.
The grand facades are now much worse for wear.
Some landmarks have been torn completely down.
The business of my life took me elsewhere.
Cracks grew in walkways of both man and town.

 

 

A poem for Thanksgiving

Frost.in.morning.jpg

This Thanksgiving morning we awoke to a nice frost here in Western Washington.  We don’t get frost all that often in this gentle, marine climate, so it’s beautiful and rare treat.  Just one more thing to be thankful for today.

Here’s a little poem of thanksgiving written many years ago on another frosty day.

FROST IN MORNING

When the willow world is with hoarfrost hung,
And the white fog lifts leaving trees bright new,
The foliage flashes with a crystal clue
Of how the world looked when light first leaped young.

Before man’s weight and weakness had begun
To break the branch or bruise the sodden slough,
The garden grew unburdened, bathed in dew,
Grew like a canticle, perfectly sung.

 

Because the world needs more love poetry

Lumberjack.love

LUMBERJACK LOVE

Though I am not a hirsute man nor burly,
I love you with a lumberjack-type love.
The only axe I take in hand securely,
This meager pen across the page I shove.

Please treat me not so fickle nor so surly,
Don’t shield your limbs below nor lips above.
I aim to fell you skillfully and purely;
Each word’s to chip the bark around your love.

More poetry for fall

The leaves, the leaves are gone except the oak,

FALLING LEAVES LIKE LOVERS 

The leaves, the leaves are gone except the oak,
Which cling to trees and rattle needlessly.
The others flame and fall for all to see.
They streak and sizzle, leaving only smoke.
But oak leaves hang as by some unseen yoke,
All browned and curled awaiting sympathy,
Or sap to course and lend vitality —
The leaves cannot perceive the sorry joke.
For spring will end the lie and they will drop,
To drift and rot and turn in time to dust.
As sure as buds will burst to make a crop
Of new, the old will flutter down — they must.
The falling leaves like lovers never stop.
It’s hardly gentle, but ’tis just, ’tis just.

Veteran’s Day Haiku

My great grandfather the Civil War veteran.Yankee ancestor,
Had Reb been a better shot
I wouldn’t be here.

Autumn Song

Afternoon in late September

AUTUMN SONG

Afternoon in late September
Shows us signs we both can follow,
Shadows where there were no shadows
Days before, encroach on meadows,
Turning brittle brown and yellow.
Six o’clock’s a dying ember
Causing grown men to remember
Another fall’s disturbing echo.

When, unnoticed, fell the first leaves,
Yellow elm leave tired of sunshine?
Who suspected seeing such ease
When the first chill stunned the green vine?
Is embarrassment the reason
Sumac’s crimson hides its poison?
When was foliage last so supine?

Rainy night in mid-October
Brings the icy confirmation —
Twigs encased in shiny coffins
Clenched in cold that never softens.
Even daylight’s ministration
Alters no repose so sober
As the sleep of mid-October,
Sleep of spreading desolation

Night Walk

I have walked now and then in rain.

EXPERIENCE

I have walked now and then in rain,
Walked until the road gave way to stones.
I have known a thing or two of pain.
 
I’ve returned home alone at night
To rooms that don’t speak back to me at all.
I have stayed up late without a light.
 
I have watched the half-moon disappear,
Watched until the frost benumbed my face.
I have seen the seasons of the year.
 
I have left warm, pleasant rooms for plain,
Left without a word explaining why.
I have known a thing or two of pain.

 

Autumn Haiku

Autumn leaves

I’ve never been one,
For wallowing in the past,
But, the falling leaves …

Hometown Haiku

1960 Marshall High School Noctua Yearbook. Marshall, Missouri

We lost the big game,
But at least we’d never say,
That our lives peaked there.