It is so deeply gratifying to find one’s work recognized and appreciated by others. My heartfelt thanks go to Kendall F. Person and Sally Cronin for the honor they have paid to my poem “Music of Scars” with this coveted nomination.
Archives
All posts for the month October, 2014
“False Memories”
Painting by Steve Grochowsky
From flickr.com
we were innocents
traveling life
common pathways
paved worn with
shared values
inherent diversities
channeled to loyalty
born free in spirit
of commonwealth
not a melting pot
but a mixing bowl
blending proud
colors and creeds
annealed dreams
yield exceptional
tensile strength
making possible
unified purpose
achieving great
civilized things
pushing men to
and through their
potential toward
prominent privilege
obtained of an
empire of intellect
so it once was
so it seems to the
eyes of my memory
visions so real
I can reach back
and touch them
feel every last aspect
of greatness the
pulsing pure essence
amassed with nobility
standing as witness
oath-sworn unto truth
I concede that I very
well could be mistaken
that none of it
ever did happen
my habit of painting
the past is perhaps
foolish labor
of mind over matter
distorted romantic and
stubborn with sentiment
“After the Storm”
Painting by Holly Anderson
From verycoolphotoblog.com
ramshackle lives
knocked about
in the storm
grasp for ethics
no matter the
provenance any
slight handhold
gains expedient
purchase false
principles swarm
helter-skelter
in violent air
immoralities clash
for supremacy
over the winds
that uproot with
ease weightless
tenuous minds
“Saint Anthony of Padua Distributing Bread”
Painting by Willem van Herp the Elder
From nationalgallery.org.uk
Saint Anthony of Padua
converted privilege
to patronage of the poor
my mother’s best friend
********************
Sant’Antonio di Padova
privilegio convertito
al patrocinio dei poveri
migliore amica di mamma
Image by James Sainty
From pinterest.com
look for me underneath rocks
heavy maladies crushing my bones
behind desiccate trees where I
carved my pain into the bark
listen for stiff labored breathing
amid soundless sobs of the night
when you find me
be gentle but kill me
I won’t love you
but I’d still be grateful
when a star burns its last
it curls into itself
becomes small in forever
black speck a cold cinder
unseen but at long last
now free of the fire
“Life Painting – Mouth 2”
Painting by lalaluce
From deviantart.com
like a toddler makes sense of the world
I put pieces of it in my mouth
random chunks of the cosmos
terrestrial tidbits a morsel of motion
taste texture and bite reveal truths
that refute the most trenchant
conventional wisdom
tongue tooth lip and cheek more reliably
sensible organs than eye ear and nose
less prone to be waylaid misled
by the spoor of unchallenged opinions
chew it up spit it out and move on
all the better equipped for the
self-made conclusions that mark
one’s authentic existence
Image by Digital Desktops
From scenicreflections.com
daylight dimensions blaze golden
draw life into relief
against endless darkness of
death in the night
“Rusty Bucket”
Painting by Jim Gensheer
From jimgensheer.com
thoughts leaking precision
from buckets of brains
hauled from decade to decade
old scholarship banged up
by too many trip-and-falls
clumsy with age among
fast moving new-minted minds
never stepping in classical stains
from incontinent seepage
of once settled science
(A previously published 2007 article of mine that I periodically retrieve when election time nears. This time, I’m prompted by the April, 2014 Supreme Court decision in “McCutcheon vs. FEC” and its impact on the upcoming November elections. This is a decision that I firmly reject, despite my dyed-in-the-wool conservative credentials. The degree to which money influences American elections at every local, state and national level is deeply destructive. It is also unethical, immoral and philosophically antithetical to the principles of our constitutional republic.)
“Campaign Finance Reform”
Illustration from
classwarfareexists.com
Maybe my current thoughts about elections have been influenced by my move to New Hampshire, a state with a mighty proud history of feisty political independence and a genuine “citizen legislature.” Maybe it’s my nostalgic affection for the classic Jimmy Stewart film “Mr Smith Goes To Washington.” But I’ve come to conclude that I and my fellow concerned citizens are…
View original post 695 more words
“First Anachronism of the Day”
Painting by Adrian Wiszniewski
From apollo-magazine.com
cold
math
reckons
old man time
icy with boredom
existential infirmities
render intellect stagnant wisdom out of fashion
Poesy plus Polemics 