Category: A Daily Poem

The Martians came for lovely weather, then,
and put up houses on the tops of hills
to look out over earth's inhabitants.
They were in fact invading just for fun.

Age asserted pains and torments,
Feelings drifted downward.
Guillible neuronal contents
Spun and spiralled, broke in segments,
Grim-faced birds of doubt soared.

Remember when to yawn seemed refreshing?
Yawning now sucks: cancer-themed
pain undreamed.

Dreams unfurl like flags of symbols
each unknown in context:
first I saw the men make troubles,
then one man whose face resembles
world destroying vortex…

The emperor doesn't care that he's naked.
He's like, check this shit out, man, and fuck you all.

This "poem" is at great variance from my typical approach for making a poem. But it appeared spontaneously in my blotter – my ongoing note-taking document where my poems typically appear. And I decided to just go ahead and include it. I still consider it poetry, though of a different register.

The other day I woke. It was dark.
I made coffee. Sat for a while.
Light clarified my window.
So I stood to look out.
I saw clouds and sky.
Why does the sky
crack into
fragments?
Dawn.

The sky was grayish
with some tinges of yellow.
The earth was made air.

Some lesson plans – despite hopes – seem to fail.
Against this, the teacher mopes
or just copes.

Gold bits spin beneath closed eyes
Nothing but the night cares
Moons and planets grasp dark skies
Dead and broken leaves breathe sighs
Nothing but the night cares

The day had started with snow, unfolding
like a monotone rainbow,
hours ago.

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

A dull piece of bread,
Some coffee with added milk,
Snow falling at dawn.

Lift the pencil, write some lines,
Force the words all out.
Graphite glyphs as yearned for signs,
Making text that redefines
Facts as seeds of doubt.

The frigid air, a week before, had lurked
across America, but now, it seems,
it's slipped beyond the polar realms, and down
into the east of Asia where I am.

Just
Tuesday.
The long week
stretches ahead.
Though I like my work,
Sometimes I start feeling
stuck, frustrated, and doubtful,
about my actual teaching.
Wanting to be good isn't enough.

The snow stuck in spots,
in weird patterns on sidewalks
in patches near trees.

The snow doesn't come when it's forecast,
instead it waits and just sneaks in
at those unexpected times
between the days and hours,
at the welds of time.
No one sees it:
the sky fills…
motes of
white.

Certain flaws of character
tattooed on the skin of the soul
and borne agonistically
through the beautiful world
without compromise or clarity.

This poem, unlike most of my daily efforts so far, has no meter. It's free verse.

[daily log: walking, 7.5km]

Of course the winter is cold, I might muse
walking homeward from work.. old,
not so bold.

The conversation takes a wrong turn.
The mood slips down into a mode
of a defensive anger.
Words then transform themselves
into parries, thrusts.
Whence this attack?
Disturbing.
Seething.
Dark.

Chill night holds the trees
taut to her body like ghosts
refusing to die.

Twice a year, now, I get checked for cancer;
these dates with doctors, big machines and fate…
small fears begin to worm into my mind:
I can't retain a happy, easy mood.

It's just another year end, no big deal.
Still, you ask, what might portend,
where paths wend.

[daily log: waiting, 24 hours]

Clouds crumble and fall
dissolving into bland rain
what kind of winter?

Yesterday morning I rose, boiled water
for coffee, wrote some dull prose,
put on clothes.

I went to dinner
after work. Colleagues quitting,
others now starting.

Then, I took some words and placed them,
Face up, meanings showing.
Knowing what they meant, all humdrum,
Still you pondered, asking, why some
Words were missed: "It's snowing."

The gnawing cold was crawling through my clothes
The sky was clear, a stroke of artist's blue.

Some coffee and bread –
It's my simple morning meal.
Outside, silver sky.

Sun
rises
and slowly
illuminates
the snow-covered trees
lurking on the hillsides
until a lance of purple
and gold reaches out to just touch
the frosted edge of my window frame.

I said to them "Let's choose a song to do,
that everyone agrees is fun to learn."
They wasted over fifteen minutes while
deciding what they thought would be the best,
and then at last we started through the song…
a hand shot up: "This song is boring! Stop!"

[daily log: walking, 7.5km]

And then the day warmed –
snow turned to slush and melted –
Winter's first, springlike.