WDNPort

5/14/2017

I Think

I think you had me from hello,

I loved your eyes, I loved your voice.

You stole my heart, you stole the show...

and I shall, evermore, rejoice.

And then you blessed me with a child

and then again, a girl… a boy…

You calmed the waters, tamed the wild,

and filled my life with simple joy.

I think you see me with your heart,

you look, somehow, beyond the gray.

A handsome prince should look the part,

but, still, you love me anyway.

I think I’ll keep you till the end…

through all life’s wonders, through the rain...

and then, my love, my dearest friend….

I think I’d do it all again.

12/11/2010

In shadow views of battle yet to be
the final stranger beckons me. I fear
that I must now accept what I forsee;
the moment of my death is drawing near.

Oh sarah, how I want to see your face;
to touch, once more, the softness of your skin.
Though fate is sealed and destiny in place,
I long to hear your gentle voice again.

If it is true that spriits conquer death
then I will yet return to you somehow.
The winds that cool your skin shall be my breath;
my tears the gentle raindrops on your brow.

I pray you, Sarah, do no mourn me dead...
think I am gone to wait for you instead.

11/19/2010

Sarah

Beauty in the Beast

She might have seen the beauty in the beast
who prayed for her affecton for so long.
She might have heard his pretty words, at least,
if only he had written them in song.

There lived a silent poet underneath
the muted suit of armor that he wore,
but only at its death did love bequeath
the nerve to write what wasn 't said before.

A never-written sonnet is a waste.
To hold the tongue of love is near a sin.
The sweetest words acquire the vilest taste
when seasoned with a love that might have been.

His poetry, his eloquence and light
is wasted on the cold and lonely night.

Eternally

I'm haunted by a temptress;
my own true love; the sea.
My dark and stormy mistress
forever calls to me.

I often walk the empty beach
throughout the midnight hours
to hear my lover's mounful call;
to feel her awesome powers.

I'm harbor bound; I'll stay the course...
from this I must not sway.
My life, my love is needed here;
I'm duty bound to stay.

Oh, cradle of all Earthly life;
great mother of the sea,
cast of the lines that moor my heart
and let my soul sail free.

In time I shall return to you,
my final love, the deep...
I'll pull your waters over me
eternally to sleep.

Epitaph

The poems form a universe
within the writer's mind;
totality in metered verse;
infinity defined.

The poet gives his soul away
in portions he decides
with thoughts that ebb and flow to play
emotions like the tides.

He writes of love and other things
he may have found in me;
of broken hearts and Angel's wings
I've lost and found at sea...

of parenthood and common sense;
of brothers on a wall...
revisiting their innocence
and other ports of call...

An honest bard, he re-ignites
the glaring torch of truth...
with wells of bitter ink he writes
the epitaph of youth.

Axle

Time is many wheels revolving slowly
along a central spine;
an axle. Is it accident or holy
this universal line?

The stars exist in circles never-ending,
arrayed in common space.
The paradox? The view of time depending
upon the viewers pace.

The Earth and her companion form an axis;
an ordinary wheel.
Man, and this is where the parallax is,
has pride enough to feel...

that time and space revolve around his need;
the need to understand.
And, strangely, time now seems to be, indeed,
unfolding as if planned.

On Easter

Enchanted by an island princess fair,
we sailed to Easter riding winds of light
and, soft, before the the people were aware,
removed her to our dark abyss of night.

Thereafter, from a time that's out of mind,
a sentry stands in place upon the shore
as drawn by Rapa Nui rendered blind
to life but for the sacred task they bore.

His stony face forever to the sea;
his charge to stand until we have released her
as bid by the forgotten race to be;
eternal shall he look away from Easter...

to leagues and leagues away and yet beyond
with all his stony brethern of the bond.

Tugs

I wrote a manifest, a boatswain's list;
a log of all the promises I've made
to no one but myself; I raise a fist
defiantly to life. But I'm afraid
of weighing anchor; getting underway;
of challenging Poseidon under sail;
of running with a squall at break of day
while praying that the rudder doesn't fail.

Yet I will use the navigator's art
to plot a course through islands of despair
and I will trust the compass of my heart
to choose a heading caution wouldn't dare.

The promise of adventure yet to be...
will tug the weary Sailor out to sea.

