Choices

Choices

It’s been awhile but now I’m writing
Once again in metered verse.
And some of those to whom I’m sending
This will smile or laugh—or curse.

And since I’ve blanked out my emotions,
I consider now my choices:
How to give a form substantial
To the whispers of my voices.

******

Should I only draw my pictures—
Not with crayons, but with words—
Painting sunsets, valleys, mountains,
Fields and skies with flying birds?
 
Or should I chant in rhythms ancient,
Sounding vowels in my words,
Seeking rhymes and rising, falling—
Trilling like the singing birds?

Or should I write of what I’ve eaten—
Rice and cabbage, lentils, curds—
Writing also of digestion
And of what I’ve left as turds?

Perhaps it’s time that mathematics
Filled my verse with roots and surds— *
Or perhaps, I should write dirges
For Armenians, Turks and Kurds…

******

Should I fill my lines with nonsense,
Wasting my and readers’ time—
Though they offer still amusement,
Spoken out aloud with rhyme?
     
Or should I write of what I’m thinking,
How I view this sorry world?
Will you enter in the prisons,
In the hells in which we’re hurled?

Or should I write of feelings pleasant,
Sing of happiness and love,
Or raise my head towards the heavens,
Howling at the moon above?
 
Who can answer whence or whither,
Give us half a reason why
Each of us is born to dither
Just a while—and then to die?

I’ll be gone and then my verses
Will be lost, as all things are.
Why then should I write of living—
Joy and sorrow, peace and war?
 
******

Who will read these verses, written
In my notebooks in the night?
Who will bother still to mouth them,
Holding scribblings to the light?

Mine are verses born of grieving—
More of black and gray than white—
Yet there’s gold and silver in them—
Sparkles, hidden, of delight.
 
So I write, as if by random
Breezes blown, till gone from sight—
Like a little sailboat, bobbing
Through the heaving swells of night.

Should I end this poem neatly—
Tie the ends and pull them tight,
Or should I leave them hanging loosely,
Wondering why I chose to write?

******

There!  It’s done, for better or—
As often far more likely—worse:
I’d felt the mists and rising vapors—
Asking for my rhyming verse.

Whence, these beings of the ether,
Seeking, each, their human voice?
Why is it—that we are bidden,
Yet appear to still have choice?

2016 May 13th Fri
Brooklyn, New York
(first two stanzas, central single stanza and
last two stanzas added 2016 May 16th, Mon)

====================================
 * Listed here are the uses of the words:
    (a) “surd” in mathematics and phonetics;
    (b) “root” in mathematics and linguistics.
====================================
    

Diamonds in the Dirt

   
Diamonds in the Dirt

Partake, if you wish, of these helpings of verse
That have in them bitches and ditches and worse.
But know, if you do, that the whispers of witches
Will bother you so, that you'll holler and curse.

So now that you're warned of what you ingest,
You can nibble or gobble and seek to digest
These stanzas that follow, with horrors for rhymes,
While giggling and hoping they're only in jest.

But wait! If you giggle for long, you should know
That giggling can lead to a death that is slow
And is painful—which surely is also called "life".
So read, if you must, till you can't any more!

We have visits, when dozing or when we're alert,
From demons and muses. Some often are curt.
But others can drone till we wish they would leave,
So then we can scrabble for diamonds in the dirt.

2016  February 1st, Mon. evening
Brooklyn, New York
----------------------------------------------------------------
  
We Went to War in the Morning  

http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2016/02/we-went-to-war-in-morning.html

   

The Fooferaw

   
The Fooferaw

“A lollapalooza!” he announced, while opening wide his eyes.
That sockdolager knocked us out.  Then everyone nodded, “Yes!”
Except for two (who always were at odds with others there).
“It's catawampus!” one declared, “A puzzle most profound!”
“A hornswoggle!” the other spat.  He shook his head and frowned.
“Oh what a fooferaw it’s been!  But now I'm getting out!”

2015 July 30th, Thu. 1:04 pm
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York
    
Source:  http://dictionary.reference.com/slideshows/sevenwacky#lollapalooza
     

Noodles

   
Noodles
  
I stopped by at the noodle-shop
And ate my steaming noodles.
And afterwards, I sipped my tea
And drew, on napkins, doodles.

A woman came to order and
I noticed, then, her poodles
That waited for her, by the door,
Until she left – with oodles.

Now were those noodles for herself
Or were they for her poodles,
I wondered, idly, as I sipped
My tea and drew my doodles.

But this I knew – she'd ordered such
A quantity of noodles,
That even after she was full,
Her dogs could still have oodles.

2014 July 24th, Thu.
Brooklyn