Burnt Roses

                    This image of a beautiful rose was captured by a new friend, Yvette.

                             Merci beaucoup Yvette, cette photo d’une fleur est absolument magnifique ……

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Burnt Roses

You picked roses, cut their nursing
stems.  Their cradled, vital blooms
slashed into slow death.  That
crystal vase, a mausoleum, a glass
casket to watch them slowly fade
away, designed to wither and
decay for your enjoyment.
Their petals blacken and you smile.

And what of my heart?  Can
your shears pierce it too,
prop me in a jar and watch my
essence drain away?  Has the
foulness of your death breath
blown upon me?  Do the remnants
of my rotting, sloughing
soul please you?

But roses will die anyway,
at season’s end you say.
What’s a month or two?
Or a decade given to the realm of beauty?
What beauty is that, dearest?
My crystal urn clouds the view,
this misty grey once called my life
grovels upon the shards of it.

I long for what once was,
the glory of that single moment in time
when I lived upon my stem.

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© 2011 John Richter

Sandman Words

Dreams.
Mouthfuls of juicy little glow-in-the-dark wads
prancing through unknown fields of taste.
I chomp them, like bits of swollen,
ripened apples falling from the trees of my hidden places,
trees that harbor what was and what might yet be.
They fill me with wondrous pleasures of things, mightily
capturing me away, or slicing my soul’s flanges
to find my heart in a scream.
My dreams.

I rush into wakefulness at the speed of confusion
to find him, maybe, still finishing his copious spell.
But never there, that punctilious little Dreamer man,
who brings us everything but punct,
and whose brim exceeds his girth by a foot,
except his nose, that comically barnacled schnozzle
that could hook the stars on a clear night.
He escapes my wary each and every time,
tricking me into his yellow sublime
with the yak of his klackity klak.

He must oil his shoes, I think
for never have I taken a peak
of his awkward little self, sneaking and speaking
into my imagination of away-ness,
the empty me, who lives alone when
I close my eyes and the Dreamer steals me.
Yet he brings me things of happiness,
towering above life’s sappiness,
-sometimes.  Other times he reaches into me
and takes little parts away, parts I don’t remember.

I think he is Mr. Flaggarty.
The church organist.
He always looks at me like he knows.
And his shoes smell of oil,
the kind they used in Europe in World War II.
He might be a Nazi Dreamer.
Or a French resisting screamer.
But he always brings the most beautiful women,
and leaves me with my own little apple tree.
Tickled Pink, I should think.

A dream.

This poem was written in a form unique to it.  Ten-line stanzas with a floating rhyming couplet within.  The first stanza has the ryming pair as lines 9 and 10.  The next stanza, the rhyming pair moves up one line, to 8 and 9. The next, 7 and 8, and so on.

© 2011 John Richter

A Dog House Cat-Head Funnel

Recently I made a new friend of a very talented, very comical poet. When I navigated to his Facebook page I noticed that he kept as his profile picture a photograph of one of his cats, who must be suffering from some ailment because it is wearing one of those funnels over its head that veterinarians put there to keep them from scratching themselves. In any event, I find those funnels completely hilarious, especially on cats. So in my humorous stupor I felt like composing this whimsical short poem to my new found friend as a show of kinship.  So I hope that if you find this page that you will enjoy this little off-beat piece.  If not, then I hope you will take a moment to tell me why….  Thanks for visiting……

A Dog House Cat-Head Funnel
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I saw the dog house
while rowing down main
in my pancake boat.
It was kind of soggy,
the dog house, I mean.
And it wouldn’t float.

The dog had to be
somewhere, didn’t he?
And I found him there.
He ate a hole
in my pancake floor.
Syrup was everywhere!

Silly dog. You can’t
eat the pancake boat!
I’ll have to row faster.
But heavens no!
That stupid dog just
turned to alabaster….

Well that’s just great.
I’ve got a foot of syrup
and he gets to just sink.
What am I to do?
Think, think, think….
Oooooo! Hit another link!

Now I see a funny looking cat
with a funnel on his head.                                                     
I want to throw popcorn in there.
Life is like a string of popcorn.
It’s always funnier when you throw
it into a cat-head funnel.

That didn’t rhyme.
But it’s still funny.
I tracked syrup on your carpet,
and it’s runny.
Now that’s not funny.
At all.

Have you seen my pills?

Do you think we could fill
that funnel with popcorn
before he could eat it all?
And just see his little whiskers
poking out through them,
like a little popcorn ball?

Let’s put some syrup in there too.
I think your cat ate my pills man.
Did he just wink at me?
Ok, where is his right ear?
It was there a minute ago.
Is his name Evander?

© 2011 John Richter