Knights of the Breakfast Table

Said the knight to the dragon, "I'll lop off your head
and, foregoing breakfast, eat dragon instead."
Said the dragon, "You dreamer, you haven't a clue
I've hardly been trying, I'm toying with you."

And the battle resumed with sword and with flame;
the combatants concerned more with fortune and fame
than with dodging the heat or avoiding a thrust...
these equals in battle, their skills did they trust.

With a sword made of poems, a shield made of hope
here's a modern day dreamer so far out of scope
as to wish himself thither, to there he'd be willed...
to win a fair maid when the dragon he's killed.

"Don't meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunch and taste good with ketchup!"

Rivers of Time

Dinosuars waiting for stone to erode,
their skeletons covered, uncovered again;
iron that's forgotten the blood where it flowed
and phosphorous leached from a primitive brain.

Delicate sabers of soft-stepping cats
enshrouded in shimmering oceans of sand;
strata of relative sediment that's
concealing the bones of the earliest man.

Visible traces of numerous beasts;
the sum of Earth's creatures forever enshrined.
Signs of their passing won't slow in the least
the rivers and runnels of ongoing time.

"We loved the earth, but could not stay" ~ Loren Eiseley~

Upside

Upside downer, little one..
squirmy wiggle lots of fun.

Crawling, standing walking soon...
eyes that can outshine the moon.

Kisses magnet, hug collector....
tiny concentration wrecker.

Papa's Angel, happy grin...
wrapped tight around my heart again.

Echoes From a Silent Heart

Memories of memories
          imperfect and surreal;
copies made of copies of
          a loss that others feel.

Photographs and traces of
          the one who was my world;
black and white reminders of
          a pretty little girl.

Questions ask me questions
           but answers don't reply;
the echoes from a silent heart
           can never tell me why.

The gray and faded images;
            the mother she became;
what do we have in common then
            beyond our common name?

A tattered family bible holds
            a note penned by her hand;
pieces of another's past
            I'll never understand.

And if I ask the questions
            will answers that I find
restore the faded image in
            the bottom of my mind?

Memories of memories
             imperfect and surreal;
copies made of copies of
             the pain I'll always feel.

Dateline

The Scholars made a circle out of time,

divided it in pieces like a pie.

Assigned to it a rhythm (not a rhyme)

and threw it, like a net, around the sky.

But Earth does not a perfect circle make.

Imaginary lines do not lie true

so pieces of our lives we must forsake

to hold it all together as we do.

For time will push against a Sailor's bow

when heading from tomorrow on his way...

and when he sails the other way, somehow,

it steals from him a piece of his today.

11/13/2010

All things being equinox

Magical balance in equinox lives,

if spring or the ending of summer.

Autumnal or vernal the feeling it gives

is antipathetic of bummer.

I’m hating the solstices, bulging at ends,

unequal in daylight and lack of.

I’m loving the spring and the cool autumn winds

that summer just hasn’t the knack of.

Rhythm, circadian, charges in pools

of equally lengthy partitions.

The solsticey seasons appeal to those fools

encumbered by blind inhibitions.

Autmnal and vernal and solstices; props

and sets of the solar position.

To let us know when to be plantin our crops

and tell us when we should go fishin.

A Musing

The bards desire, a whiter shade of muse,
requires that deep depression be attained.
A genuinely somber tone, the blues,
must permeate the soul and be retained.

You're better off a human being sad
as lack of hope intensifies the senses.
The muse will be obscure when one is glad...
embrace your pain. Oh poet, build no fences!

A weary writer soon divines the well
and draws his muse from willful deprivation
of sleep that he may conjure bliss or Hell;
exhaustion is a path to inspiration.

Exhaustion's good, depression's better still...
if you can manage both you're almost Will.

Of Bob and Little Bob

A little Angel, hands on hips,
sings, loud and clear, the “sunshine” song,
and when the song has left her lips
she wonders how I sang along.

“My ‘little Bob without a curl’
my Mother sang that song. I knew
another Bob, another girl,
another Angel much like you.”

She doesn’t know “the rugged cross”;
your other song, (she’s only three).
She doesn’t know she soothes my loss
with timeless magic; memories…

of mother singing to her boy,
of Bob and little Bob… and joy.

