Category: A Daily Poem

(Poem #408 on new numbering scheme)

Somehow entropy
reverses and can become
a morality.

(Poem #407 on new numbering scheme)

I walked on highways made from earth and smoke,
Congealed by time's long thoughtful discourses:
A dreamlike, dark assemblage faintly seen,
Engravings wide inscribed on broken stones,
Tectonic disputations, spoken gaps
Between the layers stacked up deep in dreams,
Abstractions merely cast away by stars,
Untouchable lost ages all arrayed
Like heaven's bland mementoes filed away,
And sun-slaked silt that's filled up ancient seas;
Constraints all drawn like lines upon a map
To paint the present's smooth soliloquies.

(Poem #406 on new numbering scheme)

An ancient blueness dwelt beneath the day;
and leaves were lifted to the sun and moon
without regard for what the earthlings say:
those moody trees might fly away so soon.
The cool green frog announced her patient tune;
a bird or ten sang songs in answer, then;
the stones partook with geologic swoon;
the clouds were only dreaming it again.
Some grasping stars told all the plants that when
they dared to push against the ground, arising
up heavenward like ghosts in unison;
they'd show the world their strength, uncompromising.
But plants are slow to act despite their needs.
And finally they only hum, just reeds.

(Poem #405 on new numbering scheme)

The spirit worshippers aligned themselves
against oppressive tendencies and sought
to bring about tectonic shifts among
the swaying trees of popular belief.

(Poem #404 on new numbering scheme)

Without those landmarks time can give,
unmoored from daily grind,
with ease I ceased to write my verse -
no blog posts came to mind.

(Poem #403 on new numbering scheme)

Did you perhaps think
that rushing water could go
anywhere but down?

(Poem #402 on new numbering scheme)

A wallaby is nothing more than feet
against the earth: aggressive pushing down
transformed to forward motion but without
the least conception as to reasons why.

(Poem #401 on new numbering scheme)

Impossible delusions flutter down
like moths disturbed in sunbeams raking air
and mornings then congeal to blobs of hope
that can't be tasted absent time's consent.

(Poem #400 on new numbering scheme)

I saw the bright moon
smiling down at the round earth.
And it saw me too.

(Poem #399 on new numbering scheme)

The night is darker
here under the world's round rim.
I think I'll sleep well.

[daily log: driving 175km]

(Poem #398 on new numbering scheme)

Just a metal box
hurtling along in the sky
among summer clouds.

(Poem #397 on new numbering scheme)

The sound of airplanes passing overhead
reminds me, passingly, of summers past,
when airplanes passed like youthful memories,
and mowed the air, and shortened history's arms.

(Poem #396 on new numbering scheme)

So, having issues that relate to guilt,
I thought I'd cope by setting sneaky traps.
The guilt would come, but guileless, gambol through,
when suddenly a guilt-trap would bite: snap!

(Poem #395 on new numbering scheme)

I stepped out, looking for the purple clouds.
A giant head was floating just above;
it sent out lines of force that underlay
the shape of space and warp and woof of time.

(Poem #394 on new numbering scheme)

Inscrutable, the god chose not to speak.
Instead, he hovered, watching all the souls
that sought him with their yearning eyes and hearts
and failed to note his mediocrity.

(Poem #393 on new numbering scheme)

The rain came through fast.
Is that the taste of autumn?
A moment of cool.

(Poem #392 on new numbering scheme)

A fragment of air
stalked through my room. "Listen, please,"
it whispered hoarsely.

(Poem #391 on new numbering scheme)

I slept and dreamed I took a trip.
I met a playful child.
He circled round just like a song,
recasting all as wild.

(Poem #390 on new numbering scheme)

You grasp at meanings with mind's fingers spread
out wide like wind-blown nets to try to catch
the semiotic objects which you hope
to understand. In this you mostly fail.

(Poem #389 on new numbering scheme)

Let's pick some flowers. Then we'll contemplate
how vibrant colors yield to deep despair
and we'll decide, spontaneously, that
there's nothing left to live for in this world.

(Poem #388 on new numbering scheme)

Quick! I need some verse;
it's almost midnight. A breeze
ruffles some papers.

(Poem #387 on new numbering scheme)

How anyone can learn English
I can't quite figure out.
and I'm an English teacher, see -
I shouldn't have a doubt.

(Poem #386 on new numbering scheme)

"Perhaps I'll be a floating leaf today,"
he mused, and threw himself into the brook.
He bobbed and drifted through the eddies, till
at last he washed onto a sandy beach.

(Poem #385 on new numbering scheme)

"A stone - I shall become a stone," he said.
And soon enough, he dropped, bottomward. "There."
The stream's quick waters rushed around his shape.
He sighed. "In this way, I am truly free."

[daily log: dropping, like a stone]

(Poem #384 on new numbering scheme)

Beside the window,
a single raindrop reaches
down and touches me.

(Poem #383 on new numbering scheme)

The words themselves become angry balloons,
and caricaturing the signs, begin
assaulting fellow signifiers till
at last from bloody carnage comes silence.

(Poem #382 on new numbering scheme)

Obliviously walking roads
in silent kingdoms trapped,
he runs a hand against an edge
to find what has been mapped.

(Poem #381 on new numbering scheme)

The ghosts await you, clustered at the edge
of what you know to be actually true.
Then in between the bursts of summer's rain
they peer at you, admonishing your mood.

(Poem #380 on new numbering scheme)

He casts his dull cliches into the world
like crumbs of bread dispensed to hungry birds
but worse, these birds are mere robotic shades
which cannot eat but only peck and strut.

(Poem #378 on new numbering scheme)

Some stones suggested,
take a moment. So I did.
The summer went on.

[daily log: walking; well, no]

(Poem #377 on new numbering scheme)

The floor announced itself as if alive.
I found some stray vocabulary there,
it lay in scattered piles, collectively
devoid of use or meaning. I just sighed.

(Poem #376 on new numbering scheme)

In small increments
the night eats the moon. Seasons
eat seasons, the same.