HAIKU: THE YOUNG SHALL VOTE

By Charles Robert Lindholm

OUR AMERICA

BELONGS TO EVERY PERSON

Long Walk

I won’t have power or fame.
I won’t save the world.
When I’m gone, my voice
Will be the first thing people forget,
As I did my father’s.
It’s funny what you miss.

As the third child,
I was always playing catch-up,
The gap never closed, but
I forgave this great injustice.
I’m not ashamed of my defeat.
It was foretold;
It doesn’t matter.

Endurance comes only
From enduring
“Even asleep we partake in the world.”
I wave at the ancestor,
2,000 generations back,
Trudging north up the Nile from
deeper Africa.
We made it, old man.
We made it.

A Passover Limerick

Happy Holidays. To all my Christian friends – Happy Easter. And to all my Jewish friends – Happy Passover. Tonight the Jewish people celebrate their escape from slavery in Egypt. Like all Jewish holidays, Passover has holiday specific symbolic food. Matzo, unleavened bread, is the focal point of the Passover food and it takes great cooking skill to turn this edible cardboard into something palatable. But making it easier to go in does not make it easier to go out…..

Journey- A Question

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
― Heraclitus

A grandeur of illusion

a miracle of sorts

trailblazing your dreams

and circling and creating

A “Best Advice To A New Incoming College Freshman” Limerick

My Alma Mater recently asked it’s alum what would be the best advice they could give an incoming freshman student. Of course, they were asking for real, serious and valuable advice. I had some of that for them – EMBRACE THE ADVENTURE. College will be a big part of the story of your life. Make it a story that you love to tell.

Grief Journey

 

Loss and pains.
though just part of living…
set us apart,
others didn’t understand.
But we knew. We just knew. 

We wrapped ourselves 
in each other’s griefs,
grateful to need no explanations,, 
understanding without words;
afraid of more losses
(can I go through that again?) 
resisting pain, 
change and the unknown.

Primitive

 

By Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds

 

I have heard about the civilized,
the marriages run on talk, elegant and
honest, rational. But you and I are
savages. You come in with a bag,
hold it out to me in silence.
I know Moo Shu Pork when I smell it
and understand the message: I have
pleased you greatly last night. We sit
quietly, side by side, to eat
the long pancakes dangling and spilling,
fragrant sauce dripping out,
and glance at each other askance, wordless,
the corners of our eyes clear as spear points
laid along the sill to show
a friend sits with a friend here.

Substitute (Micro poetry)

Timeless place

Let’s move to a timeless place

where the time stops

but the heart still sways

where the emotions are fleeting

and brimming over and flowing

where the moments stop

and love keeps flowing

Prayer ( Micro poetry)

I blog at Megha’s World

A beautiful Me ( Micro Poetry)- Last day of #NaPoWriMo

On the last day of the #NationalPoetryMonth, here is my ode to the beautiful poetry which surrounds us all and makes us into something beautiful with every verse, with every syllable. Hope you all enjoy being part of it this month and many more.

Braid – In honor of National Poetry Month-#NaPoWriMo

Braiding my

cryptic 

tangled 

knotted 

words

Inspiration

“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”  —Leonard Cohen

They ask what my inspiration is 

I say,

a falling leaf 

a withered rose

a shape in the clouds

a long-lost song on the radio

or a sunset

I long to see

Trick

“if it doesn’t come bursting out of you

in spite of everything,

don’t do it.

unless it comes unasked out of your

heart and your mind and your mouth

and your gut,

don’t do it.”

― Charles Bukowski

Speechless

Dreamless

Bedazzled

Lost in your thoughts

in complete awe of your

demeanor

A Valentine’s Day Giggle Poem

Poetry challenge: Valentines poem.

.

If you’re a gentleman and can make a gal giggle,
There’s a good chance that gal will like you.

Question ( Micro poetry)

I blog at Megha’s World

Hang in there ( Micro poetry)

Conveyer

As she opens the door

with the anticipation

eyes frantically looking 

and gazing into the emptiness

Racism ( Micro poetry)

I blog at Megha’s World

Ripples

Those shimmering lights
dancing, 
teasing, 
turning
every flicker of light 

Raven ( Micro poetry)

I blog at Megha’s World

Lighthearted At The End of the World

Ed: I’m researching one or more works on climate fiction –CliFi–that will tiptoe through a increasingly alarming future. In the process, I’m finding some previous works that, while dark, are also windows into the subject. So, to brighten your day, here are two:

A Song on the End of the World

BY CZESLAW MILOSZ

On the day the world ends|
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,

By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,

A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,

Innocence

 

The sound of children

comes in swells

like the sea…. I love

how they fill the emptiness and silence

Location

Between the thumb and the forefinger
where I’m counting and mapping your freckles
as my fingers slide
over your curves
and etches
a map of my universe
where
my soul
my love
my passion
finds solace,

Flaw (Micro poetry)

Breaking point

“One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.”
― Shannon L. Alder

A thousand sweet praises
I can listen sweetly
and keep forgetting them
the next day I rise

History of love

Our love is an illusion

a mirage,

like the sun setting in the sea

the light has traveled

from the past

to reach you and me;

Passion (Micro poetry)

I blog at Megha’s World