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The Pond and its Birds

These birds that live on the banks of the pond
Are the reason we give thanks to the pond.

The muscovy ducks with their feather coats
Brass-green as the waters flanking the pond;

The poking beaks of the white ibises 
Who sometimes descend in ranks on the pond;

The tall, fluffy wood stork we wish to hug,
Who with lengthy gray beak shanks through the pond;

The cormorant who spreads its wings to dry
On the bridge's wooden planks at the pond;

The limpkin dappled with brown and white spots
Eating the mollusks it yanks from the pond;

The great white egret and grand herons gray
Who wade with their legs so lank through the pond;

And Lefty the mallard, though he can't fly,
His personality anchors the pond.

So prays the ♡ and W who trace
All that they love in this tranquillest pond.



	


	



			
				


			
				


			

			
Sonnet about you and ducklings
		
	
	

		

Another day with nothing to write about,
As usual my thoughts return to you.
Particularly when you and I crouched
Among the train of ducklings passing through. 
I can't describe the exhilaration 
When they huddle around your legs and mine,
Mobbing us with zero hesitation,
Cheekily playing with your shoelace twine.
I adore the gentle way you observe
These sacred offspring in their merriment;
The awe and affection duly deserved
For those precious puffs of life Heaven sent.
The love they show us makes my spirit soar,
And your love of them makes me love you more.

	


	



			
				


			

			
Just when you’re about to lay down to sleep
		
	
	

		

Just when you're about to lay down to sleep,
The world sounds a waking cacophony
Of morning business and monotony
Deep in the weeds of fatigue where you reap
What bitter rancors of exhaustion seep
Into the bedroom penal colony:
Two states that join in sick synonymy;
With rest bested, lonesome misery creeps.

Take heart and hold that pillow like it's me;
Know that my return with the evening comes.
Hold on and listen to the rain which drums
Softly on the roof, like the fingers we
Shall drum along each other's sides, this vow
Of eternal love in eternal now.

	


	



			
				


			

			
The world can be quite an imposing place
		
	
	

		

The world can be quite an imposing place:
Endlessly demanding conformity,
Always with a dark new enormity
To fatally threaten the human race.
Inventing novel lenses to retrace
A protean past of deformity
Molded for the current majority;
What does that look like on your only face?

The only thing we can do is be us.
Here, where death awaits individuals, 
We know our term, yet we only revere
Those who burn singly, even unto dust.
Let's live and love without hurting our peers,
Joining our own paths as originals.

	


	



			
				


			

			
4/20
		
	
	

		

Today is the day numbers consecrate.
Brothers and sisters rejoice and partake
In rites to render the soul less opaque.
For some a special day to contemplate
The wend of being and our modest fate.
Today is the numbered day I'll remake
Myself from a whisper, and I'll awake
From what normal perceptions obligate.

Further, higher, breaking the boundary
Between a unit and totality;
To go beyond the superficial fronts 
And realize we don't know reality
When our misconceptions start foundering.
What does that mean? I've smoked a few good blunts.

	


	



			
				


			

			
I don’t know how to prove I haven’t quit
		
	
	

		

I don't know how to prove I haven't quit
To you when my intentions haven't changed
And my aspirations are still arranged
The same as they'd been with no deficit.
I might say I've taken deliberate
Steps to become a little less estranged
From my poetry dreams, though not deranged
Enough to think I could be laureate.

My hope is to grow enough to produce
Something of substance you could interact
With, something which finds its harmonic use
Each time you supply your personal fact.
And you could rest assured I tell the truth:
I dream although the shape is inexact.

	


	



			
				


			

			
Sonnet
		
	
	

		

I don't know what to tell you in regards 
To your fears of our insignificance.
The ninety percent history discards 
May find us their latest participants,
And maybe that's because of impotence;
Some might ascribe it to a lack of luck,
Some to a society's reticence.
My own diffidence used to make me duck
The toil of evolution, now I'm stuck
To the shifty question of quality.
In spite of it all no one gives a fuck.
Must that condemn us to frivolity?
The spotlight doesn't cause a work to shine,
But one's dedication to their design.

	


	



			
				


			

			
A Magic Trick
		
	
	

		

If you find yourself needing air or peace,
Then seek me in the room where smoke is thick;
And maybe we’ll perform a magic trick.

When pace overtakes and control has ceased,
And wellness contorts into shapes so sick;
If you find yourself needing air or peace,
Then seek me in the room where smoke is thick.

It's unlikely that answers will release
Themselves spontaneously from this wick,
At least we can be lighter for a tick.
If you find yourself needing air or peace,
Then meet me in the room where smoke is thick;
And maybe we’ll perform a magic trick.

