Sunday, November 28, 2010

(120) June 23, 2010: Midnight Skin

MIDNIGHT SKIN

The room is dark with shadows feigning
Melancholy airs, ordaining
Some deep mystery to begin,
As you wrap me up in midnight skin.

A branch against the window brushing
Softly snares your gentle blushing
Chest and cheek and lifted chin,
As you wrap me up in midnight skin.

The candle's flame in fits of flutter
Guides your touch of melted butter,
Gives my mind an easy spin,
As you wrap me up in midnight skin.

Just you and me with time to squander
Over fields of flesh to wander,
Places where we've never been,
As you wrap me up in midnight skin.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Kyrielle

(119) June 22, 2010: Learning To Learn

LEARNING TO LEARN: THE PSYCHODYNAMICS OF SELF-LIMITING
SUBCONSCIOUSLY MOTIVATED PRECOGNITIVE CONSTRUCTS
IN THE LATTER STAGES OF POSTGRADUATE ACADEMIC FRUITION

Thesis
Kinesis.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Rhyming Couplet

(118) June 21, 2010: First Day Of Summer

FIRST DAY OF SUMMER

Our axial tilt is most inclined
   At twenty three and a half degrees,
And all of northern earth mankind
   Must take its turn at getting burned,
And perhaps some retinopathy.
To those who will—our sympathy.

The Tropic of Cancer gets the most,
   Where rays of sun turn every bun
That's nakedly exposed, to toast,
   And all the rest get baked at best;
And yes, it'll come as no surprise—
A few Hot Cheeto flaming thighs.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Novel Verse Form

(117 June 20, 2010: Go Out And Play

GO OUT AND PLAY

Go out and play before it’s time for bed,
You’ve been inside for far too long today.
Turn off the Spider Fight inside your head;
   Go out and play!

Your fingers are so quick to catch your prey,
Your thumb can spin a thousand spiders dead
In one fell swoop inside your web display,

But here on earth no foe will cringe with dread,
No Frisbee falcon fly, no squirt gun spray
Unless you capture fire-breathing Fred;
   Go out and play!

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Roundel

(116) June 19, 2010: A Song For The Zombies

A SONG FOR THE ZOMBIES

If zombies are real and they're walking your way
With blood borne contagion to make you obey,
A Borg-like collective pursuing their prey,
Resistance is futile; they’ll catch you someday,
When your well-wielded weapons won’t hold them at bay,

When you’re down on your luck and you’re sore to the bone,
You’re not on your game, and you’re out of the zone,
The battery’s dead on your cellular phone,
And you’re hidden away in a cavern alone,
In a cold silent darkness like on one has known.

With bravery and skill, you’ve fought and endured,
For years you’ve evaded them grimly obscured
In your camo-chameleon skin undeterred,
Avoiding the virus that cannot be cured;
Now your number is up and your death is assured.

You sense them; you smell them approaching your den,
The living dead women, the living dead men,
Uncannily finding you time and again,
Empowered by what must be demons, and then—
“Dear God O dear God, please save me! Amen.”

Then into the darkness a flame He will bring,
A flame not of fire but of song—and you’ll sing,
“The vipers may bite me, the scorpions may sting,
But the venom won't harm me, it won't do a thing.
I'll stand up and walk, I'm a child of the King.”

Then standing you’ll listen, and know that they’re near,
You’ll walk to the mouth of your newest frontier,
No gun in your hand, no bludgeon, no spear,
Just armed with a song for the zombies to hear,
And you’ll walk out among them without any fear.

They’ll fall back in horror and let you go by,
You’ll pass on beyond them, as crawling they’ll cry,
And drag themselves after you not knowing why.
At the edge of a cliff you'll bid them goodbye;
They'll dive for the rocks at the bottom and die.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Monorhyme

(115) June 18, 2010: Sunshine 7

SUNSHINE 7

We took what we could from the soil;
The timber, the water, the oil.
   Now we're solar as hell,
   And we're doing quiet well,
In our igloos of luminous foil.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Limerick

(114) June 17, 2010: Looking To Jesus

LOOKING TO JESUS

We're passing the time,
   We're waiting for You,
We're watching and praying
   To see what You'll do.

We're spinning in space,
   We're doing our best,
We're hoping and trusting
   To enter Your rest.

We're taking Your love,
   We're giving it free,
We're looking to Jesus
   To bring it to be.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Ballad Meter

(113) June 16, 2010: Color's Wheel

COLOR'S WHEEL

The colors fade and turn to shades
   Of summer beige and gray.
Do colors know some place to go
   We cannot pass to play—

A brilliant world of pooling swirls
   With haloed neon saints,
Awaiting Spring's next color fling
   To barrow out the paints?

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Ballad Meter

(112) June 15, 2010: Let Loose The Song

LET LOOSE THE SONG

Let loose the song of gladness
Let loose the song of praise
Lift up His grace and goodness
The Father of our joyful days

   Refrain
   O Lord of all we praise Your name
   The source of Light's eternal flame
   Your love from age to age the same
   All glory to Your name.

Let loose angelic voices
Let loose the Melody
Embrace His flawless choices
The Architect of Harmony

Let loose the obligatos
Let loose the clarion call
Recite His endless cantos
The Anthem of the All in All

Let loose the royal choir
Let loose ten thousands songs
Crescendo high and higher
The Center of the circling throngs

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Hymn Lyrics

(111) June 14, 2010: Night Fall

NIGHT FALL

Grant me one last wonderful midnight meeting,
One more night fall into your heart completing
Every thought of loving so sweetly given
   Carefree and fleeting.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Sapphic

(110) June 13, 2010: Love On The Factory Floor

LOVE ON THE FACTORY FLOOR

Bright are the lights from the factory floor,
Rusted the latch on the furnace door,
Nothing but dust in the bottom drawer.

Where will she find the route to the sea,
Bandage her leg with a bag of tea,
Lie in the sun by a silver tree.

Why does he wait for the blossom to bloom,
Open the letter that lies in his room,
Sleep in the vacancy left by perfume?

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Monorhyme

(109) June 12, 2010: Invented Games

INVENTED GAMES

Invented games to pass the time,
Described in semicircle rites,
Some tricky hooks stay lured for years,
The best hang on for centuries.

Described in semicircle rites,
The amphitheatric chanting dirge,
Conscripts the mind and feeds the urge.

Some tricky hooks stay lured for years
Beyond the memory, back to what
The dead men heard in the hermit’s hut.

The best hang on for centuries
Enshrined in books and citadels,
Their fame proclaimed by steeple bells.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Trimeric

(108) June 11, 2010: The Buzz In The Window

THE BUZZ IN THE WINDOW

A buzz between the glass and screen,
   A blizzard spindling fizzle whizz,
A battling bio buzz machine;
   I wonder what it really is?

I’m not sure why, but it’s not a fly.
   I know it’s not a bumble bee.
I think it’s got one crazy eye
   That seems to stare right in at me.

It buzzes like the blurry whirr
   Of chainsaws dueling up the street;
They’re slicing up a conifer
   Like butchers carving frozen meat.

It might be part robotic droid
   Or a micro-helicopter thing.
It must be surgically destroyed
   In case it has a deadly sting.

It smacks itself on the window pane,
   Backtracks itself in dizzy spins
On a random swerving slam campaign;
   It stops abrupt and again begins.

I’d like to let it out of there,
   But I’m afraid it might decide
To vanish up my nostril flare
   And choose my brain as a place hide.

That buzz between the glass and screen,
   That blizzard spindling fizzle whizz,
That battling bio buzz machine,
   Can stay right there, whatever it is.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Ballad Meter

(107) June 10, 2010: A Word To The Zombie Warrior

A WORD TO THE ZOMBIE WARRIOR

One sinister night you’ll awake in a fright
   To the sound of the scratching of fingers;
Don’t open the door like so many before
   Where the odor of dying still lingers.

But harness your gun and get ready to run
   With a purpose that’s truly tenacious.
You’ll find your success if you don’t acquiesce
   And your tactics are raw and audacious.

Believe what I say, by the breaking of day
   You had better be high on a tether;
A place of retreat with a stash that’s complete
   And be ready to fly like a feather.

Be mobile, be wise, and don’t look in their eyes
   Just be nimble and quick on the trigger;
And pray that you’ll find some more of your kind
   To pursue them with unflinching vigor.

Your knowledge and skill, to track and to kill,
   Will leave them all brainless and bleeding.
At last if you’re strong you shall right what is wrong
   And resume the old life you were leading.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Ballad Meter

(106) June 9, 2010: Crimson City Run

CRIMSON CITY RUN

We're raging raucous cotton candy
   tripping into town,
We'll make the city melting down
   our modus operandi.

They see us want to be us racing
   twisty hipped and fine;
They'll take the change we bring to mind,
   enjoy the piece we're chasing.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Ballad Meter

(105) June 8, 2010: Second Skin

SECOND SKIN

I've now been watching someone else's life
For twenty years inside my living space.
I see the image streaming from his cam
Attached by plastic straps beside his face.
I eaves-and-eye-drop every move he makes
Enchanted by the chances that he takes.

I've been disabled now for eighteen years;
I get my meals-on-wheels at my front door.
My lawyer blames the LifeCam engineers
My doctor hasn't seen this thing before
Will treat it as he would an OCD
But all the pills I take aren't helping me.

For now I sleep and wake in sync with him,
His gallivanting generosity's my own.
They're sending SecondSkin by EpiSym
For free, since I've become an LC-Clone.
My life with him is just about to start;
Together skin for skin and part for part.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Venus & Adonis Stanza

(104) June 7, 2010: Saggy & Silly & Sullen & Shy

SAGGY & SILLY & SULLEN & SHY

Saggy and Silly and Sullen and Shy,
Went out one night to look at the sky.

