There’s one more candle
To blow out today
Growing older
That’s fine
Adding wrinkles, pounds
And pressure
For it means little
To age another year
As long as you can pretend
You’ll always be granted another
© Gayle Force Press 2003
There’s one more candle
To blow out today
Growing older
That’s fine
Adding wrinkles, pounds
And pressure
For it means little
To age another year
As long as you can pretend
You’ll always be granted another
© Gayle Force Press 2003
Posted at 05:07 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Every year there’s a new one
A Diallo, King or me
Clamoring loudly
Broken faces on TV
We ask so many questions
But no one’s forced to answer
With sympathy’s short half-life
Soon most are hoping for the noise to stop
And the questions to disappear once again
Just like us
In our lives
And our deaths
© Gayle Force Press 2003
Posted at 09:12 AM in Culture, Current Affairs, Event, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Walking out in the snow
I notice prints that make me wonder
If you’re warm
Or deeply chilled somewhere
In a not too distant place
Waiting like me
For the sky to clear
And sun to reclaim its throne
Reigning over the world
And all in it
Even you
Though you hate that in every moment
Of the day
© Gayle Force Press 2002
Posted at 11:22 PM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I used to have the blues
Back when I believed in too fat
And joyless faces
Now the blues are gone
And you are here
© Gayle Force Press 2012
Posted at 10:09 PM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I haven't written a better Christmas poem yet. So I'll keep celebrating with this one. Merry Christmas.
Christmas Crossing
It’s Christmas Eve and my wife is napping
At the other end of the couch
Dreaming in a Santa hat
Tonight when she wakes
And after tomorrow’s presents
I’ll try my best to remind her
That my life is more complete
Better and more real
Than I could have imagined for myself
Her presence animates my life
Not in a slavish sense of duty
But through the constant commitment of love
Densely defined and elaborate
Telling as the Rubicon, broad as the Nile
I have fully crossed over
© Gayle Force Press 2006
Posted at 05:36 AM in Just me, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Fools gold is a misnomer
I feel fairly certain
The gold we claim for our own
Without thought to its purity
Is exactly what we need it to be at that moment
And without another’s eyesight
And judgment
The gold remains
Perhaps it’s only our desire
To please others
That reveals us as fools
© Gayle Force Press 2008
Posted at 08:08 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Resignation
by Nikki Giovanni
I love you
because the Earth turns round the sun
because the North wind blows north
sometimes
because the Pope is Catholic
and most Rabbis Jewish
because winters flow into springs
and the air clears after a storm
because only my love for you
despite the charms of gravity
keeps me from falling off this Earth
into another dimension
I love you
because it is the natural order of things
This is the first stanza of a poem I anticipate loving forever. My wife and I used this for a reading at our wedding and several years later, I like the poem even more than I did then. Giovanni is not generally perceived as a romantic poet but she has a deep vein of passion within her work that does, at times, take on a specifically romantic form.
Part of what I like so much about Resignation is that Giovanni reminds her reader that being in love should feel absolutely, perfectly normal.
I know many folks who don’t buy into Giovanni’s premise. Instead, they feel most comfortable with problematic, difficult and contentious romantic relationships. To an extreme, I know someone who ended a relationship because it wasn’t challenging enough. Things were too smooth for her liking. That’s an almost unbelievable concept to me. If you’re in love with someone, shouldn’t your standard experience with that person be pleasant and enjoyable? Shouldn’t trouble between you be the exception to the rule?
In Resignation, Giovanni defines love as the organizing principle of life in an amorous relationship. In the world she creates in this poem, love is the backdrop to how we live and who we are. Perhaps it’s only because I’m a hopeful romantic but I’m convinced that she’s on the right track. Whatever the reason, I’ll go with it. Joyfully.
I love you
because it is the natural order of things
Indeed.
FDO
Posted at 05:30 AM in Just me, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
The rain crashes down from heaven
And today, the sinner and the saint
The righteous and the wicked
Will all give a moment’s thought to nature
The clouds pour their sustenance on all
In grace, not in judgment
© Gayle Force Press 2006
Posted at 09:15 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
One of the few 'purpose' poems I've written, Sharing Smiles was crafted to celebrate my best friend's wedding.
