An old drunken poetaster trips over words

Leaving dazed patrons wondering what they just heard;

Meretriciously staggering on booted legs,

He makes way to built-in taps on cold barrel kegs

In dark place he has carefully hidden from view

To conceal his surreptitious, sweet-burning brew

Born slowly of purifying distillation,

And at times of agitating fermentation.

He tends to his volatile spirits in secret

Occasionally restocking his cellaret,

Awaiting visit from flamboyant flapper-muse

Who might roar in to tend her own flammable booze

Concocted of intoxicating elixir

That makes edges of his imagination blur

And upon which he has come to wholly depend

For showy verses that are spangled and sequined.

He reaches for words held high in delirium

In that place where he loses equilibrium,

Dancing round hand-in-hand with the incorporeal

Searching mute crowds for the rhyming and lyrical,

But no thought lies behind their stupefied faces

And no Chambord liqueur is served in these places,

So he falls to hard floor as just an empty flask

Still unable to fulfill poet’s only task.

© 2008

The boy who hopes to paint
a masterpiece
{still a boy, make no mistake}
calms by letting himself be awed
by phosphorescent flashes
gorgeous as a blood-red sun,
saving a particular orange
and that peculiar green
edging a 4th-of-July stunner
for his repertoire, already
daubing them in his mind
between Mars black and that
color with the name it pains
him to pronounce. On the tip
of his tongue when the shell
hits.

The boy who hopes to race
in the Indie 500 — just wait —
compares the racket to that
of a speedway. Crowd roars
its approval as he rounds the last
curve, going all out, but then
in the blind spot something spins
him out. That is when
the noise dies.

The girl {I see her as a girl}
who craves to be a doctor —
surgeon, actually —
mentally bandages a tear
in a gunfire-split sky
and shouts orders for morphine
and plasma stat. Good
she’ll never know what happened
next.

The boys, the girls, the men, the women,
lie, squat, roll, crawl, bog down in muck
under fire beautiful enough to
hurt. All the time hoping
for a break so they have a chance to
see dawn.

To the Spirits of Saints and Sages of All Time, and to All that is Good in the Universe:

• I am your empty dance hall –

Fill me with your music; whirl and waltz as you will.

• I am your summer carnival –

“Step right up” to childish musings; ride my coasters and carousels.

• I am your mountain of fire –

Raise up your molten Truth; let your exuberance erupt through me.

• I am your Canterbury feast –

Be seated at my comedic offering; devour me that I may become you.

• Alas, I am your Universe and you are mine –

Let’s hopscotch together upon twinkling stars and ride erudite moonbeams into the Knowing, and God shall smile upon our unrestrained exultation and the bells of Heaven shall ring!

© 2008

– An unsolicited thought –

– Continually presenting itself –

– Entering her mind without warning –

Played out like a film

Watched over and over again.

The more she tries to

Eliminate it,

The more it seems to present itself –

The sting like that of a bandage

Torn off in one quick stroke.

In time,

Its persistence will liquefy,

Much as the bile that incessantly burns her throat –

The severity slowly evolving into

A distant memory –

Drunk on playing hooky and Wild
Turkey, slip to the creek to make love,
oblivious to the danger presented
by sharp rocks and woken snakes.
Any minute now, a camper’s going
to stagger from a nearby tent, waving
a flashlight with one hand, grabbing
his fly with the other. Spy us
and forget to pee. So?? Got to camp
early, which meant time to take a dip
in the lake. Wore out the kids, yay.
Add blackened burgers, couple cans
of pork’n’beans and s’mores, strictly
lights out. Damp brown and yellow
cow-licks peek from Carolina blue
sleeping bags. New tent plenty big
enough to rig a curtain. You two
dragged in enough sand for a castle,
we teased over s’mores. Their turn
to laugh when I dropped my second
cracker. Chocolate rolled merrily
down my new One tee. Nothing
beats having kids. Nothing
beats sneaking in a little us-time.
Jungle loving in skin that tingles
from a good dose of sand and sun.
Not that drunk. Done, begin to chafe
where rocks dug and what-all.
We clamber up the bank, supporting
each other and feeling sheepish.
Not the brightest thing to do. Nor
the dumbest, our eyes meet to say.
What are a few scrapes and bruises?
Big stars wink in the spaces breeze-
tickled treetops open. Temp 70,
humidity 70. Big sites, nice folk.
Odd fly or skeeter, bit of grit with
your eggs and a rock or three, ‘s’awiiiight.
Just as long as time still stands still
while children sleepily open eyes
that they still believe a sandman fills.
Stay, World, stay.

(c) Phyllis Jean Green, May, 2008

I interpreted the heavens today
As a cache of infinite musical notes.
Suspended in random fashion, I viewed
The stars through a transparency etched
With the five lines of a musical staff.
Moving the sheet across the sky, I was
Perfectly beguiled when the stars became
Notes stacked in harmonies of minor fifths
And sevenths – semitones and microtones –
A wash of minuet and motet blossomed
Before me. This supernal opus of grand
Composition flowed forward, aggrandized
By tercets and triads; the resplendent mix
Of heterogeneous interstellar suspensions
Graced the musical staff in random fashion.

Was this the enlightenment of the ages?
Astrophysical symphonies that could unlock
Minds eye – open distant portals – produce
Healing balms capable of soothing broken
Hearts. Could this be the key to opening the
Eyes and ears of those who gaze forever
Inward but never see or hear?

Entranced in sheer loftiness, and given
A gift of heightened auditory sensation;
Centaurus became a cantus firmus, and
Leo Minor a seraphic capriccio. As I moved
The transparent musical staff to the North,
The Corona Borealis played out as a madrigal
Of sweet simplicity, while Leo Major roared
In perpetuum mobile. Moving collectively in
Contrapuntal base, the Gemini twins danced in
An exoticism of far off lands, while Cassiopeia
Became an oratorio of genteel luster. With the
Grandeur of a Turkish Sultan, Pegasus celebrated
With a lively blending of triangles, bass drums,
Cymbals, double-reed instruments, bell-trees and
Trumpets. In bel canto, Andromeda sang in purity,
While Picis Austrinus became a chaste passacaglia.

How consummate; this sinfonia of sounds that
Sated the cosmos. With every movement of the
Musical staff, another motif of harmonic brilliance
Spilled forth in the mysterious mingling of stars.
How diminished I became – gazing up at this glorious
Composition – agnizing that the earth and its dwellers
Were but ONE NOTE in the heavenly euphony.

Richard Lloyd Cederberg