And Saggy said, “Look, there's a triplet that slants;
It looks like Orion is losing his pants.”

And Silly saw see-saws & spinners & springs,
And up from the south two piglets with wings.

And Sullen was struck by the black empty space,
With no stars at all (not even a trace).

And Shy dropped a spark in a little glass jar,
Not breathing a word of her wee shooting star.

For whatever we find in the sky overhead,
We’re certain to dream of (asleep in our bed)s.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Rhyming Couplets

(103) June 6, 2010: Stalin's Girl

STALIN'S GIRL

Two cups and a saucer
   Was all she was wearing,
Out walking with Chaucer O. Mega Three Herring,

Her fetish Komodo,
   Misnomered by Stalin,
Her friend from Kyoto who’s half Guatemalan,

A quarter Icelandic,
   A quarter to seven
Each morning eccentrically looks up to heaven

Repeating a passage
   From Ovid in Latin,
Then down to her cleavage like folds of pure satin,

And bows to her beauty,
   And kisses her shoulder,
And makes it his duty to have and to hold her.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Novel Verse Form

(102) June 5, 2010: Whiskey Cure

WHISKEY CURE

The mockingbird is singing in my brain,
That crazy bird is singing in my brain,
His lonely tune just like the midnight train.

My baby left me right past supper time,
She up and left me right past supper time,
She said she’s gone to lead a life of crime.

She’s tired of the way I earn my dough,
So tired of the way I burn my dough,
No money left to pay the debts I owe.

I know she’s riding down that midnight rail,
I can feel her riding by on that long rail,
She’s never coming back to tell the tale.

My baby took her love this time for sure,
And left me nothing but this whiskey cure.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Blues Sonnet

(101) June 4, 2010: A. C. Bacall

A. C. BACALL

The clockmaker giant called "Big Time" Bacall
Said, "Honey, our son is so minutely small
   I think we should christen him
   Anak Chronism
He's only as short as my long hand is tall.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Limerick

(100) June 3, 2010: Lounging By The Fire

LOUNGING BY THE FIRE

The candle in the fireplace
Is melting like a cube of ice.
And sipping on the molten wax,
The yellow man in yellow slacks,
Keeps grinning as he drinks his fill
While there beside him Jelly Jill
Is sitting on a red hot coal
Enjoying hers in a golden bowl.
When down the chimney comes the rain,
A lightning rod and a weather vane,
A cloud, a whirlwind and a boat
And at the helm is Quotable Goat
Reciting William Shakespeare's best,
A sash of green across his chest.
He leaps from boat to piano keys
And starts to play in Japanese
Until the notes that no one knows
Like candles burning decompose
And all the guests swim off to beds
With paddle feet and feathered heads.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Rhyming Couplets

(99) June 2, 2010: The Method

THE METHOD

And so and so the method carries on,
The delicate Corvette of curving stride,
The pure naiveté to doff and don.

The factory of novel sprouting spawn
Conveyor belts the raw resilient hide,
And so and so the method carries on.

The gears of motion turn from dusk to dawn,
And nightly carry in the Jekyll side;
The pure naiveté to doff and don.

The bells and whistles cheer the day undrawn
To draft the still unwieldy Rolls of pride,
And so and so the method carries on.

The engine bolted down in roaring brawn
Disturbs and stirs in search of spins untried;
The pure naiveté to doff and don.

At last the giant doors exhausted yawn
Releasing one more swift vestigial ride,
And so and so the method carries on,
The pure naiveté to doff and don.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Villanelle

(98) June 1, 2010: Balls

BALLS

I've got such balls to ask,
   Why doesn't God do this or that?
The very balls He hung,
   I use to flippantly combat
His cause-enormous Fatherhood,
And jibe as if I understood.

My swinging selfish pomp
   Decides what's right or wrung from Him.
I drag Him off to school,
   The One who clayed me at His whim,
Who sprung my skin & bone & breath,
And breathes me daily out of death.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Novel Verse Form

(97) May 31, 2010: Stardom

STARDOM

Exhibition’s station man
Voyeurism’s dancer girl
Met by chance on Platform’s ban
Breaking through the Crowd’s control
Looking out on Place’s past
Crooked Stallion’s took them fast
Suckled off to Actor’s cast
Dressed to kill with Ceiling’s fan
Paparazzi’s public swirl
Taking Innocent’s, "At last!"

This they knew and knew it well:
No one left the tale to tell.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Novel Verse Form

(96) May 30, 2010: One On One

ONE ON ONE

There's always a story beneath the face,
   The look on the lookers is not what it seems,
The rules of estrangement will not erase,
One guilty acquitted with masterful grace,
   One innocent hung from the beams.

There's one in a million who chisels fear
   And answers the mask of the hider no more,
Who steps from the crowd with a piercing leer,
One innocent fist that refuses to hear
   One guilty unlocking the door.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Quintain Stanza

(95) May 29, 2010: Arizona Scroll

ARIZONA SCROLL

I own a piece of Arizona,
The easy piece I took to ride,
A narrow strip of Arizona,
Only seven inches wide.

I rolled it up for when I'm older,
To play the memory of that day,
A shoulder soft for when I'm older,
Riding off in dreams away.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Ballad Meter

(94) May 28, 2010: Thousand Mile Ride

THOUSAND MILE RIDE

The full moon's rising on the open road
My bags are packed, my treasures stowed
My tank is full of golden fuel
The midnight sky is clear and cool
For a thousand mile ride.

My engine's tuned to a fine refrain
My headlights beam through the dark terrain
I've left behind the bleak and bland
To stretch my wheels across the land
For a thousand mile ride.

My riding boots are laced up tight
My helmet's snug and feels just right
The folks back home are safe and sound
I'm flying two feet off the ground
For a thousand mile ride.

I'll just be gone a day or two
To catch a glimpse of a wider view
It's hard to tell what I might find
But I'll be back with peace of mind
From a thousand mile ride.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Quintain Stanza

(93) May 27, 2010: Beyond Repair

BEYOND REPAIR

If you should find me crumpled in a heap
Beyond repair and very nearly dead,
My words erased by quickly coming sleep,

Please whisper gently as you hold my head
And tell me something I might want to know
Like, “Please don’t worry now, & please don’t dread.”

Remind me that this world is not my home
And soon with Jesus I will ever be;
Then dial 9-1-1, but do it slow.

Come ride along in back, and stay with me,
And if you would, please softly sing a hymn
Like “Morning by morning new mercies I see.”

And don't you cry; no sense in getting grim.
Just stay with me, and pray with me, and tell
Me all about the shining Seraphim

That soon will carry me to where they dwell
In feathered flight, no time to stop and grieve;
Hello, hello, and never more farewell.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Terza Rima

(92) May 26, 2010: Away

AWAY

A sharp and fancy jackknife jewel
She perches prim upon her stool
With leggings crossed she plays it cool

As all the boys confused with pain
Refreshed by her sweet dazzling rain
Keep circling circles round in vain

Not really knowing what they want
In jest and swagger nonchalant
While she with lonely-hearted flaunt

Just wishes one would stop and stay
And scoop her up in love's display
And walk her out the door—away.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Monorhyme

(91) May 25, 2010: The Amphibious Flier

THE AMPHIBIOUS FLIER

I see a ship come sailing in,
A sculptured frigate long and thin;
Her body’s carved like a violin,
   Her timbers tall
With windmill blades that spin
   The blurring squall.

The gale blows hard and strong,
But lightly like a nursery song
The shining schooner flies along
   Approaching land
As if terrestrially her wheels belong
   Upon the sand.

And as I watch, she leaves the seas
To skim the beach and onward flees
Before the ever-chasing breeze;
   A chariot now
Seduced along by unseen steeds
   Before her prow.

Across the countryside she goes,
Her motion serpentinely flows
As deep within her neck their glows
   A brightening flame
Of blooming energetic rose
   That none can tame.

And as I watch, her sterns ignite,
Her double sterns now rocket bright,
Careening to a stellar height
   In one swift arc;
And left behind her streaking flight—
   A question mark.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Burns Stanza

(90) May 24, 2010: Acquittal

ACQUITTAL

I woke up late and walked outside
   To take a look around.
Though nearly noon my cast-off pride
   Still lay upon the ground

Just where I'd left it late last night
   When first I let it go.
The look of it was thin and slight,
   A latticework of snow.

I picked it up and tried it on
   But it had shrunk so small,
I swallowed it with half a yawn
   And one quick swig of gall.

I felt a wave within my chest
   Of something leaving me,
A swift exchange of hornet's nest
   For hushed tranquility.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Ballad Meter

(89) May 23, 2010: The Astronaut Stripper

THE ASTRONAUT STRIPPER

The astronaut stripper confessed,
"My zero-gravity breasts
   May flatten I fear
   In the atmosphere,
So please let's get on with these tests."

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Limerick

Saturday, November 27, 2010

(88) May 22, 2010: Reach

REACH

I have eleven thousand verbs
   That I can chose to Do.
I give the cue, the brain perturbs
   The nervous system stew,

And all at once I'm doing just
   The verb I thought about,
With no real time to think-adjust
   Before the action's out.
But if I switch the mode to Speech.
   Allowing just pretend,
When I say "reach" I do not reach
   Though mental arms extend.

What is this act I did not do?
   What difference did it make?
Is there a meaning to construe?
   Is anything at stake?

