My First Foreign Language Poem

Here's the first poem I've written in another language - in this case I started with Spanish, which is my first second language.  Here's what I wrote:

Belleza continua adelante

Sólo una milla de ancho Pero no obstante sigue siendo  

Mucho más allá de la piel  

- La Flor Azul Poeta



And here's my attempt to translate the poem from my first second language back into my first:

Even if Beauty continues being
Less than a mile wide
It nonetheless remains
Much more than skin deep

-- The Blue Flower Poet


This is actually not a composition that originates with me because it turns out that these are the exact same words the samurai is reading that had been inscribed in fine print on the inside lining of the cherry blossoms in the Japanese scroll painting shown below...

On the Creek Adrift

As the egret wades 

Out at slack tide

In silhouette

Every aspect of its being

Compressed

Into a single

Dimension

Looking straight

Ahead towards supper

So my bowsprit

Splits the difference

Between here and now

As the kayak slowly drifts

Out towards the inlet

Almost Memorial Day

Oh what's to become of us

Now that Memorial Day

Is all but here and gone

Yet neither the earth

Nor I stand ready

To receive summer

The cherry blossoms are
Barely gone leaving me staring at

A few glaring bare patches on the lawn

And the fig tree’s leaves

Still remain unfurled
From end to end there
Is endless and growing work
Waiting to be done

Poem for Frank

This poem was written in a moment of serendipity experienced at the neighborhood bank tonight on the eve of my 58th birthday. 

Tonight at the bank

A succession of signs

Presented themselves

In quite linear fashion

First the ATM wished me

Happy birthday which I found

Frightening enough that old

JP Morgan even knew or cared

Quite so much 

And the next thing I knew

JP was thrusting money at me

In a most peculiar way

More so than I could have

Ever hoped or imagined possible

And then to top it all off

He asked me if there

Was anything else he

Could help me with

At which point

I showed presence

Enough of mind 

To ask for at least

One more good year

For the both of us
My dear brother
No matter how
Outlandish a request
That may seem to be
To make at the bank

Ode To A World We May Not Have Lost After All

Nietzsche tweets

And Zarathustra speaks

Thusly: The Word is dead

Long live the word!

I don’t think I’ve ever

Heard anything more

Absurd in my life

And yet that’s exactly

The way it goes lately

Why just the other day 

A young man

On the street corner

Explained he was in the grip

Of an intense though perfectly rational fear

About how ever since 1997 the storyline

At Marvel Comics has been

Spinning out of control

With parallel universes

Coming and going

With abandon

So fast it’s impossible

To keep track

And only now I realize

That’s exactly the way

I’m starting to feel

Though not about Marvel

But about the myriad

Strange creatures and myths

Populating my own storyline

The center holds onto

What exactly?

The extremities I suppose

And what do the extremities

Hold onto when they're not

Sleeping or otherwise indisposed?

Here we've all been living in the grip

Of the poet's most powerful illusion

That one day things were otherwise

That order once prevailed

But it's always been the same

As far as I can tell

It's always been a mug's game

For king and pauper alike

We just make the rules up

As merrily or not verily
We keep rolling along 

A Mockingbird's Cause for Lament Late Friday Night

One more reason

To feel forlorn

These days is that

We lack recourse

To blame or beseech

Anyone but ourselves

For our failings

In days gone by there was

A vengeful God to rail against

For the plagues visited upon

The Nations of Israel and Islam

All equally attributable

To a higher power

But now we are forsaken
As we hurtle towards a doom

All of our own making

Devoid of even the

Flimsy power of prayer

To halt its advance

Ask not for whom the mockingbird tweets
He tweets for us all night long
Tirelessly with his song