Well

I’m crazy for other reasons
but I so love a storm
from here inside a comfort zone
with coffee, safe and warm.

And I believe in kiss for kiss
instead of tit for tat;
that dreams are love’s reality;
can you imagine that?

That words are tools of verity;
that verse extends our scope;
the heart’s a harbor built for love;
the soul, a well of hope.

10/23/2010

The Flow of Time

The flow of time is always cruel…

Like wintertime molasses

I'm older now and such a fool…

I don’t know where my ass is.

(okay...its stilly....I don't care)...lol..... it is a "draft"....which means it can look silly while I continue to work on it until it either makes sense...or I quietly delete it.

8/22/2010

Tapestry

In tribute to the grace of loving long
I offer this to you in threads of rhyme –
A layered quilt of life, a silk sarong,
our tapestry – eternal, spun from time.

The narrow, cobbled, stony street we saw
where players danced and sang in days of yore
has yet to touch this lovers feet. In awe
I realize that now I love you more.

A piece of steel upon a knap of flint
can strike a spark that will, with luck, ignite;
we came together as if heaven meant
to purge for good the dark abyss of night.

A conscious thought, a choice, or cupid’s call--
you are my only love-- you are my all.

Summers end

The clouds, in fury, gather and the wind begins to blow
the summer from the land, but summer doesn’t want to go.

An angry shout of thunder follows each new flash of pain.
The weary earth is set upon by multitudes of rain.

The nights of autumn fall on the retreating summer sun,
and mists above the morning tell the world that Fall has won.

South of Clarity

"A constantly revolving parallax,"

perhaps describes the nature of my brain,

Unpolished, precious stone with tiny cracks,

where logic begs emotion to refrain

from taking over processes of thought;

where feelings beg of logic, "take a chance",

In both directions all of this for naught,

which serves to fuel insanity’s advance.

I've given all the time I care to give

to finding what my friends would call "a cure",

and frankly it is comforting to live

within the northern border of obscure.

The beauty lies in that the beauty lies…

in vain they search the babble for the wise.

The beauty lies in that the beauty lies

in places never pierced by crystal eyes.

The beauty lies in that the beauty lies

in murkiness that never clarifies.

(pick your favorite ending ....I can't decide.)

When

When all our anger’s overturned
and innocents are free at last
from bloody sword and hellish burn,
when war’s a relic of the past;

when Man’s uncertain enmity
presents, in breach, from evil’s womb
and love becomes our legacy
as Mars is sealed in Satan’s tomb,

a marble, gilded monument,
inscription etched with golden rhyme,
will sing the dirge; the grim lament
to chronicle, to rue the time

when eyes beheld what souls abhor;
when children slept in arms of war.

When Rhyme has passed

I think I’ll think outside the bag
and write between the verses.
I’ll stiff them when they call for sag
and act while they rehearses.

I know I’ll live outside the land
of rules and lengthy speeches.
I’ll, findng rhythm, tune my hand
when free is what they preaches.

I’m anti-poet, since you asked,
inside the lines I’ll not.
And chances are, when rhyme has passed,
my verse they’ll long forgot.

Edited by: thewebsailor at: 1/15/04 11:56 pm

Watermarks

this is what happens to me when I am having trouble coming up with things to write about...... I get all crazy and turn out stuff like this...

So blocked you are again a fool,
personifying down.
A graduate of nothing school;
a makeup without clown.

So write what down inside you lives,
though hard it is to do.
Write verses your behind you gives;
a little past of you.

If share you do your broken dreams,
a healing you will know.
Much better pain not hidden seems;
be not afraid to show.

Release emotions from your head,
like pistons from a steam.
Escape they will if held instead,
like poets from a scream.

Write backwards if it calms the rage;
face gallantry with fears.
The watermarks upon this page,
they be the poet's tears.

Versions

Sections of life from the version du jour

in verses to hold all the pieces

fragments of me from the cutting room floor

the ego/producer releases

to public inspectors; interpretive fools

who read what emotions surround

attempting to fix me without any tools

by wiring my hot side to ground.

A cloth of intentions they’ve woven from thread

that’s spun from my lines or between.

They’d save me from living or ending up dead

or something they haven’t foreseen.

Unfinished

It's not exactly therapy I guess
although these words, I find,
are more than just the way that I express
the storms within my mind.