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Ballad Meter

(87) May 21, 2010: The Allergic Novitiate

THE ALLERGIC NOVITIATE

The allergic novitiate Katherine Quinn,
Began her vow of silence again
   Whenever she sneezed,
   Falling down on her knees
Crying, "Bless me Father for I have sinned!"

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Limerick

(86) May 20, 2010: One Dimension Up

ONE DIMENSION UP

Let's say for sake of argument
   That like a map which signifies
A territory not itself,
   This earth of ours beneath blue skies,
   This habitat we call our home,
Is just a map of someplace else—
   Some Kubla Kahn, some pleasure dome,
Just one dimension up the stair
From map to globe, and globe to there.

And if our supposition's true,
   That This is just a map of That,
Then every stone and leaf and face
   Is pointing off to where it's at,
   An emblematic metaphor
Of some immense uncharted place;
   Degrees of freedom to explore
Beyond our tethered flesh and bone,
A field of vision still unknown.

What follows then from this new view,
   This paradigm of shifted scale?
How should we move toward this new light
   From our topography of Braille?
   How would a two-dimension man
Imagine climbing, jumping, flight,
   Beguiled within his diagram?
If we would go, then let's begin
By asking God to change our skin.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Novel Verse Form

(85) May 19, 2010: H2

H2

It’s colorless, odorless, tastelessly bland,
But makes up three-quarters of all that’s at hand.
It’s solid by land, and liquid by sea;
You breathe it in you and I breathe it in me,
There isn’t a place where a Hydrogen’s not
No matter how cold, no matter how hot,
No matter how far, no matter how near
There’s even a Hydrogen stuck in your ear.
It’s made of just one tiny proton of stuff
And a speedy electron that give it some fluff.
Wherever you go you’ll find Hydrogen there,
And wherever there’s one, you’ll find it’s a pair.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Rhyming Couplets

(84) May 18, 2010: Construction 3: Flying Keyboard

CONSTRUCTION 3: FLYING KEYBOARD

Unfold your laptop till it breaks in half,
   Then burn the screen with Kerosene
   And don’t feel badly if you laugh.

Then get a tube of gold, a tube of green,
   And carefully on every key
   Paint brand new symbols never seen.

Encrust the rest with reddish two's & three's,
   Then left & right attach a kite
   And fly it on a Florida breeze,

And keep it flying high by lantern light,
   Between a calf & a giraffe
   Until the middle of the night.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Novel Verse Form

(83) May 17, 2010: Protection

PROTECTION

Protection is the platinum I crave,
   To stay the grief and chain the beasts of pain;
And if robust enough, to misbehave
   Without a consequence to entertain;
Immunity from any poor result;
A place to thumb my nose as I exult.

If only pure impunity were mine,
   A Teflon coating thick and slick as ice
That no contrived suspicion could malign,
   No finger pointing out some minor vice,
But free & clear and sailing through the fray,
I’d glide the gauntlet’s maze like child's play.

Indemnify me, mollify me, stage
   A coup d'état before they pick the lock
Of my encrypted antiviral cage.
   Let none approach me, no one knock
Or tap or tamper with my crystal calm,
No agitator cockle my aplomb.

Protection is the platinum I choose
   To thwart the silver rounds of circumstance,
That will not ever fail to always lose
   While I outwit the sloppy rules of chance.
I’ll flirt with every game that can be swayed,
Completely safe within my masquerade.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem #83
Venus & Adonis Stanza

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

(82) May 16, 2010: Steerage

STEERAGE

Hello there Captain Burton, Sir,
I never thought you’d stoop to this.
Why aren’t you topside wearing fur
And sipping bubbly, kiss by kiss,
With your propitious dilettante
Who surely knows just what you want?

I can’t believe you’d climb down here
Below the decks of decadence
To chew the fat and bend an ear
With all us bums-in-residence.
We tip our gallon jugs of rum
And take our women as they come.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Daffodils Stanza

(81) May 15, 2010: The Manuscript

THE MANUSCRIPT

If only I could find the manuscript
I buried underneath the house last spring
Inside a freezer bag both locked and zipped
All strung up snug with fifteen yards of string
And duck taped thick with two full rolls of tape—
A silver bullet brick of dynamite
To blast a ragged crack for my escape
From Dawdle South to Northern Expedite—

I'd be the happy man I thought I'd be
When way back when I first imagined it,
And sweet significance would shine on me.
I'd have the very thing to set me free
To grant myself the laurels of legit
And humbly cede to my celebrity.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Sonnet

(80) May 14, 2010: Folgers Forever

FOLGERS FOREVER

A coffee cart somehow came loose
And started rolling down the street.
The guy in charge, Barista Bruce,
His latte loving Marguerite

All French and kissing him hello,
Was unaware until he heard
The homeless cowboy yelling, “Whoa!”
And saw the cart just crossing Third.

He left that latte loving mouth
And dashed down Main in tragic haste,
While overhead and flying south
A flock of geese no time to waste

Descended on that coffee cart
And lifted it with honks of glee
Like some surreal performance art
Ignoring Bruce’s frenzied plea,

“Come back you geese! That’s all I own!
That’s all I have for Marguerite!”
Just then he felt his mobile phone,
It was a tender touching tweet

From his true love just two blocks back.
Her text went, “Darling, don’t you fret,
For kissing French, you’ve got the knack,
There’s always money we can get.

But what we’ve got cannot be bought.”
The second tweet, “I’ll marry you,
If you’ll just bring a coffee pot;
I’ve got some Folgers we can brew.”

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Ballad Meter

(79) May 13, 2010: The Drowned Cathedral

THE DROWNED CATHEDRAL

Adrift in my craft on the after-storm ocean,
   The clouds have departed, the moon's nearly full,
   While Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel and Saiph,
(The limbs of Orion) unmoved by the motion

Of little disturbances, tiny distortions,
   From where their important celestial events,
   In sync with the turning of seasonal shifts,
Hold fast to their golden indwelling proportions;

I suddenly find in a moonlit enchantment
   The sunken cathedral immersed in the flood,
   My eyes disbelieving, my mind welling joy;
I've found the safe harbor, the place of pure moment,

Unsinkably solidly founded on something
   Akin to the four in the heavens above—
   A cross in the sky with a Trinity nave,
A cross in the sea with the power to save.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Novel Verse Form

(78) May 12, 2010: Something Slow

SOMETHING SLOW

Dear God, Your majesty, Your highness stands
   Much higher than

   The orders of our ego-smitten world
      In self so curled
   That not unless You cut us free, unwrap
      Our arms that strap
   Our selves within ourselves all tethered sick
      Of living quick...

We long for something slow and pure and true
   Like loving You.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Rhyming Couplets

(77) May 11, 2010: Promised Land

PROMISED LAND

Here in the basket like Moses in Egypt,
   a life papyritious about to begin,
There on the shore stepping into the river
   a princessly maiden with fairest of skin,

Bathing and beautiful, muse for the boy
   who oblivious floats toward a fate unforeseen;
Orphaned elusively, swaddled in secrecy,
   soon to be son of Hatshepsut the Queen.

Who is Hatshepsut, and who is this Moses,
   and what is this river of fate called the Nile?
Let me be Moses, and you be Hatshepsut,
   and let’s call the river the Digital File.

Out of the river and into the desert
   to wander my people for forty long years;
Never to step into Canaan’s immensity
   seen from the mountain through penitent tears.

Where is this desert and who are my people
   and why must I stand on a mountain and grieve?
Speech is my desert, and Words are my people;
   projecting my voice toward a future I leave

Up in the air and down for the count where there’s
   more of the Mystery and less of the Truth,
Where all the King’s horses and all the King’s men
   have drowned in their visions unschooled and uncouth.

Dying on Nebo, old Moses was shown just a
   glimpse of the world he would never command.
This is my moment of seeing the future
   and knowing for me there is no Promised Land.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Rhyming Couplets

(76) May 10, 2010: A Quartet Of Double Dactyls Loosely Coiled Around James Watson & Francis Crick

A QUARTET OF DOUBLE DACTYLS
LOOSELY COILED AROUND
JAMES WATSON & FRANCIS CRICK

I
Hicketty-Picketty
Watson-and-Crick-ity
Never was meant to be
Holy as Grail;
Etiological
Cytopathology
Often comes down to a
Head or a Tail.

II
Back-in-Oz, Back-in-Oz,
Jimmy D. Watson was
Hiding behind the old
Curtain of tricks;
Not very nobly said,
“Deoxyribonu-
cleic was mine only
Mine it’s not Crick’s.”

III
Hobbity-Nobbity
M. H. F. Wilkins’
UV microscopy
Gave them a thrill;
Watson & Crick took a
Look and got hooked on the
Biogeometry,
Wilkins got nil.

IV
Barney-has-Bernie-has
Alfred no belly has
Watson & Crick are the
Ones who got phat;
Appetites hungry for
Sesquipedalian
Acids and Bases and
Dishes like that.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Double Dactyl

(75) May 9, 2010: A Synopsis of Sons

A SYNOPSIS OF SONS

It was the 30th of May in 1952
That Davey Dreekis full of wisdom
made his way to you,
And you became a mother.

And then on the 9th of March in 1954
Tommy Tinkle Toe Rabbit began
to challenge and explore
The outer limits like no other.

And then on the 9th of August in 1956
Bobby Bacchus came out of the African
jungle and into the mix;
A tender son and brother.

But the 29th of August in 1959
Was the auspicious day that the light
of Donny Dinkis began to shine!
What mother could need another?

