Around the table knights of courage meet,
respect would lead to Arthur's knighthood court.
Their dishes, full of risks they'll sure defeat.
The good against the bad - the ills abort.

On golden dishes Arthur's knights would serve
their hearts to satisfy a hungry soul.
No accolades or medals sought, but crave,
for fairness, justice - nobler deeds in all.

I guess I'll sit and slowly sling some ink
and try my level best to get it right,
penning a form at which I know I stink
in the near silence of a humid night.

Looking downward I try to count my feet,
ragged tracks left behind by moving pen
(I bet that I am way off of the "beat")
and likely need to start over again.

These lines are all stilted and stiff to me,
it's caused by counting feet and syllables,
instead of letting them just all run free,
These cursed things always give me troubles.

Of all the seats invented, one persists.
'Twould be the one for which most all would vouch,
and say a greater comfort can't exist
than when one's resting on one's favourite couch.

With stays and cushions sprung in interplay,
a range of shapes to fit, so every station
could then recline and while away the day
in clever, contemplative conversation.

I open my eyes and I think of you,
those last sad days your kisses graced my lips.
Each small breath I draw stirs the grief anew;
it feels as if my soul is in eclipse.

We lived a love made from the stuff of dreams.
It held us in eternity's embrace.
We faced the darkness with defiant screams;
discarding dignity and futile grace.

But as I sit and grasp at memory,
your treasured trinket clutched hard to my breast,
my heart is frail as this aged pottery
and I cheer at the tightness in my chest.

You had your books in order
on the shelf but you had scattered
your work on a desk
by the window
in an angry mess
or the wind had visited
and disheveled your hair
so that your thoughts lay everywhere.

You were mad, sometimes,
in that study; Love kept me
at the threshold of your room.

You will not let me in
when you sat enthroned like the queen
with a song on her lips,
but this is what you are, poor thing
shackled to that iron seat:

Parked in a sea of hot asphalt
(and it's not yet mid May)
I exit into air as thick as soup,
sweat springing out where I once had hair.
and I begin my plod
....to Wal-mart.

The lot has trees in scattered islands
from one of which an unseen bird
sings his heart out for spring love.
Trees will one year provide more
than a mere tease of shade.

Is it the heat
which brings out the sights
of Wal-Martians in every shape and form?
I've never seen an ass that big
stuffed into so little cloth.

In the far distance
a light leads me to meaning
I follow or not

It is dull,
the impulse to write demands better
come it from passion, madness or craft
as Elliot said
"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion,
but an escape from emotion;
likewise personality.
But, of course,
only those who have personality and emotions
want to escape from them."
I have passion, madness and some craft,
yet all is dull.

The coffee mug is mostly black.
In white encircling it-
as an Egyptian mosaic-
are figures metamorphing.
A Lemur dances to a tune
and turns into a hulking beast.
The beast then tries to stand.
Two incarnations and he is upright,
then his rocket pack takes him to the stars.

I remember that trip,
with the scooters,
and the soft laughter of the afternoon
as we explored a village
tucked into the memories
of a thousand years.

As the light crept through the plaza,
we stopped for coffee
and you spotted the shop.

It was a storefront,
older than my dreams of you,
and we walked over
to spend an hour
touching the history of lives
entwined with our hope,
and you picked up the bowl
and fell in love.