Continuing in the post-Memorial track, I am posting my one and only attempt at a sonnet. I have promises that I will never have to go to the veteran graveyard to die. For Sergeant Doe As He Dies in the VA Hospital Buildings should stand proud and white, Not covered with [...]
Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category
For Sergeant Doe As He Dies in the VA Hospital
Posted in Military, Poetry on June 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Written After Reading Eliot
Posted in Poetry on May 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Aqua exedit (Water eats) Aqua exedit, Green tendrilous bites, Holocausts offered by Orion . Fangs were unseen in the dark And no one knew until the moon, On certain tides with certain light, Screamed the wasted bones of Phlebas And bloody Promethean chains. Mountain to trench, Aqua exedit. That shudder came from the [...]
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Posted in Poetry on July 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I was reminded today again of my new rediscovery of Hopkins’poetry: THE GRANDEUR OF GOD The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have [...]
The Effort at a Sonnet
Posted in Poems, Poetry on March 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
This is an ongoing effort to actually write a sonnet. I don’t think the subject is sonnetical ( I love making up words), but I want the form to fit. I don’ t think it is there yet. Sergeant J. Doe Buildings should stand proud and white, Not covered with boards of failing stripe. [...]
Uncle Kill
Posted in Poems, Poetry on March 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
L. K. is bored. He had sold the trucking business to Uncle John Three summers ago. The miles had rattled his back and his teeth And the prices of tires had gone through the roof. John died in Pennsylvania. He has in the cab of his truck two days Before they found him, John’s new [...]
A Night with Just Poems
Posted in Life, Poetry on March 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Steve Gardner didn’t teach me how to write; he taught me how not to write. Dr. Gardner had us take the sharp knife of editing and pare away the superflous words from each line of our poetry. Snip out the gerunds, replace them with verbs. Don’t describe it, make it real. Write and make me [...]
Doing Poetry in a Car
Posted in Poetry on March 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
It is hard to do poetry while driving a car. The images that you want in a poem Get all mixed up with speedometers and street signs. The old man pushing the grocery cart with the American flag, The old house almost swallowed by the dirt from the bulldozer, The dead raccoon family, The [...]
The Friday Afternoon Roethke Class
Posted in Poems, Poetry on February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Gardner is the teacher, And he likes Roethke And Dickey, But Roethke more Or so it seems, As I doodle in the margins of the Roethke anthology, Yesterday’s reading and a response, Turned in and now I sit Scribbling pictures of moist, And always green. I must get a green pen, If I am to [...]
Cemetery
Posted in Poems, Poetry on February 26, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The gravestones murky with rain Cradled by wet grass Are tended by green trucks That guard the mausoleum of those who fear the dirt. Row after row Erect themselves from the flowers And trees that drip wet morning And feed the worms of Poe. I come not to grieve, But to stand and [...]
Day After Cemetery
Posted in Poems, Poetry on February 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Last night dripped from the tree. There was no dawn, Just a gradual gray day. The sun had to be there. It had always been. But today, The sun is just belief. The rain came and went. Moments of noise, Followed by quiet, Birds And no frogs. The roar came on [...]
