The Coffee Bean
I long for the days when I grew wild and free,
the days when the humans just liked to drink tea!
I’d ripen in sunshine, then fall to the ground:
by dying and drying my life would rebound.
From inside my shell I would send forth a sprout,
and after some seasons I’d be free to tout
a bush full of offspring all looking like me.
Beans, coffee beans, yes, a real family tree!
But woe to me now as I’m looking around,
trapped in glass grinder about to be ground
and put in some basket and scalded to death
with no chance to sprout or to leave a bequest!
A beverage most humans don’t think twice about,
unless by poor planning they must do without …
but please think of me who was once wild and free,
and free me by switching and drinking just tea.
Restore the Castrated Gelding
Tales of lions, ships and hobbits still live
in aspiring hearts of all creative.
Yet, there’s a breed of man who cannot see
the use, the sense, the reason of mystery.
“The world is of fact, logic and ledger;
sublimate dreams to what we can measure!”
To such all of men’s Committees evolve —
feelings and visions on paper dissolve.
Oh! Lions, they roar and ships they do soar;
Hobbits’ adventures – reality lore!
Guess ye clear now to where we are heading?
Rise now! Restore the castrated gelding!
Yet what is real is not frozen in notes,
the sort statisticians are apt now to quote.
Truth is what lasts when what fire burns away
ascends to the throne where night is as day.
The following tale is as true as the quail
hollering “bobwhite” but never in sight;
as true as the saffron in the sunset —
a truth that will glow if will you but let!
An adventurer’s yarn to distant frontier;
an entrepreneur with nary a fear.
With fire in his heart to kindle a drive —
Discovery, yes, is ever alive.
Please, do not despair of rhyme and of verse,
condemning such talk to ride in the hearse;
the tale is much shorter, concise, compact —
honestly speaking, more fun to enact.
Enter now in the pages to follow;
come and explore an uncharted hollow!
With integrity, now, I’ll seek to unfold
the tale the Committee hopes never is
told!
Oh! Lions, they roar and ships they do soar;
Hobbits’ adventures – reality lore!
Guess ye clear now to where we are heading?
Rise now! Restore the castrated gelding!
“We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
– C.S. Lewis, Abolition of Man
A Tiny Little Man
He’s a tiny little man
though he’s over six feet tall
with a puny little job
but he acts like lord of all.
When he strides into the room
he expects from you respect
though to you he will give none
as he closely does inspect
every tiny little jot
of the work that he demands,
and if things are not just right
then out flies a reprimand.
Yes, we surely all desire
in the rubbish him to toss,
but we never have the nerve
‘cos that guy is still the boss.
Bob’s Proverb
It’s easier to defeat
a hostile enemy
Than a higher pay grade.
Cause for Alarm
Her grandmother’s grandmother worked on a farm,
while her grandmother’s mother became a schoolmarm.
Her grandmother was a first woman in space
with whom her own mother continually raced.
The daughter, herself, was the cause for alarm
when she just decided to work on a farm.
Limits! Limits?
“Limits? Limits? What are limits?
Only limit is yourself!
You are sovereign in your own life
with or without lots of wealth.”
With these words the Millionairess
mounted platform of her craft.
When they asked her if she felt fear,
she let roar a great big laugh.
As the countdown for her journey
was broadcast throughout the land,
commentators all did marvel
as she raised her steady hand …
Her last word before the blastoff
was her motto said again:
“Limits only live in your mind —
Take your future in your hand!”
At her funeral three days later
commentators speculated
that some faulty engineering
was the tragic cause of death.
Limits! Limits! There are limits
Heaven-sent or from below;
when you think there are no limits,
watch out for a mortal blow.
on edge of woods
I am a lonely wanderer alone on edge of woods that form a fragile last defense ‘gainst urban neighborhood.
Through trees I watch a passing car – her jaw is set and raised; she speeds past with an urgency I knew in younger days. She’s got a meeting, then a date (her “ex” has got the kids). But after dinner, there’s no dance. She needs to shut her lids.
The faces through the trees I see do keep me walking on: they run the race of cold success which I am loath to join. I am one lonely wanderer, but I am not alone. Widows, prophets, poets know that edge of woods as home.
Leather Rose
(rap response to W.M. Blake to be read aloud)
O Rose, thou art frail: at the height of thy bloom thine Enemy seeks to hasten thy doom. So, constantly guard thy crimson delight and hold tight thy petals with all of thy might. The Enemy sniffs thy scent in the air; he salivates for a meal so fair.
But coming down path all dressed in green is striding a gardener, confidently. Pausing by another rose across from thee, he touches her petals and says he perceives that something so fragile, something so free, has no real defense from the Enemy. Something he holds in his gardener’s sack he says will repel most any attack. He only asks one thing of red rose – to let him now of thorns dispose, saying that thorns are no real defense against worms seeking a crimson tent.
With thorns removed, he begins the task of making each petal eternally last. From his sack he pulls a vile of tannin, a natural substance like vitamins; it’s used on horses – it takes their skin and turns it to rawhide (which is no sin). With tannin he paints each petal of the rose and turns them to leather so that each petal grows stronger and tougher, thick and wide, insuring that no worm can enter inside.
O Rose, thou dost see thy neighbor’s demise: exchanging her weakness for tanner’s dark dye! And now the gardener has thee in his view. He touches thy petal! What wilst thou do?
“You weed!” The gardener curses and cries! His blood’s on thy thorn, he spits in thine eye! Then cursing again he calls for the worm that flies in the night through the howling storm to enter thy chamber and riddle thee through, gnawing and chomping, exacting his due. Invisible worm with daggered eyes, how thinly veiled is your disguise! O Rose, to fend off one enemy invites the Foe of viler degree.
Thy neighbor of leather, unmoved by pain, smirkingly asks, “What is there to gain in jabbing the gardener, causing him pain? How can your temper be so untamed?!
Reply!” .
.. “Reply?!
If roses are red, then what is your hue as you’ve been tanning out in plain view? You call yourself rose with a leathery scent, but what’s in a name? O Shakespeare, lament! As for me, I stand with thorns in my side; the fact I’m a rose I dare not hide. If God meant a rose to be leathery and live saddled in security, I’d fain lose all thorns and leather become, but I’d be a whip and I’d crack till I’m numb.
“A rose I am, and a rose I’ll be, embroiled in the ageless mystery of beauty midst war which can’t be won – the worm finds a nest when each day is done.
Yet … “In standing, I’ve won.”
Lasting Labor
The work of our hands
and the labor of our minds
are worth far more
than a diamond-laden mine.
And when everything is done,
the labor that will last
is the miracle of life
to another gently passed.
The Status Quo is Fine
I know in the world there’s a kindred soul
who’d once been a part of the chosen fold,
who’s wandering far from the safety net
without a home as the cold sun sets.
I call to the sun and make a plea
that he’ll pause an hour to help me see
if on the horizon I can find that soul
and somehow return him into the fold.
I search the rim of the earth and sky
and, with one minute left, I deftly spy
my kindred soul, and I rush to him;
but even before I can speak or begin
to tell my friend of the danger he’s in,
he cautions me of the dire problem
that took him out beyond the safe fold
into the realm where all fire burns cold.
“The problem,” he said, “is a hidden flaw
within earth physics that’s missed by all.
The problem, simply put, is that what we can see
is the inverse side of reality —
“What’s touted as strong is really quite weak
and that which is bright too often is bleak,
and some in the fold don’t really belong,
and what seems so right might be utterly wrong.”
I look in the face of this radical soul
and now understand why he’s not in the fold.
The sun now is set and I go back home,
Concluding it’s best that this radical roams.