The poems are a lifetime set to rhyme;
the scripting of a role;
a simple heart attempting to define
a complicated soul.

The poetry is meant to shout above...
more often, though, it sighs
in sweetly whispered welcomes to a love
or bittersweet goodbyes.

The verses sail the seas of age and youth...
they wander where they will.
The poems wrote the poet and, in truth,
they're working on him still.

Thirty Four

The first ship I served aboard in the U.S. Navy was an Essex class aircraft carrier (USS Oriskany). We (the ex crewmen) tried to save her as a museum...not enough money..She narrowly avoided the scrap heap several times.

But, after a long and valiant battle to stay alive, she was to have an ending fitting to the american naval hero that she is. A burial at sea.....She was sunk as an artificial reef...with an appropriate monument nearby etc.... the final deployment of Ex-USS Oriskany CV/CVA-34 was completed on May 17th 2006. Despite early concerns that she had landed on her starboard side, she was found to be sitting perfectly upright in 212' of water, with the flight deck around 135', and the top of the structure at 69' in the Gulf of Mexico, 22.5 miles offshore from the Naval Air Station at Pensacola, FL, Coordinates - N30:02.542 W87:00.374

For more see the MBT (Maximum bottom time) divers website at mbtdiversers.com/

A call has come we can’t ignore;
the bells of glory chime…
to gather on a distant shore
a crew from out of time.

We come to grieve the many dead;
the shipmates lost back then...
and as we hear the tributes read
our thoughts return again…

to ports of call in foreign lands
a distant, brighter day;a
when life was held in younger hands,
ashore and underway.

We listen to the bugles call
and wipe away the tears,
as names and faces, we recall,
across the many years.

And as the circle draws an end,
forgive the tears we weep
to see our gray and weathered friend,
committed to the deep.

"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast for I intend to go In Harm’s Way."

John Paul Jones to M. de Chaumont on 16 November 1778.

6/13/2010

Yestertimes

"Yestertimes”; a magic word she coined because she's four
she uses to refer us to, generically, "before".
"Pretend we are outside, she says, "and 'tend it's raining, ‘kay?"
Articulated joy in her unique and special way.

"Show me mad," I say to her, to make her strike a pose.
I aim and snap a picture as her little spirit glows.
"Woe is me" another pose, a hand across her brow…
I take a second picture through the love and tears, somehow.

The years will soon adjust her look, increasing age and size;
she'll add a curl and curve or two to compliment her eyes.
I'll save, of course, these pictures and this memory in rhyme,
but Lord, if you would let me now, I'd put a stop to time.

12/06/2009

Lemons in the snow.

11/28/2009

Opaque

Opaque, before the light of early dawn,
a window pane; a portal to our youth,
plays visions out of time. My eyes are drawn
to scenes within. An oracle of truth
embraces me, its chilly arms enfolding
my heart and all my dreams. She loves him yet;
she mourns the distant hand she could be holding;
the touch her mind and body can’t forget.

As dark as any moonless night I’ve known,
and darker still; my heart. What muse that’s left
is black as any crow that’s ever flown;
beyond despair, and utterly bereft--

as if the eyes of God were unforgiving;
as if my soul had died and left me living.

11/15/2009

Gibberish

Gibberish (read it quick before I come to my senses and toss it).

Some of the people who live in my head
are dirt loving tree hugging freaks.
Then there are those who drive battleship cars
that smell of petroleum leaks.

Christian-like beings in radical veils
made of conservative shroud
woven in ignorance spun on a loom
with no thread of reason allowed

coexist madly with liberal hacks
consuming with plasticized spades
the ugliness flowing from factory farms
while wearing their rose colored shades.

How is it possible reason prevails
and lucid thoughts flow from my pen?
Could it be this is just gibberish and
I’ve thoroughly fooled me again?

Carlos

  

The old musician spoke to me
 in rhythms and in voice.
 The anger that he couldn't see
 revealed itself as choice;   

a choice he couldn't see to make,  
the boy inside the man,
 as forty years of this mistake
 electrified his band.   

With music of the heart designed
 to light his darkened soul,  
the sweet guitar sang in his mind  
and tried to make him whole.   

But in the end the instrument  
that opened up his heart  
was spoken word; a sentence meant
 to pull his life apart.

