Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes
First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.
And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.
Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
The Ant Explorer
Once a little sugar ant made up his mind to roam-
To fare away far away, far away from home.
He had eaten all his breakfast, and he had his ma's consent
To see what he should chance to see and here's the way he went
Up and down a fern frond, round and round a stone,
Down a gloomy gully where he loathed to be alone,
Up a mighty mountain range, seven inches high,
Through the fearful forest grass that nearly hid the sky,
Out along a bracken bridge, bending in the moss,
Till he reached a dreadful desert that was feet and feet across.
A Polar Explorer
All the huskies are eaten. There is no space
left in the diary, And the beads of quick
words scatter over his spouse's sepia-shaded face
adding the date in question like a mole to her lovely cheek.
Next, the snapshot of his sister. He doesn't spare his kin:
what's been reached is the highest possible latitude!
And, like the silk stocking of a burlesque half-nude
queen, it climbs up his thigh: gangrene.
' ' ' ' Close Shave - Sequence(For Miss S)
Always her fascination
with me
shaving.
This her early morning ritual
observing each action
as if it were
holy.
Silent Sleep The Dead
Though the sun had begun bleeding in the West
With an explorer's gait, I walked jumping over gutters
My track, flanked with knee high grass and nettles
Also wild bushes of all kinds that grew in clusters
I saw dragonflies whirring around in circles
Their wings catching glints of the evening light
As they buzzed from one blade of grass to the other
Giving a solitary soul benign company and sure delight
The Lion
The Lion is a kingly beast.
He likes a Hindu for a feast.
And if no Hindu he can get,
The lion-family is upset.
He cuffs his wife and bites her ears
Till she is nearly moved to tears.
Then some explorer finds the den
And all is family peace again.
! ...Shadows (Part 3)
In the dim soothing ambience
Of the restaurant, you sat
Across fervently studying
The catalog of my eyes,
Searching for that glint
Of emotion called ‘love’…
As I sipped the tempting soup
Satisfied with objective pleasure
Descending down my throat,
The Fury Of God's Good-Bye
One day He
tipped His top hat
and walked
out of the room,
ending the argument.
He stomped off
saying:
'I don't give guarantees'.
I was left
quite alone
Dreams Old
I have opened the window to warm my hands on the sill
Where the sunlight soaks in the stone: the afternoon
Is full of dreams, my love, the boys are all still
In a wistful dream of Lorna Doone.
The clink of the shunting engines is sharp and fine,
Like savage music striking far off, and there
On the great, uplifted blue palace, lights stir and shine
Where the glass is domed in the blue, soft air.
Afterword
Reading what I have just written, I now believe
I stopped precipitously, so that my story seems to have been
slightly distorted, ending, as it did, not abruptly
but in a kind of artificial mist of the sort
sprayed onto stages to allow for difficult set changes.
Why did I stop? Did some instinct
discern a shape, the artist in me
intervening to stop traffic, as it were?
A Fading Dream
In my dream, I sailed away
Over the tame waters of a tranquil bay
And landed in a magic isle
Never set foot before by anyone alive
A pleasant retreat of birds and beasts
Far removed from world's dust and heat
A fantasy land with a magic spell
Hidden away at Nature's veiled breast
0420 Trust Nature
It's said that every species in the world
displays one gift beyond the scope of Man.
How dangerous the skies - for men, and birds -
how soiled the air, if wings were in Man's span!
Suppose that every species made extinct
by Man, the guardian of all things that live,
deprived us (as indeed it may..) by dint
of mindlessness, of something God's mind gives?
21 Haikus
He stayed inside her
until the borders opened
beloved Poland.
She shaved the hair off
but hubby was a drunkard
hair of the dog, then.
The snow of dandruff
had settled on his shoulders
Battle Of Mactan 1521
Before the break of dawn each side prepared battle plans
in a bright bonfires burnt til’ sunrise,
Strategy drawn on sand not on a piece of paper,
indigenous warriors rallied about the Datu,
loin cloths and colorful headbands as armor,
long blades, bamboo spears, wooden clubs
common weapons of their generation
dependent on brav’ry an’ muscle power
ready to die n’ defense of their island bastion,
pledges nev’r on bended knees, bowed their heads
A Tribute To Henry M. Stanley
Welcome, thrice welcome, to the city of Dundee,
The great African explorer Henry M Stanley,
Who went out to Africa its wild regions to explore,
And travelled o'er wild and lonely deserts, fatigued and footsore.
And what he and his little band suffered will never be forgot,
Especially one in particular, Major Edmund Barttelot,
Alas! the brave heroic Officer by a savage was shot,
The commandant of the rear column - O hard has been his lot!
The Explorer
"There's no sense in going further --
it's the edge of cultivation,"
So they said, and I believed it --
broke my land and sowed my crop --
Built my barns and strung my fences
in the little border station
Tucked away below the foothills
where the trails run out and stop.
Till a voice, as bad as Conscience,
The Door Of Humility
ENGLAND
We lead the blind by voice and hand,
And not by light they cannot see;
We are not framed to understand
The How and Why of such as He;
But natured only to rejoice
At every sound or sign of hope,
And, guided by the still small voice,
In patience through the darkness grope;
L'Irrémédiable (The Irremediable)
I
Une Idée, une Forme, un Etre
Parti de l'azur et tombé
Dans un Styx bourbeux et plombé
Où nul oeil du Ciel ne pénètre;
Un Ange, imprudent voyageur
Qu'a tenté l'amour du difforme,
Au fond d'un cauchemar énorme
Popcorn, Glass Balls, And Cranberries
I. THE LION
The Lion is a kingly beast.
He likes a Hindu for a feast.
And if no Hindu he can get,
The lion-family is upset.
He cuffs his wife and bites her ears
Till she is nearly moved to tears.
Then some explorer finds the den
Voyage Of The Jettie
A shallow stream, from fountains
Deep in the Sandwich mountains,
Ran lake ward Bearcamp River;
And, between its flood-torn shores,
Sped by sail or urged by oars
No keel had vexed it ever.
Alone the dead trees yielding
To the dull axe Time is wielding,
The shy mink and the otter,