Category: ohthatwright

TRYST, two lover’s last on outbreak’s eve, they soon entombed.
MOUND, for burial of the city’s dead arriving too fast for single graves.
SPREE of death eventually births antidote’s invention.
SERUM!—One generation would have danced at its arrival. This one scoffs.

CLOCK doles time, portioned out in ticks, serves as
BOSSY metronome overtakes all time’s tempo,
LIEGE lord of a time-bound race, counts each subtracted second.
BLOCK ticks! Breathe—seize back time’s unmeasured moments.

LOWER down, in Johnstown, all seems calm.
UNION is going on 113, war survived, injustice re-submerged;
PARTY, faction, a steady equilibrium of peace?
FLOOD bursts as a sign; submerged may see the light, bad structures can fall.

GAVEL in last judgment, Judge! You will not be partial;
MOGUL in the dock cannot inflate importance or
DEIGN self as exception to what is good.
WRECK those who, unchecked, did not turn and plead for grace.

SCOPE of poem? Uncertain, but not to create cliché.
BLOKE, yes. Bohemian, yes. Musician, yes.
ROACH—no. So, what’s he high on? Life? This poem does not know.
BONGO? It’s the focus here: the rhythm’s about to start.

SPLAT, drone note of my life’s score.
SAVVY, tempo sometime signals upswing.
MORON, unwelcome annotation.
DROSS, common in this composition. Yet some notes true.

FARCE of common good and common life: to count a person’s
WORTH in currency of culture’s wars. The tribes
BARGE in, dragoon troops, demand oaths.
THERE is a greater mode: of shared delight; for this brief together while, we all live.

PASTE a print with ravishing colors; it cannot rival the true scene, sky and clouds
AGLOW. Rising sun streams out beauty, as at the dawn of creation.
RIDER pauses to behold and thinks:
WHERE do I go from here?

PLUCK wildflowers for the visit.
GRAVE stone still declaring final date.
MIDGE bites my arm. We, the living:
JUICY prey for pangs of grief.