Trumpets of the Spring

Another poem which needs to be posted while it's still in season.
Anyone with a suggestion on how to improve the last line is welcome - comment either here or on Facebook.

Trumpets of the Spring

Sing, You Trumpets of the Spring,
You welcome seasons warm,
Where bird and bug and beast return,
Paroled from Winter’s arms

Blow, You Trumpets of the Spring,
To North from blustery South,
With clean air fair, you toss my hair,
Refresh my stagnant heart

Dance, You Trumpets of the Spring,
In winds that dry night’s dew
Your blooms held high, by green leaves fly,
In place as Worlds turn new

Tempt, You Trumpets of the Spring,
With scents and pollens pure,
As humble bees attend to thee,
Your virtue is assured

Fade Now, Trumpets of the Spring,
With tears of April showers,
Your lovers have Tulips to kiss,
Don’t overstay your hour

Withdraw, You Trumpets of the Spring.
Stay shy of Summers flare,
From Fall which leaves us Winter’s chill
And turns the green Earth bare

Who is not dead, who does not live,
Within her Goddess’ womb?
Next Spring, she’ll birth you once again,
Dear Natures’ herald Flower.

The Pelt of Olde Shere Khan

What does the internet need, more cat poems?
I'm glad to supply.


The Pelt of Olde Shere Khan

She had a blanket, old and worn,
From which a terror would be born.
It’s pile, delicately shorn,
Was colored in the stripes, and scorn,
Of the Pelt of Olde Shere Khan

It had once hung upon the wall,
Eight foot by four did those claws sprawl,
She took it down late it the fall,
And laid it in a closet stall,
To hold the Pelt of Olde Shere Khan

Our cat adopted liked to sleep,
Upon an armchair that we keep,
Where sheddings piled like kits asleep,
And far to deep for hand to sweep,
Need we the Pelt of Olde Shere Khan?

"I’ve got that blanket," she did say,
And so we pulled him out one day,
His face and claws foretold foul play,
More fearsome far, than I can say,
Was the Pelt of Olde Shere Khan 

We laid it over that armchair
At first our cat seemed not to care
Of why we might have put it there
But he liked it when he did repair
To the Pelt of Olde Shere Khan

One night, while climbing onto there,
He pulled it straightly taut and square,
It formed a tent over the chair,
Which gave him space to climb in there,
The lair of Olde Shere Khan

As our cat slept, as all cats do,
He would somnambulently mew,
These fearsome feline rumblings grew,
And it appeared to breathe anew,
Resurrected, Pelt of Olde Shere Khan

Our kitty, in his awesome chest,
Did not just sleep but soul invest,
Now here is Shere Khan manifest
With growlings in his angry breast
That despot, Olde Shere Khan

Will he hunt me, like Mowgli,
So he may be a King, singly?
Those eyes have voice now, and I fear,
It’s best we move away from here
Far from here,
And the Pelt of Olde Shere Khan

Dinner with Jim Rossi

Today, while nursing a hangover and after reading Frost, I remembered  conversation I had with Jim over dinner last February


Dinner with Jim Rossi, or
A Story from a Saturday Night

"Oh that’s right, they used to serve wine, and cheese, in the spa!"

I once found Sue Fuller sitting in the Spa

Two two glass plastic bottles
   of a pale Chablis
Were all that kept her far from me

And, cut by plastic knife, a Gouda cheese
  Wrapped in red wax,
Which wax she warmed in her hands
   And she shaped and played with
   As she could with any man

"It’s no use to go downtown
With all those Union men around
It’s better that we just stay here
Where all our favorite friends are near."

Tall pale and blonde, she didn’t think it rude
To admit, for art class, she had drawn herself nude

And so we sat and drank ‘till eight,
But sadly I was not her date

In Veneration of the Cross

In Crucis Venerationem
In grave serene ceremony
On the best Good Friday last
Our Lem processed the solemn Cross
In the rite for which we’d massed

The Cross was made of saplings cut
One of six foot, one of four
Bound together with old twine wound tight
Short over long, a third way down

She laid it on the Chancel floor
She bowed to one adored
Others came and kneeled the same
In reverence to our Holy Lord

Then I approached this relic blessed
Mindful of it’s consecration
I kneeled and with a hand unstressted
I raised it high in veneration

As a Simon of Cyrene
I was glad to take the weight
And belleiving it was true to Rite
I raised it to a great height
That I might share and lighten His load
That I might carry His burden,
I preyed that it were mine to carry too

Dizzy, looking up in my own hands I saw
These simple sticks were no innocent token
But a grievous tool of a mighty oppression
An instrument of Rome’s tyranny by fear
As a stake to the martyrs of olde
As a noose and electric chair to the falsely accused
As a concentration camp to the undesirables of War
Or a white hood to the freedom riders for Civil Rights

I could bear it’s increasing weight no longer
As it slid down on my back
It sought my soul and will to conquer
And power to speak I lacked
My back sealed to a rod too stiff for breath

It hung my arms over it’s arms
Like a yoke across my back the Cross wore me
Intent to weigh me down in stifling subjugation

I wept for the pain of Death, and dying
In the abandoned torment of the cross
With friends and family helpless watching
I thought there all was lost

But though spare, my voice;
"Will you be martyred by faggots?"

