Incident At The Gate(Terza Rima 1)

"Why, good sir, are you at my place stopping?"
He answered me, "I have some time to wait,
And here I'll stay with the sun behind me dropping."

And there he did remain nearby the gate,
patiently awaiting my dear sister.
And now I shall reveal to you his fate.

Late evening time, came out to meet this mister
Fair lass who kept the poor gent waiting long.
I saw through parted blinds the caller kissed her.

Endurance served him well. I'd reckoned wrong!

Angela Maria(Terza Rima 2)

Angela Maria, you were named so,
(no angel nor Madonna in my mind)
Sweet flowing names I liked from long ago.

I chose two names not difficult to find,
The first with mine by others oft confused.
Their similitude I'd hoped us both might bind

Like the blood from me to you which was transfused,
Daughter, friend from Heaven, in my womb.
Now you've room that Christ's blood be infused.

And as your guide, with pride I've watched you bloom
From a child of innocence to a wiser youth.
Your name became the role you did assume-

An "angel" of the Lord who speaks with truth.

Villanelle On A Villanelle (I)

It has the ringing echo of a bell.
The words at each line's end must reconcile.
How I love the lovely villanelle.

Its quality is that of a carousel.
Jean Passaerat of France defined its style.
It has the ringing echo of a bell.

One can introduce the spirituel
Or emphasize what he finds most worthwhile.
How I love the lovely villanelle.

The message of this form one can foretell.
Its poets must to litany be servile.
It has the ringing echo of a bell.

Like the terza rima or rondel,
Its manner centuries past was given trial.
How I love the lovely villanelle.

If this poetry is authored well,
oftentimes to hear it makes me smile.
It has the ringing echo of a bell.
How I love the lovely villanelle.

Like A Timex (Villanelle II)

Through lickings, like a Timex, my husband's hard-core.
Evermore, heart ticking, he goes on.
They don't make his model any more.

College was uncalled for.  He worked outdoors.
Body sore, he gathered lore hands-on.
Through lickings, like a Timex, my husband's hard-core.

To morons that he hired he was a mentor
And their savior after drunken goings-on.
They don't make his model any more.

Once he bore a fall from a couple of floors.
For an encore he was up again at dawn.
Through lickings, like a Timex, my husband's hard-core.

A dinosaur assailed by predators;
They've torn my self-made framer woe-be-gone.
They don't make his model any more.

Such poor health and mental tug-of-wars.
So much to abhor, yet he's a hanger-on.
Through lickings, like a Timex, Joe is hard-core.
They just don't make his model any more.

III: A Villanelle Indictment of The Blight

Brutes, in name of God, to show their might,
Fixed laws that you'd succumb, dumb, measly sheep.
Womankind, kind woman, rise and fight.

Serbian daughters with smiles once so bright,
Ravished by beasts whose skin with sin did seep.
Angels hovering nigh have you in sight.

A dutiful bride in India for something almost trite
Had fire set upon her as she lay in bed asleep.
Kind woman, woman kind, your soul's in flight.

A Somalian child within a hut shrieks and huddles in fright.
To steal her "sensuality," they've come to cut her deep.
Angels from on high do hear your plight.

And nearer here's a wife (and all's not right),
Who trembling, bruised,
hushes her son not to weep.
Woman kind, kind woman, comes the night . . .

Sisters, don't be wearied by the blight.
For what they sow, God's told us they shall reap.
Angels have prepared you robes of white.
Kind woman, womankind, hold tight your light.

IV: The Price of Infamy

You won with your atrocities your fame.
Books proclaim your works, but not with glory.
You each, we do remember your great name.

Hitler, you your people did inflame.
You took the reign as king of the persecutory.
You won with your atrocities your fame.

That you weren't your brother's keeper was your claim.
Cain, we learned your curse from the Bible story.
Always we remember your great name.

If to some of you we gave a nickname,
"Jack the Ripper" all the same is accusatory.
You won with your atrocities your fame.

Bin Laden, you are too in this hall of shame.
Now to blame, you'll go below purgatory.
Absolutely we'll all remember your name.

Relentlessly through history you came,
Each to play your bloody game annihilatory.
You won with your atrocities your fame,
But God, who sees, remembers each "great" name.

V: A Loving Son

A little boy singing on the floor.
His mother always came and showed her head:
"I told you, Son, please to shut the door."

The boy older now his airplane tore.
Asked for help, his father curtly said,
"I'm busy, Son, don't bother me any more."

Another time he fell and felt so sore.
Mother quickly wiped him where he bled,
Said, "Go to sleep.  I'm going to shut the door."

Persistent, though he knew what was in store,
His need for love was stronger than his dread
Of their never-ending "Bother me no more,"

A young man sat and thought, "What's living for?
Maybe I am better off if dead."
And "I'd better not forget to shut the door."

They heard the shot.  Inside were met with gore.
Their loving son lay silenced on his bed.
The note read, "I'll bother you no more.
Mom and Dad, I remembered to shut the door."

Sonnet 1: Advice About Brows

What curious things the lowly, high brows be.
Above one's eyes complacently they frown.
But if I turn you on your head, you'll see
That each of them will change to a smile now.
You say of late that only grays and strays
Cohabit near your nose and forehead low.
An unpredicted bleak preposterous phase.
I know, I know, they simply won't regrow!
You're forced to choose a stick and color them in
And worry constantly they'll disappear.
Though some may smile or scoff and call it sin,
(Not to fear, come close, look here and peer),
A while ago I had tattooed a pair.
'Twas better that than bony arches bare!

