Category: A Daily Poem

(Poem #276 on new numbering scheme)

Today is Buddha's birthday, but
I bet he doesn't care;
and if he cared I think that then
there'd be no Buddha there.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #275 on new numbering scheme)

The sun has captured trees and bugs
and set them all abuzz.
The solstice looms and skies get wide,
forget what winter was.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #274 on new numbering scheme)

My head is full of nonsense words.
In fact, I like it so.
They swirl around and cluster up,
and spill out, fast and slow.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #273 on new numbering scheme)

Each passing face displays its own
interiorities.
One can imagine that inside
are sad calamities.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #271 on new numbering scheme)

A jar was falling: with a clank
it plunged and hit the floor.
I dodged it with a quick side step:
unbroken... still I swore.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #270 on new numbering scheme)

You get a little ways through spring,
and then a strange day comes:
the air blows chill, and tastes of fall,
the fragile bloom succumbs.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #269 on new numbering scheme)

She wrote and asked about that stone:
"So it's set in its ways?
Perhaps a stone will dream its past -
its former glory days?"

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #268 on new numbering scheme)

A dog will dream about his walks,
and cats will dream in schemes,
the trees will dream of growing tall,
but stones... they have no dreams.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #267 on new numbering scheme)

Our world... she chants a magic-filled
but apophenic song;
in truth... it's arbitrariness
that thrusts this orb along.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #266 on new numbering scheme)

The dragons don't consider facts,
the unicorns demur;
those mythic beasts will never care
because their hearts are pure.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #265 on new numbering scheme)

I start by looking for some words
in space's vast darkness
but finding none, I turn instead
to my own brain's grim mess.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #264 on new numbering scheme)

The cactuses have sown dissent
debating cats at talks,
whose doubts are drawn entangled from
Schroedinger's litter box.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #263 on new numbering scheme)

The words just shivered on the page,
The verbs in disrepair.
The pronouns were disconsolate,
The nouns limp with despair.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #261 on new numbering scheme)

The future will be subject to
inspection here and now.
Please heed this declaration, kids -
this rule you must allow.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #259 on new numbering scheme)

A flowering, dystopian land
is found at empire's edge:
the north looks south; the south looks north;
near Ilsan, there's time's ledge.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #258 on new numbering scheme)

The language sings itself alone
with writhing contours bared,
emerges into empty rooms
its inclinations shared.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #257 on new numbering scheme)

By vortices we wend across
the demon-strewn collage,
with useless metaphors in hand,
lamenting: c'est domage.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #256 on new numbering scheme)

A moon's orangeness scaled the night
and trailed the mere dark disks
of recollected memories
and contemplated risks.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #255 on new numbering scheme)

The trees are all in blossom now -
it seems that spring's arrived.
Each year the best I'll say for spring:
"At least I have survived."

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #254 on new numbering scheme)

The space just at the edges, where
my vision shades to blue,
there dwell the ghosts of angels, who
attempt to speak what's true.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #253 on new numbering scheme)

Two stones sat down with plans to talk
beside a path. The grass
tried listening and bent its blades
alert like kids in class.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #252 on new numbering scheme)

The surreptitious movements made
by mice in windblown leaves
reveal the clockwork of the world
to passing birds, like thieves.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]

(Poem #251 on new numbering scheme)

Can madness be a game we play?
At first we dance and shout.
The moon might help us find a style;
we'll let our crazies out.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #250 on new numbering scheme)

The emperor stepped out one day
to meet his citizens;
they pointed and they laughed at him;
he couldn't trust his friends.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #248 on new numbering scheme)

Just take a moment to reflect
on what a monkey be:
a human with a smaller brain,
a spirit brutish, free.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #247 on new numbering scheme)

The truth, enclosed in shells of myth,
like stones unbreakable,
we craft in order to survive,
but sense, unknowable.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #246 on new numbering scheme)

Imagination is no more
than ways of seeing stuff
as if you were a demiurge
who's had it kind of rough.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #245 on new numbering scheme)

Some people like to predict doom.
They think there is no hope.
But actually things aren't that bad.
It's just... they tend to mope.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #244 on new numbering scheme)

The sofa doesn't just get used -
it gets abused instead:
all beaten down by laundry, junk,
and output from my head.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.
[daily log: walking, 7.5km]