Happy Hiram Is poetry real or is it just dexterous exercise?

In the Poet's magic kingdom
Readers read their works
And a hush falls on the battle field
the stanzas are just like church,

In the Rhymer's fantasy lands
Every response is praise
They write about their navel lint
Watch muses as they graze.

The Poets room is a basement sublet
And his job is toilet cleaning
He thinks about white puffy clouds
And leaves the bathrooms gleaming.

The Rhymer's reality is
That he is quite unknown
And writes about great birds of prey
But he has never flown.

Cinder Claws (They turn everything to ashes)

They bleep you when your guilty
They bleep you when your pure
They know when you've been very good
and they bleep you even more....

O you better watch out
you'd better not cry
better not pout (I'm telling you why...)
Cinder Claws reported your Q

That curly haired doll
that bobbles and coos
seems like its chat
so REPORT -- there goes you
Cinder Claws reported your Q.

(Poems about:)
Elephants, boats
and Kiddie cars too.
Aren't all about
poetry. soooo...
Cinder Claws reported your Q.

The kids in Yahoo Poetry
Will have a jubilee.
Their gonna make a wax figure
and burn Claws in effigy!

O you better watch out
Don't claim innocent
At Claws do not shout (can't help it, he's bent)
Cinder Claws reported your Q

Marred With Chilblains

What is it that draws me to the inane characters
That makes me feel they are real and sure
I watched the final episode of Married With Children
on Youtube and now I wanted more.

So I flipped right back to episode one
and I started to watch it again
when the actors were still so stiff in their roles
My reaction is hard to explain

It was as is Al and Kelly and Peg
were they, but not fully formed
and the solace I took in their reality
was chilled when I wanted it warmed.

If Bud and Peggy are not real
then a little piece of me is fake too
the show falls apart and my universe dies
though its hard to describe to you.

Standing on the edge of a precipice
where imagination leaves sanity
searching through YouTube episodes
trying to respark my humanity.

Try as I might, when I went to sleep
all my sugar plums were sclerotic
my sky and my stars were on cardboard
and my psyche was nearly psychotic.

Dawn arrived in the usual way
as I stared at the walls in my room
suddenly something appeared to me
out of the early gloom

It was the box of a DVD set
with a picture of Al's puerile grimace
reminding me of the feelings that it inspired
and that THAT reality is in us.

So I shook off the coil of solipsism
and stared at the rising sun.
Married with Children is long gone
but my love for its just begun.

A blast from the Past

Sycamore Days

I've spent a whole lifetime

in the branches of trees

looking down on the world

with the memory of an elephant.

Trees take the long view

change is all about water

the seasons are a haircut

future – a long adolescence.

My mother was young, my dad old.

Planes flew over every 3 minutes.

The farms were shrinking

and the strip malls growing.

A boy looks like a speck

hidden by the camo-skin

of a fifty foot sycamore

in the green, green youth of spring.

It seems to be Earth Day in Yahoo today (6 months early)

Mud

Who makes a meal out of mud
who vests in soils and sand?
When did carbon replace blood
and dirt get measured by the hand?

All things being equal
Earth would be a better place;
but what is high is tall
and what is low debased.

It's all mud -- you, me, Zuckerberg!
We're all on a one way trip
so save a gosh-darned iceberg
I won't give you much lip.

S’macintiosh

Words that are the pear-fruit of my mind
The zest of fickle trickledown
churning in the belly vocabulary
usurps the usual sensible vegetables
seeking freaky twerking of verbiage.
Neologism -- a shiny apple, hovers;
I pick one and go on for a bite.

A prayer to the thinking man's God

We, who know our insignificance, call out to You  
Though too small to see even the decimal point above us, we shout with longing into the night.  Though too faint to even hear an echo, we are sure that our message gets through.

We, who know our significance, call out to You 

Like a dog who sits loyal at the foot of the bed, we share in the great godly gift of observing. To see the world around us is, in some small way, to be one with God.  YOU see the world with an all-loving all-knowing eye, while we watch the world with a glance of the more educational variety.  Teach us how to see. Make us worthy of consciousness.

We, still searching for our place, call out to You

Our future, dark and puzzling to us, is laid out clearly by you. You are our rudder and our star. But we can only right ourselves with you here and now, by offering you our pains to see. You know them already, and in seeing them you challenge us, but we can only change when we remember that you are seeing – and when we see you in all things.

