fingers find the keys a clacking sound emerges and words flower forth
– a pseudo-haiku
Category: Book 2
Caveat: Poem #1265 “Things that are given”
a haiku in which words are quickly surrendered and up is given
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1264 “What to think”
the stars mob the sky they drop dreams on bits of ice think: the moon watches
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1263 “The air”
the night air crunches and pins the snow to the ground and looks for my skin
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1262 “A new sport”
the thing about ice it's really hard to drive on ice-skating by car
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1261 “Through a glass darkly”
Orchards of rain were all clinging to hills. Grids wrought distractions in minds seeking thrills. Aimless distortions wove complex designs, Crafted bold icons with broad, blue-green lines.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1260 “Frost on snow”
the sky cleared, air chilled a thickness fell among trees frost formed on fresh snow
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1259 “Ode to the wood”
Down with all gravel! The weathered wood's fine. Moss on the ground and the trees make a line. Slugs will cavort on the edges of light. Prowling young bears will explore in the night.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1258 “Angst”
Carpeted spaces presented themselves. Books turned their spines out from rickety shelves. Elderly sadnesses lingered and sang. Pains were unbearable. Distant bells rang.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1257 “Just in case”
more snow fell last night just in case more was required in case trees hungered
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1256 “To ground”
Out on a snow-covered roof there are beasts pawing the whiteness and gazing out east. Loves are discarded and laying around: just random snowflakes all swirling to ground.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1255 “Surreality II”
Faces presented angelic desires. Hallways distorted by unburning fires wove eldrich patterns and fell into stairs, vast nameless oceans, their clouds like pink flares.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1254 “Surreality I”
Palaces spread out their structural souls, greenery covering possible holes. Paintings were hanging on external walls. Darkness, semantic, beclouded the halls.
– a pair of rhymed tetrameter couplets
Caveat: Poem #1253 “Within”
Within Where Iron Factories spouted grey, There I dwelt by Mahhalian shores. So Doctor Hubert came with a Word, For plastic Angels of the new Hell City; for mind-slaves of Its hurt. There I became blest--his Apostle. Wind beat a slime to a sandy shore There I began to hear of his word. And from a dead-empty, bloody Hell All the eyes glossy-dull by a hurt The Rats fled; became his Apostles So he promised to remove the grey. Said he: No one can refute my Word There I said: Amen! Ruin this Hell Dr. Hubert! Destroy my deep hurt! He smiled: follow me, my Apostles. Showing us how to survive the grey Leading us to a candy-green shore. Dancing, we were far from any Hell Hoping, we failed to feel any hurt Loving, thus were we his Apostles. Plastic melted; we denied the grey Eyes flickering/reflecting a shore Free, happily alive with his Word. Under a rock, the centipede hurts, And he crawls, to sting an Apostle Leaping, then he dies cadaver-grey He's left to rot on a slimy store. I run; I search for His holy Word, The rats return whispering of Hell For Hope, thus I became an Apostle Then the rat-emperor came in grey, And drove us to a cadavered shore, Erected a cross for harmless Words Removed the candy, revealed a Hell No! Not Dr. Hubert. Not the Hurt! He brought Apostles to the shores, He destroyed hurt with his Words-- But Hell revealed the Grey within.
– this is a “guest poem” – not by another author, but by me, but written 37 years ago, in the fall of 1982. It is a sestina, in form, with an additional constraint revealed in the use (abuse) of the mono-spaced font. The poem was “lost” for most of the intervening years, but turned up in a box that I was sorting through in recent weeks.
Caveat: Poem #1252 “Snow, definition of”
Snow is rain, fighting the pull of the world, just fragments hurled, as if wool were being shed by the cloudfull.
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Poem #1251 “AI Risk”
The mad paper clip maker conquered all, starting out small, "clip-baker," then spouting clips, acre by acre.
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Poem #1250 “Seasonal shift”
A year passes. The weather is transformed. Rainy seas stormed together with slow snowflakes like feathers.
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Poem #1249 “And this is all a dream”
The apocalypse happened, already. Life, unsteady, did then bend: an inhuman, violent end.
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Poem #1248 “Consider it conveyed”
There exists a certain man. He's alone. He's got his phone. So he can convey his lack of a plan.
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Poem #1247 “The cause”
The problems are cultural. What we know... our mind's cargo, the social... epistemological.
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Poem #1246 “Living”
Really I'm just the pale frame of my bones, animate stones, barely tame, tumbling through life, all aflame.
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Poem #1245 “The substantial night”
the night becomes a substance among trees with the rain, no resistance can face such fierce persistence
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Poem #1244 “A vague hypothetical”
So I sat and had coffee this morning, just wondering if I'd see fallen snow on this day's tree.
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Poem #1243 “The precipitate apotheosis”
Rain and wind (and wind and rain) celebrate and make a great sound, and feign a knowing spirit's made plain.
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Poem #1242 “Holiday cheer by the hour”
Christmas was always a hard time for me. Memories scarred: nothing's free, Except sitting by the sea.
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Poem #1241 “One syllable, or two?”
I tried using the word "poem" in a poem (my words bestow, embrace, roam) but failed, that word found no home.
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Poem #1240 “Try to think tao”
I sat down to listen, now, to the rain: its hard campaign to allow my stupid brain to think tao.
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Poem #1239 “Uncooperative combustion”
Some days I decide a fire should be made. The sticks arrayed, stacked, admired... But the flame frays, the wood's tired.
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Poem #1238 “Expelled”
In last night's long dream, there were corridors of schools. I was told to leave.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1237 “Generalities”
generally speaking it will be raining and dark at this time of year
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1236 “The apophenist’s path
between sleep and hope there lies a forest pathway marked with random things
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1235 “How do I know that, though?
confident, knowing: the epistemicity of my consciousness
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1234 “No joy”
anhedonic stones litter euphoric hillsides and trade their secrets
– a pseudo-haiku