20210430.0430 "Sixth-grade English"

I had the benefit of wisdom as a tutor
And I did try to heed the words
My traveled teacher told me
Though few hear well when they face such days
Too few
And some never find their ears
Too many
And she loved the apple I placed on her desk
But I have never found that type again
Though I have other varieties in plenty
Abundant orchards' yieldings
Tart and bitter where the one was sweet
And if they may make better cider
Still do I long again to
Have that prized fruit to taste

20210429.0430

I know some will seek sometime to pluck
The little Iceland flower I yet tend
That springs up strong and fair in
The stony-soiled Hill Country
And I cannot stop the hands from taking that bloom
Just as no hand could stop me
Plucking fruit from the brown bough and
Eating of its juicy flesh
Or planting seed to grow anew
But I can hope the hands that take it up in time
Are kind
And relish in the beauty of the bloom
Seeing that it has what it needs
If they will not let the dryad free

20210428.0430

Jack
Of course
Has an annual lease
But Uri has gotten himself banned
And will join Katrina who
Years ago
Threw her tantrum at the grand old lady
Dirtied her jewels and scattered some
Because he left such a mess on the limestone floor
Wrecked the plumbing and ruined
So many oak and cypress pillars
That had stood so long
Jack will do well to check his guests
Because it looks like he may lose his place
In the local time-share
If things go on as they have

20210427.0430

Many look for Aestas to come again
Thrilling in the heat she brings
And I do not deny her beauty here
But bask in it when I need not
Labor and sweat and thirst because of it
Yet Ostara is still a better decorator
And if she was not able to spread so many of her blankets
Across the weathered limestone floors
Between the oak and cypress columns
Carved in their ornate forms
It is only because Jack
And his unpleasant guest Uri
Wrecked the place and she
Had a lot to do to clean up after them
Housemother to frat boys so that
Her sisters and cousins and friends
Need not see again their depravity
Unless they pop by while Jack has his turn
And that does happen sometimes

20210426.0430

Ostara drew the curtains down
Lowered the thermostat
Her lease on the time-share is not up yet
And she made sure that we
Temporary guests that the real renters suffer--
We must amuse them with our fretting--
Remember who pays the bills
And it is not us

20210425.0430

Think not that Stupid God has gone to rest,
Retired to its awkward ugly nest
Because one avatar failed in one test,
But know that others of that ilk abound,
And if of smaller voice, they still surround
In numbers such as still may well confound.
The vigil should not now be set aside
Because the wrinkled citrus now does hide,
For subtler things still work, and woe betide
Who recks not that the peril still endures,
A foul disease for which there is no cure
Save one, and that not open to the pure.
Rejoice in that one evil's gone away,
But know another comes with every day.

20210424.0430

Think not that Stupid God has gone to rest,
Retired to its awkward ugly nest
Because one avatar failed in one test,
But know that others of that ilk abound,
And if of smaller voice, they still surround
In numbers such as still may well confound.
The vigil should not now be set aside
Because the wrinkled citrus now does hide,
For subtler things still work, and woe betide
Who recks not that the peril still endures,
A foul disease for which there is no cure
Save one, and that not open to the pure.
Rejoice in that one evil's gone away,
But know another comes with every day.

20210423.0430

No, the work is not yet done
Each day brings another one
And when it is bare begun
Another rising of the sun
Sees another task is come
And so the work is not yet done

20210422.0430

Dwelling on things
Making a home amid those thoughts and
Slamming the door so many times
The sheetrock is cracked
And only the one hinge is holding barely together
Yard overgrown with weeds
Windows stuck shut from
Badly put-on coats of paint and rust
Cupboards near to barren
The spiders feasting from their webs within
More than others feast without from what was stocked
Once gladly and now expired and thrown away
Plumbing leaking as it crumbles away
Into the same dust that coats the rest in a thickening layover
Becoming what it covers

20210421.0430

It is one thing to say
Live each day like it's your last
A foolish thing in truth
Tomorrow might come as surely as it might not
And starting the day with nothing left
Is no good thing
As many could attest were they not thus bound
No Claudius to double business
Even if to two jobs
It's another facing a certain end
Fortinbras awaiting the outcome

20210420.0430

She said
A change of pace would be nice
And she did not mean
Slowing down
But I am already running
And my feet and knees and hips crackle with each step

20210419.0430

Few are the flowers from the one garden--
Bitter the berries it boasts in their stead--
All early-growing and earlier falling
Or plucked up promptly, put to the side,
Pressed between pages and preserved thus,
Gathered with gold by greedy hands
And looked upon little, lingering yet
In a chest one may choose, chief of its treasures,
No fortune to fight over or to make foes.