Today is the 9th of May in 2010
Your labors are over and no one will ever
expect you to do it again—
So why all the fuss and the bother?

Because you’re the best of all mothers,
And we as your four faithful sons,
Are surely the luckiest ones
Among the most fortunate few
To be blessed with a mother like you!

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Novel Verse Form

(74) May 8, 2010: The Swimmer

THE SWIMMER

The naked swimmer backstrokes up the bay,
At peace with all the sky and all the sea,
In deep repose upon the surface sway.

Discretely bundled on a rock the small cache
Of clothes implies a comeback guarantee,
As the naked swimmer backstrokes up the bay.

A figure on the cliff not far away
Commands a view of the swimmer pure and free,
In deep repose upon the surface sway.

The water’s arms still warm at end of day
Suggest delirious eternity,
As the naked swimmer backstrokes up the bay.

The figure climbing down evokes dismay,
And waving calls the swimmer, with a windswept plea,
In deep repose upon the surface sway.

Then dropping down as if to pray,
The figure falls in fierce calamity,
As the naked swimmer backstrokes up the bay
In deep repose upon the surface sway.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Villanelle

(73) May 7, 2010: Driving Directions

DRIVING DIRECTIONS

Maps are not the territories,
Tales are not the stories.
What we've seen of what we're telling,
Witnessed and compelling,
Is at best approximation,
One interpretation.

Prime reality is ever
Caught behind endeavor,
Our unconscious mind redressing
All that it's confessing;
What we know's been conjugated
With the words we've stated.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Rhyming Couplets

(72) May 6, 2010: No Anthem's Blaze

NO ANTHEM'S BLAZE

I hear there's something chain link fence
   About those trust fund guys,
No matter how their codes condense
   There's still no room to rise.

And since their beveled edging glass
   Outshines their golden ring,
They have no wink to move en masse,
   No anthem's blaze to bring.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Ballad Meter

(71) May 5, 2010: Dyne & Dash

DYNE & DASH

Let's dyne on some cognitive joules,
And chew on reality's rules,
Just slice up the Gordian Knot,
And nuke it right here on the spot,
Let why be the coming because,
And here be the dream that once was.

It's time to dash out of this place,
Escape from the old data base,
Leap into the quantum of things,
Thread silicon needles with strings,
Release our old Icarus fear,
And fly the new tip of our spear.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Rhyming Couplets

(70) May 4, 2010: The Cursor's Touch

THE CURSOR’S TOUCH

If I traverse the strange canals of Mars,
Or dive the Marianna Trench—online;
If with my cursor I finesse the stars,
Imagineering nerve to joule to dyne
In ways fantastical to Newton’s mind,
Unproved by academics in their chairs,
Who say what can and can’t be thus combined,
Should I defer, descend to splitting hairs?

Or should I just admit that I don’t know
The whys and wherefores of this orphic art,
Concede my grasp statistically below
Their knowledge of the periodic chart,
And wave them off like a unified field of gnats,
Back to their boxes of Schrodinger Cats?

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Shakespearean Sonnet

(69) May 3, 2010: Half-Daddy Birthday

HALF-DADDY BIRTHDAY

Today you're half your Daddy's age,
Which means you're relatively sage;
You're half as prudent, half as wise
And half of every other gauge

By which maturity is sized.
You're half for real and half disguised,
Prestigiously, just half as ranked.
You're half brand new and half revised,

You're half as honored, half as thanked,
But half as likely to get spanked.
So count your blessings on both hands
Today you're getting piggy-banked

For nothing special but your plans
To do your best as life demands
And know your Daddy understands
'Cause he's the truest of your fans.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Rubaiyat Stanza

(68) May 2, 2010: Under The Midnight Sun

UNDER THE MIDNIGHT SUN

There really isn't that much more to do;
   This planet earth of ours,
   A dot among the stars,
Is just the aftermath of nothing new.

There's food and drink in endless sweet supply;
   A spoon of caviar
   By candlelit guitar,
Or keep-it-simple moonlit apple pie.

There's passage you can buy to anywhere,
   From here to NYC,
   So fleet of foot and free,
Until the globe's been played like solitarie.

There's money to be made in suitcase lots
   To spend on fancy goods
   And upscale neighborhoods
All tied up tight in ribbon glitter knots.

There's power to wield and posts of enviable fame;
   A corner penthouse view
   Defines just who is who,
And everything comes down to place and name.

There comes a time when everything's been done;
   The bucket list's complete,
   What's left is just repeat
The same old loopy loops under the midnght sun.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Novel Verse Form

(67) May 1, 2010: A Latte In Your Honor

A LATTE IN YOUR HONOR

A latte in your honor my old friend,
In memory of the memories we have made;
The years have rolled, but love admits no end.

The ancient canvas cannot help but fade,
And neural pathways lose their sharpened groove—
The memory of the memories we have made.

The wind and rain a mountain may remove,
Or rivers carve a canyon through the rock,
While neural pathways lose their sharpened groove

Through ages lost in drought, and blown with chalk,
Refreshing rain no more than thristy dreams
Of rivers carving canyons through the rock.

But now I see you here unchanged it seems,
The living proof that friends endure, although
Refreshing rain, no more than thirsty dreams,

Have vanished into times of long ago.
A latte in your honor my old friend;
You're living proof that friends endure although
The years have rolled—that love admits no end.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Terzanelle

(66) April 30, 2010: Roofs Of Siena

ROOFS OF SIENA

O take me away to the roofs of Siena,
Alone in a window of memories lost.
Away in the distance the Torre del Mangia
   Looms as it did in those days long ago.
   Remembering you, and feeling as though
This place where our paths in a yesterday crossed,
   May cross once again in the dark streets below.

It wasn't quite here, but I'm sure it was close,
This view from this window seems nearly the same.
And hidden from view the Piazza del Campo
   Where strolling we first ever spoke of desire,
   Pledging our hearts the true love they require;
A moment in time with no adequate name,
   Something like air mixed with laughter and fire.www

O take me away to the roofs of Siena,
And let me remember your beautiful face.
We tossed silver coins in the blue Fonte Gaia
   Not telling the secrets we knew that we shared,
   Chasing in haste to our haven prepared
In a room with a window, a night to embrace,
   To burn in our memories a time uncompared.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Novel Verse Form

(65) April 29, 2010: The FAce

THE FACE

I was out in the woods on the mountainside
   Just looking around at the place.
It was close to my home on the other side
   Of what they've been calling, "The Face,"

Since some locals reported a curious stone
   Resembling Sigmund Freud.
But to me it resembled the pelvic bone
   Of a counterfeit alienoid.

I had taken some pictures and mailed them on
   To my contact at ArcheType,
Then decided to bushwhack for possible spawn
   But figured the story was hype.

Then I heard a sound like the tapping of nails
   From a customer waiting too long,
Or the plotting of evil as in the dark tales
   Where the dragons and demons belong.

All at once I determined to head for home,
   With a shiver of dread through my veins,
For I saw on my left a silvery dome
   That was covered all over with chains.

As I turned to run, a chain caught my leg
   And I fell with a thud on the ground.
Then the chain pulled me into that colorless egg
   Where inside I was silenced and bound.

After seemingly hours alone in the dark,
   A most radiant creature appeared;
Like a woman in beauty, but stern and stark,
   A commander respected and feared.

As a mother her infant, she lifted me up
   And cradled me close to her chest.
To my lips she presented a red-rimmed cup
   That I drank till my mind was at rest.

Then she whispered a word in my somnolent ear,
   A word of maternal embrace,
And I knew I had come to the final frontier,
   For that wonderful word was, “Grace.”

And she kissed my lips and lay me down
   Just a bundle of boyish pride
And I woke in my bed in our little town
   Tucked away on a mountainside.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Ballad Meter

(64) April 28, 2010: Sheriff Stan Sniff

SHERIFF STAN SNIFF

Sheriff Stan Sniff,
Needs only the slightest whiff,
To find the grizzly scene of the crime,
And collars the criminal every time.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Clerihew

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

(63) April 27, 2010: Not An Astronaut

NOT AN ASTRONAUT

I could not be an astronaut
No matter how I'd like to;
I'm more adept at diddlysquat,
And places I can hike to.

Aboard the shuttle I would freak
Just thinking I could die there.
I'd really have to hugely tweak
A job where I just lie there

Looking out the window at
The earth so far below me,
Hoping that I don't go splat
If parachutes won't slow me.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #63
Ballad Meter

(62) April 26, 2010: Autonomic Weapon

AUTONOMIC WEAPON

I'm wired up with reflex loops
So powerfully tenacious,
That all the armies, all the troops,
No matter how predacious,

Could stand and threaten me with death,
In torturous rendition,
And yet at my next halting breath
I'd cough without volition.

And that would be my last cough coughed,
My final itching itched,
My autonomics molotoved
By Vyacheslav Mikhailovich.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #62
Ballad Meter

(61) April 25, 2010: C. S. Lewis

C. S. LEWIS

Clive Staples Lewis
Most certainly knew his
Holistic devotion to Aslan and Tash,
Would offer a dualistic dipping of cash.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #61
Clerihew

(60) April 24, 2010: The Old Telescope

THE OLD TELESCOPE

I found the old telescope under the chair.
I looked all around, but no one was there.
I lifted the scope for an eye full of stare,
And heard a thin voice from out of thin air.
I heard the voice say, "You'd better beware.
Before you start gazing, you'd better prepare.
A Time Telescoper may give you a scare
Unless you're a man who can do and can dare."
"I am," I replied. "And in truth I declare,
The future is something I'm ready to square,
To tie up its braid in a ribbon with flair,
And let it reveal every step, every stair,
All the way down from here to where
I'm sitting alone in a telescope chair,
Watching the future I knew wasn't fair,
Finding myself the unfortunate heir
Of a Time Telescoper beyond all compare.
But now it's become an alarming affair,
I see myself watching me looped in despair;
Finding that telescope under that chair,
Looking around to find nobody there,
Lifting the scope to my eye for the rare
Glimpse of Future that none can repair.
I wish I had taken the Time to prepare.
I can't stop me watching myself isn't there.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #60
Monorhyme

(59) April 23, 2010: The Puppet's Question

THE PUPPET’S QUESTION

There once was a puppet named Drew,
Who wanted to know if I knew,
“Without all these strings,
Would I do all these things?
And if you were like me, would you?”

