Month: December 2019

Conundrum’s Child | Poem by Ron Olsen

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conundrums child

Conundrum’s Child
By Ron Olsen

What purpose then
Do the poet’s words serve?
Might as well ask
Why we stick around at all
Absent the courage to be
Or not
The Bard nailed it
Many times over
Moderation
Consideration
Determination
Words tempt the soul
To surrender
Without a fight
Your choice
Is no choice at all
Breathing in hope
Sputtering out damnation
Leaving you
Battered
Bruised
Deathlike
Not caring
For common needs
The poet bleeds
Without cause
Glory
Passes to stardust
The cosmic laughter
Of children
Finding their way home
Casts light
On the void
Another step
In the search
For one true thing
Guiding the poet’s pen
With a gift of grace

© 2015 Ron Olsen – all rights reserved

 

malibu

Ron Olsen is an LA-based retired journalist who writes essays and an occasional poem.  More of his poetry can be found here.

 

 

 

 

Plumber Poem | by David Michael Jackson

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plumber poem

There I was
under the house again
crawling in water
toward a tiny stream,
a small waterfall
between a crawlspace and a wet hell,
because the commode is a water devil.
Feed me water, it says,
or take a ride to a gas station, friend!

I approach the leak,
crawling in a leak creek,
avoiding the call to the plumber,
between a crawlspace and a wet hell,
dragging my wet tools minus the one I need,
minus the one tool the plumber know that he needs,
or she, should she also be
crawling between a crawlspace and a wet hell
with the tool that
I don’t have.

I approach the leak,
which only drips at me now,
I approach with my vast knowledge gained from
minutes of watching videos, with my
shark bites, my compression fittings,
my torch, my solder, my flux,
minus that tool I missed in the video.

“Blast ye Gods of human plumbing distress I cry!”
as I turn wet and humbled,
as I drag myself
toward that small rectangular hole
at the end of a long dark wet
crawl, hoping nothing is moving ahead of me.
“Who needs a plumber!”
I call as I emerge
flat on my back exhausted in the sunshine,
and hear the words,
“I need to go to the bathroom.”

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Plumber Poem by David Michael Jackson 2019
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Plumbing Clarksville

From Starlight to Stairlifts | Poem

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From Starlight to Stairlifts

Strong the light seems in the childhood sky.
Faintly the light beams through the window by
the young man’s head to the pillow lit by the moon.
Starlight shines in his eyes as his thought strays
to the girl of smiles and eyes and hips that sway
in his dreams.

Strong is the light in the eyes of the child of those dreams
amid the noise and the hurry and the loss of sleep
and the no time to notice the time going by

until the stairway to heaven is a stairlift
and the moonlight falls on the pillow
and the starlight shines in her eyes
and the girl of smiles and eyes and hips that sway,
dreams.

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From Starlight to Stairlifts by David Michael Jackson

Janet Kuypers’ “in Autumn, Love is in the Air” poetry show 10/7/17

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    Below are video links from a October 7th 2017 (10/7/17, or 20171007) poetry performance (with accompanying music “the Ice is Melting” from the HA!Man of South Africa) of Janet Kuypers’ Austin poetry feature through Expressions Welcomes Autumn! at Austin’s the Bahá’í Center where she read poetry about autumn, as well as poetry about relationships and love, all accompanied by music (as well as a rotating art display).

    Before the show started she also released copies to most everyone there of a chapbook of the writings she was performing in her show, and all of the pieces from this reading were also released electronically in a “in Autumn, Love is in the Air” chapbook, which you can download as a PDF file for free any time.

[tubepress mode=’playlist’ playlistValue=’PLYa-AZK78_hrj4D6eyoeZaNbXXH42pt8W’ ]

Poems in this show include:
“Sepia Leaves”
“Autumn (2017 Dripping Springs/Bahá’í Center edit)”
“Who You Tell Your Dreams To”
“You and Me and Your Girlfriend”
“The Way You Tease Me”
“And I’m Wondering”
“Just by Holding his Hand”
“Marry You in Autumn”
“Looking for a Worthy Adversary (an extreme sestina variation)”