Then finding a strength un-natural
I pressed against the rod, I pressed against the staff
I forced the cracking on the bar and then the splintering of the gaff 
Until they rent useless in my hands, overthrown and routed
There I split the Cross to kindling, pnuk and tinder on my knees

I broke the Rirtual that placed the Ritual above the Faith
I broke My Word that no new Word could be The Word
I broke the Faith that this Faith is mine and that Faith is yours
I broke the Law that made the Law above our Love
I broke the Truth that made the only Truth a Politic
I broke the Chain that Chained all of us to servitude
I broke the Contract that Contracted all of us to usury
I broke the Lease that Leased us back our own land
I broke the Mind that Minded what I’d just done
And I broke the Cross that Forswore our obligation
to our neighbors, our brothers, our sisters, our parents and our children
I broke it all, because I Love You. 

De Idefiance Lex Parsimoniae

If I have to name it as a style, I'll call it "Poetic a' Capriccio," which means simply "let's have fun with the meter and form." Also, helping out at Church can yield inspirations unintended.


De Idefiance Lex Parsimoniae
After Mass on Sunday morn
The "Building Committee," or Jon,
Addressed me with concern

"Can you help?"
"What’s gone wrong now?"

"Though it really shouldn’t oughta’
With a new roof on the tower
We have new ways it leaks water
Cause of last nights heavy shower."

Next we tread down in the basement
To a storage room unlatched
Where folding chairs and lumber scraps
Hid a mildewed carpet patch 

I tapped my toe upon it,
"Pish pish pish" grouched back the damp
In a further test I pressed down firm,
Left a whitish dry shoe Stamp

"Is it wet?"
"Look, my foot print’s filling fast."

Him again;
"Underneath this cement stair step
Is a steam pipe I think leaks,
I sure it is from a crack in here
From which this water sneaks."

"Looks dry to me."

"Tuesday, I’ve called a plumber in
To fix an upstairs sink
I’m sure that while he’s here he will,
Confirm it’s what I think."

That step rose to a door, which stuck
And cracked loud when it opened,
Which to my consternation hid
A crypt of desolation

Me;
"Does Dracula in sleep here?"

Stone dust and broken sheet rock planks
Shared my attention with the smell
Of seeping caverrns subterrean
And musty unctions dank 

"We’re under the tower?"
"Those are the steps up to the tower"
"Look at all this water, it’s seeping in through all the stone. It’s a wonder you don’t have stalagtites grown in here. Is it always like this?
"Always when it rains."

To me, the fact of his presumption
Defied an obvious assumption,
I saw that what one can’t debate
Just simply, clearly, I should state

"Take the junk to the dump
Drill a hole for a sump."

But his answer was a stunner,
"Easier, I’ve called the plumber."

WILLIAM The CONQUERER

When I'm lazy, our cat has always known how to knock that book or paper out of my hand.


William the Conqueror
Who's crouched behind my book back wall
Sursurannt on all fours
Is that you Will, with tail raised
As in heraldic colours

I dispatch missives, "Puss, puss puss"
With confidence I’m King.
Yet silence states you won’t discuss
You'll not parlay a thing

Extortion?
Yes, now that’s your game
With Kitty treats be tamed
Your feline senses I will ply
And catapult exactions high.

A march like crunching denotes something
But scratch scratch rumblings where you brood
Do not belie appeasement, but
A feral Burhham Wood!

On Guard!
Above the spine crease mid my book,
Rises a quinate paw,
Five grappling claws lodge in the crook
Campaign tools so medieval

O Awesome Kitt, Colossus Cat,
My volume you tear down
My castle wall and ramparts all
Defenseless too, I fall

Your charge would make King Henry pause
Crossing my novel draw
Which spans this token moat– my lap,
And I will no more scrap

Recumbent with naught to avail
I pray for heavenly rest
While you raise up your victory tail
Your flag upon my chest

Am I slain?
"Surrender!" with your eyes you purr
I must concede this siege of fur.

(A tickle on the ears)
"Hello William."