We’re sharing a sacred smile
Filled with memories
Of that first concert
Whispering secrets
Holding each other
Sharing a smile reminds us
Of falling in love
Suddenly, deeply
Knowing that, yeah
You’re the one I need
Our shared smile transports us
Beyond this moment
Into a future
We are joyously
Building together
This smile means sharing love
The most sacred gift
We provide each other
Lasting our lifetimes
Echoing forever
© Gayle Force Press 2011
Posted at 08:47 AM in Event, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Yellow orange green gold red
And nearly brown
Coexisted on the third full day
Of Hoosier Autumn
With tall, thinning pines
Swaying in the background
Our sweetly deciduous forest
Shimmers cleanly, clearly
And warmly
Much warmer than the winds themselves
© Gayle Force Press 2006
Posted at 05:17 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Holy warriors
Prepared for battle
Thin bellies still empty
Aching hearts still full
Gone in the sudden flash
Of a heaven sprung fire
© Gayle Force Press 2006
Posted at 11:18 AM in Current Affairs, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
There’s a dead settlers moon tonight
When the sky is full of piercing light
Forcing the world into noticing the depth of shadows
Sparked in white not yellow
These were the nights
When crossing no man’s lands
Led to rampant success for the bow strung warriors of the Sioux and Lakota
While the cavalries of gunpowder and smallpox blankets
Never seemed to arrive in time
© Gayle Force Press 2006
Posted at 07:33 AM in History, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The rain has ended
In its place, a bright cloudless night
Damp and soft, the earth seems to sigh
Thanking the cool, slow breeze
For bringing such peace
The sounds of summer
Are absent now
And all I hear
Is the whisper of the wind’s long
Sweet lullabye
© Gayle Force Press 2002
Posted at 09:03 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
I looked into the night sky
Once, early this spring
And discovered the Little Dipper
Rising into the heavens
From just above my roof
For thousands of years
The rich and the poor
The wise and the dumb
Have all looked in wonder
At these same few stars
Blinding them, gently
Then guiding their vision
Into the heavens
Far above their earth
So it feels nice that I
Can share in that wonder
Contemplating the same
Hidden gorgeous mysteries
© Gayle Force Press 2011
Posted at 08:25 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The sun bears down today
Not cruel but firm
Insistently
Patient
Winning our grudging recognition
Acceptance of its force
Car windows go up
Air conditioners on
Jackets come off
Buttons are undone
Joggers walk
Runners jog
Walkers smile in their malls
Children play and play
Barely noticing the stinging sweat
They wipe from their eyes
© Gayle Force Press 2011
Posted at 02:44 PM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Twenty-five years ago
I went with my dad
To an old stadium
Gone and dearly departed
If not regretfully
To see my Indiana Pacers who
I loved stridently
At home
In the new Curtis Mathes set that
How were we to know
Lasted far too long
But there in person
For the first time
Was a different kind of feeling
Since they were bad
And most of my focus
Started and stopped on a man named
World B. Free
Although I’m not sure how much of
This poem
Is true
I have no doubt
About World B. Free
It started with his hair
Though it was not exceptional
Except in its lack of exception
Stuck in a time
I may never understand
But all the rest fit too
How much he loved the game
Even when it was an awful game
And tried without ever looking
As if he were trying
Mostly though
The shooting
Like little orange only rainbows
Up and down
With no gold at the end
Only more orange
And then at its beginning
The look that might have been a smile
If he’d known no one was watching
At the end of the game
It seems that no one else noticed him
Because watching him play
Might have kept someone from skipping school
As it did me from stealing gum
Off the too short racks
Meant to taunt me
At the store
But lots of kids did that
And their parents drank too much
Cheated with a waitress
Then left home
(Not because of the children)
Even though they’d seen World B. Free
On the court downtown
When I asked later on
My dad said he used to be called Lloyd
That may well be
But he was always World B. to me
© Gayle Force Press 2002
Posted at 06:32 AM in People, Poetry, Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Black cats are bad luck
As is the number thirteen
Some things can be done with ladders