  And there, revealed, the pain he'd kept  
completely out of sight; 
the long forgotten boy who'd wept
 in fear throughout the night.

  And ever after, knowing now,
 he thanked the Lord above.
 And ever after, knowing how,
 he filled his songs with love.

Chronicle

So, it’s off to omega I go,
and as future events I traverse 
it’s a comforting thing just to know 
in the end I’ll come back in reverse.

  My personal universe lives 
as a chronicle written in rhyme
 filled with hints that my subconscious gives
 me of previous travels through time.

  As I travel time's infinite scope
 I’m aware that my passage is paid 
with the tangible substance of hope
 from which all human wishes are made.

Melody

A never-ending melody
is playing in my mind;
the quintessential poem, yet
without a single rhyme,

a sonnet for eternity
containing not a word,
a lyric never written for
a ballad never heard.

I write a single verse a day
my heart in every line,
a tapestry of ecstasy
my love for you entwined.

My silent muse composes verse
to trepidation’s themes.
I write for you a song of love…
but only in my dreams.

Out of Print

Within the book of wasted time
a section must exist
with articles in perfect rhyme
of poets never kissed

by lady luck or fortune’s son;
(the gender matters not);
of loves and favors never won;
of passions never wrought.

My chronicle would grace this page
my love, if not for you
as written by some useless sage
for all the world to view.

My dearest love, I here exalt
that I am out of print.
The presses, dear, were made to halt
by orders, heaven sent.

Memory

~ Memory ~ 2/02/02. For Mom.

You crossed the boundaries of life
to sail in Heaven's sea...
and I was left to bridge the gulf
between the world and me.

You left a child too young to see
you didn't choose to go.
A child who grew into a man
before he came to know...

that you left too, a legacy...
a memory of love
that God himself would be content
to be the owner of.

~ © 2002 By: W.D.Neighbors ~

10/13/2009

Autumn Apple

The Autumn apple, crisp and tart
or spicy crusty warm in pies
to please the senses; touch the heart
the nose the tongue the hungry eyes.

10/03/2009

Summer's End

________________________________________

The clouds, in fury, gather and the wind begins to blow
the summer from the land, but summer doesn’t want to go.

An angry shout of thunder follows each new flash of pain.
The weary earth is set upon by multitudes of rain.

The knights of autumn fall on the retreating summer sun,
and mists above the mourning tell the world that Fall has won.

In a Hand Basket

________________________________________
The bike is coasting down the lane
the wheels go round and round,
why am I in this basket and
where is it that I’m bound?

I take my chance, a leap of faith,
then quickly to the farm
to jump into her arms, again.
I’m safe from further harm.

Then off to walk the yellow road,
adventures are in store.
I think it’s safe to say we aren’t
in Kansas anymore.

This was inspired by a bumper sticker I saw.... it read, "Why am I in this hand basket, and where am I going?"

and it just wouldn't go away until I wrote it.

"If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow,
Why oh why can't I?"

Night and Day
« on: Jun 14th, 2002, 12:33am »
________________________________________

Today is never good enough to keep;
we long for the unreachable tomorrow.
Perfection's in our hands and yet we weep
until we've nothing left but perfect sorrow.

We set our goals completely out of sight
beyond the far horizons of a chance
that we will have to step into the light
and mount the stage of life to start the dance.

For love and for the lack of love we've wept
and, blinded by despair, we cannot see
the world is filled with love we won't accept
because we long for love that cannot be.

And while our nights are begging life to stay...
our days are busy pushing it away.

W.D. Neighbors

"And the day came, when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anais Nin

If One

If you are gone and I am left
or else the other way—
if one is, of a love, bereft
to face the break of day,

then one heart wakes to God’s own light;
the glorious unfurled,
and one, the bitter end of night;
a cold and lonely world.

Which one of us will live alone?
My love, what does it matter?
With one name etched in marble stone
the other’s heart will shatter.

~ © 2006 By: W.D. Neighbors ~

10/02/2009

When?

When all our anger’s overturned
and innocents are free at last
from bloody sword and hellish burn,
when war’s a relic of the past;

when Man’s uncertain enmity
presents, in breach, from evil’s womb
and love becomes our legacy
as Mars is sealed in Satan’s tomb,

a marble, gilded monument,
inscription etched with golden rhyme,
will sing the dirge; the grim lament
to chronicle, to rue the time--

when eyes beheld what souls abhor;
when children slept in arms of war.

