Category Archives: Poetry

Poem:

30 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in Love, Poems, Poetry, Strength

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Love, Heat and Strength

When Clint looked at his enemies…
When homeless I stayed warm, the keys…
I make my way, strong and proud into
the unknown, searching for and finding
truth under the elm tree.

The difference between the stars
and the sun is the difference between you
and me. Nothing

Soft winds do shake the darling buds of May,
for me a dream in black and white of
antagonists, threatening to steal my peace.

The war is always fought for peace of
mind; we don’t know until we know, and
sometimes it’s after someone dies.

Songs that remember look to rain
showers of love on beauty, sharp stinging
nettles in Maryland whistling Dixie, taking
me back to a day where my last name held
slaves in captivity, persons with blood
related to me.

Now I have brothers of both color, I love
that tweaked song called life that makes rainbows
of mistakes, twists the sky upside down
makes everything a prism, shadows from
trees keeping the sunlight managed into
something we can rightly use.

The blooms? They’re already in bloom,
some would say too impatient the impatiens
requiring little else but water and minerals
this milky substance coming from barrels,
the ocean a tumbling ray biting necks and
cocks and doodle-doo’s, bringing religious
and spoken freedom to the masses, as long
as you say what others want you to say.

We lost our freedom the moment we decided
to breathe. If you don’t anything nice
have to say, scramble your tongue, lock it
up, season it with love and remember:

Good things come, don’t wait, make amends
for all the rhymes I wrote that sounded insane;

Give all you have post-sag into middle age,
remember children and make it better for
them, come out the haze with a flashlight
offer it to them. The world is theirs now,
less and less mine, less and less, be strong:

Love, heat and strength, bring your day
to tomorrow, and watch yesterday grow
into a great today.

We have access to the time machine that
is forgiveness, in it click the numbers, mine
is 1984 when I died.

“The great life this could have been” is
the anthem I cry out in lonely nights
to my lonely lost young friends. Be they
young enough, take hold my words,
give up alcohol, drugs, declare peace
and tell her you love her.

Car Poem:

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Cars, Poems, Poetry

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Poets Don’t Own Cars

We rent and we drive on occasion,
but lock us into payments?

Never.

The vroom vroom, powering and
speeding and smoking our way to this
and that? The noise, the hustle?

We prefer the slow stroll, the train
ride, the bus up the cliff, the hike
mile after mile, five senses becoming
six as we know there is more…

Rooftop to rooftop we hurl headlong
into vacant doorways of hope, dash to
and from buildings of dreams, scents
and poverty bringing us out of metal
and into the sweat of failure.

We must report something and so
stomach the stench, there must be a ground
if we are to elevate. Support comes from
loving people, we are dedicated to words
but know they are nothing compared to
what we describe,

The ultimate hope of all endeavor to
yield peace of mind, this one mine as I
deny the mechanic’s offer to ditch another
hunk at high speeds—

I take one look back at my old life as
I speed down the freeway of God’s
paradise in my wife’s fast muscle car:

I have an errand to run and I’m tired of
the walk, I’ll play this song, burn this gas
this time, but can’t wait to shed the metal

for a walk again my friend, toward the more
elegant train of rhyme.

Pasadena Seasons

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in California, Home, Los Angeles, Nature, Pasadena, Poems, Poetry, Socal

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As we skip winter this year, I reflect
back on past seasons, and generally
how they work here in Pasadena, CA.

Chinese magnolias bloom in January
or February, depending on the sun, this
year January.

Jacarandas in May, Jasmine in May or
June, and other plants that smell good
the same.

Agapanthus enjoy May and June as well,
again unless the sun is stubborn not
allowing for winter.

Summers are hot. So much so that I
do believe we have seasons here. You
better believe we know when Fall has
arrived to spell us, give us a break.

That’s the big transition to me, brutal heat
to pleasant, we are challenged enough by
weather that when added with earthquakes
we try to rival Florida’s hurricanes and Midwest
and eastern cold.

Minnesota laughs at my seasons, but I’ll
say: Einstein was right, it’s all relative, and
when you live where I live you count them out
like anywhere else, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Just because we don’t much freeze in winter
doesn’t mean we appreciate the Spring
any less, or in changing from shorts to pants
in October look east to smile and keep score.

Polito-ReligaSpiritual Poem:

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Poems, Poetry, Political, Spiritual

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Modern American Monarchy

We are still stuck in the past, or is
it the future? We forget truth, the
fact that we are truly powerless.

