Wednesday, December 1, 2010

(137) July 10, 2010: Your Body Next To Mine

YOUR BODY NEXT TO MINE

We roamed the town from spot to spot,
And when we got a bit too hot,
We shared a glass of golden wine;
Come lay your body next to mine.

We strolled museums one by one,
Enjoyed a spree of high class fun,
The art we viewed was truly fine;
Come lay your body next to mine.

We found the divey music dens,
And tapped our toes to now-and-thens,
The jazz was slipper sole divine;
Come lay your body next to mine.

We walked the neon streets alone,
And made the night our very own,
You sighed like silk and moved like shine;
Come lay your body next to mine.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Kyrielle

(136) July 9, 2010: No Tomorrow

NO TOMORROW

The ceiling fan is spinning down
It's temporary airy sound.
There's nothing true that I can borrow;
Today's today there's no tomorrow.

My love's asleep beside me here,
Her quiet breathing, Time's frontier,
A steady speeding golden arrow;
Today's today there's no tomorrow.

I'm covered by these crimson sheets,
I feel my heart's insistent beats,
My blood the gift of bone and marrow;
Today's today there's no tomorrow

The sky is clear, the air is thin,
The mind it's play begins again.
It's time to climb Mount Kilimanjaro;
Today's today there's no tomorrow.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Kyrielle

(135) July 8, 2010: A Story In Verse, Part 4: Over The Chasm

A Story In Verse, Part 4: OVER THE CHASM

Awakening from dreams that have never been dreamed,
The scorch of the day pooling sweat in my eyes,
I staggered up faint and through razors I screamed,
My throat full of froth and all clotted with flies;
A vulture had landed to greet my demise.

Behind me the crevice, abyssmal and still,
The blast of the tempest expunged and serene;
So eerie the hush, my voice echoed shrill—
A child exhausted with fear inbetween
A bottomless pit and an eating machine.

I looked to the left and I looked to the right,
Behind me the chasm, before me the bird;
I wished for a moment I'd died in the night.
Which way should I run, each way unpreferred?
And then came the answer, completely absurd.


I asked the great vulture to give me a ride,
To carry me over the pit of remorse.
He answered me, "Sir, I would do so with pride."
And lifted his head growing large as a horse,
With Pegasus wings of incredible force.

"Climb up if you're willing." He said as he bowed,
His two giant legs kneeing down in the dust.
And tipping a wing like a stair he allowed
My tottering legs to step up and adjust
On his featherless neck I had chosen to trust.

"I'll carry you over, but don't you look down.
One look and you’re screaming—a song decomposed.
You’ll fall in the noise till you pray for the sound,
The drum-beating rhythm your heart has composed,
The sound of sweet silence embraced and enclosed.”

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Quintain Stanza

(134) July 7, 2010: The Barista's Blend

THE BARISTA'S BLEND

The Water comes down and the Fire goes up,
The Wind spins around and the Earth's in a cup.

The elements blend and their blending is sweet,
As sweet as the latte you sip while you tweet—

That digital taste for the zips and the rips,
Embedded and shredded removable chips

Of chocolate, vanilla, and carmel panache.
Whatever you're doing don't empty the trash.

It's all in the way you've imported the beans,
And if you've been faithful to clean the machines,

Bacterias come and the viruses go,
They go for the cutest baristas who know

The meaning of life and the clue to the games,
The chart (periodic), the new user names

Of every invader and phisher of files,
Their coffee served up in the grandest of styles.

Don't say it's too costly to pay for a drink
Of flowing elixir that speaks with a wink,

And listens like leather about to be worn,
Or something like beauty about to be born.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Rhyming Couplets

(133) July 6, 2010: Construction 4: Bots Dots & Pinwheels

CONSTRUCTION 4: BOTS DOTS & PINWHEELS

Find a stretch of country road all desolate at night.
Find it when the sky is clear, the moon is full and bright.
Take a bunch of pinwheels made to magnify the light,

Made of cut-up roadway signs like No Left Turn & Stop.
Drill a hole by every dot, and fill each one with glop.
Glop means glue, I knew you knew; just let it go kerplop.

Stick a pinwheel stick in every hole until it dries.
Do be careful not to get the bot-glue in your eyes.
Cars may pass but you'll be dressed in some benign disguise.

Fifty pinwheels ought to do, five hundred would be best.
Work until the sun comes up, or till you face arrest.
When you're done go take your car and give the road a test.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Monorhyme

(132) July 5, 2010: Semicircular Prayer

SEMICIRCULAR PRAYER

Good morning God I don’t feel good,
   And though my head’s attached,
It isn’t working as it should,
   I think my brain’s detached;
I need some Treatment if You would.

I know my eyes are open wide,
   But I can’t see a thing.
I feel an ear on either side,
   But all they do is ring;
Perhaps my cranial nerves are fried.

I’m standing on my own two feet,
   But not for long I fear.
I’ll try my best to be discrete
   When my old inner ear
Decides to dump me on the street.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Quintain Stanza

(131) July 4, 2010: A Story In Verse, Part 3: Across The Flatlands

A Story In Verse, Part 3: ACROSS THE FLATLANDS

I followed the bird with its herald of love,
Imagined it hovered about and above,
As white as a cloudlet all empty of rain—
The magical bird I'd been dreaming of
That kept me engaging the barren terrain.

The dunes now behind me, the flatlands ahead,
I'd heard from my grandfather tales of the dead
All picked to the bone by the vultures that glide
On wings that surpass an eleven foot spread,
That dive on the living who've no place to hide.

So traveling by night with the cross in my eye,
The four fuzzy stars through the dust-shattered sky,
I made my way south doling food from my pack,
A dwindling slosh of a water supply;
My mind pushing forward, my heart pulling back.

When suddenly there up ahead in the gloom
A darkness much darker, a chasm, a tomb;
A column of wind shooting out from the deep
That smelled like the scent of a witch's perfume—
The pungence of incense for langourous sleep.

I stopped like a stone and I stood like a bear,
My senses alert and my muscles aware.
I edged toward the lip of the chasm to look,
Got knocked to the ground by the blast of cold air,
And there, as if frozen, I trembled and shook.

The wind from the chasm was wind of a kind
That blows through your head and erases your mind.
I lay like a living cadaver it seemed,
For hours on end, eyes open but blind,
And fell into visions unwillingly dreamed.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Quintain Stanza