	


	



			
				


			

			
I seldom get prepared
		
	
	

		

I seldom get prepared,
I've been impaired by doubt,
My ego I've seen scared,
Cowering, undevout. 
But I've been forced by chance;
Death with its passing glance
Denied delusion's spout.
When faced with nothing, stared;
What could one care about
A lout who never dared?

And death won't come with haste;
First you must waste away.
Everything gets debased, 
More falls into decay
Than just ideas of self:
Family flags in health
And dissolves in dark play
Between the wilting taste
Laced with their care's dismay
And frustrations they've faced.

As such I find the choice
I thought foisted on we
Unhappy-lifers moist
With tears is trickery.
Questioning if to die
Like nature would comply;
That's not what nature sees.
It could never give voice
To the dead, poised to be
Without meaning to hoist.

Somehow cause and effect
Randomly trekked, evolved 
A thing that could detect
Through narratives revolved
Around themselves, which pit
Their souls against split
Realities–one solved
Death with life unchecked,
Irrespective of all
Values our walls reflect.

The other state is void,
Paranoid and alone,
And since alone employed
In rough attempts to own
An answer, an escape
From our foresight which gapes
On futures of cold bone
And uncertainty. Toyed
With, annoyed, spurred to hone
In on zones death avoids.

Ever an opposite,
The gnarly bit that leads
Hungry jaws thought unfit,
Separate, alien, seeds
Ostracism in souls
Haunted by lack of roles;
It breaks them to concede
Their selves they can't transmit.
A chasm's pit impedes.
They plead disconsolate. 

Constantly feeling trapped,
Handicapped by some lack
Of congruence, a gap;
As though the line went slack
And let one slip apart
From creation, to start
Upon a separate track
Than all else that seem rapt
In naturalborn tact,
Fractionless and unsnapped.

"I'm different, I'm 'not this,'"
Is the distance that daunts
A single soul. A hiss
Of uncertainty taunts;
Instinct and selflessness
Give way to helplessness
When reason becomes bonds. 
That something is amiss
It insists from its font:
Questions' haunting abyss.

The division inside
Is applied to all things, 
And the conscious derides
Itself for its own string 
Of differences between
Man and many a scene;
Something lacked singling 
Out every petrified,
Yet-untried pair of wings 
That thinks in wanting strides.

How is the whole restored?
Toward which star is truth,
And how does one afford
To dive into uncouth
Surroundings teacherless,
Nebulous, featureless,
Which direction holds use
And communion's reward?
Accord springs as proof
With greed refused, ignored.

Once I gave up control
And stole away from dreams;
Then life was rendered cold,
As each fabulous scheme
Crumbled before my eyes.
I thought it my demise.
What I thought was esteemed, 
Needed even, I'd hold
No more. What only seems
Builds its themes from false gold.

Everything I let go,
Every show of desire,
The thirst to possess thrown
Away. As though expired 
I laid, a corpse in bed;
Grandiosity bled
From childhood, and a pyre
Consumed wishes with smoke.
But a glow from the fire
Inspired peace to bestow.

With semantics removed
Two visions would remain:
There was death to reprove
Me; but who've been insane
And stood upon the brink,
Yet had the chance to think
Come to a new life's plane.
When "dead" and seeing through
Who you knew's eyes in pain,
All else feels vain and crude.

Slowly dying for years,
Disappearing from hopes 
By degrees showed the fears
Of peers and loved ones' scope.
I may not be who I'd 
Wanted, but if I died
They'd hit the instant slope
Of grief, now domineered
By sheer void. Left remote,
To cope when I'm not here.

All that we could have shared
Unfairly unfulfilled
Forever. Where once prayers
Of life dared on its hill,
Could have been anything,
Everything; emptying,
The chances of life spilled,
What time could have repaired.
Loved ones must bear that nil,
But the world will not care.

The people who are dear
To us hear, see, and strive
Alongside us through drear 
And joy, cheered to survive
Together. Though success
I may never be blessed
With, they're still gratified
To have me in their sphere.
I'm steering. I'm alive.
Our revival is clear.

So long as breath is drawn,
From conqueror or child,
Human's human; beyond 
That inconstantly styled
Egos who could lose touch
Bent on titles and such.
It made me feel more mild,
As one of many pawns
Of fate's ponderous guile
Smiled on as eons yawn.

The treasure is to try,
To ply my unique hand
In endeavors that I
May find or understand
A secret or a dream
Within this world that seems
At once overly-grand
And too small to describe;
Surprises and demands,
But also plans and smiles.

Writing this poem's all
I want. Should I fall down
There are some I can call
While I'm sprawled on the ground.
With these ones I adore
I don't feel less or more;
I'm assured that I've found,
After a life that stalled,
My small niche in the sound
Where I'll renounce my walls.