Forgotten Poems #5 or 6

Not doing things in a logical order here. Sorry, my bad. Doesn't help that my book is now falling apart either. Shuffle and reshuffle.

9/20/82 (Naples Florida)

The meaning of words
Who can be sure?
If our ears
Could only discern the truth
We'd know
The world's men prove to be liars
Never showing any trust
Don't let your guard down
Even for a minute
Beware the best of friends
Behind the smiles are daggers
To cut you deep
To make you bleed
To laugh at your pain
These are troubled times
When whispers of betrayals
Seem to drown out
Shouts of joy


Wow I wish I remembered why I wrote this. Or do I? Maybe ignorance really is bliss. I like to look ahead not dwell on the past. That's probably a good thing.

You Know Who You Are

There's so much I could say about this poem but I won't. It's neither here nor there at this point. I just know I should be more careful in the future.

 written 9/20/82

It's really sad when people
Refuse to find themselves
Ignoring hidden talents
Putting resources on the shelf
To waste their lives away
With no desire to create
Sitting staring slack-jawed
At the TV set all day
What if all the artists
Had such an attitude?
What if all musicians
Were never in the mood?
What if all our teachers
Refused to do their jobs
Just because they didn't want to
Wouldn't you feel robbed?
I feel sorry for these people
Who will not even try
If I had to live that way
I'd just lay down and die

The return of the Lost Poems

Yeah so...no prompts on the weekend. I guess I'll go with what I started when I found that notebook last month.

This little Haiku was written for a the dog I eventually took my Nickname, Dances with Pit Bulls, from. She was a long legged brindle pit named Diane. I have no picture of her and that makes me sad.




With high voice barking
With sharp tail wagging
Diane keeps us up all night

Forgotten Poems Day 3

Indigo Blue       Oct 7, 1981

This is of promises
Turned indigo blue
Whenever it happens
I think of you
The times that we had
Still shine in my head
There are so many things
I wish I had said
And then when the ocean
Turns indigo blue
Again I find myself
Thinking of you
The words and the silences
Were one between us
The touching, the holding
And sometimes the lust
No one understood
How we felt, me and you
In our own little world
Of indigo blue

 It's a secret who this is about but there are more poems dedicated to that person coming up. Looking back, yeah I'm seeing why it didn't work, but man was it painful for a few intense years wondering what could have been.

Forgotten Poems Day 2

1977

Future Premonitions
           (To a Milkweed)

How much will the
common milkweed
have evolved in
three million years?

Will its ivory white
sap have turned
green as the result
of too many radioactive
particles in the air?

Will it have shrunk
to the size of the
Lilliputians of
Gulliver's Travels
or will it
have grown to giant
proportions to become
the national tree
of some future nation?

Ok so how corny was that? This reminded me of something that happened while I was living in Colorado Springs. I was out for a walk one day when I saw some milkweeds actually being grown as ornamentals. Coming from farmland USA it was WEIRD to the max. I stopped to smell the milkweeds every time I saw them after that. They are quite fragrant.

The Forgotten Poems Day 1

OMG seriously o.m.g.

I got most of the rest of my stuff out of my daughter's shed yesterday and I went through a tub and found a book of my poems dated 1977-1991. I had forgotten all about them. I think I'll blog them for posterity since the only thing I can leave my kids and grandkids are youtube videos and facebook crap.

I must have been a senior in high school when I wrote this first one:

Para Tu

When the flame
goes out
what is left?
A mere puff
of smoke
or is it
something more,
something no one
will ever understand?

For a fleeting
moment
its presence
is felt
and then
it's gone too.

Relief.
The body
relaxes
sinking slowly
into a state
of quiet
peacefulness
and the mind
is
at
rest.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 242/365

I'm following the writing prompts on NaBloPoMo over there----------------->

Today they are asking my favorite poem. It was a toss up between Poe's The Raven and Samuel Taylor Coleridge 's The Rime of The Ancient Mariner. I guess I have to go with the albatross this time.

I always remember this part:

 Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

I first read this poem in high school. Here's me and part of my class at our reunion this past summer