While others are disallowed
Crossing fingers may frighten witches
But only if you believe
The witches are out to get you
The wood nymphs are dead
And in their place dances
The karma that we,
Our pitiful selves,
Help create
© Gayle Force Press 2009
Posted at 05:25 PM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
My own not quite father
Has been the same man for three decades
Even after ‘we both shall live’
But I used to explain the mistake
When people told me how alike we looked
Since even though it might have been so
In some parallel universe, in this one,
His wasn’t the face my mother saw first
I assumed people were unobservant
My color, far darker than his or my mother’s
My shape, too like hers to imagine any of him in it
Even our names, if truly heard,
Could clearly have revealed our not hidden un-secret
Too lazy was my verdict
They failed to think of seeing
What was clearly in our faces
Now I have my own not quite son
Who will be the same
Long after ‘we both shall live’
Regarding us, no one would make the same mistake
Enabled by laziness and being a not quite son
For more than three decades
Somehow though, I’m not bothered anymore
Since fathers are more than faces
© Gayle Force Press 2008
Posted at 08:42 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
I've been working on this poem for years but have never been able to finish it. Here are the first two stanzas.
FDO
One of my students
Is a vulgar little shit
At least that’s how my uncle,
Gary Nichols,
Would have described him
Gary was a teacher
Feeding English to the unwashed masses
Including the lowly holy
Of East Texas
So yeah, he was an expert
Posted at 07:17 AM in People, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I suppose that I missed the train by a few minutes
It likely had already flung itself into interstate cruising speed
When I parked the Buick at the end of the row
I walked the interchange of rail and street
Hoping to feel the train’s last evidence beneath my feet
Cursing myself while staring at raised crossbars
Some passengers were sleeping I’m sure
Dreaming of the journey they were on
Misremembering the Wichita skyline
Others would have been tense and restless
Annoyed that catching a cross country train at night
Means sitting where you can, not where you want
I knew she was still awake though
Wondering when I would forgive
Her parting words, ‘For better or for worse’
© Gayle Force Press 2007
Posted at 12:23 PM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
As a Circle City native, Memorial Day weekend always feels festive. I never participate but the Indy 500 permeates the environment in Indianapolis.
FDO
Race Day
Camper cities
Traffic for miles
Checkered flags wave
In all directions
Coolers full of Bud
Dirt cheap sunglasses
Tank tops
Jake the snake around
Brother Henry’s neck
Grilled brats and burgers
“Show us your tits!”
Naps on the infield
Day long engine drone
A rainbow of cotton candy
Tires over the fence
Some foreign guy wins
May is beautiful
In Indy
© Gayle Force Press 2004
Posted at 11:15 AM in Culture, Event, Poetry, Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Bony trees flex
Their pubescent arms skyward
In obvious prayer
As they ask for more light
More life
More time for their quickly growing branches
Presenting the beautiful colors we admire
While we point
Our failing eyes skyward
No obvious prayers
As we ask for more light
More life
More time for our quickly growing branches
© Gayle Force Press 2011
Posted at 08:46 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Most days I stand still
When the sky begins to rain
Letting nature dictate to me
How I should feel
What my condition should be
I’ve imagined it a shower
Somehow cleansing me
Washing away the stains
Of my dirty, daily life
Today I avoided the rain
Feeling too dirty
Much too stained
To be cleaned
Even by the rain
© Gayle Force Press 2007
Posted at 11:03 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Surprise
Such a welcome, warm surprise
Like the first day each year when it’s clear that Spring
Has arrived at last
When the air smells different
Morning rain is no longer unpleasant
That was your visit
Yielding my new discovery of you
As well as the us I’d almost forgotten
Used to exist
Your absence, as Persephone’s,
Always leaves me aching
But now I believe we’re casting aside
Winter’s last snow, revealing ready soil
Soil ready for Spring
And pleasant rain
© Gayle Force Press 2006
Posted at 05:24 AM in Nature, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Here's a re-print that feels appropriate. Merry Christmas.
