a basketball haiku

final breath of air
From the free throw line
triple-reverse tomahawk
with authority.


copyright (c) April 16, 2003

a lesson from winter

Raindrops pattering
for independence
are arrested and cuffed
for abiding the law of gravity.
Then snap-frozen to penrosic ashes
while coping with brain freeze.

Those better served
commence by aligning themselves parallel
before converging to a vanishing point,
giving speeches of solidarity
but meaning dissent--
splitting upon impact.

copyright (c) April 13, 2003

cat litter

You ate my leftovers
when i didn't say you could.
It doesn't matter
that I never said you couldn't.

You still did it
anyway.


© March 05, 2003

it is not as bad as it seems

Reach for the sky,

fish in water.

Wrong turn.

I didn't see the car

there was nothing I could do,

I thought some daisies would cheer you up;

now i am one of them.


© February 15, 2003

In Memorium

Before you enter

the acoustic hall,



Don't forget to turn off your rackety cells

and all portable devices,





Leave your Raggedy Anne skeletons,

and your prejudiced God



behind at the Gate.



* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

And * No food or drinks allowed* [in theory]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *



despite deadlines danglin' from



chandeliers hovering above brilliant



Light travels 299,792,458 (In a flash!) beta-amyloid plaque'd



conscious???ness with honors



grandfather clock tucked farthest away



“We are gathered here today”



On this forgettable Friday afternoon —

to pay tribute; returning overdue . . . . .



When you leave

HML.



© December 14, 2002

An Addendum to Keats' "On Death"

III
If pain's his fate, should he deny himself the bait,
Though his heirloom's but a beggar's keep?
What more is left to contemplate?
Whether he ought to trade in his clown suit
He wears to sleep.


© September 7, 2002

A Requiem for Those Not Yet Departed

prologue
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?...
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter;

John Keats, “Ode On a Grecian Urn”

I incantations

Are you not there?
I am here, Dear.
Just as you weren’t last year.
And the year before that, too.
For what joy can tomorrow possibly bring?
If prayer vigils pressing for your wake
Do nothing to erase your familiar blank gaze
Of feigned recognition, once more;
Calling for me to draw closer to you,
So that my phantom breath could match yours;
Once so intimately warm and vibrant,
But by that untimely
stroke of mischance,
Now distant and dank, more so
Than the lonesome loins of the porcelain vase that
Entomb the fresh bouquet of gardenias—
Of which you cannot see nor smell.
Forever sitting at your bedside,
Grievously awaiting its return,
Like a papillon retiring to its cocoon
For the endless rest.
Still, I am here.


II on a cloudy Friday afternoon

By whose sleight-of-hand
Sends the space shuttle of spawned souls
Spiraling into the milky amnios
Slumbering in thy mother’s cradle—
Finally bursting into frenzy fanfare
During the bottom-of-the-ninth?

I was once told a funny story
Of when you lost your wheels and
Adventured into the drunken wilderness.
You fell. Hilariously harder than
Comets crashing into those pastures
Now turned fisheries
While your face failed to scrunch up in defeat.
That first bliss!

And when you were tested
Again by sticks-and-stones
You surrendered not on their terms,
But in the name of thy father.
Not your schoolyard scene!

But in the dour days that
Persisted ahead; That neither you nor
Yours truly could apprehend in due time.
Until it caught us not exactly empty-handed . . .

And oh, if you’ll excuse me
For just a moment, for I have lost my place
Sifting through murky streams of condensed matter.

Damn the dew drops that have
Befallen on the broken promise
Of fertile soil in this undeserving universe!


III chorus



Blessed are they that mourn
Not for a loved one’s passing,
But grieve for those not yet departed
From this world of vying forces
Not good versus evil; but between siphoned souls and
Those disaffected voices
Hell-bent on clamoring for correctness
In a never-ending debate with
No final victors, only spoils.

Oh, Heaven have mercy on those souls
Placed under house arrest
Indefinitely punished for not
Retreating to their permanent address soon enough.


Are life’s virtues calculated in life years? Dog years!
When will we disavow our fancy for the
Vain aegis of immortality;
Like Achilleus and Hektor once did,
To greet the hero with open arms?


IV the voice within

Dear, it’s been five years (seems like forever)
Since you’ve forsaken me.
Or have I got it all backwards?

Oh what price of dignity
Shall be deducted from my life savings
To fund my medical jackpot?
While I thirst for hemlock
Oh so bittersweet! My Apology.
For I cannot wait for that day
When Doctor What’s-his-face
Will finally come by to extubate;
Dashing all lofty aspirations
Down to earth, as it is in Heaven.
Setting me free once and for all--
Divorced from decayed disquietude.


V coda

The long faces tell the lie;
The kind you tell only to those
Not wizened enough to fathom
The dialect of death and its two-faced cousin
Not so distant.

Whither will you flee?
After I leave the cenacle at seraphim’s behest
To stand trial before sentencing.
Or pardon, if you wish.
Before I can finish the last meal
Not made from flotsam of flesh
Chiffonading to slaw and slurry;
No more my domicile than within alabaster walls
Digging into the ground trembling beneath.

Though when the hands on the clock
That go round-and-round
Are stuck at that sixteenth hour.
‘Tis time to bid the belated adieu
Alas, to my Scheherazade
For my odyssey beckons,
Ah, so long overdue—-
Enduring silence.

© March 01, 2002

Neither Will You

Remember that day
You walked past me
And whispered something?
Anything.
Impaling my years and
Leaving me boisterously
Mute.
If only for a moment;

Which is more memorable,
That forgettable frozen tale
Nestled under the
Rule of the April sun,
Or afterwards stretching to
Peak beyond the
Mountainess plains of
Spurned Fate,
Where I can
Disembark from my
Carousel of
Baffled reminiscence
For more than eternity;

And if you don’t recall,
Like the way my
Memory bespeaks,
I beseech you to not
Besiege me with
Your hollow points of
Screeching laughter
Loathing
For reprisal--
To forget,
Find happiness
And start anew.

© February 03, 2002

A Dream Sequence

Beneath an overcast of ashen trees,
I dreamt of walking through vanilla fields
Again, where Frosty and I played that day,
Before giddy gnomes kidnapped him away
Like stolen fruit returned to the garden.
I lay listening to whooshes of wind
Hurdling through as the tempest gave chase
To native ghosts once all so commonplace.
Next, I lent my ears to the echoes of
Raindrops crashing to ripples of pond,
That doused my curiosity ablaze,
Not to mention an evening of charades
I’d played with the siren who asked me to
Tickle her luscious firs and lonely loins
Before treading upon her demure fallow.
Now, ambivalent forces swept o’er me,
Like a tsunami of storied battles
'Tween wishful thinking and reality.
A crestfallen mood I found myself in,
Now awakened by an epiphany—
Have my nocturnal fixations come to an end?
(Honorable Mention-Best Poem, Medlennium Literary Journal Spring 2001)

© February 28, 2001