Sonnet On What's Neath My Bonnet (Or Why My Hair Stays Short)

A puzzlement to me is I was born
With hair that has a span of life quite short.
My sisters' locks like stalks of summer corn
Do grow.  Mine, in half that time, abort!
I comb my shampooed tresses with my hands
When appearing in my fingers(what I dread),
Like loosened threads, are dozens and dozens of strands
Which detached and have escaped my sorry head.
Baffling too, when young I twirled my mop.
To thwart my making knots, Mom had me shorn.
A teen, I picked split ends and could not stop.
Neurosis, compulsion, or act of the forlorn?
That since stopped, the theory to which I'm led:
My hair revolts. No mane shall flow. I shed!

Oh, Scathing Wind (Pantoum Poem)

Oh, Scathing Wind.  By many names you go.
When breezes change for fury, how you rage!
Such merciless omnipotence you show.
The ruin you have wrought no man can gauge.

When breezes change for fury, how you rage,
Oh, Hound of Hell, you bluster and you wail.
The ruin you have wrought no man can gauge,
Oh, Tempest most relentless none can quell.

Oh, Hound of Hell, you bluster and you wail.
And as you swell, your ire does increase.
Oh, Tempest most relentless none can quell,
We cower as we plead for you to cease.

And as you swell, your ire does increase.
You strike with sleet or  thunder or with dust.
We cower as we plead for you to cease.
Peace!  Be gone - Tornado, Gale or Gust!

You strike with sleet or thunder or with dust.
Oh, Scathing Wind, by many names you go.
Peace!  Be gone - Tornado, Gale or Gust!
Such merciless omnipotence you show.

A Proposition

For all we have in common I review
The life we could pursue, both you and I.
Our incomes and our skills combined. A coup!
The jewels, the shoes, the fixtures we could buy.
And we could read or write or travel weekends.
Thoughts, ideas and chocolates we could share.
The parties we could throw for all our friends.
We'd go to midnight shows, the perfect pair!
We never have a row or scream and bellow
Like those who disagree or need control.
We're happy and considerate and mellow.
To build each other up has been our goal.
And since we're "straight," we'd stay platonic, see?
So, Girlfriend, do you want to marry me?

Unheavenly

Oh, such pondering that poets do.
In verse so free or pleasant rhyme they make,
They speak of sunset spread across blue lake
And nature praise, in awe of every hue.
They sing of God, our spirits to renew,
Dream an untold world our breath to take,
Contemplate man's meaning, and they ache,
And words of rage or bitterness ensue.
And then along come strangers such as I,
Who rather to life's oddities attest,
Who proffer observations or decry
Stupidity and circumstance through jest.
Less than sensitive, I rarely sigh
For sweet sublimity . . . . . unheaven blessed.

My Aphrodisiac

Lay your body down here by my side-
Your face to mine so I can see brown eyes
That softly shine.  Behold me.  I'm your prize
Tonight-a sultan's daughter and untried.
The "windows to your soul" to me confide
All you feel inside.  I memorize
Each perfect flaw your aspect does comprise
As fingers over skin begin to slide.
Silken as the sheets in which we're wrapped,
Slow caresses passions do incite.
Our bodies come together, interlocking;
You discover heat in me untapped.
You speak and something shatters in the night.
Shhhhh . . . . .  my aphrodisiac . . . . .  no talking.

We All Slaves Be

Can slavery exist today? I say
It does and flourishes, and all are slaves.
Yea, we have been tossed into a fray,
And knaves we be till carried to our graves.
Economy makes all of us its chattel.
Others, worse, are subject to ill fate.
Serfs of modern day, we pay.  We're cattle.
Those raped and caned are vassals of man's hate.
And there abounds a servitude to greed:
Bondsmen thieves and some ensnared by desire.
A prospered land breeds addicts each to need,
And many be who feed a spark to fire.
If there be one soul completely free,
Much like God or God Himself he be.

Sonneteer ‘55

Heartland Sonnet Kyrielle #77

Though mountains' valley is my home,
It serves me as a catacomb;
God's gentle hills I'd rather see.
An Iowan's heart still beats in me.

Here stalks of corn reach not as high;
The colors of the twilight sky
Match not those of my memory.
An Iowan's heart still beats in me.

The heat dies down, but ne're is found
One lightening bug to flicker round
And grant this night a fantasy.
An Iowan's heart still beats in me.

Though mountains' valley is my home,
An Iowan's heart still beats in me.

Where Once We Played

Across our childhood's street we trod
On carpet lawn and holy sod.
We walked along where some had prayed.
Where once we played, he now is laid.

The dead's abodes we visited.
But times we ran and sometimes hid.
Such escapades by fancy made!
Where once we played, he now is laid.

Bikes we'd ride on many a track
That wound around and farther back.
A decade near this place I stayed.
Where once we played, he now is laid.

He left.  We followed, each our way
Until the fateful sorry day
We all returned, our farewells bade.
Where once we played, he now is laid.

Another decade, nearly two.
Cruel time - its passing how I rue.
My place for his I would not trade.
Where once we played, he now is laid.

Trucker Joe's Lament (kyrielle)

He lost his job; now drives a rig.
The pros are small; the cons are big.
A sleeper/cab is his abode
On tedious and lonesome road.

In old West days, a steed he'd mount;
Now yellow lines he cannot count.
A steady stream, long now they've flowed
On tedious and lonesome road.

A ribbon flat, it sometimes winds;
Descends or climbs until he finds
It's all one constant episode
On tedious and lonesome road.

By some he's loathed along the path;
For taking space, he's shown their wrath.
Sparse traffic lessens not his load
On tedious and lonesome road.

He drives and while he drives, he yearns
For life's return; his stomach churns
To know his hopes do now erode
On tedious and lonesome road.