I host disoriented dreams of late.
My sleep is light – the borderline between
awake or not is weak and inchoate.
A rise to consciousness occurs without
a sense of my location or the date.
And what is interrupted, when I rouse?
Particulars of puzzles that await
my pleasant efforts with a pen or screen,
and seem a natural way to recreate.
(Magic 9)
Unknown to me although we’ve shared our years
in empathetic close fraternity,
I’m sometimes stunned as evidence appears,
unknown to me.
I tried imagining that I were he.
I paid attention to his words and fears,
but my best guess includes uncertainty.
If distance so exists in us, it clears
a field for folks outside the family
to linger shallow-seen as sunset nears,
unknown to me.
(Roundel)
A younger relative offended me
with nasty tantrum words and flouncing out.
She seems too old (past 39) to be
relapsing into sarcasm and pout.
She “circled back” days later, to review
the circumstance and context of her fit
(still young enough to grasp at “closure” you
and I would deem a waste of time and wit).
She opened with apology, but then
attempted to excuse herself – confessed
she asked her spouse if he would speak to me.
I love her but I never said “amen,”
and now I wonder how it could be best
to delegate deserved apology.
My daughter says what makes her feel her age
is when her brother’s birthday comes along.
Her younger sibling constitutes a gauge
correcting self-impression. Is she wrong?
I think not, as I read a likely page,
and excavate a lyric from her song.
My baby brother’s pushing 65,
and soberly I’m feeling less alive.
(Ottava Rima)
Postponing work a week ago
consolidated energy.
It somewhat modulated flow,
postponing work a week ago.
I’m thinking now I need to slow
my pace to vital quality.
Postponing work a week ago
consolidated energy.
(Triolet)
Fatigued today, I’m glad to have some time
at home, where I can nap and bathe and play
at solitaire and searching out this rhyme.
Fatigued today.
I’ll have a lengthy phone call – it’s our way
each Sunday morning to exchange sublime
or homely matters we remember to convey.
And that can operate like some enzyme
to catalyze more energy, or may
just reinforce the simple fact that I’m
fatigued today.
(Roundel)
The legend says a farm boy made a vow
to lift a newborn bullock every dawn.
By that prescription he aimed to know how,
in time, to hoist a bull, with built-up brawn.
Life intervened. On land he left that cow
while he was ill two weeks, his vigor gone.
His strategy outgrew his tactic’s span.
And now he has to modify his plan.
(Ottava Rima)
You’d better modulate, for you’ve been blessed
voluminous, as passion’s candidate.
The need is obvious if seldom guessed –
you’d better modulate.
You brim with heat and stagger under freight
of truths so loud they beg to be expressed.
But whispers carry more attentive weight.
I don’t advise your thoughts to be suppressed.
I like what you intone and celebrate
your voice, so I’ll reiterate this stressed –
You’d better modulate.
(Roundel)
I’m trying laying low at home today.
I’ll make an effort to resist each task
I might incline to self-assign, the way
I have since I was 8 or 9 years old.
I’ll hide my underwear. I’ll learn to play
a new computer game. But wait a sec –
those look like goals! I’ll languish, like I say:
remaining home, disdaining any mask,
I’ll sit a lot; I’ll snooze a bit; I’ll stay.
(Magic 9)
The women whom I daily telephone
are probably as bored with it as I,
but when I dare omit, each takes a tone
of petulant flirtation, never wry.
They used to travel, leaving me alone,
but age and Covid make them journey-shy.
And now I only hear the speechless beauty
when one of them is called to jury duty.
(Ottava Rima)
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