"It's hard to admit, but it's true,
I'm sure I'm a lot like you.
I can't see the strings,
But I do lots of things
That really, I don't want to do."

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #59
Limerick Stanza

(58) April 22, 2010: Here & Now

HERE & NOW

No matter what the Fates allow,
Come lonely sorrow, pain or fear;
One truth remains: it’s always now,
And God is always here.

No matter what the Future brings,
Your failing flesh can persevere;
“It’s always now,” your spirit sings,
“And God is always here.”

Whenever thoughts of death assail,
And shadows press so very near;
It’s always now—in Christ prevail—
Your God is always here.

And when in Glory 'round His thrown,
Where all is light in every sphere;
It will be now, as you have known,
And God is always here.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #58
Ballad Meter

(57) April 21, 2010: The Animal Alphabet

THE ANIMAL ALPHABET

If you were as strong as a tiny ant,
You could carry a car, but I bet you can’t.

If you were a beetle fat and round,
You’d fly from the grass with a buzzing sound.

If you were as quick as an alley cat,
Instead of a ball you’d be catching a rat.

If you were a dog with a noisy bark,
You’d never again be afraid of the dark.

If an elephant had a nose like you,
He’d need a long straw to drink water through.

If, like a frog, you could jump real high,
You could leap over trees, and not even try.

If you ran out of grass for your pet goat,
He’d settle for boots and an overcoat.

If you had hair like the mane on a horse,
You wouldn’t go back to the barber, of course.

If you were a gentleman’s pet iguana,
He’d buy you a necklace and name you Rashawna.

If you were a jellyfish out in the sea,
Not jelly, not fish, but a plankton you’d be.

If you were a kingsnake, you would be king.
But a queen for a kingsnake? No such thing!

If you were a lion, Lord of the Pride,
You'd never be scared or have to hide.

If you like bananas and swing by your tail,
That makes you a monkey instead of a whale.

If you were a newt you'd live in a bog;
You'd look like a lizard but act like a frog.

If an octopus wanted to roller skate,
Two wouldn't do, he'd have to use eight.

If you're hearing an echo of just what you said,
It could be the parrot perched on your head.

If you were a bee-egg who ate Royal Jelly,
You’ve grown to be Queen Bee with eggs in your belly.

If you ate some stew and they said it was "Rabbit,"
Would eating that stew be your regular habit?

If you were a snail with one foot and a shell,
Your footprint would look like a slick line of gel.

If it is your 200th birthday today,
I’ll bet you’re the turtle who lives in the bay.

If you were a horse with a long sharp horn,
You’d live only in myths—you’re a unicorn.

If you were a vulture, circling the sky,
You’d be waiting for some poor creature to die.

If you are a warthog, of bacon you’re made;
Two tusks and a snout in the African shade.

If a swimming fish skeleton is in your aquarium,
It’s an x-ray fish; no need to bury him.

If you were a yak, a tall shaggy beast,
On high mountain grasses you’d happily feast.

If you were a zebra with white stripes and black,
You wouldn’t let cowboys ride on your back.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #57
Rhyming Couplets

(56) April 20, 2010: Alias Face

ALIAS FACE

I wonder if a man can change his name,
And if he changed it, what his face would do?
But I, not knowing how, have stayed the same.

To call a fire something not a flame,
Like looking through a different lens, may skew;
I wonder if a man can change his name?

The felon wanting to avoid his blame,
May banish who his prosecutors knew,
But I, not knowing how, have stayed the same.

Can twisting labels really turn the game,
Or is it what it is, both P and Q?
I wonder if a man can change his name?

The singularity of starring fame
May take an alias for its debut,
But I, not knowing how, have stayed the same.

I daily face my crimes and eat my shame,
With no one else but me to pin it to.
I wonder if a man can change his name;
But I, not knowing how, have stayed the same.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #56
Villanelle

(55) April 19, 2010: All Night Jam

ALL NIGHT JAM


2200
Hello to this my all night jam;
I’m starting here from where I am.
It’s ten o’clock and all is well,
Room one-thirteen just bid farewell
And sits already down by grace,
All tears of joy in Jesus’ face.
I’m not quite sure if fires of hell
Burn now or not, but time will tell.
My motivation to believe
I hope remains a bit naïve
Because the more I try to squeeze
The doubt, the less my spirit sees.

2245
Hello to this, hello to that,
Hello to where the music’s at.
I want to sing the circle round,
My footsore soul on grassy ground,
To dance like Adam for his Eve,
Her eyes a glossy quick qui vive,
And mine intent to know her wish
To have me swim her angelfish
As far upstream as it can go
To find the meaning of “to know,”
To learn the Braille of flesh and blood,
To do our blooming, bud for bud.

2345
Hello to this sweet night of ease,
And getting paid for expertise
Not needed when the problems solve
So easily, and troubles all dissolve
In effervescent bubble-ash
And blow their suds to sate the trash.
I’ve rounded once to every floor
Establishing a snap rapport.
The usual superstition’s gone,
And “quiet” needn’t be withdrawn
Or knocked-on-wood or quickly shushed,
Because tonight, we won’t be rushed.

0030
Prolific and audacious are
The words I’ll make my double star,
The guiding principle of this,
A day to fathom just what is,
And just what might have been
Or what might be if I begin
To tell the things I see and sense,
The things that ask for recompense.
I’ve got the time; I’ll take the stairs,
I’ll check to see if someone cares
That in these hours of easy work
The simple needs of living lurk.

0100
Its one A.M. and only six
Emergencies of pick-up sticks
Are counting gurney-minute sweeps
As at the desk the dozer sleeps;
His basal metabolic rate
Shrugs off a caffeinated state
And in agreement nods his way
From late at night to early day.
And who am I to shake my head?
And who am I to wake the dead?
Tonight we’ll love our very best,
We’ll take our time, enjoy our rest.

0145
Amiri Baraka, you’re pretty good,
You’d do much better than Al Young would,
If staying alert and being alive
Depended upon your black-lash jive.
You know the hip hop flip of the tongue
But can’t compete with Mister Young
In cool sophisticated calm
The kind that might defuse the bomb
And bring the White Man to his knees
To ask forgiveness, if you please.
You’re still a fighter, round fifteen,
A greased-up lightning war machine.

0300
For those who sleep the night is brief,
For those awake the night’s a thief,
Come sneaking in to steal their piece
Of what it is they must release
If ever they are going to heal
Resume their lives of sweat and steel,
Enjoy the fruits of work and play
To live like kings for another day.
The woman who awoke in pain
Just now, just needed to explain
A thing or two of such and such—
And one unspoken need for touch.

0430
At half past six that triple shot
Was just the thing to hit the spot,
To energize my foggy brain
And shift me into my domain
Of cool collected leadership,
Just grab the wheel and let ‘er rip!
But now ten hours down the line
My empire’s in a steep decline,
It once was vast and powerful
But now is small and sorrowful,
And no amount of stimulant
Will get me back to full percent.

0530
It’s data-gathering time again;
Distill the atoms from the skin
Of some two hundred mouths
Pronouncing each their morning vows
To get themselves a clean report
Or pay some devil at last resort
To get them out of here by noon
Or if not then, then make it soon.
And now I sit me down to count,
To tell the Day what Night’s about,
To tally beds still occupied
And sketch the plot of those who died.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #55
Rhyming Couplets

(54) April 18, 2010: My Little Medley

MY LITTLE MEDLEY

The numbered scaffold built for this façade
Has thirty thousand six eight two connections.
I’m eighteen thousand four nine six toward God,
With just twelve thousand one eight six odd questions,
To ask His instant-answer measuring rod,
Before I add to His pure golden sections,
All fractalled neat within His omni-quad,
My little medley for His vast collections.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #54
Novel Verse Form

Friday, November 12, 2010

(53) April 17, 2010: Recital

RECITAL

She's learned to play it wrong so well,
I've promised not to tell.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #53
Epigram

(52) April 16, 2010: The Joneses

THE JONESES

Everybody’s got their brand of cool,
Looking out their window silly eyes,
Sipping up their private label fuel,
Screen play acting out their numbers pool,
Betting through derivatives of size,
Faintly risking their Pyritic Rule,
All dressed rightly up in their disguise,
Plagiarizing Einstein’s Nobel Prize.

Each in soulful anguish tiptoes past,
Hoping not to wake the jester’s dream.
This is all they know that may not last,
All that may not be though it may seem.

