Tomahawk Man

Edgar Allan Poe – Image From Pinterest

 

(Regarding Edgar Allan Poe)

 

brooding themes settle

in deep raven inkpots

then spill themselves

rashly on Turkish ambitions

macabre in their telling

morality plays

to the unhearing ears

of beloved young

saltwater tombs

with a bellringer’s voice

degraded through time

beneath rising irony

scathed by vile anecdotes

swarming with rumors

of deviancy finding vent

within acid critiques

until conquered by death

when a rescuing worm

slithered up and devoured

the angelus chorus of

bronze tintinnabulum

 

 

From my books Bohemian Scents and Legacies (vol. 1)

The Greatest

“Muhammad Ali – A Change is Gonna Come” by Paul Lovering

 

you wore the big belt and carried your medals

through the vigorous years of my life

so I made you my champion

adopted you for my own smart-ass demigod

colliding with culture and crashing convention

and I hung up your face on those troubling times

there you stood in all of your prizefighting finery

taunting us

rampant with arrogance and handsome conceit

your dark chestnut body chiseled

peak conditioned and pluperfect capable

dealing its deadly art

brutally beautifully

intricate footwork no heavyweight ring

has before or since seen

your long lightning reach

taking painfully accurate measure

of man after powerhouse man

with jab after knifepoint-sharp jab

splitting eyebrows and rattling chins

before loosing fast hammering flourishes

raining down real red-gloved ruin

delighting your grin and buckling their knees

until coup de grace blows send them crashing

like mighty felled trees to the canvas

flippant poetry

spilled from your lip into microphones

while cameras found the cocksure

that twinkled your eyes

there you stand in all of your champion’s finery

taunting us

still

 

 

From my book Bohemian Scents

Man of the People

Amadeo Giannini 1870-1949 Founder Bank of America

(Regarding Amadeo Giannini)

humble hearted titan
emerged from the
immigrant crowd as
a thirteen-year-old
self-made broker of
produce a farmer’s
best friend whose
success built small
fortune the capital
seed to establish a
bank the first ever to
lend to the little guy
laborers working poor
now had a third hand
to help carve their piece
of American dreams

 

 

From my book Ephemera

Twain

“Mark Twain” by Steve Penley

humor with an admix of salt
floats down cynical rivers
through heartlands where
whitewash and mud paint
colloquial idioms raucous
with satire of innocent foibles
and deeper cut flaws of a
galloping history peccant
with self-indulged characters
countrified mise-en-scene
dreamscapes of Camelot
paupers and shot-laden frogs
here is America rendered
with mastery argot so deftly
employed to amuse the most
pompous of old Europe ears

 

 

From my book Pieces of Wine

Vitrine

Antique English Vitrine c.1880

 

mementoes in a tiny museum

souvenirs of small moments

shiny stones fluted seashells

retained bits and baubles

quiet with personal histories

habits collected in childhood

displayed in their sentiments

carried by years into manhood

emotional artifacts telling brief

tales of diminutive journeys

now at prominent rest beneath

glass in the parlor available

handy to curious eyes seeking

insight from biograph markers

these temporal timeworn and

much caressed objects whose

conscious display reveals clues

to the heart of a taciturn man

 

 

From my book Ephemera

Bix Beiderbecke

Bix Beiderbecke 1903-1931

 

 

young man with a horn
drunk on riverboat whiskey
blew seminal jazz

 

 

(originally posted April 2013)

First Modern Man

 

Niccolo Machiavelli by Antonio Maria Crespi

 

 

trapped in temporal interstice

of Florentine upheaval

between via antiqua and via moderna

between cold tradition and warm innovation

he sought which effectual truths

underpinned acquisition of power

he taught of the cruel morality

animating statecraft of monarchy

but his pamphleteered

overweening assertions

in Il Principe, which everyone reads,

attracted erroneous prominence

in subsequent cultural history

entirely missing his irony

left ignored is his seminal tome

the Discorsi, which no one has read,

revealing his erudite prescience

in sketching firm framework

for future-built, perfect-built

ideal perpetual

constitutional republics

including our own

 

 

(originally posted April 2013)

Madiba Invictus

 

Nelson Mandela by Floris van Zyl

 

 

in the crucible
twenty-seven molten years
principles annealed
heart firm against injustice
humanity reaffirmed

 

 

(originally posted December 2013 upon his passing)

Tomahawk Man

 

Edgar Allan Poe – Image from pinterest.

 

 

brooding themes settle
in deep raven inkpots
then spill themselves
rashly on Turkish ambitions
macabre in their telling
morality plays
to the unhearing ears
of beloved young
saltwater tombs
with a bellringer’s voice
degraded through time
beneath rising irony
scathed by vile anecdotes
swarming with rumors
of deviancy finding vent
within acid critiques
until conquered by death
when a rescuing worm
slithered up and devoured
the angelus chorus of
bronze tintinnabulum

 

 

(originally posted May 2013)

One Man Renaissance

 

Leonardo Da Vinci – Self-Portrait

(Originally posted June 2013)
 

 

bastard prodigy
inhaled practical genius
from medieval airstreams
fulsome with hardship
and history blown
from far corners
of violent worlds
across fallow Tuscany
stirring the intrigues
seething in Florence

precocious esthesia
charged candlelit studios
in tour de force thrall
to Medici patronage
painted and sculpted
invented machines
designed revolutions
of science and art
engineered his modernity
prefigured our future