We, who know our place, call out to You

Let our prayer be a healing fire that burns away all barriers between us and Your Will. With our hearts, minds and spirits we pray to know your path for us and what use our small gifts can be in the vast world that is our connection to you. We serve others in the hope that it will bring us ever closer to understanding you. And we pray to remind ourselves of our significance, our insignificance, our search for and our place in
Your Will.

Amen
 

Poem for a Friend who needs a Critique

A poem about being a troubled kid,

Voiced by a vain and confused young man

Some gibberish nightmare garbled and hid

Buried in Mickey Mouse dreams and flim-flam.

Obsessed with medievals  he cannot sort 

Throwing on words for the rhyme each earns

Using ideas as a Malaprop's tort

Phrased vaguely, tangled and bald by turns.

I feel there's a message here wanting the stage, 

But the poet is afraid to hear his own voice

To withhold may be wise, to reveal may be brave

But halfies and halfies is never a choice.

Write something else or give all that you've got 

All you get is crap by sitting on the pot.

I put the Mirror Poem that goes with this in Rants because it is a bit harsh 

Fly Paper

I wish that I could be there   to celebrate the season   but oceans and continents   are broader than reason   Still I'd like to be   a fly upon your wall    sharing a taste of your day;   that is all. I've no more to say.

Have a Scary Happy October!

Poetry from August 2013

 ALL Poems by Happy Hiram

copyright HGL 2013

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Notes from A Nine Fingered Reality

Nine digits represent nine strange minds
Poking about in a world sublime
Seeking as only thin fingers can
Thinking kinesthetics without a hand.

One finds a reason to rise each day
Hiding its dark side and smiling away

Two carries on despite burdens of grief
Hiding a genius for joy underneath.

Three builds a temple round an open wound
But starts to see daylight amidst the gloom.

Four builds sandcastles in the air
And mocks anyone who would live there.

Five takes the center and dares all comers
Consorts with phantoms and dresses down mummers.

Six lives in a village of it's own
Wondering why it is all alone.

Seven's emotions and intellect excel
But chases a perfect body as well

Eight sees the world with a hard-boiled eye
But nevertheless can play sweetly, or sly.

Nine is wayfaring, yet completely blind
Turns beauty to muck with its dirty mind.

Nine digits represent nine strange minds
Poking about in a world sublime
Seeking as only thin fingers can
Thinking kinesthetics once a happy band.

 

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Damask Scene

A Damask is a designed cloth that looks the same frontwards and backwards. It has a single weave (theme) and was the signature product of Damascus during the Ottoman, Byzantine and many empires before.

The missile crisis was another hoax,

The real conundrum: where the rocket pokes;

        Obama's on Syria, "Let's go then..."
        (he really wants a shot at Snowden)
The Russians back their despot client
No matter how disturbed, derailed, defiant.

If war occurs it won't be drones and 'raqis
The whole region becomes explosive's frackies

   The curtains torn
         the lines are drawn
                   rebellion sees another morn
                           and bodies strewn like seed corn...
Is all we'll have to show for it.

What's the alternative? Go for it.

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The Masochist's Dream

In dreams I see, you are a sullen shrew
who in the day are nothing if not kind
But when I sleep, you drive me raging blind.
Awake, I find a very saint in you.

What harpy married my somnabulant self
and started on this course of infamy?
You there are not yourself, and I'm not me
But when I wake all rage goes on a shelf.

What could be the reason for my sad state?
Who would dream of evil with a sweet mate,
everything in dreams is not for reason's sake;
The things that dreams concoct -- daylight may sate.

Perhaps I do not feel the way I think
and would prefer the pain at which I blink.

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Response to Firecat's Poem

Garbage in, garbage out they say
My evil past thus gets in my way
Our ghosts are screaming in a white hot noise
Shouting that its the players and not the toys
The odds don't matter 'cause its not a game
For the layers of our onion are all the same.
The stars cannot speak if we're still in the dark
But with death hanging over, there's no walk in the park
Children of tomorrow will still find their fun
The cataclysm is glacial and never gets done.
Write them of faith in their lonesome self
'Cause they've put gods and sages away on the shelf.
Courage is Anachron's fading gray hair
All the kids want is a game and a chair
The children of the flowers use walkers these days
The electrics gone out of their weary gaze.

