A Time To Sing

A Time To Sing

To me, the saddest thing to hear
Are tales of those sorry folks
Who’ve spent their busy lives in fear
Of showing love when needed most.

Too late, too late their praises came
With no one left to trust
Or hear while living, the words aflame
That fell on ears of dust.

But not so with you my love...
I’ll not wait until from heaven’s porch
You squint, and try from up above
To find a flare from my heart’s torch.

No, today a song comes from my pen
For I can’t but wonder how
A thousand sung in sweetness then
Could equal one sung now.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2006

Forty

Forty

Chances are, I have already lived
half my life.
Timewise.
That is a sobering thought. So, to compensate
I conjure up childhood memories.

These seem either cloudy with the mist of Niagara Falls,
or snappy and crisp, like blue-tinged Ontario icicles.
Dad stopping the car so mom can pick them
for me to eat as we drive on towards Stoney Creek.
Meeting Mickey Mouse.
Breathlessly peering over the edge of Hoover Dam.
Crying over a lost balloon at Circus! Circus!
How the smell of green peppers would make me sneeze.
Navigating my first bicycle into a spool of barbwire.
Bees buzzing inside a pop bottle high above Peyto Lake.
Shirtless summers, taking lunch out to dad in the field;
how warm was the mason jar of coffee
when passed to him.
Skating on the Thom Oval with my sister until
both our brains froze themselves solid upon the thought
that we owned the world.

All this time, in a pool of darkness
lies my heart.
Never seeing the light of day, pupils fully dilated;
frantic about some mystery it keeps to itself.
Spasming over a secret
even while I sleep.

Utterly unconcerned with my awareness, it remains
intent upon squishing itself to death,
as though the end of the world is nigh.
Wha-whumpa. Wha-whumpa. Wha-whumpa!
Forcing deep-blue life along thousands of miles
of seamless pipeline, as quiet as snowfall.
Life returning from the extremities
without question or complaint,
to this amazing half-pound of meat
that has a mind of its own.
This involuntary muscle.

This is how things have been
half my life.
Timewise.

But today I saw my heart looking up at me. I saw
the inverted V’s of its mad scientist bushy eyebrows;
valves flapping wildly, gesticulating
that it has only half done what it was designed to do.
It is astounding that something so silent
about everything else it does
can be so candid when moving a message
a foot and a half uphill.

Today, when I get still, and listen
I sense the thrice-beaten refrain…
Love someone. Love someone. Love someone!

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2006

Oblivious

Oblivious

Three kids are in love with their sandwiches.

The one in an olive-colored shirt alternates between
cookie and sandwich and pop and laughter while
cramming it all into his freckles he marries a monstrous
beast develops liver disease plastic tubes keep him alive until not.

The one with thick glasses and mustard on his laughing lip
secures a fortune in the stock market loses it all
night watchman finds what he was on the sidewalk.

The one in the red jacket with the laugh like
rain falling her only child dies in the womb after a long
bout with cancer she too succumbs to life.

It is beautiful to watch them with their sandwiches.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2006

Chickens

Chickens

I cannot imagine a world without them.
A world where I cannot rob them of their unborn young
and gnaw their adult legs to the bone.

Where sunny side up, over easy, Breakfast Special,
are all meaningless terms.
Where the sun hesitates below the horizon waiting
for a rooster on a fence that is not there.

Think of the jeerless playgrounds, bullies groping
for just the right word to hurl at timid boys.
What will these kids hunt for at Easter time
or throw at houses on Hallowe’en?

People will tell legends involving a soup
that could cure a cold, as the riddle industry stumbles.
Which came first, the… ah, forget it.
Why did the something-or-other cross the road?
See?

No. A world without poultry just leads to
a lot of blank stares in the kitchen.
Honey, don’t forget to pick up a dozen ____?
She’s lost for words, and all he knows
is that he hasn’t eaten a moist cake in years.

We ought to be thankful.
It is good that they are here.
It is good that they cannot fly too fast, or too high.
This makes it easier to knock them out of the air
or just trip them,
lop off their heads,
and stuff them into a pot or an oven.

No, a world without them would not do.
And as far as that goes,
heaven will not be heaven,
if there are no chickens there.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2006

The Rider

The Rider

A sparrow turns its head.
Quivering, the vigilant forest edge
yields to a gathering unease
the thump of approach.
Hooves stamp the hilltop.
A triumphant tossing of mane, a steamy huff.

The Rider, wheeling the great beast about,
surveys the foggy terrain he has crossed.
Silence reclaims itself.
He thinks.

This man knows nothing of Parliament or Congress,
matches or ballpoint pens. Electricity is gibberish.
Air the exclusive domain of feathers.
Television, centuries hence.

Yet the Rider knows two things
as well as you and I do.
Love and the lack of it.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2006

Welcome to poetrypuddle!

There's only one thing better than a puddle.
And that's two of them.
Or three of them.
Welcome to poetrypuddle!
In the days ahead, I will be posting, in periodic installments, my ongoing attempts at poetry.
I believe that life, LIVING, is poetry. Is poetic.
That is to say, there is nothing that cannot be put to words. Yes, it will most of the time be inadequate. Will not express, what was, or what is.
But the times that it comes close... this is poetry.
That's what poetry is all about. Capturing the moment.
Not in a cage. But in a puddle.
My hope is that the occasional poem, placed here, will burst its own boundary, and spill itself into your life. Or will, like rain on a window, find the path of least resistance, and slide its way down the pane of who you are.
As it did to me, when I wrote it.
-- Cip

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