Mutually they feign this casual air,
Flawlessly pretending not to stare.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #52
Sonnet

(51) April 15, 2010: Oral Tradition

ORAL TRADITION

It's all about oral tradition.
Assume the mnemonic position:
  It has to be said
  So it sticks in the head,
If crafting a quote's your ambition.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #51
Limerick

(50) April 14, 2010: Lava Tube

LAVA TUBE

Cavern’s dark
Little spark
Water still
Air is chill
All alone
In the stone
Underground
Not a sound
Lost my way
One more day
I’ll survive
If I dive
Water’s deep
Walls are steep
Hold my breath
Life or death
Kick my feet
No retreat
This is it
Never quit
Aching chest
Air obsessed
Light at last
Faster fast
Reaching through
Overdue
Fainting now
Know not how
All is lost
Pay the cost
Sudden splash
Brilliant flash
Living air
Everywhere

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #50
Rhyming Couplets

(49) April 13, 2010: Night Shift Blues

NIGHT SHIFT BLUES

I worked all night, I slept all day,
I didn’t get a chance to play,
  And now it’s night again.
When I got up the sun went down;
There’s not a blinkin’ soul around;
  I think I’ll ring a friend.

But all my friends are sound asleep,
And those awake are counting sheep;
  I’m stuck here all alone.
I’ll watch a movie (hope it’s long);
I’ll sing myself a sanguine song,
  And sit here by the phone.

And if I’m lucky you might call
To say you just can’t sleep at all
And would I care to chat.
But then just as I’d start to speak
You’d do that snoring snorkeling squeak,
And fall asleep—like that!

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #49
Novel Verse Form

(48) April 12, 2010: Abide With Me

ABIDE WITH ME

Saved by the Father’s gift of wondrous grace;
Raised from my sleep to see Thy shining face;
Life everlasting, Lord, with Thee I’ll spend;
Praising Thy name in glory without end.

So in this hope I live from day to day,
Knowing that Thou wilt keep me in Thy way;
Not life nor death, nor any other thing,
Can separate us, O my Lord and King.

I gladly pledge my life to this good news
If Thou wilt send, I never will refuse;
Thou, Christ, my Savior, rest I find in Thee,
My joy is full if Thou abide with me.

D. Edgar Lamp
Additional verses to the hymn by Henry Francis Lyte, 1847

www.TheDailyPoem.org #48
Hymn Lyrics

(47) April 11, 2010: Among Thieves

AMONG THIEVES

Before your pyromantic dancers
  Resume their gyroscopic waltz,
Before their esoteric answers
  Confute this con’s agnostic faults;

I’ll find an ordinary hustler
  Who wants to make an honest buck,
And call the hardest working rustler
  To steal me blind and call me schmuck.



D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Ballad Meter

(46) April 10, 2010: The Fourth Flight

THE FOURTH FLIGHT

A helicopter built for one
Was parked beside a golden tent;
The note attached read, “Just For Fun.”
The envelope, “Informed Consent.”
The box was labeled, “Cinnamon Bun.”
And I arrived with great delight,
Not knowing why or whose intent,
But leaped aboard and took my flight.

The blue propellers blithely spun
And braved me through a swift ascent,
Till landing in a spot of sun
I asked myself, “To what extent
Have you gone mad or come undone?”
You’ve gentled on this towering height
Beside a glider’s soon descent…”
I leaped aboard and took my flight.

I lofted out through evening sun,
A serpentine of timing spent,
Until at last though just begun
I wafted in on slick cement
With visions clearly all-for-one.
But there a pontoon flier kite
Enticed me with its wind-filled vent:
I leaped aboard and took my flight.

Just as I made my sea-wing run,
There drew beside me slow and light,
The Giant Osprey Diver sent—
I leaped aboard and took my flight.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #46
Ballade

(45) April 9, 2010: Magic Catch

MAGIC CATCH

Catch a bit of downtime for me,
  Lay it on me thick and quick.
Take a minute to explore me,
  Try to talk what makes me tick.
  Give your shoes a hefty kick,
Upload giggles to adore me.

  Maybe we can slight a trick,
Hand an answer whether stormy,
Whether not your clothing tore me,
  Made me dizzy dealing sick,
Not to mention please ignore me
  If I drop my magic stick.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #45
Novel Verse Form

Thursday, November 11, 2010

(44) April 8, 2010: The Place

THE PLACE

I’ve been to love a time or two,
But all my lovers proved untrue.

They say, “Third time’s the charm,” and I
Believe the truth those words imply,

Though not the number’s magic square,
And not the charm’s encircling flair,

But this, and only this, I know:
We’ve found the place true lovers go.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #44
Rhyming Couplets

(43) April 7, 2010: Heads Will Roll

HEADS WILL ROLL

You pretty maidens watch your heads,
Or someone cruel and evil will.
Don’t leave your fate to Chance’s roll,

Nor think that Time will safely roll
From year to year around your heads,
Like moons their orbits ever will.

Your Queen, whose lost her beauty will,
Her jealous rampage on a roll,
Surveil the curls upon your heads,

And your sweet maiden heads will roll.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #43
Tritina

(42) April 6, 2010: Construction 2: Pebble On The Eiffel Tower

CONSTRUCTION 2: PEBBLE ON THE EIFFEL TOWER

Start with a pebble the size of your thumb,
Paint it with Skin-Of-A-Plum,
Dab it with juice
  All sticky and green,
Feathers of goose,
  And one string bean.

Take it to Paris and climb every stair,
Clear to the top but beware,
Eiffel is tall
  And balance a trick.
Don't let it fall,
  Just make it stick.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #42
Novel Verse Form

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

(41) April 5, 2010: Sweet Mr. 243

SWEET MR. 243

More bodies than souls,
More partials than wholes,
A higher percentage of dying;
Each hospital bed
Holds living and dead,
Or those who lie patiently trying.

I feel it tonight,
It's wrong and it's right,
It's something too empty to see.
And try as we did,
We nailed down the lid
On sweet Mr. 243.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #41
Novel Verse Form

(40) April 4, 2010: Trash Duty

TRASH DUTY

  I carried out the trash
Just like I'd done a thousand times before,
But there behind a bin I found a cache
  Of unused open doors.

  The one marked Reverie
I chose, and stepped across and through,
And there detached in boyish ecstasy
  I roamed the morning's dew.

  Investment's coorway called
To me, as if to say, "How much, kind sir?"
I gave him five, "But are you sure?" he stalled,
  "I will ten-fold confer."

  Another door named Friend
I found, and with suspicion warily passed,
Unsure of who might be the one to end
  My woe, and would it last?

  I carried in the trash
Unlike I'd ever thought to do before,
And left behind that bin no hidden cache
  Of unused open doors.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #40
To A Waterfowl Stanza

(39) April 3, 2010: Pop

POP

Mayhem carves the brain,
Damage no one tells,
Strappled scars remain,
Stronger grow the spells.
  Pop-of-the-gun,
  Pop-of-the-gun,
  Pop, Pop, Pop-of-the-gun,
  Pop-of-the-gun.

Darkness burning bright,
Pixel studded glare,
Cold returning fright,
Frozen-blooded stare.
  Pop-of-the-gun,
  Pop-of-the-gun,
  Pop, Pop, Pop-of-the-gun,
  Pop-of-the-gun.

Stabbing shackled cries,
Curled within the game,
Raging hackles rise,
Coaxing sin by name.
  Pop-of-the-gun,
  Pop-of-the-gun,
  Pop, Pop, Pop-of-the-gun,
  Pop-of-the-gun.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #39
Novel Verve Form

(38) April 2, 2010: China Mae Paisley

CHINA MAE PAISLEY

This is the story of China Mae Paisley who
  traded her flute for a bottle of rum.

Went to the harbor to meet a young sailor but
  sadly discovered his ship hadn't come.

Sat by the ocean remembering music and
  watching the sunset through eyes filled with tears.

Back on the mountain that guarded the harbor
  she cried every night for eleven long years.

Loving him ever and only she stayed on her
  mountain and honored his memory alone.

Finally determined to sail from the harbor she
  gathered her courage to face the unknown.

Found her young sailor asleep on the pier for an
  old drunken beggar is what he'd become.

This is the story of China Mae Paisley who
  left him her love in a bottle of rum.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #38
Rhyming Couplets

Monday, November 8, 2010

(37) April 1, 2010: My Daily Love

MY DAILY LOVE

My daily love, I feel you first before
My eyes have even opened on the day.
Your quiet arm resonds as if to say,
"I'm here with you whatever lies in store
For us; it may be less, it may be more,
Or maybe just enough for one brief day.
I'm here with you, if you'll just lead the way,
And stay the man I breathlessly adore."

I hear your slippered footsteps in the room,
With grace preparing my necessities.
Your presence lifts the lingering midnight gloom,
And rolls me out of bed upon my knees
To thank the Lord for a life so amply blessed.
And of His blessings, you remain the best.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #37
Sonnet

(36) March 31, 2010: Bon Fire Place

BON FIRE PLACE

I framed my house with two by fours
 And covered them with fur.
I set the windows, hung the doors,
 And called myself monsieur.

I built a bon inside the fire,
 A fire inside the place,
And all the people called me sire
 but laughed behind my face.

The house collapsed in flame and ash,
 The people scofffed and said,
"I hope you've got some petty cash,
 You're bankrupt in your head."

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #36
Ballad Meter

(35) March 30, 2010: The Dragon Slayer's Dream

THE DRAGON SLAYER'S DREAM

Over and under and onto the lips of a
 cinnamon whisper repeating my name,
Lying in treasure retrieved from the dragon who
  ranges no longer with sulfurous flame,
Bathed in the sweetness of feminine wonder and
  drunk with the splendor of victory's fame,
Bring me the night with a draft of intoxicants
  poured by the hand of a delicate dame.

