Poetry

A Benign Garden

We try to find safety in daily life.

We attempt to locate a place to hide, 

But without fail, these tunnels lead to strife.

Our hiding spots revealed when we break stride.

The monsters will discover in the end, 

Digging to that location of our sin.

Finding us out in the worst garden:

Overgrown with guilt and pride from the wins.

Things we gave up to gain our achievements

Represented here as frozen statues.

Of all the pursuits that to us were lent,

We sometimes chose to follow the wrong queues.

Or so it seems when all the fails align,

To highlight each lost talent now benign.

Empathy

Each time on this path that a choice is made, 

Someone ends up happy while another

Retreats far away into the charade.

No one much seems to care: go tell mother.

Each time a situation emerges, 

From a place that no one wants to unveil.

Starting to alert masses of a purge, 

Chaos tumbling down through the chainmail.

While a kind and loving approach was said

To have been made the standard protocol,

The truth of words was crossed over in red.

Now promises marked absent to roll call.

A disguise of the truest form: a lie,

Cannot yet comfort these silent cries.

Fairy Tales

When looking down into the rabbit hole,

Through clouded lens of one’s chaotic mind

A large pink cat could carve your being whole:

His chisel fine-tuned to bring stripes outside.

Lost in the depths of this cluttered forest,

Which lays dormant in the hearts of many, 

Your person may be called by its chorus

Sung sweetly from tongues in purgatory.

Appealing rhymes and long-lasting smiles,

Cannot make up for the view from the hole.

Promising patience and lovely exile,

A heart on the card is not worth a soul.

Here, living in a dreamland far away,

Fantasy from truth not too much astray.

Tilt - A - Whirl

Seemingly innocent, that's what you were.

An object of beauty; nothing disturbed.

Brilliant colors set up to lure,

Curious audience: no one perturbed.

A lesson waiting to be learned by all.

You wait patiently before the enthralled.

Mysteriously, each time the crowd falls

For the sharp punchline: a hit to the gall.

To the sneaky boldness of assumption,

In truth a blinding haze of stolen joy.

Uplifting to start, but once it has spun

The ride will not let up. This hateful toy,

It teases you with plans of happiness, 

Then, twirls until you find yourself lifeless.

Treasure Hunt

Picking through trash to find a new treasure

Value is key and cannot easily 

Be discovered and even still measured.

No skill lies behind this hunt luckily.

A tool that could guide this lonesome beggar

For he cannot really a chooser be:

A chooser goes for the bold, the newer

So say a market which cultivates greed.

Growing a garden of dark rotten seeds, 

We hide in shadows to escape its eye

Searching for something with style that bleeds

Into the closet of our mind we buy.

But always a failure in the mirror, 

Never will trash become superior.

A Race

Addictive enough to devour you

Digest ideas of safety and comfort 

Ideas that from childhood have been true

Only to spit out a new kind of hurt

The grey turns black and into the darkness

You'll dive head first, heart last mind in between

Into this craving you'll let yourself nest

Walking this path you eventually glean

This act may end but the show must go on

Backstage, actors run from their characters

Trying to hide from the truth that is drawn

In quick shadows that chase until life blurs

While credits roll overtop of their face

They comtemplate how they got in this race.

A Place to Reside

If we suppose that you were still younger,

Like when you had a favorite color:

Whether it be purple or burnt umber.

Take a simpler time; mistakes a blur 

Fading into fabric of yesterday.

You did not debate imagination.

Pretend is perfect for the kind who play

When friends share fantasies of elation.

Our troubles of adulthood do not loom

According to those obsessed with playdoh.

It is not an issue meant for too soon,

Never suspecting the dark of shadow.

Always here the monsters prefer to hide

A gray place for foreboding to reside.

A Place to Hide

Poured through a porous place of love into

A wasted space never meaning too well,

And yet a well at heart of which you grew

Accustomed to this sunken hole; a shell.

Somehow syncopated to a rhythm, 

Just enough off beat to its audience

To be confused and find criticism

Even from the most lost of listeners.

Perhaps that is the best sort to come hear,

And be in a moment with their fellow

Disengaged yet married to being here

Flock of persons all ready to follow.

A promised outcome hidden deep inside

This horribly fatal place to confide.

A Home of Light

Written about the Kimbell Art Museum

Almost at once and we are under the trees, 

Upon the building just as suddenly;

An approach to another canopy

Accepting us into curved harmony.

Waiting for an audience to take part

Like a familiar light through the leaves, 

It shines through the room into our hearts

Reflecting off art and findings its breeze

Pushing against and then pulling me toward

Art of great merit with waves like a tide

Acting as medals with which we award,

Stood still like the paintings, down we are tied.

Try to imagine this world without light;

No reason remains in darkness of night.

A Babbling Brook

I recently met a babbling brook,

Our conversation was not to the point:

It was more a journey and time it took.

Each part of the story was out of joint.

A twist to begin and an end tricky, 

Difficult it was to follow along.

It may fail to satisfy the picky,

For out of tune it would be if a song

With chords and choruses that did not land

Because it was water they intended

To share with those an enjoyment unplanned.

Broken notes and rests finally mended,

Yet it appeared a natural cadence:

Mistakes and all it shone in radiance.

Beartown

This sonnet is based on the themes presented in a book series I was reading: Beartown by Fredrik Backman.

When deep in the forest a gun goes bang, 

Families see the terror enter town.

They pull close the children and blame a gang:

Only such people would fire that round.

When an unspeakable event occurs, 

The liars smooth over the pain in snow.

But, the snow melts away and it lures

Deep debate inspires those who might know:

Come forward it beckons to the innocent.

The difference for us lies within you.

Transforming the lives of those complacent, 

Painting our neighborhood with a new hue.

This truth is necessarily spoken, 

Done for the sake of those who were broken.

Cookie Cutter 

I wrote this sonnet during a walk through my neighborhood. It was a cold day in December. 

What is cookie cutter and who claims it

A terrible trick instead of a treat?

Something to avoid or maybe to beat.

How can we feel this when cookies are sweet?

Is it just a dietary cut back?

Perhaps it’s too much frosting delivered.

At times not enough, finding the taste lacks.

We seek perfection but at it quiver…

So then what makes perfect? Is it practice?

Or does perfection come simply through rhyme?

A place that we know but is factitious:

Somewhere we discover when given time.

Regardless of this, truthfully speaking,

For Christmas cookies, I will be seeking.

Family Tree

For my first sonnet, I decided to write about the recent loss of a family member to honor his memory.

Looking at the worn down house one might dread

A place uncomfortable and desolate

Of his exterior same could be said

But shine his character this would not let

Inside the haven another chapter

Read from the countless books across the wall

Each a small piece of his heart may capture

Like his great smile these tales could enthrall

When we traveled for holiday visits

Seated around an old kitchen table

Our conversation surely elicits

The sharing of a family fable

Now stories of him will pass down our tree

One more branch a part of our legacy.