9/28/2009

The Gibson
My Father-in-law, Bob Blake, owned and played an old Gibson acoustic guitar for most of his life… from the age of 13 until he was about 60.
While it was still around, in the mid-1960’s the guitar began to show her age. She had a crack in one side that went almost the whole length of the body. It had been played so much that there were deep grooves in the neck. Bob wrote to the Gibson company and asked if they could repair her. They said no, so he lovingly took her all apart and used epoxy to glue her side and filled in the grooves and cleaned and polished her and put her back together. She sounded more beautiful than ever. Bob has been gone for several years now…he, and his music, are missed. I wrote this some time ago…. it was, partly, inspired by another poem (Voices), written by my friend Kathy Earsman. Eventually, when arthritis took its toll on his fingers, Bob gave the Gibson to one of his sons… and somewhere in the shuffle the Gibson was lost.

In gentle tones he sang the blues,
with working hands caressed a chord.
Not one request would he refuse
for nothing more could he afford.
He lived within a country song;
his Gibson and his voice defined
the only tune that wasn’t wrong;
the hidden sweetness in his mind.

And near the end, in sweetest voice,
the music filled his soul it seems…
and in the end, as if by choice,
he left the music to our dreams.

The sweet and mournful music sleeps
in other hands– the Gibson weeps.

~ © 2001 By: W.D. Neighbors ~

Sewing Circle

They don’t require, nor have they kept
a penny for their tender task.
The comfort sewn as tears are wept;
a finer wage they couldn’t ask.

As mothers wait and pray aloud
that hope may live forever thus
the quiet artists, shy and proud
construct of cloth a loving truss.

To help support the cause of hope,
their time is spent; compassions sewn
to soothe the ones who have to cope
with fear that most have never known.

From in the heart and high above;
from nothing asked; a quilt of good—
a sewing circle made of love;
of universal motherhood.

© copyright 2002 W.D. Neighbors

The First Bank of Poetry
________________________________________
The wisdom of the world is in a verse.
The mystery of life is in a book,
for poets re-create the universe
in every rhyme. It may be worth a look

into the bank of poetry, the vault
containing all the poems ever born
and all the clever words meant to assault
our muddled brains. For surely verse is torn

directly from the living mind of Man
presented red and dripping (with a smile;
the mask of jesters since this world began)
that men may read these words of wisdom while

they're pulsing with emotion, seeking morals...
or resting, warm and comfy, on their laurels.

8/24/2009

Interval
~ Interval ~ 3/10/02. This grew out of a discussion with my wife about the linearity of time. I was trying to convince her that I was her first love even if I wasn't because time does not run in a straight line in hours and minutes....but by the importance of the event...therefore, the first thing that happened in the history of time....the most important... was our first kiss. Makes sense right??? Well, it does to me.

Interval

I see the truth unfolding in my dreams;
our love exists as interwoven time.
But time is not as simple as it seems,
as basic as the meter in a rhyme.

Our time together doesn't seem to play
into the universe as now defined,
for time's no mere division of the day,
to universal pendulums confined.

But, linear, kinetic, all askew,
arrayed in any manner that may be,
no matter how defined, my love for you
exists in every moment granted me.

And only God himself could grant us this...
the universe began with our first kiss.

~ © 2002 By: W.D.Neighbors ~

7/04/2009

Reality forgot

On winds of sleep in pillow ships
we sail beyond the mind,
to leagues outside the world awake,
impossible to find

for any creature not asleep
(within the conscious zone).
A place existing in the id,
that will has never known.

A realm where all is possible,
of anti-matter thought,
where magic lives and shows us things
reality forgot.

6/24/2009

Simply (for Jeanie)

I have scars on my knees
and pain in my hips
but words of endearment
still fall from my lips.

The skin’s a bit wrinkled,
the hair turns to gray,
yet naught touches heart
that the voice will not say.

Its easier said now
and easier done;
a stream will flow smoother
the longer the run.

Simplicity matters
when push comes to shove…
I'm older and wiser...

and simply in love.

...

