Dreaming Back the World Poem

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Magic Fish- Dreaming Back the World

Dreaming Back the World

 

The talking heads who

Would destroy the magic

Lived inside my mind

Too long

They sneered at paper tigers

Other charms I had

To ward off evil demons

While I slept.

 

And all the dragons

Turned back into windmills.  There

Was no writing

On my paper sword.

 

The dragons took their fire

When they went away.

It’s hard to love or hate

The cold bleak structures

Littering the landscape

In their place.

We paint the colors

In ourselves.

 

And King Tut’s throne

I saw

Was really just the carcass

Of a long forgotten tree

With paint

And shelf life that would

Make a Twinkie proud.

 

And I myself became

A case, a vote, consumer

Human resource

Number on a census page,

And paid my taxes

Right on time

Stuck in limbo

Squashed between

Some other lonesome robots.

 

But now, I want to see

The iridescent spirits

Play among the leaves

And weeds of summer.

I want to see the

Snail trails sparkle

On the morning grass

And think they’re beautiful.

 

I want to feel again

some scorching heats and

Passions, exiles

Banished long ago

By common sense and logic.

I want those trolls

To get back under bridges.

 

I want to be

A person once again

And climb the beanstalks

Rage at giants

And believe that

Dog spit makes it better.

 

I must pack up

Those dreary demons

Logic, and his

Henchman Fact

Stick them back into

Their books and close

Their closets, two locks,

Maybe three

And only I

Possess the key.

 

And now, from down

Another road

I see the Tiger

Beckons me, and

Elves smile welcome

As I peek around that

Ancient corner in my mind.

 

I know I can reenter

Once again

The magic wondrous place

That knows no chemistry

Where I can think

and dream the world.

 

Apr 9, 2012

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All Of That And More – Poem by Ron Olsen

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All Of That And More Poem

All Of That And More
by Ron Olsen

Popped the top
Poured it slow
Against the side of the glass
Forming a perfect head of foam
Hitting my tongue
Tasting the past
Taking me back
To a slower time
In so many small towns
We knew them all
They were our youth

My big Pontiac
Nearly off the snow covered road
So many times
Driving blind
On instinct alone
And the grace of God
Seeing us through
To maybe get lucky
On a Saturday night
In the frozen north

Through the haze
We’re there again
An ancient bar
Salted peanuts and purple pickled eggs
In Lake Henry
St. Martin
New Munich
A few others
Names forgotten in the fog
All the same
A big Catholic church
A John Deere dealer
A beer hall
And a house or two

Pull another tap
The boys at the bar
Draining it dry
Telling lies
Laughing hard
Before the band stopped playing
And the sun came up
And the girls went home
And Izzy locked the door

I drain my glass dry
And the past dies again
A time we could understand
A time we could feel
Enough time, for you and me
To drink our fill
And maybe die behind the wheel
Or, if we were lucky
To cheat death one more time

Thinking we were so much more
Than we really were
Only we really were
All of that and more

 

©2015 Ron Olsen – all rights reserved

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First Words by Red Slider

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I HATE POETRY MONTH – DAY 2

Why should anyone love a month that celebrates something that beckons you to follow it for the rest of your life and probably leads nowhere or, at best, you’d have done better going somewhere else?

First Words

Can we afford to forget
first born words
that clawed their way
from a virgin larynx,
gasping for breath,
demanding
reply to a question
we could not hear,
crueler than Sphinx,
it had no answer,
would not release us
(once born)
from the grasp

of death
came nearer
nearer until
no response

remained
but to scream
into the ear
of the world.

Should we remember
just how violent
the gain of language,
forced upon us
from the first,
appears
in deceit
in pain
in honeyed
training words
practiced again
again

until rapprochement
had been achieved
by stealth, by aggression

we learned to deceive
in turn

and turn

to pretend surprise
that words of love
are so easily betrayed?

That first sightings of accord
so easily collapse into
the savagery of war?

That soothing speech
makes so remarkable
the poignancy of pain?

again and again.

That we will die
in the choke
of our own sounds;
that much is assured
and then, perhaps,
be silent?
Doubtful,
not this vocalized
open-beaked species.

Given the chance,
it will scream from
the throat of hell itself,
given the chance
again
again

beating its wings
against the glass
of silence.

-rs

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Expat Weed by Dandelion De La Rue

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expat flower poem
Expat Weed

Sidewalk cracks and
rocky mountain slopes
rooftops roadsides
rotten stumps and rubbish piles
the little expat flower
grows, and thrives.

It didn’t want
to be a garden flower
so carefully arranged
by garden governments
where it would have
a standard job:
be pretty, be useful,
don’t talk to
funguses
or dandelions
drinking chlorinated water
eating  measured
sheep manure.

And so, when still a seed
it ran away
to join the weed world circus.
It hitchhiked
on a random wind, a river
a sticky gecko foot,
to talk to other weeds
unlike itself
drinking river water
and eating handy street food.