Obama comes into the room, any
President of the United States, and
time stops, King Obama.

I thought I as a voting citizen was the
big cheese in this monopoly? We want
to bow down to something, and choose
that position I guess.

Remember when the Jews were in the
desert having recently been freed from
slavery, and God himself was their king,
their everything?

Then one foggy day, they came to
God and said: we want to have “kings”
like other nations had.

The LORD with all capital letters symbolizing
in English the Hebrew YHWH, replied:

“I would be your king.”

But since God loved his people so much,
he gave them their king, Saul then David and
so on down through the ages to Obama.

I giggle to think of the insanity in thinking
another man has more power than me. He
does not, not real power.

For real power go to God, YHWH, Jehovah
Allah Supreme, Higher Power, Creator,
Mother Nature Outer Space Whatever!!!!

Just don’t hurt yourself bowing to another
whose blood is flowing. A waste…

Better to find life between you and your God,
in that find your place.

Must Like Volleyball? :)

28 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Poems, Poetry, Sports, Volleyball

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Bill Taylor’s A-15

This is not about a rocket ship,
flight low under radar dropping
bombs on innocent and guilty alike.

It’s about waking up in the morning,
deciding the beach is nice;

Drop volleyballs down on the sand,
kiss them goodnight.

It’s about a blonde sandy mop, two
boys dreaming to be great, too far
from the sun and sand to be too great.

Taylor and I shook it up, got lessons
in beach volleyball by its best lesson-
givers.

Indoors we dealt out some pain, depended
on the level, we always ruled the
small schools.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Taylor
came to Bruinville. He sizzled many
pits on his way to fifteen kills!!

That’s a volleyballer’s way to say:

The kid did allright!!

In the face of names like Sealy and
Landry all over six feet six, six feet
Taylor from Pasadena had his way,
passing nails and tooling blocks
like best craftsmen at your house
pulverizing concrete against a deadline.

Meanwhile, Watkins took to the sand
Smith left (Taylor’s other name was Smith).
Watkins’ other name was Bill.

On the sand he trained and failed,
trained and failed. Then won, then won,
then won, then won the next morning
putting him into the Winner’s bracket finals.

Then Won!

A-rated from nothing, inlander finding
a way with friends watching grunting too
loud but it’s forgivable at 5-4 to make it
6-4 on the switch, you dig moving left,
keep going that way getting the set to your
offside.

Thing is your beach “off” side is your indoor
ON-side, you revel in the movement, love
the dig then hit in a way that only Taylor
himself (Bill’s former setter) knows.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHH — !

That grunt resonated to the strand where
family friends watched.

Something there is that doesn’t like to lose.
That once you find a way to win, you rinse
and repeat it for as long as you can.

No more wading in the sand;
No more waiting for the band—

Smith and I like playing a harmonica
at the USC Trojan band—we’re on top!

We all deserve it once, Taylor and I got
it twice, once is his, once is mine, but when
I add the moments up in my head I always
get “sublime.”

Love

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by in Poems, Poetry

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Despite the pain, the gruff
tough, the truth hard to bear…

Despite the mire, the funeral pyre,
the sick of this and that, the
sick and tired…

Love finishes days with its coat
of solace, its day remembered, its
peace of mind, the rainbow after rain,
swept skies alive with stars

Santa Barbara winds keeping maintenance
men and women busy, surfers happy,
the golden sun an anthem of peace
greeting the patient every day.

God is this, is in this, Good Orderly
Direction or Higher Power, guiding us
softly, abruptly always truthfully into
new things and change.

The key to life is not in words, ask
Borges or Lao Tsu; you could ask me
by now, I like to kick it with Longfellow
some calm nights and remember when
the day is done.

Build your dreams a day at a time, Frost
beating sharp drums against night,
tools of the trade, outdoors a game…

Best played by those in love with
nature, man and womankind alike,
the sun becoming shade, the crucifixion
in light, the end beginning

The upstream fight

 

Sometimes the Stars Shine Brighter

27 Monday Jan 2014

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It’s for the old reason I write this poem—
to save the day from lonely ruin;
I want to remember the good times spent—
dream of tomorrows and where they went;

I love the sunshine, the stars shine brighter
when the rain cleans the sky of doubt;
I used to think all green things, money
to diamond rings would piece the peace together.

I used to think I could cloud the sky with stormy weather.

I used to know a guy who left the dream to others,
cried at night for things unsaid, dreams unrealized,
when it was true: If I had been looking up instead of down
I’d see the rainbow; another swept sky, stars shining bright.