20210418.0430

"I'm having too much fun"
Her child's voice a braying Klaxon
For all that it was muted
A girlish bean sidhe keening
For the death of joy come sooner than it ought
And mine the poinard that worked that wound
Piercing in when brandished idly about
Making a mark too much like one I bear
And in which salt is grinding now

20210417.0430

Taken by fever
Following unquiet rest
Seeking comfort in things
Recalled from years past
Failing to find it
The markers thought stable gone away
Long since

20210416.0430

The words are a hedge against forgetting
Reading and writing fixing things in the mind
But a hedge is not a wall
And forgetting sometimes drives a tank

20210415.0430

Cobwebs gather on the ceiling again
The paint subsumed by graying threads
The light sliding away wanly
And it may be a curtain soon will fall
But I do not mind intermission

20210414.0430

Even in my fantasies
When I can do what I would do
And consequences not accrue
Choking out the flow
I end up poring over books
While others have their fun
And though I enjoy reading
That I imagine doing it
Instead of doing it
Is likely no good sign

20210413.0430

Timorous as I am
I feel no need to fondle
Compensation for my dick
Smaller than I would like
Every time I am in public
But then
I try never to shoot first
And maybe that's the difference

20210412.0430

He walked by again
One hand around his daughter's
The other hovering near the butt of his gun
Sticking out from where he overflows
What does he fear so much that he
Feels the need to try to caress the
One thing he thinks he can count on to
Be hard in his hand and
Shoot straight when he handles it
In a class full of children
Gathered to dance?

20210411.0430

Holding Dramborleg in my mouth
Words wounding sometimes
Thudding dully others
And too often the other when I want the one

20210410.0430

Aestas pays a visit now
Where Ostara pays the rent
And while I'm not signing a check
I certainly feel spent

20210409.0430

It's getting harder finding time for doing all I need:
Getting any writing done, or sitting down to read,
Or eating with my family, though I do not concede
The struggle getting my tasks done, not that they would such heed
It's getting harder finding time to do what I desire,
Cooking days' first meals or last upon the fire,
Sitting at my leisure and, by reading, climbing higher,
Not within an ivory tower, but a fairer spire
It's getting harder finding time to do what must be done,
Concluding all the many works I feel I've bare begun,
Playing games I've started and that I have not yet won,
Played now out of duty rather than because of fun

20210408.0430

The flowers are far fewer
This year's spring
And with their noted dearth
A certain thing
For which I often look
And cannot bring
Is greatly missed
Too much lacking

20210407.0430

I do not by a sleep seek to end such heartache as a man like me might feel

But if it helps my backache, I will gladly take a nap

Because I do not expect to dream in any slumber

Having hardly done so in many years

20210406.0430

You should be writing
The common refrain
Of unknown mind-workers
And reapers of fame
Who in song and story
Garner acclaim
I tried to be both
My folly and shame
And in the two tasks
I fail just the same

20210405.0430

I sit again in my accustomed place
Shadows of the leaves dappling my face
Hoping that my mind again will race
And that my feeble fingers can keep pace
But knowing they are not up to the task
To which I would put them, that I ask,
Of dipping into that now empty cask
In whose glory I had sought to bask
And drawing out such words as stir the heart.
I had thought such had been my good part
And thus to do it had made a fair start,
But I was wrong, as I so often am,
And prompting thusly was only a scam,
Another bit of Stupid God's flim-flam

20210404.0430

 Redirects here.

20210403.0430

Marked by years itinerant
No soap sufficing to scrub clean a spot
More gladly taken than Lady Macbeth's
But what brother-slaying prompted
The forehead-branded exile
Subjection to scorn and opprobrium of lookers-on
Without even the protection of a forgiving god
Extending a sheltering hand after having raised in in rebuke:
Not for nothing am I a man of no faith
Standing alone among many who think themselves blessed
By a power in which I have long been unable to believe
Not for nothing

20210402.0430

Too long steeped in bitterness
The single note overpowering
All the other spices that might
Season it to better liking

20210401.0430

Now April with its showers comes again
And seeks with promised rain to those befriend

Who in March hoped for fuller flowers' bloom

To ease them after February's doom

And hopes to hold their minds away from May,

When children, loosed from school, begin to play

And Aestas beckons people to her dance

As shorter grow the skirts, and so the pants,

Of those who that hot figure gladly heed--

Yet ever of the showers there is need

Where oak and cedar clothe the limestone hills;

Even in few drops, that people thrills

Who live where Lupe swims, no pilgrims they

As in the Southwark Tabard once did lay.