Christmas Crossing
It’s Christmas Eve and my wife is napping
At the other end of the couch
Dreaming in a Santa hat
Tonight when she wakes
And after tomorrow’s presents
I’ll try my best to remind her
That my life is more complete
Better and more real
Than I could have imagined for myself
Her presence animates my life
Not in a slavish sense of duty
But through the constant commitment of love
Densely defined and elaborate
Telling as the Rubicon, broad as the Nile
I have fully crossed over
© Gayle Force Press 2006
Posted at 06:53 PM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
…the words here deployed are equivalent to blanks in a loaded gun: they make the same sound but do not pierce us in any way.
I have begun feeling this way about my poetry. The only folks who seem pierced by my poems are the ones who hear them from my lips or, lacking proximity, in the voice their minds’ ears have labeled as mine. Either way, it’s about connection. Connection with me, not the words themselves. Knowing me and believing they understand the genesis of those poems allows the words to matter.
Maybe this just means my words are not the right ones. Perhaps it means that most of us only allow people to pierce us; we don’t allow ideas to do the same.
FDO
Posted at 11:33 AM in Books, Culture, Just me, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Bright sun bathes the world
In light
But still
No warmth
Glaring ice and snow
Open sky above
Each word a cartoon
Bubbled
In steam
© Gayle Force Press 2001
Posted at 12:52 AM in Nature, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Winter shields the earth from us
Keeping its treasures buried
For a little while
Safe from we who need too much
Who need everything there is
© Gayle Force Press 2003
Posted at 10:51 AM in Nature, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Things are fine, really
I’m a little bored
But mostly restless
With lots of pent up energy
Needing release
Sitting at a desk doesn’t help
The light isn’t quite right
And the room is stuffy
Mostly because I don’t have any burning need
To write or sleep
Or even to be awake
All that artistic suffering
Doesn’t amount to much when the fridge is full
And even the rain is warm
© Gayle Force Press 2002
Posted at 11:31 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Every year there’s a new one
A Diallou, King or me
Clamoring loudly
Faces on TV
We ask so many questions
But no one’s forced to answer
With sympathy’s short half-life
Soon most are hoping for the noise to stop
And the questions to disappear once again
Just like us
In our lives
And our deaths
© Gayle Force Press 2003
Posted at 08:38 AM in Culture, Current Affairs, Event, Just me, People, Poetry, politics, Race | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Once again, Black folks in California are publicly distressed about a police shooting. This time, the victim was Oscar Grant, a 22 year old Black man who was shot and killed by a White police officer in a subway at the beginning of 2009. The officer was convicted of the shooting (involuntary manslaughter) and given a 2 year sentence. The frighteningly short sentence is the source of the protests. The officer, Johannes Mehserle, will probably be out of jail by Memorial Day 2011.
The CNN article linked above is indicative of the attention that's been/being paid to the entire situation. Grant's name does not appear until the 11th paragraph. 10 paragraphs before this dead person is even acknowledged by name.
The basic outline of the shooting is tragically familiar. White officer kills unarmed Black man. Momentary outrage. Down the memory hole. Wait a little while. Repeat.
A few years ago, I wrote about this cycle of police violence but I wasn't bold enough to follow it to the ultimate conclusion for so many young Black men, death. Instead, I wrote about the violence that wounds, heals and scars. Today, that doesn't feel like quite enough. It's not quite enough for me. It's not quite enough for Oscar Grant. But it's all I can give him now.