Ohio Cadence

Fortune Cookies

Seeing all, saying much with a helpful hand and a sardonic laugh, critical judgement was never so kind as is hers. The smiling sun and peeking moon of our adventure.

He plays his cards so close to his chest you'd think he had none,

but for the gleaning that he takes from every action at the table.

An open hand, looking for the right curve, to give again without ending up empty; a great spirit masquerading as a small one.

Her thoughts compete and her caution too often wins, giving us only a portion of her compassion, wit and insight.

He wades to the center of the lake, takes off his clothes and conducts traffic. He is the center, the network, the gravitas and the court jester.

The little boy who could, Mozart of dreamland, chain saw of reason, chain saw TO reason and will want to know (in detail) what any of this means.

Hapless, helpless and easy-going hides a poker face and a will to good that can move mountains as soon as she chooses.

He wandered into the wood looking for spores and was frightened by the Munchkins he found there. Grand life constrained by the budgie bailiff.

Sadness, madness and innocence in a dervish dance of puns and theories. A child, an intellect, and a satchel full of stories playing king of the hill in his mind.

Coda

I woke up in my own bed 

smells of Cochocton still in my head

Bonfire hair, water swirled toes

Keeping a secret that everybody knows 

Tilting my phone like a magic eight-ball

trying to make it load or call

Imagining the other people's road

And what baggage they have to unload.

Bonds are elastic but memory is finite 

I can't keep the moments

But I will use the insight;

When I am eighty four

this hope still extends:

My capacity for making friends.

In Answer to Cassie58's poem

August Reigns

Serendipity prefers months 
That end with snow or thaw
But oppressive, steady heat
Has got me in its maw.

The month was ripe for picking
No valentines or marking days 
When it crept in, I didn't catch
The addiction in its ways.

Now I am an August child
Basquing in its steam
Thinking of crocuses or fallen leaves
As some unwanted dream.

August languorates my words
The sentences turn legion
And my heart is a little bird 
That wants no other season.

My new friends are the reason.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130823093207AAtTB5k

Motor-Psyche

I looked back in my rear view mirror

And saw such a wonderful sight

A beautiful girl in a red convertible 

Pulling up on my right.

In the mirror she was pert, sweet and blondish

A nymph in a cherry of a ride

But something changed in her facial character

When she pulled the car along side.

Her hair was blown by the highway 

Her eyes sparkled with youth

The tone of her skin was a newborn peach

Her lips were a bow - that's the truth!

The symmetry was gone as our cars aligned

She seemed sweaty and a bit too plump

Her cheeks had the red of hard chewing

More than passing resemblance to a chipmunk.

I drove ahead a bit furiously 

Breaking the limit for speed

I wanted to catch up to the front of her

And see the cute hottie I'd first seen

But no matter what angle I slouched at

(And I nearly drove her off the road,)

I couldn't make cutie or princess again

Out of that roadster toad.

The car gleamed like a promise

And the highway - a soft ribbon to ride

But no squint or tilt or lift or shift

Could restore the beauty inside.

I pulled off at an upcoming gas stop

Following her sparkly wheels

And cornered the swarthy lady

And asked her out for some meals.

We have now been 10 years together

In fact we are man and wife

Though trying in every conceivable way

I can't make her look good - save my life.

 You stare at this end disbelieving 

That I would take such a gal for my bride 

Well the things we do are not pretty

But they make for one hell of a ride!

We meet every night on the highway

As the sun just threatens to go down

And she drives on the right past my car from behind

And I look in the mirror and around.

For in memory's confident fastness

The perfect woman will always be near

And I married the gorgon of my choosing

Off of hope and a dream, not in fear.

If this tale has gone on overlong

And I'm certain it has and it will

The price for a dream and a cushion

Is a gigantic grocery bill.

Golden

Syrupy and sanguine
Lithe and luxurious
Effervescent from within 
Eager to please
Perpetual and fleeting.

Crocodile's Complaint

Read my letter to Caz 

The snake whispered solemnly in her ear

and dragged up all this old muck

Which was better forgotten I fear

But the listener would be better to duck

I hadn't thought about her lying crap

For nary a year? Two or  so

Her broken language brain damage pap

That convenience made come and go.

