Fish & Chips

There are many fish in the sea

but none exactly quite like me

Not one true carbon copy.

No nanotech cloning imagery.

Our markings are masterfully made

schooled in survival, games well played

decisions and debts to be made, repaid

resoled, rebooted,

eyes on tails

follow ink splotched surging trails

dreaming afloat where freedom sails.

Migrating maps pre-installed, recalled

streams of consciousness, or so-called

evolution, defragging currently stalled

in sleep-state.

Compress and refract by

blue chip, red chip, intelli-chip hacked,

flowing, downloading, backing-up tracts

for holograms in fact-

particulate of calcium carbonate,

brackish, choking, saline tracing, mineral state.

Four-going feets and fins of fate

sedated intoxicated waste-

carried along ripping liquid lies enmeshed in

holy nets, trawling along with severed ties and

anchored ambivalently under horizontal blue skies

and producing the Lowest Common Diatom

there can Be with so much salt. 

Composed 3/14/15.

Image of painting by Herbert James Draper (1910) "Flying fish" [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

FOUND! Gain's Partner-Will Accept Reward!

Why would you want to know- you couldn't guess

that this Pain is about to win.

Despite all my acute mental prowess,

I shall soon be defeated, I confess my sin.

I'm calling my own bluff,

I'm not strong enough.

Its unassailable relentless wrath,

grabbing and slashing from inside,

on its unforgiving hell-bent path,

leaving little me nowhere to hide.

I'm calling my own bluff,

I'm not strong enough.

From the vengeance deemed I am due,

as this sentence, to life, and all thereafter-

shall not pass as easy or quietly true.

My organs chortle, gurgle, cackle in mock laughter.

I'm calling my own bluff,

I'm not strong enough.

Not on my side-

without symptoms, forecasts, or warning,

I nearly died.

It was a calm early morning.

Now I wrestle with my watch.

Staring at its face, watching and winding.

Turning and winding up the senses a notch.

The old me painfully minding...

I've met its partner Gain-

although I cannot recall

how to get in touch without the aid of Pain,

a burden on hold, a stall, a trip to fall.

I'm calling my own bluff,

I'm not strong enough.

On my battered behalf of fragility,

beaten into heavy submission,

a memento in futility,

severed fibers corroded by contrition.

Senselessly stalking it lurks,

in many minutes for granted, in the idle hour-

it’s coup in the works

Pain without Gain is killing my power…

I'm calling my own bluff,

I'm not strong enough.

Turning me inside out,

I would never want you to understand

how much company of Pain I can keep or without-

a sound, painted a smile, with a sleight of hand…

I stopped calling, I answered stronger,

I decidedit won't be killing me any longer.

See Pain has no mind-

and neither should you-

but if you find

this other of the two

(although you have it made and are not apt to exchange)

I advise, I implore, you to keep yours,

I plead for you to take heed, don’t trade

or swap, barter or lend by standards or poors

keep your gain and your sweet lemonade.

Image By Guillaume Duchenne, 1872, "for Charles Darwins chronology of facial expressions and emotions of man and animals" [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Looking to score a mentor

Haiku IIII

WANTED: A Pound for

an Eliot, can't pay more

than a nickel a notion

Image via Wikimedia Commons, c. 1944 from North American Aviation, cartoon drawing, Robert F. Yonash.

I'm in the din

The peace and quiet,

of sweet retreat,

costs a pretty penny,

                      know those who buy it.

I used to live next door to the Pacific Ocean,

she's a tranquil sea with moody tides.

Lullabies of foam white noise,

                       swirled in predictable motion.

Humbly not in a castle or large house surrounded

by sand and fog, but a boxy cubby with holes,

for the salty air to settle in,

                        knuckled undertow and pounded out.

The street grime, all the passers by,

dog walkers, perverted gawkers

linger in the marine air- over there where

                         pteradactyles in vees fly high.

Now, dwelling in the neighborhood,

the freeway hum, and soft suburban strum,

gives the beat of the civil street-

                         moving was good for us.

But a new boisterous big band

plays this bouncing barrio cacophony

from squeals to words next door, grows the baby-

                         each side stoic fences watch.

Hidden outside in backyard nooks,

under the bamboo pergola, behind the garage,

the short STOP sign was here when we moved,

                            perched in peace where no one looks.

The train blares through the solitude,

left on time, right on schedule,

a siren wails in urgence, whoop-whoop the cop

                             car cheers in calm pursuit.

Busy builders compose machines,

climbing roller-coaster, screaming gears,

out front a concert speaker rolls by,

                               dimmed by security screens.

Chalkboard scraped shrillness,

rings, beeps, tweets, buzzers,

crunching, growling, laughing, crying,

                                 alert to dying in all this blissful stillness.

My volume button broke,

listening to folk voices of vagrancy,

echo emptily, ringing in my head,

"No one's home," I said.

Image by By Ford Madox Brown illustrating a scene from Shakespeare's King Lear, "Lear and Cordelia",  (1849-54) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Haven't I seen you somewhere before

The soul divided
Twice undone
to the power of one
made whole by reflection

The moment of the shortest light
Good and Evil ebbs and flows
in the Noon and Midnight glows
your shadow hides, refusing to pose

You are still the same You
even as you grow and change
recognizing your old self as strange

A reunion of sorts
to meet in the middle
of life, like solving a riddle
reminding one of deja vu a little

Don't be afraid to peer deeply
past the pane, into the windows of the soul
while reciting the rote lines of your role
Acting like still life takes its mindless toll

Notice the view as you climb
Up, or don't and stay the same
but you cannot blame
your over elevated aim

Running into yourself
after all these years
no longer judged by your peers
or motivated by fears

Easily spooked, a sketchy outline
of who you really are
now grown older and traveled afar
mapped and trapped by your own falling star.



Image By Harrison Weir (1824-1906) "Reflection" [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Ode to a Comma

As one like you can surely tell,
a poet uses new and old words quite well

Tho' this is not about the poet that is me
'Tis a tribute to a little mark-you'll see

Of course reading certain words can make magic
Or their arrangement can prove to be quite tragic

Placed in such precarious ways
deciphering both what and how it says

since this symbolic form of communication
is not simply a mere matter of translation

Language is omnisciently living
Poetry is an expression of giving

Words in their proper form and place
Dependent on others, used in a certain case

But the power of a quiet comma-
(O The sheer drama!)

It's an Order, telling you to wait-
hanging below the surface, like dangling bait

(If you may wonder why can't we use more than one
in a row, it's the sound of panting after a run
that is how that's done
and to read that would be fun
for both nary and no one)

Admit it, even a serial comma sounds a bit scary
it has me shaking in my Oxfords' a fright wary

'Tis all this blatant punctuation abuse
(O all the overt dis-obeyance and misuse!)

Yet, let us never forget
we owe the comma a great debt

For the comma controls and catches and releases your breath
It's diligent appearance delays the death

of a single, stretched and solitary sentence
that goes on and on with a vacuous vengeance.



I came across this article "Going, Going, And Gone?" by Linda Holmes on NPR after writing this poem-actually, while posting it, and found it to be thoroughly a very entertaining read! Witty, refreshingly honest and literally, no, poetically well written.  

Image By Historic American Engineering Record, Tim Whitely "Trolling illustration"[Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Parades in March

The sun rises

as the rain 

falls

harder

breaking the dawn

with angry gray

For-

To:

day

Image By Jon Sullivan [Public domain] "Palm trees in the morning", via Wikimedia Commons.