Poetry from August 2013

 ALL Poems by Happy Hiram

copyright HGL 2013

-------------------------------------------

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.

 

-------------------------------------------

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.

-------------------------------------------

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.

-------------------------------------------

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