When she wanted to write deep meaningful stuff

It always came out sweet gibberish

But she put words together well enough

When her pride or her anger got liverish.

She should know full well I have left her alone

This old song has a broken down tune

But if she's a fraud she will find insult bones 

In everything else that I do

For frauds can always find their glory

In every wry word I say 

Like "Daisy" -er, Peter, the same old story 

The snake ever puffing away.

But though I speak about liars and cheats

Who pretending to be women are men

I did not realize I had mentioned her beef

And I will say it again and again.

So dead lady or "shady", whatever you are

I hope that this rhyme makes you happy

CAUZ the world would be better for you by far

If your fans don't find out your a "chappy".

Yesterday...

Spiffing up his old brown shoes, 

crouched down to child's level,

speak/singing a song from the Beatles

oblivious to anything but waxy polish and shine.

Staring at tiny teeth

under ebullient husks

wondering how to make corn thrive

in the muggy clime of New Jersey

Driving the old white Rambler

slowing down half a block from the lights

"No use racing to one's grave" he'd say

saving fuel, and brakes and tires.

Propped up like a manikin

so his lungs won't fill

terror in his eyes and longing,

for he feels each breath diminishing.

A box and a flag, and some cardboard looking flowers

He couldn't look comfortable, even with well shined shoes.

By H. G. Lowry

Andromeda

The slope of your neck, in the dawn's light
would muddle a geometer's art
a pale curve half aglow/half in night
like the space between waves as they part.

The feeling, like a stone in the gut
frightened and weighted by love
wheeling birds not merely in rut
they set motion to the stars above.

Were you set before monsters by fate
I would be your Perseus and free you
But the morning is getting late
And I know you have things you must do.

So I look to the stars for your beauty
and I look for your curves to the sea
and the rock, where you are memory
That rock is and will always be me.

Let's See what the Yahooligans think of it: Andromeda

Poetry Written Only For The Rich?

In the times that came before
the rich found verse a bore
the bard was viewed as plebeian
but poor folks found him a scream

The reason for rhyme and rhythm
is so works could be remembered when given,
and the power and music of verse
was its ability to be rehearsed.

Modern poems would have fallen flat
trace their forgettableness back to that.

No, poetry was made for the illiterate.
its the scholar who all have made shitovit.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?


Read it in Answers

sussuring, gyres of chaos...

The Inner Land

Close your eyes and take a deep breath
feel power beneath your own skin
a bitter scent rises from the garden's wet
seeps in, like the rustle of a robin.

You are relaxed, and the world is sound
shivering trees and a sussurate stream
you feel power in your feet flowing from the ground
soft air leads your neck to a dream.

Your body, a fortress, all gabled stone
an entryway is your lungs and ribs
you stand in the interior campus alone
guided by your ear-like jibs.

For this is a fortress that silently moves
under the guidance of a aural tide
sail into fantasies which tongue-and-groove
where stately treasures abide.

Cacophony strides in the garden gate
bringing a sour note of despair
should you open your eyes, t'would be tempting fate
though nothing so evil would be there.

Still you cling to your auditory rock
and whistle blithely through the fear
the arctic wave of air is a shock
as the creature presses near.

Amass every mullion, and stanchion and stone
to feed the artillery's maw
pointed at the creature that chills the bone
and cringe as the cannons guffaw.

Every weight we would bear on the beast
only flows through Evil's sieve
If we only could prick it, or nick it at least
we could feel a moment's peace.

The sound emanates like a series of gears
grinding themselves into rust
as the Evil's oppressiveness rings in your ears
turning your hopes to dust.

You think of the treasure of the Bodhisattvas
awaiting beyond clouds of fear
but for gyring cacophony's unerring pistons
You quit! Open eyes, and it disappears.

Copyright 2013 hgl

A Poem by Solace Befriends

When I come back, and everything is dreck
What was once refracts, shows me then, up to the neck
these sullen poems come to life proper
only when you deign to join the opera.
Seen from above with eagle-eyes as interference
they do not speak of love but only shared experience
So now, I close the screen, forgetting scenes of late;
forgetting what I've seen; remembering things as great.

I will not sacrifice the past to battle the truth
- that what was gold was twaddle.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AtAm4IfQopgm1GQjq32B5rKn5HNG;_ylv=3?qid=20130302170134AAl6bsI