as return
On hours of practice of their game
And effort spent
To be the model from whom others learn.
Then praise the young men well;
Sing songs of victory for them,
Let the music swell
To celebrate their pride
In doing well the task they deem
Important; soon they’ll be too old
To be so occupied.
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Bring Me My Beer
Bring me my beer,
My throat is parched
And burns as on fire.
Mere wine’s not enough
It’s sweet, not bitter; to slake
My thirst I need the hops
And golden fluid to make
My throat an open passage
For food. Please bring me beer
Lest I die of thirst. This message
I send to the kitchens,
I need my beer, por favor.
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Unwelcome Guests
We cooked and baked ahead.
We welcomed guests
To celebrate
A holiday feast.
They came with others,
Who ate
Enough leftovers
To feed us several days.
They came early, left late,
And took
Some things we kept,
Treasured mementoes from those
Who died in older days.
Small things
That brought us comfort;
This left us most irate.
We wished for them
A fate
Dreadful and dark,
For ruining our fete.
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Music Boxes
The tinkling music spills
Across the room recalling times
When she was here to hear
These metal prongs make their chimes
Of songs so often sung
The words are part of me always.
The lady comes soon to take
These toys my mother loved away.
I shall grieve their going,
These further reminders of she
Who taught me to sing along
With the songs her music boxes played.
I hope they go to one
Who loves their quaint construction and songs
As much as Mother did.
In such a place they truly belong.
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Day Lilies
Day lilies bloom in parking lots
To welcome March with nine-cupped blooms.
The daffodils are drooping now,
Their February work completed,
And in the summer’s anterooms
The roses wait to bud and blow
With other summer flowers. The lilies
And zinnias flourish in the heat
Of summer sun and hot blue skies.
Celebrate these hardy plants
That decorate our yards with color.
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The Robin
I hear a robin
In a tree outside my house
Chirping a welcome
To coming spring and summer
And autumn following.
It is cold today
Not weather for red robins
To sing a spring song.
The days will warm and the birds
Will build their nests and lay eggs
Whose blue is a hue
Often cited in fashions.
My robin is singing;
My old heart gladdens when I
My cheery bird sing its song.
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The Ladies Took Tea
The ladies took tea one afternoon.
They chattered about their husbands’ faults.
One man refused to dance the waltz,
Another scorned the lover’s moon
That some nights rolled across the sky,
Another had affairs with many
Another spent their every penny
On wine and song or getting high.
No lady there was satisfied
With him she married in a haze
Of romance in her younger days
When she became his lovely bride.
Each pledged to file for divorce next week
And eschew to marry another man
Not even were he a clergyman
Some dead wife taught to softly speak.
Then vowed they each to take a wife
If ever they wed again. No boy
Could ever bring them married joy;
They vowed boys only brought them strife.
And so, like Sappho, each will have
Romances with women only; none
Will take a man to be her one
From wedding day to final grave.
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Poets of Old
The poets of old
Scribbled rhymes I’m told
That spoke of passions
To follow fashions
Their times demanded.
In lines most candid
They oft wrote verses
And sometimes curses
On faithless lovers
Whose genes were rovers.
Others sang praises
For all love’s phases.
The poets now are dust;
The lovers too, I trust;
And now I in turn
Write down my concern
And like the old chaps
Folk notice, perhaps.
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Spring Equinox
Columbine blue and cool
Under aspen growing tall.
Lilacs bloom purple and mauve
Flower spikes and produce
Later seeds that won’t grow
Bushes often. When the days
Grew more hot, irises
Burst from old rhizome roots
Bright with hues some god made.
Zinnias like the heat
Flourishing in summertime.
Peonies like the sun
Glads as well prospered then.
On this day when spring starts
I recall blooms that made
My heart glad. Spring comes now
I await summer blooms
Brightly hued as they were
When I first bloomed myself.
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Inspired by Horace
You know the sailing ship
On the waves of the sea
That crash on the shores
That threaten shipwreck
On their sands
Before they come to port,
The ships with painted eyes
As men’s guards on the waves.
They hoist sails and run
Before the wind
Defying the storms
That rage across the ocean.
Will none play songs to soothe
Old Poseidon’s distress
That heaves the waves
And roils the sea
With crashing foam?
Will no priestess sacrifice
A fatted lamb to appease
The god’s anger and rage?
Can anyone
Placate the god
Or bring the calm?
Perhaps no human can.
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Waiting for Night
I wait for night to shroud the land.
The fog will hide away the stars.
The weary day will reach its end.
The moon is held by mist-born bars.
Blue skies return after they rest.
The fog will hide away the
stars.
I know the cloaking night won’t last.
The day will come bringing the sun.
Blue skies return after they rest.
When dawn declares the night is done
And rolls the moon and stars away
The day will come bringing the sun.
The azure sky is on display
As bit by bit the dawn comes out
And rolls the moon and stars away.
The dying sun’s in full retreat.
I long for night to shroud the land.
I know that if I’m patient and wait
The weary day will reach its end.
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Shadorma
Born in Spain,
The form shadorma,
Syllabic
Poetry
Constrained in strictly numbered
Syllables per line,
Challenges
The poet to write
His verses
Bound by rules
Foreign to English poets
Who write their verses
In meters
Adopted of old
By Chaucer
And Shakespeare
For tales and plays most revered
By English speakers.
Six lines long
With limited space
For stanzas
To explore
The imagery and music
Of older verse forms.
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The Heart Can Be Dark
The darkness of hearts
Is a lore we all know
In the folkways of men
And the lore of science.
It’s recorded and marked
By the many who track
The follies of folk.
In the dark of the heart
Are the hidden opinions
That will sway his behavior
Unobserved by himself.
The heart can be dark
And forbidding indeed.
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The Dying Katydid
The sea wind blows the mist
Over the surf and sand
That bind the ocean’s coast
And mark the start of land.
The heavy clouds have hid
The fiery face of the sun.
And tricked a katydid
Into thinking night’s begun.
Be wary, bug; the rules
Of weather do not yield
In mercy for insect fools
That stay in a sodden field.
Drowned insects have no care,
It’s true. They have no need
To forage food or share
Flowers with their brood.
Like all dead things they lie
As corpses ‘til they decay.
As do all those who die
Drowned on a rainy day.
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Pelargoniums
My pelargoniums are pink and red.
My garden has no white or purple ones.
Other gardens may have gold instead,
Or silver blooms, or those as black as sins
Committed by fallen angels and soiled doves
Who walk the city streets in search of trade.
My pelargoniums have simple leaves
Of green and flourish well in partial shade.
On cloudy days their brilliance warms my soul
With memories of summer days of leisure
When I was free a while from attending school
And had sufficient time to find my pleasure
In seeing blooms of red and pink unfold
On verdant shrubs resplendent to behold.
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My Pets
One dog has commandeered my