Mine is the somnolent comfort of warriors who
  back from their battles just barely alive,
Bandaged and soothed by remarkable maidens whose
  natural endowment has made them revive.
Mine is the knowledge incredibly strange that a
  man such as I could endeavor and strive,
Facing the dragon that no one could conquer and
  betting by Thunder I'd never survive.

Here in the hall of the heros and saints who by
  virtue and might everlastingly stay,
Wreathed in the garlands of demigod glory and
  ever with nonor receive what they may,
Nothing forbidden to heighten the senses and
  dazzle the mind in euphoria's play,
Leave me to drown in this heaven of incense with
  never another behemoth to slay.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #35
Monorhyme

(34) March 29, 2010: Spring Fever

SPRING FEVER

Catching spring fever,
patients leave the hospital
cured of winter ills.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #34
Haiku

(33) March 28, 2010: Thought

THOUGHT

I used to think that thought
Was thinking now I know it's not.

It's like the spark before
The flash, the click before the roar,

The engine in the tail
Of jets but not the vapor trail.

It's something other than
The thing--the be of what began.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #33
Rhyming Couplets

(32) March 27, 2010: Construction 1: Decorated Radish

CONSTRUCTION 1: DECORATED RADISH

Begin with seven pins and one
round radish washed with rain.
Poke three pins in to simulate
a three-thin-legged stool,
Then find just four equator points
each equidistant round the globe,
then make for it a pedastal
with one fat wooden spool.

And now just jab the radish with
a yellow pencil number two,
a North Pole perpendicular
to the four pins round the girth.
And then impale the pink eraser
head with twenty-four safety pins
as if you're marking off the time
zones on the planet earth.

Now sprinkle half a cup of powered
sugar on your work of are,
and sixteen shakes of cardamon
to add a bit of spice.
And then for one last hip hooray
pluck twelve red petals from a rose,
arrange them like the numbers on
a clock all neat and nice.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #32
Novel Verse Form

(31) March 26, 2010: The Pioneertown Motel

THE PIONEERTOWN MOTEL

Adjacent to the highway lost in dust,
Dilapidated remnants of a bygone day,
When horse now bone, and bump-a-long buggy rust,
Careened their saddle sore and breakneck way
From city leave to pleasant country stay,
A fortnight's rest in a higher drier clime
To keepsake memories boxed for future time.

Now here we are come rolling in on wheels
Of air, with power drawn from burning fuel
In purring muscled engines born of steel,
The city networked in through handheld tools
That cure the country of its vagrant rules,
Our instant futures plucked without regard,
And zipped up sweet in a silicon memory card.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #31
Rhyme Royal

(30) March 25, 2010: Coordinates

COORDINATES

There's X, Y, Z, and then there's T,
The coordinates of time and space.
I think I've finally found my place,
But movement through that fourth degree
Of freedom's got me all perplexed,
I just can't figure what comes next.

There's A, B, C, and then there's I,
The elements of word and act.
I think I've finally learned some tact
But standing here invisibly by
The anonymous man that others see,
I wonder what it means--to be.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #30
Novel Verse Form

(29) March 24, 2010: I See The Future

I SEE THE FUTURE

I see the future bathed in naked light,
Her burnished thighs a cure for all disease,
One center folding in from left and right

Reclining in her low slung hover-kite,
Just moments off the surface ocean breeze,
I see the future bathed in naked light.

All powered up and nano-engine tight,
Her gentle net ubiquitous to please,
One center folding in from left and right.

At last the vision made of quiet night,
Her gift of access nullifying keys,
I see the future bathed in naked light.

Her cool fruition framing height on height,
A succulence of expontntial trees,
One center folding in from left and right.

Applaud with shouts her delegates of might
Who spiral love's expandable decrees,
I see the future bathed in naked light,
One center folding in from left and right.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #29
Villanelle

(28) March 23, 2010: The Luminosity Of Lions

THE LUMINOSITY OF LIONS

Isn't it luminous out in the drizzling
wouldn't a dip in the river be grand,
Stripped to the skin in our grinning concupisence
leaping off ledges with feathers in hand?

Under the surface all gleaming deliciously
reason would waver and leggy you'd ride,
Straddled and saddled and coddled I'd catalogue
every exhaustible slip of your slide.

Up for a breath of inspired delirium
gulping the air through a tangle of flesh,
Tossing compassion aside like a lion who
lunges ferociously preying afresh,

Gorging my fever-fed ravenous appetite
taking you every conceivable way,
Lifting you spent and all limpid with ecstasy,
languishing, thirsty, I'd drink your bouquet.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #28
Rhyming Couplets

(27) March 22, 2010: Hiding

HIDING

My rocking horse rocks
when he trots or he canters;
My talking doll talks
when she chats or she banters;
My sock monkey socks
when he boxes ro batters,
But 1-2-3 hide now
it's hiding that matters.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #27
Novel Verse Form

(26) March 21, 2010: Time Enough

TIME ENOUGH

There isn't time to wonder
Just when the clap of thunder
Will split your world asunder
And put you six feet under

But time enough to stumble
Onto somthing that won't crumble
And time to take a tumble
In the hay however humble.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #26
Monorhyme

(25) March 20, 2010: A Sip Of Something Sweet

A SIP OF SOMETHING SWEET

I took a sip of something sweet
Before I'd asked "From whom?"
And suddenly my wheels were feet,
I mean my feet went zoom

Like wheels and raced me out the door
And off the nearest cliff,
And falling fast my arms went, "Roar!"
And turned all rigid stiff.

My nose grew long and pencil quick,
Myelbow-engines fired,
And just like that I threw up sick,
As was, I knew, required.

And then a sonic boom went, "Boom!"
And everything went black.
I must have landed in my room
Because I see I'm back.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #25
Ballad Meter

Sunday, November 7, 2010

(24) March 19, 2010: Quantum Surfing

QUANTUM SURFING

The ladder leans against the wave,
And climbing up I take my stance,
With arms outstretched in Warrior Two,
Awaiting there my happy chance
To intersect the quantum nave.

I blink along the tipping points
And hold my breath with gasping claw
Though swimming wobble skips askew
Past catalogues of canon law
Where stepping in a voice anoints.

And careful not a think astray
Or look with duty on the scene
I touch the brandished moment new,
Regard the time as non-routine
And leap to catch the curling spray.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #24
Novel Verse Form

(23) March 18, 2010: Plural Soul

PLURAL SOUL

Double dealing takes its toll,
Two-faced faeries feel the heat,
Siamese twins in espanol,
Offered each they both retreat.

Two-faced faeries feel the heat,
Sliding down the axis pole,
Offered each they both retreat,
Single body, plural soul.

Sliding down the axis pole,
North to south in swift deceit,
Single body, plural soul,
Answers always incomplete.

North to south in swift deceit,
Siamese twins in espanol,
ANswers always incomplete,
Double dealing takes its toll.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #23
Pantoum

(22) March 17, 2010: The Slope Of The Line

THE SLOPE OF THE LINE

This exit leads me into age,
A corridor of downward slope.
MX plus be is always why
The change of life over time is hope
And gives me self to hang my rope.
I stretch my neck to see the sky,
Remove my gloves to turn the page.

My tear-filled glass of footprints lost,
The columned numbers vetting night,
The set of sums, the longish tail,
Statistically sound but not quite right,
A leap to the left will banish the sight,
And just in case my thoughts derail,
I'll shift my estimates of cost.

For future reference past comes last
And all the dailies circumvent
The absolute value of regret
My pockets empty, money spent,
With small returns on what I've lent
but I can smile if I forget,
And fly I might if I go fast.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #22
Novel Verse Form

(21) March 16, 2010: The Digger

THE DIGGER

I dug a tunnel to Kathmandu
  Some fourteen thousand grinding miles.
  I started from the British Isles
And drove my Digger straight on through.

With diamond-bladed chewing screws
  My monstrous Digger bored the hole
  While I, with fingertip control,
Divined the path it would pursue.

It all went well until the last
  When breaking through Nepali soil
  I found Sir Arthur Conan doyle
With Sherlock Holmes, protagonist,

Alive and well detective style
  They showed me how I'd missed the mark
  By nearly one full minute of arc
And hauled me off without a trial.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #21
In Memoriam Stanza

(20) March 15, 2010: Persona Non Grata

PERSONA NON GRATA

It's funny how the Rocking Chair
  Keeps nodding at the Clock,
And how the Doorknobs turn and stare
  Whenever Groceries knock.

I can't believe how Piano Bench
  Keeps pinning down the Rug,
Insisting that it shall not wrench
  Nor shall it bunch or shrug.

The Pillows on the Couch pretend
  To be oblivious,
To winks the Television sends
  That seem lascivious.

And strange it is that standing there
  Attending to their Shelf,
The Books have all begun to leer
  As if I'm not myself.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #20
Ballad Meter

(19) March 14, 2010: Leavetaking

LEAVETAKING

I leave my farm all smooth and clean
  In search of crops with higher yields,
  Take out across the fallow fields,
My bets will hedged in dueling green.

The vegetation rages high,
  The inclination rises steep,
  On every side phantasms leap
Around the corners of my eyes.

The air is pungent with the scent
  Of pollinating fever grass
  That paints my trousers as I pass,
With yellow dust of sweet intent.

No pocketful of seeds for me,
  No master plan with gardens fair;
  I'm on my way toward something rare,
A fanciful philosphy.

The tenets of my creed are few,
  The a priori ballast light;
  I take the day and leave the night,
I leave the old and take the new.