FDO
Posted at 08:36 AM in Culture, Current Affairs, Event, Just me, People, Poetry, politics, Race | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Yellow orange green gold red
And nearly brown
Coexisted on the third full day
Of Hoosier Autumn
With tall, thinning pines
Swaying in the background
Our sweetly deciduous forest
Shimmers cleanly, clearly
And warmly
Much warmer than the winds themselves
© Gayle Force Press 2004
Posted at 12:32 PM in Nature, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Each moment
Deserves the special place of privilege
We hesitate to allow
Ourselves to acknowledge
For since we are not gods
It must stay unknown to us
In which of these moments
Our lives will be transformed
This is the power of the sacred
And the sacrality within each of us
That our lives and world may be changed
In the blink of our human eyes
© Gayle Force Press 2004
Posted at 12:29 PM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
This is a poem I wrote more than a decade ago. I'd basically forgotten it until reminded of its genesis by a good friend. Thanks JYL.
Dan
Young inside old out
Bright skin shines
Like tanned leather hide
His eyes
Glimmering clear
No feelings to deny
When he goes home
Lying in the dusty room
All he calls his own
Within his view
As he smiles
And lays down to rest
© Gayle Force Press 2010
Posted at 04:54 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I am teaching about the colonial period in US History and have recently covered the Proclamation of 1763 which defined the Appalachian Mountains as the westernmost area in which English colonists were allowed to settle. That didn't last for long. The westward expansion continued until the self-fulfilling prophecy of Manifest Destiny was achieved. Achieved at unknowable cost.
Last night the moon was as bright as I remember seeing it in years. It was a Dead Settlers Moon.
There’s a dead settlers moon tonight
When the sky is full of piercing light
Forcing the world into noticing the depth of shadows
Sparked in white not yellow
These were the nights
When crossing no man’s lands
Led to rampant success for the bow strung warriors of the Lakota Sioux
While the cavalries of gunpowder and smallpox blankets
Never seemed to arrive in time
© Gayle Force Press 2006
Posted at 06:31 AM in Culture, History, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I’m named for someone
I no longer know
My father used to be a man
Who had this name
And skin
A similar color
But now he’s bearded
With a different body
And people tell us
We look alike
Because of our hair
And disdain for smiling
Which used to annoy
But now amuses me
Although not enough
To ever make me smile
At them
Posted at 07:48 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
It’s summer in Indiana
And my little boy is eight
We’ve spent all morning together
Since there’s nothing in the gym
Except his future and my past
Running and shooting
Learning some basics
Only stopping to drink some water
And prop the doors open
Then back to the hard work of fun
More shooting of course,
Free throws when tired
That’s always the way
Then just after soreness
We’re finally done
There’s nothing in the gym
Except silence and the floor
And it’s summer in Indiana
© Gayle Force Press 2008
Posted at 08:30 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I'm re-posting this poem because my grandfather gave me a load of vegetables from his garden and I plan to start cooking with them today. "Kitchen" seems appropriate to share.
FDO
I walked from the kitchen
Slowly stopped and turned around
The gentle bubble of pots on the stove
Sounded warm and beautiful
Inviting, so I went back in
Watching the lid dance over my soup
I noticed the dry, hot smell
Of cumin drowning in the sweet
Black juice of the beans
I felt the smile on my face
And wondered how many times
My granddad stood smiling in his kitchen
With the cornbread beginning to brown
© Gayle Force Press 2004
Posted at 07:13 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
She’s waded into the waters
This time, she refuses to come back up
For air, for light, forever
© Gayle Force Press 2010
Posted at 07:05 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Each day opens like a flower
Waiting to bloom anew
Gentle rains may come
Only to moisten
Softening the world
And me in it
Allowing the beauty of life
A chance to flourish
In the fertile territory
Of God’s great world
© Gayle Force Press 2010
Posted at 09:03 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Grandma’s adrift today
Her mind and breath
Gone swimming
Into a yawning, gasping sea
Faces and memories
Run quickly past
Sliding and colliding into one another
How to describe
With no more words as tools
Cooling and weak
Her hand still reaches out
Through the fog and needles
Searching out comfort
To give, not to receive
Grandma’s anchored tonight
Still and certain
Resting in peace
And the arms of her Lord
© Gayle Force Press 2010
Posted at 07:52 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
It’s mostly a theory
Something more but nothing less
In its simplest form
America hates its victims
As soon as Plymouth Rock
Landed on Indians and led to dinner
Not disaster
The Pilgrims planned their progress
For America
The die was cast
© Gayle Force Press 2008
Posted at 10:15 AM in Culture, Current Affairs, History, Poetry, politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The once sturdy oak
Now exists in triad
Oddly mangled logs on the ground
It has yielded its form
To become a different kind of conduit
No longer a respite for birds
It shelters a thin, shedding snake
Some small colony of ants
Leaf chewing grubs
All while wearing a brand new crown
Of white, spreading flower
Perfectly fit to the majesty
Of a still sturdy oak
© Gayle Force Press 2010
Posted at 09:58 AM in Event, Nature, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Winter’s storms have faded
With the new Spring of our love
Being scheduled
For just about now
How is it then
That no mood has shifted
No surprise unveiled
What new plan can be established
To change the artifice of love
Into the real thing for us
Can a promise never made
Still somehow be broken
© Gayle Force Press 2010
Posted at 04:31 PM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
A friend is fighting a losing battle with Canada. Here's a poem about heading towards Toronto.