Wordsworth’s daffodils
were all the same
fluttering, dancing, collectively
choreographed
powerful in their
vastness, their sameness.
But I don’t know
those daffodils
who run in herds
they are, to me,
after awhile,
a boring yellow blob,
pretty, but all the same,
like Hollywood starlets.

I like this little expat flower

that knows the wind,
and the river
a weed, in the
cultivated world,
but a beauty
in the chaos of reality.

expat poem

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Spirit Not Book

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Abraham called.
he said
“What book?”

Matthew,
Mark,
Luke
and John
dropped by.
They said
they wrote it down
as best they could
remember,
and got the gist of it
but can’t be expected
to have remembered
every word exactly
even a day
later.

Spirit

not

book

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Los Angeles – A Poem By Ron Olsen

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smallpic

Los Angeles
by Ron Olsen

 
She sucks you in
With glamour
Gold
And glitz

With whispers of wealth and fame

They answer by the thousands
Overachievers
Approval seekers
Ladder climbers
Feeling a need
To be somebody
Or at least try

I arrived
Turning right
Off the ribbon of light
Feeling less than connected
Flying off the Hollywood Freeway
Down onto the land of moving earth

Disconnected from the soil
No longer weighed down by the gravity of the East
The heaviness of well-considered thought
Floating somewhere above the sandy soil of the Valley
Without any need to think about why

Never mind
That’s just the way things are
Here on the edge of the ring of fire
With too little rain
Only the hot Santa Ana’s refrain
To remind you of weather’s call
That with the sameness
Sometimes it’s there at all

L.A. doesn’t welcome you
She dares you to stay
If you can handle
The lack of connectivity
As the ground shifts beneath your feet
And your thoughts float away

A social register replete
With no one to meet
For any real reason
Other than seeing and being seen
For the full and meritorious value
Of maybe getting someone famous
To give you the time of day

Or perhaps gain fame yourself
If you’re tough enough
Smart enough
Strong enough
To hang on

To keep from flying off into space
As the ring of fire shifts once more

 

 
©2015 Ron Olsen – all rights reserved

 

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My Grandfather’s God Poem

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my grandfather's God Poem

My grandfather

I never knew how he voted
He was born in 1900.
I spent hundreds of hours
in the field with him.
Farmers,
“You boy’s ain’t hopin’ me.”
Plowers of fields with mules,
Growers of every fruit
every vegetable
every animal
milkers of cows by hand,
survivors of the depression,
Eighty acres and king tobacco,
Porch swings,

Who did he vote for?
It was nobody’s business and nobody asked.

Who was his God?
It was nobody’s business and nobody asked.

The Parson left him alone.
Matters between them were settled long before I showed up
without a father in his field.

I never knew a man with a more private God.
My grandfather never brought Him up in the field.
You don’t speak of Him up when He’s there.

………………..david michael jackson March 29, 2015

More on Mules

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The Days Unpack Slowly Poem by Jenene Ravesloot | Click Click

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high heels poem
high heels poem

The Days Unpack Slowly Sestina Variation

The days unpack slowly from a damaged suitcase.
Click. Click. Click. High heels click on thin linoleum.
Listen to the sounds of doors opening, doors closing.
Dirty dishes slide, swim in pork chop grease;
small dreams vanish like soap bubbles off plated spoons.
Count these hours, those dreams, all bitter—all yours.

Count these hours, those dreams, all bitter—all yours.
The days unpack slowly from a damaged suitcase.
Dreams vanish—soap bubbles off plated spoons.
Click, click. Listen to high heels click on thin linoleum,
dirty dishes that slide, swim in pork chop grease,
sounds of doors opening, sounds of doors closing.

Listen to the sounds of doors opening, doors closing,
listen to those hours, failed dreams—all yours.
They swim like dirty dishes in pork chop grease,
each day unpacking slowly from a damaged suitcase.
Click. Click. Click. High heels click on thin linoleum.
Small dreams vanish—soap bubbles off spoons.

Small dreams vanish like soap bubbles off plated spoons.
Listen to the sounds of doors opening, doors closing,
the click, click, of high heels on thin linoleum.
Count your dreams, those hours, all that is bitter, yours—
days that unpack from a damaged suitcase,
dirty dishes that swim in pork chop grease.

Dirty dishes slide, swim in pork chop grease.
Small dreams vanish like soap bubbles off plated spoons
while days unpack slowly from a damaged suitcase
to the sounds of doors opening, doors closing.
Count your failed dreams: all that is bitter, yours,
the click, click, click of high heels on cheap linoleum.

Click, click—the sound of high heels on cheap linoleum.
Dirty dishes slide, swim in pork chop grease,
the counting of hours, failed dreams. All are yours.
Small dreams vanish like soap bubbles off plated spoons
to the sounds of doors opening, sounds of doors closing
as each day unpacks from a damaged suitcase.

Doors opening, doors closing—all is bitter, all yours:
days unpacking from a damaged suitcase, failed dreams,
soap off plated spoons, dishes in grease, high heels on thin linoleum.
Click.

First published in After Hours, 2012

 

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