D. Edgar Lamp

http://www.thedailypoem.org/ #19
In Memoriam Stanza

(18) March 13, 2010: End Of Days

END OF DAYS

How long until the End of Days?
My heart is growing weary.
With furrowed brow I stretch my gaze;
How long until the End of Days?
I know such wrath Your love delays,
And with that love You cheer me.
But still how long till End of Days?
My heart is growing weary.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #18
Triolet

(17) March 12, 2010:: The Laughing Harbinger

THE LAUGHING HARBINGER

I laugh out loud when stars collide,
When comets streaking silver glide
Like witches riding wicked brooms
Across the sky predicting dooms
Of every kind to sweep worldwide;
Above, below, on every side,
No space to run, no place to hide.
But here amid the sonic booms,
I laugh out loud.
When riots in the street outside
Increase their swelling moonstruck tide,
I stroll within my spacious rooms
Amid the wafts of sweet perfumes
Until my glee I cannot hide--
I laugh out loud.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #17
Rondeau

(16) March 11, 2010: A Certain Bliss

A CERTAIN BLISS

The brimmed synaptic treble clef
  From which I bungee jump each night,
Enjoys a view that to the left
  Would look the same as to the right.

And up would look the same as down,
  As north would south, but in reverse,
The foot of sole, the head of crown,
  A pretzel-flip a bit perverse,

But nonetheless a pleasing thing,
  An unexpected stranger-kiss
That lollipops a certain swing,
  And twists within a certain bliss.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #16
Ballad Meter

(15) March 10, 2010: Failure

FAILURE

Fortune gathers those who know,
All the seasons take their turn,
Instant while the moments glow,
Logic binds the rapturous burn,
Urgent weather aches to go,
Rising fractal through the fern,
Eager toward its final show.

Favor garlands those who win,
Always brings the nascent bloom.
Ill-equipped the fools begin,
Laughing in the face of gloom,
Unction cannot cure their sin,
Reverie within the tomb,
Ether makes them small and thin.

Fame ignites for those who stay,
Answers play their hide and seek,
Islands rise to greet the day.
Languid kings in riddles speak,
Urchins left in love's cliche;
Raucous, raging, hollow, weak.
Even failures find their way.

D. Edgar Lamp

http://www.thedailypoem.org #15
Acrostic

(14) March 9, 2010: It's Not A Thing Of Beauty

IT'S NOT A THING OF BEAUTY

It's not a thing of beauty but it's tue,
We feel it like a telescopic view,
It doesn't qualify as something new,
But still it beats within the rhythm's blue
And takes its measure off the phantom's wing,
Removes the very essence from the thing,
Retards the way we hear it when we sing,
And seals the matter with its signet ring.

No mortal man or beast has seen it pass,
It slips from place to place like polished glass,
The catapult of time it can surpass
As energy returns it to its mass.
And if the labyrinth of chance may choose,
A finger-snap will light its flashing fuse.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #14
Sonnet

(13) March 8, 2010: A Cat By The Fire

A CAT BY THE FIRE

A cat by the fire will purr,
And preen for a while its fur,
  Until in a flash
  A bit of hot ash
Dispatches the cat in a blur.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #13
Limerick

(12) March 7, 2010: The Mansion On The Moonlit Hill

THE MANSION ON THE MOONLIT HILL

The mansion on the moonlit hill is mine,
And though it's laid with riches wall to wall,
Your simple love will dim it's best design.

I dug the footings deep and plumbed the line,
Each skyward beam set arrow straight and tall.
The mansion on the moonlit hill is mine.

The spiral stairs and cornices combine
To give the house a splendor to enthrall,
And yet your love will dim its best design.

I laced the yards with blooming columbine,
precisely placed each regal waterfall.
The mansion on the moonlit hill is mine,

The art of floor and deiling is as fine
As any found within the Taj Mahal,
But still your love will dim its best design.

No place on earrth but this would I enshrine,
No one but you could share this hallowed hall.
The mansion on the moonlit hill is mine,.
But your sweet love will dim its best design.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #12
Villanelle

(11) March 6, 2010: The Wretched One

THE WRETCHED ONE

Someone knocked upon the door of my old house
Shouted through the hinges something I should know
All that night I lay awake and wondered who
Staring up and through
And back at me below.

Someone knocked upon the door of my old house
Mirror mirror on the ceiling where you hang
Bolted to the rafters looking down on me
Angry as the sea
In boiling blue harangue.

Someone knocked upon the door of my old house
Latched and locked and hammered shut with ragged nails
No one must attempt to breach the wall I've built
Quench my awful wails
And pry away my guilt.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #11
Novel Verse Form

(10) March 5, 2010: Icon Logo Image Sign

ICON LOGO IMAGE SIGN

Curves and numbers, blockes and paints,
Vectors, scissors, string and straws,
Glue and glitter, plastic saints,

Diagrams of Newton's Laws,
Piano keys, kalidesopes,
Carving knives and eagle claws,

Sewing needles, fancy soaps,
Ink and paper, checkerboards,
Priestly robes and antelopes,

Hurricaines, and Mongul hordes
Yellow fever, gamma rays,
Golden shields and silver swords,

Television, mutts and strays,
Rocking chairs and fishing line,
Pillow cases, blues and grays,

Helium and knotty pine,
Racing cars and wrist restraints,
Viral shells of new design:
Icon, logo, image, sign.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #10
Terza Rima

(9) March 4, 2010: Coming Soon

COMING SOON

How soon and with what ring of certainty
Will one last cataclysmic advent come?
And where with highly subtle sovereignty
Will He the Loving Bringer bring it from,
  And to what place and at what time design
  To make the greatest impact on mankind?
One truth is known with utmost surety
Our numbered sins have nearly reached their sum.

We feel it in our steep receding brows,
We see it in the images we make.
What will it take our consciousness to rouse
And from our wicked slumber dreams forsake?
  Our temperature is rising by degrees
  Too small to quantify our deep disease.
One verity our Master disavows:
He is the very essence of the Snake.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #9
Novel Verse Form

(8) March 3, 2010: Mazy Laces

MAZY LACES

My boots are strapped with mazy laces
  stringing out behind.
My socks have slipped beneath my heels
  where both my soles are signed

By sages from the village there,
  the one beside that hill.
It's over there! That wisp of smoke,
  that hint of castle wall.

You may not see it but its there,
  it's like a trick mirage.
The way we move may be too slow
  to join it's entourage.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #8
Ballad Meter

(7) March 2, 2010: French Twist

FRENCH TWIST

Guilty pleasures sweep my feet
From where I thought we'd meet.

All the way from flirter's flat
To rendezvous inside your hat.

Soft the swirl in twists of French,
Your hair on some Parisian bench,

A fall of grace across my arm,
A talisman, a lucky charm!

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #7
Rhyming Couplets

(6) March 1, 2010: The Gravity of Mass

THE GRAVITY OF MASS

The gravity of massive things,
  Like stars and moons and memory,
Holds heavy all the spheres it sings
  In constant falling harmony.

A trailing grist of mammoth mills
  That grind the sands of happenstance,
As destiny in space fulfills
  Our turn, our time, our chance.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #6
Ballad Meter

(5) February 28, 2010: The Big One

THE BIG ONE

  Surprised as usual by disaster,
Thought the status quo would last,
  The telescope of kind retrieval
Brought an ace from up the sleeve.

  And just in time the knot untangled,
Took the pain within the pang,
  Eloped with truth it found unbending,
Shook the dusty sandal's trend.

  Denying stats that shamed remittance,
All at once the gavel hit.
  O desperate throat with fear awakened,
Crawl to earth and crying quake.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #5
Novel Verse Form

(4) February 27, 2010: A Miracle Of Shift

A MIRACLE OF SHIFT

A work of art is always more
  Than what it seems to be,
Just like the flotsam on the shore
  Come in from off the sea.

It's never nice collectively,
  But sparingly arranged,
To view each piece respectively,
  Is suddenly exchanged

For something better far than waste,
  A miracle of shift,
From raucousness to chaste,
  From garbage can to gift.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #4
Ballad Meter

(3) February 26, 2010: Waxing Gibbous

WAXING GIBBOUS

She's waxing gibbous like the moon
On nano-matters picayune,
Her stellar poppycock platoon
Is out en force this afternoon,
Inspecting each spermatozoon,
An inventory none too soon,
Preparing for the great monsoon
Within her brimming silver spoon,
The howling wind her favored tune
To crack the peaceful night's cocoon
And cause the lunar gods to swoon.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #3
Monorhyme

(2) February 25, 2010: One Exact Belief

ONE EXACT BELIEF

Collapsing lapse of lazy days
  Relaxing by the fires,
The mind in shards regards the flames
  Of telescoping spires,
And asks itself why reason wanes
  In ramping up desires.

Containing rain in bottled tears
  Denying every grief,
The body dressed in tawdry means
  And modes correctly brief,
Awakens on a string of beads
  With one exact belief.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #2
Novel Verse Form

(1) February 24, 2010: The Grueling Hot Broth Tang

THE GRUELING HOT BROTH TANG

My lost illusions stand in line,
  But I refuse to wait.
I'll trade my soup for turpentine,
  My bread for fishing bait.

Too loose their clothes all wrinkled hang,
  Too sad their aces pale,
Too thin the grueling hot broth tang,
  I'll leave my dreams in jail.

I'm skin and bones for easy flight,
  My eyes like dishes dash,
I'll gather sleep tomorrow night
  And flip my shoes for cash.

And soon the morning after next
  Will burnish me gourmet,
Surprise me with a talon flexed
  Around a sweet fillet.

My belly filled with cool refrains,
  I'll wave a brief reprieve,
Untie the knot the slip the chains
 And gladly take my leave.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org #1
Ballad Meter