Poem for the week: "A Stain Upon His Soul"

A Stain Upon His Soul

Terry cursed the small patch

of brown soil on his luscious

green lawn where his grass

refused to grow after all of his

love and attention. For seven

years his front lawn was marred

by that solitary patch of brown

that he re-seeded and tended

to with stubborn pride every

summer for three years before

he lost his patience and cursed

it like Jesus cursed the fig tree;

and like an ugly port-wine stain

upon the beautiful face of his

luscious lawn he let it be until  

he could stand it no longer, and

upon that brown patch of cursed

soil he relented seven fresh rolls

of vibrant green sod and waited

defiantly to see if his grass would

die or grow. But sad to say, the

next summer his brown patch

came back to haunt him like

a stain upon his soul.

Poem for the week: "That's Poetry"

That’s Poetry

I picked up Keats this morning,

        and then Shelley, but I wasn’t in the mood

for either; and I picked up Immortal Poems

       of the English Language, but I decided to

make coffee instead; and as I waited for

       my coffee I browsed through a word book:

30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary—

        the more words we have, the better we can

express ourselves, indispensable for a poet;

       but my heart wasn’t in it. I poured my coffee

and took a sip and pondered my situation:

       words, words, and more words. Knowledge,

knowledge, and more knowledge, and “to the

       making of many books there is no end and

much study is a weariness of the flesh” said the

       Preacher in Ecclesiastes, and we’re back to

where we started. I opened my book on the

       immortal poems and read Shelly’s Ozymandias

to give clarity to my feelings: it’s not how

       many words we know, it’s how we put

them together. That’s poetry.

Poem for the week: "The Writer's Heart"

The Writer`s Heart

His self-confident voice was redolent

with the wisdom of overcoming,

and every word he uttered

came from his soul, —

O victory!

Like a compulsive worm writhing

through the grime of urban life,

he slithered his lonely way

to new understanding, —

O victory!

One story led to another, easily

finding their way into the New Yorker,

and he elated with giddy delight

at his creations; but his story

never ended, —

O victory!

Always hovering near a greatness he

was too shrewd or diffident to risk,

he garnered the Pulitzer with ease;

but the Nobel always eluded his

gifted, covetous reach.

O misery!

When asked why on his deathbed, he

smiled bewilderment; but the twinkle

in his little rabbit’s eye betrayed the

writer’s heart, robbing Death of

its assured victory.