FDO
Last Night’s Travels
Driving on the highway into Etobicoke
Hoping to find somewhere to get off
Finally the sign for Queens Land
© Gayle Force Press 2003
Posted at 10:58 AM in Event, Poetry, Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
On a rainy day, this feels like a helpful poem to share.
FDO
Sharing Rainbows
When you stare
Just hard enough
Into the clouds of a sunny sky
Notice what you can find
Nearly invisible innumerable rainbows
Bending light through their water
Opening a whole new world
Of hiding visions
Drenched in possibility
With every single glance
At any given moment
Each of those rainbows
Might be only yours
Right until you choose
Like Noah and Dorothy
How you want to share it
© Gayle Force Press 2008
Posted at 12:03 PM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I wrote this poem a couple years ago and a NY Times article today encouraged me to post it. I love the phrase and the sentiment behind it.
Remix America
Mestizo mulatto hyphenated hybrid
Mixed up creole cultural mélange of meaning
As who we are and what we used to be pale
next to tomorrow’s endless postmodern possibilities of
Perpetual people driven progress
All the ‘I’s and ‘US’s can become ‘They’s and ‘We’s sooner than YouTube presents the next
Macaca spewing hate monger would be divider
Who unites us in disdain
For his antiquated rhetoric of race,
Religion and righteousness
The 3 Rs that used to keep the South backwards,
Black folks scared and the rarely compassionate conservatives
entrenched in their oh so corrupting power
The beauty of the remix
And the America it is frenetically remaking
Is that all the little boxes
Will mean the very same thing in the end
More empty spaces we can fill
Exactly as we choose
© Gayle Force Press 2008
Posted at 08:44 PM in Culture, Current Affairs, Poetry, politics, Race | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Thunderstruck
I was a father before I realized that thunder
Has a surprisingly large vocabulary
There’s fierce crashing thunder
The kind that wakes you from a dreaming sleep
But there’s also rolling thunder
That takes you along with it
As a wave lilting
On the edge of the sea
Soft thunder can spin you around
To wordlessly ask
If anyone else noticed it
So gentle as to make you feel
More than hear its presence
Constant pounding thunder serves as an atmospheric drum kit
Marking time in the heavens
Sharing nature’s knowledge with the mortals
Wise enough to listen
Rather than be lulled to sleep by it
And there’s booming thunder of the sort
That makes babies cry,
Shocks adults into stunned silence
And makes the old folks laugh.
It’s the sound that reminds us thunder may be a warning
For as Zeus knew so well
The thunder of the skies celebrates the onslaught of lightning
We do well to pay heed
Posted at 08:48 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I'm not particularly a fan of Valentine's Day but perhaps this poem will help warm, romantic feelings linger just a little while longer.
FDO
The first time
I kissed you
When really
You kissed me instead
Everything around me
Stopped and stood
Perfectly still
While your lips
Parted mine
And my whole body
Grew so tense
But my head so light
That I thought I’d float away
If I even dared
To breathe
© Gayle Force Press 2003
Posted at 10:36 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)