#107 POETRY =

By Charles Robert Lindholm

Poetry =

#100 POETRY =

#100 POETRY =
By Charles Robert Lindholm

Poetry =

#99 POETRY =

By Charles Robert Lindholm

Poetry =

#98 POETRY =

By Charles Robert Lindholm

Poetry =

#83 POETRY =

By Charles Robert Lindholm

Poetry = 

#80 POETRY =

By Charles Robert Lindholm

Poetry =      

#79 POETRY =

By Charles Robert Lindholm

Poetry =      

How do we still fall in love?

Fool’s love is all that they say
they abhor the pain and still want to stay
Can’t change the way we are so willing
the way it morphs and shines
like broken glass in a roll of hay

Advertisement

1-Up; 2-Down; Side-to-side

high school prom we held hands
music thumping heartbeats
we danced sweaty palmed
next to each entangled pair

Bedroom Constellations

Loose a bright and strong ray of sunlight,
Wrap it twice, nice and tight around my neck,
And string me up to hang from the plastic stars
That glow in the dark above your bed each night.

I promise not to make a sound as I wiggle around

A response to poetry

Dear poet, I have so enjoyed your poem:

A Winter Song (A Cento)

In silence, they dissolve before dawn-
the words my heart was calling.
They are not in the sun,

Earnest

Having arrived, definitively,

Wood matters

Smoke arises from the chimney stack
in billows
from an untended burn.

A Dark Peace

I didn’t mean to be found there
huddled in the corner—
red face and swollen eyes
were to have been protected by
the darkness….

arise and sing

Of leaves,
liven up their dance
a rustling disturbance.

Highland Hallucinations

Lanky four-legged beasts,
Macabre silhouettes in the morning light,
Cast shadows into the icy valley below,
Prolonging the slumber, if only for a second,
Of the yet-snoozing in their colorful caves.

The creatures slowly creep skyward,
Laboriously climbing to the rocky ridge,
Taking long strides with gaunt forelegs
No thicker than sticks and just as straight.
It seems the giraffe of Broadway gave up the spotlight
To graze the vertical savanna of Japan’s mountains.
Packing our gear, we head out on safari.

Typhoon 7

Why don’t you come back?
The day is not yet dawning,
The sun has yet to start shining,
And as far as I’m concerned,
There’s no evidence it ever will.
So why not come back to bed?

Why don’t you come back?
Dark grey clouds still cover the sky
Which has been sobbing since yesterday,
And shows no sign of stopping soon.
Mother Nature is under the weather,
So why not call in sick today?

The Oak

In the park there stands an old oak.
I know not how aged it is,
But it was here before I was
And it will remain long after I do not.

Every morning I pass by its thick trunk,
The oak waves its branches, goodbye.
And every night I drunkenly stumble home,
It’s standing still, in silent judgment.

Even when I dash past and miss its farewell
In the rush to catch the last possible train
To $9.50 an hour misery with no future,
I know the stoic oak is standing there,
Gayly laughing at my fleeting and meaningless struggles.

Maybe

There is a secret around the corner
that the roses will be red instead of pink;

the sunset and sunrise will both illuminate
the dark moments – far more eloquently than any word.

There are remnants of language,
The laughter of loved ones and strangers
are beauty in a spattered world –
and strung-together notes of the discordant are melodious when unfurled.

There is a depth in every eyeful gathered from a window
and a coolness in the soil grasped by each hand.

You feel the heat that summer’s afternoon conceives,
and I hear the whiskers of October’s morning in the leaves.

There are shadows that crawl in the day
and charming smiles that ornament a night.

And this is truth’s impassioned plea to our humanity,
and affirms the secrets we sometimes cannot see –
perhaps, life is our communal way to share
and maybe, each one of us is rare.
******
The events of this past week have weighed heavily on me – the loss of two very successful, highly creative individuals to suicide, and the realization that this type of hopelessness impacts far more people than we know/understand. There is such beauty and importance in life, and each one of every one of us has a rare gift to share with others. Remember this.
Wishing you all a wonderful week.

Business Trip

The full moon rises,
Glistening like a fresh silver dollar
As Mother Earth lets off steam
And unbuttons her stifling collar
To feel the breeze of the Sun’s departure.

Eagerly I wait at the window
For my moon to come home,
So I can feel the breeze of his sigh
As he sits on his leathery black throne
And watches me with contentment from on high.

Football Militants

Flags as large as ships’ sails
Waive to and fro in solidarity,
Billowing with pride.

The masses—
Whose fully erect arms
Are only an open palm away
From a formal Nazi salute—
Fill the flowing tapestry of banners
With air warmed by their impassioned voices
As they chant and sing
The acrid cries of war.

Tsuyu: The Rainy Season

As the conductor takes the stage,
The gentle drone of the audience
Turns to apprehensive, expectant silence
Awaiting the impending down stroke.

But before the ictus,
His rushing lift of the baton
Sends forth a gust of wind,
Chilling the air,
While raising the heat of anxiety.

Lament (a Cento)

Our one forever,

when it stole through the red gates of sunset
left over from autumn, and the dead brown grass
is yet vibrant with the cadence of the song you might have been.

No longer mired in waiting to begin.

They tell us the night means nothing,
and the candles their light the light.

Lost and Found

I am in search of something unknown,
Just beyond my grasp of comprehension.
I stand at the temple doors of Self,
Sealed shut by monks of Sophistry
To conceal their esoteric knowledge and rites,
Of which I desperately long to understand.

The Sneaker 外岩の詩

Damselflies flutter about
Among the green, broad leafs
Above the mountain stream,
Darting through the river rocks
That make a natural bridge
To the mountain boulder field,
Where stone goliaths lie in wait.

Halfway up The Sneaker,
My love fights to hang on
To nothing more than a pebble:

Grey

Grey file cabinets line beige-green walls,
Stretching from the speckled grey ceiling
To the off-white (grey), tiled floor.

Caves

I never said much, but always wished more.

I often walked far, yet attended to less –