There’s always a chance before the light.

Poem:

26 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by in Poetry

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“Sands are Mine”

I left in dark, buses north
to Dolores de Hidalgo, named
in part for pain the other for the
Mexican priest who told the Spanish
to get lost in 1821.

I rode the bus, stopped off at a poor village
with old white chapel, smelled
trash burning, saw smiling faces
the poverty evident.

In Dolores I snapped photos of the
balloons, the many colors, the
town so different from San Miguel
whose wealth appears here and there,
blessed by tourism, a curse for some?

I could not ignore the need, stopped
by and bought a soccer ball, played
soccer with some kids near a church,
my ball stolen at some point by a large
boy, him running off as I watched and
wondered from the great steps—

I woke up next morning at dawn, poetry
had arrived, line by line in Spanish
and in English. It was an answer to subtle
but heartfelt prayers, Poetry had arrived
on my shore, the sands were mine,

rhyming with time, this was what it
was to feel need, write it down
and shine

Poem:

23 Thursday Jan 2014

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Mom Always Said

Truth is packaged neatly in wireless
LAN unaware of its speed.

We really can change the world,
Lao Tzu was wrong. Funny, he actually
wrote he was wrong in the first line
of the Tao Te Ching.

“Hear, hear! Don’t listen to this… the
true Tao cannot be written!”

The Name of the Creator cannot be used
in vain, call it YHWH, it cannot really be
said, there’s no vowels in it.

Moms are good for stuff like that, naming
the Earth and things what they are, this
is dust, this is dirt, this is…

Men take spiritual vacations but come back
to truth. Truth is a vacation, is horror, is
all things—

Women? Specks of difference had men holding
pens and apparent “power” so long, it’s
taken so much lungpower to blow
Vanity’s masculine house down to size.

Flames burst and find reasons to shine up
or down the stream of human grief. Nothing
is everything as we find Jorge Luis Borges lamenting
his use of words, calling everything fiction.

Dickens’s Gradgrind is yelling “fact” against Borges’
libraries, we are stacking up words like this
against loneliness trying to connect people
and ideas. To inspire by rhyming, the more
opposing the idea the more interesting the
rhyme!!

Have a good time!!

This life of ours at times turns on a dime,
and suddenly after hours of not being sure
we’re so glad we could be here, if only
for this one more day.

God says “hey! Pretty good, my people, I
would’ve been your king…”

But we kicked God out of number one, let
the Creator Herself feel the sting.
So far reaching is the planet of our
thoughts, that we must revolve them
around one sun,

I call it God, some call it God’s
son, so many do not speak my
Tongue, call Life death, turn on
said dimes, seeking a path not into
Mom’s heart but God’s running on
and on until satisfied with peace of mind
we further the chain of Life, death,

Honor our parents still.

“Long life depends upon it, Bill;” technology
cannot come up with a better pill.

Laboring, waiting like Longfellow implored,
the focus of Volleyball’s Karch Kiraly—

Commitment to One!!

I’ll take that over multi-tasking, Bottom
trying to play every part, for me forty years
of living ‘til I wrote with my heart.

Mom always said I’d find my part

Chess

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Poems, Poetry, Spiritual

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Don’t do, think, step back,
go for the best, for the enemy of the best
is a pretty good move.

Then see your error, your best move failed
this can’t be fair.

God’s weaving a masterpiece, a poem
for all ages,

The Devil beating a steady beat,
calling men and women to destroy
and be destroyed.

Confusion, the Devil’s game, rampant
in and out of doors as God provides
the steady, disciplined path of humble
supplication and joyful receipt.

The Devil picks holes in easy games and
lines of communication, convinces some
they don’t need Higher Power just themselves.

A “lower power” beckons strongly from those
drumbeats, we are lambs to its slaughter

Unless…

Unless we turn around, notice every day the
kit of tools given to us to relate with the One
and his or her divine plan, that poem
magnificently weaved and being weaved.

Check this out before checkmated, dive off
cliffs, rev up engines, speed down highways
listening to the beat.

You feel high beating the system until it all
collapses ‘round the telephone pole, fire ablaze,
bombs exploding you forgot to pray.

The best move: utter submission…

Then, then come strong knowing what’s in
charge, the game reverses, we’ve got a chance
not to win but at something greater:

Peace of mind that we played it the right way.

We can sleep on that soundness. That’s a win
to Devil’s chagrin we beat the beat and’ll have
to probably do it again