Poetry

from Reaching for the Light

      The Ghost of some great beauty
haunts my mind .. somewhere, sometime,
         I must have known it well
      that it should re-occur
              like fragments of an interrupted rhyme.

        Sometimes it lights my memory
 in a blinding flash ...
       But when I start and cry,
   the dark recesses of my mind
          dispose it to a fading sigh.

        A tune unspent? A silent bell
restrained from joyous ringing? ...
      stilled memory? ... a muted bird ...?
            what song that aches for singing?

An Autumn Wind is Crying

The phantom dance of autumn leaves
swirls round the knees
of bony skeletons of trees.
The sheltered summer nest unweaves ...
the ghost of it is sighing>
A rigid bough becomes trapeze
for mourning-hooded chickadees>
An autumn wind is crying.

Songs halted in the honeyed throats ...
a gaunt and leafless dooryard tree
to bear the hollow eulogy ...
a symphony of frozen notes
has set the wind to crying.

But, broods the secret mystery,
enduring continuity ...
wings change, but not the flying.

from Common Sense-ible Rhymes
from Grandmother Goose

Ideas come for those who write,
quite often, in the dead of night ...
when tools to mark what they would say
are mostly half a house away.

One has a dream and struggles toward it
... then, with the money to afford it,
remembers only how to hoard it.

There are those who love the birds
and feed them suet, crumbs and curds
... but, yet, who feel no pangs undue
in plucking chickens for a stew.

What happens to the candidates,
divinely hand-selected,
... why do they turn to mortals mere
the minute they're elected?

Why do prizes go to winners
...silver trophies, festive dinners?
Wouldn't it be kinder to find a little loser who
all his life might have been waiting
for a little celebrating?

To read more poetry or to find out about publishing rights, contact Ms Wosmek.