Revels in Rhyme

Alliteration

Toe steps strut on stage

Or show horse trots:

Sure sharp a signage

of grace in beholden catch

In the Tropics

The sun here bakes us brown

whose blaze may bald our crown

A Scent Remembered

From nowhere it brings you here,

the past that brooks no future.

What was it that  we lost, my dear?

What bond, what magic, what allure?

Whose words these are

I think I know -- even as

his poems come and go:

it's that voice no other has

it's that soul that seeks me so

Haiku after rain

leftover tears drip

down valley of unkissed cheeks

as skin remembers

when the Moon was Mab

when the moon was Mab
at early dawn above

i saw the Big Dipper dip
and scoop all remaining night

of its distant eye gems
that sleep stole in dreams

Reading Braille

Us alone that night
we are one in dark

I read you
You read me

We find by feel
We reach by touch

No sight is seeking
as skin is craving

Deaf too our ears
Mute our tongues

No utterance from hence
when sighs dwell in silence

Once upon a frog

Once there was this frog

lived down a well, his bog.

All his life he sat and stared

as time passed his dark laird.

Above him he could espy

a hole of light in the sky.

Was he bored? Was he lonely?

No one asked; the answer his only.

Then one fine morning by chance

a maiden came by happenstance.

Their eyes met as she wept.

Her tears fell like rain. He leapt

to catch its sweet sad taste,

a wine to savor, not to waste.

The rain of tears soon ceased.

Then two stones fell upon the beast.

Quick was the frog to catch

this pair. And in his snatch

his tongue did greedy swallow

this (he thought) was marshmallow.

Sated, he looked up and beyond,

only to find the lady had gone.

He groaned. Unable to thank

the fair maiden he sank

in despair; despondent in the deep

he threw up. After a long sleep

he awoke a bowed, beaten bloke

and vomited all that food he took.

Out from his mouth in his expire 

two gems fell: one was a ruby,

the other sapphire.

Becoming Dead

(Benito Agrela, 15, of Miami, Florida gave up on life, feeling so sick
of the anti-rejection drug he had to take for a transplanted liver.
At his last he hugged his mother, smiled and died.)

'Twas past midnight, lying in bed
but sleepless I chanced to read
of your wondrous becoming dead.

I mean no insult, Ben but awe
which bids me praise your gesture so
sacramental, with grace to bestow.

One cannot simply say: c'est la vie.
'Twas not that so to me.
There's heart in that dark mystery.

Yeah, we do, are going to, will expire.
Brief time's passing may just require
sour, lame, languid spirits at the bier.

We may be mere vessels of mortal clay
that form and grow and then decay:
ashes to ashes is nature's way.

Yet, Ben. You must now know:
something in, of us survives to show
that which your gesture was--

the way to go.

This morning after

This morning after
a deep dreamless sleep
brings no sunlight east

yet

behind the raincloud scrim
its warm face glows

as in mine, dearheart,
you do