6/14/2009

I Dream

I Dream

I dream in iambic
I mumble in verse
for Will was my teacher
and Em was my nurse.

My quill dips in fountains
of eloquent ink
and beautiful etchings
for Poe was my shrink.

I farmed with my Tennyson
planting the seed,
I studied my Cummings
(old e.e.), indeed…

“anyone lived” is a
poetry force…
and as for my Kipling,
I’ve kipled, of course.

I’ve mingled and mangled
with many a bard,
I will be a poet
it can’t be that hard.

6/12/2009

Etchings

What was it took the babies off to war…
the adolescent wonder-fools, at best,
who’d yet to learn the fo'c'sle from the floor;
who couldn’t tell the study from the test?

They nursed upon the warrior code of Duke;
a hero of the legendary screens;
but never saw him scared enough to puke,
and never heard a grunt behind the scenes.

The military called them to a man
except the golden children in reserve
whose Daddies knew the secrets of the plan
and all the students grading on the curve.

Opposed were led directly to the blame,
the yeas were on the news before us all.
Survivors had to live or die with shame
for not becoming etchings on the wall.

Running

I do all my running in circles
when screaming and throwing a fit
and mostly I huff without puffing
whilst stomping away in a snit

Cause I do my exercise nightly
I’m walking at lunch without fail.
I cut iceberg lettuce in pieces
to carry to work in a pail.

I may lose my temper routinely
and screech like a Barbary ape...
but though I may shout quite obscenely
at least I am staying in shape.

6/11/2009

Chocolate Fudge and China Tea

Silent friend sets to her tasks,
strives and works but never asks
what the end result may be...
lost in work or lost at sea?

Life is many things in all
bittersweet in large and small;
work unending building dreams
joy and sadness bursting seams.

Silent friend sets to her tasks
strives and works but never asks
any thing or thought from me...
chocolate fudge and China tea.

...

4/26/2009

The Gibson Weeps

In memory of my Father-in-law, Bob Blake...

In gentle tones you sang the blues...
with working hands caressed a chord...
and no request would you refuse
for nothing more could you afford.

You lived within a country song
with words and rhythms ill defined.
The only tune that wasn't wrong
was playing softly in your mind.

But near the end, in sweetest voice,
the music filled your soul it seems..
and in the end, as if by choice,
you left the music to our dreams.

And now the mournful music sleeps.
In other hands... the Gibson weeps.

© Copyright 2002 Wayne Neighbors

The Lady of the Night

Her face is of another world,
the lady of the night,
her beauty framed by Heaven's glow
of alabaster light.

So shyly as she passes by,
behind a veil she slips.
Eternity won't make a face
her beauty can't eclipse.
She smiles at her companion as
she slowly turns away
as if she were a lover lost
with nothing more to say.

She peers into the depths of space
in darkness unafraid
then turns to face the world again,
her monthly penance paid.

© Copyright 2003 Wayne Neighbors

2/15/2009

However

A former hero; hero who was dead;
Consumable who was, himself, consumed--
was given second life; a second head;
so, not as nearly dead as once presumed.

Who was it, tell, that had the corpse exhumed?
What damsel altered, once again, his course?
Who led him to the stable, well perfumed,
and sat him, once again, astride his horse?

However raised, the knight was trotted forth.
However doused in drops of bitter rose…
However spurred, he rode his charger north...
to die again as one would well suppose.

1/16/2009

Just the One

A single step in time’s immortal height;
I paused to smell the roses wet with dew;
to watch the moon ascend majestic night
and in that moment fell in love with you.

And all our moments grew from just the one;
a solitary portion of an hour--
but, oh my love, that moment was the sun
that gave its light to grow this lovely flower.

In such a moment miracles occur --
when love’s a rose whose fragrance fills the air;
when past recalls how beautiful you were
and present how beloved. Then and there

I chose to give my heart; to stop pretending;
to live within this moment, never ending.

.

1/08/2009

12/09/2008

I and Pangur Ban my cat

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
‘Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

‘Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye,
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
“Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban my cat and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Written in the 8th or 9th century, on a 4-page manuscript by an anonymous Irish Benedictine monk who lived in the extant St. Paul's Monastery on Reichenau Island in Lake Constance (Bodensee), where Germany meets with Carinthia, Austria.