heartstring

unstrung
i polish
and fix
my frets
laboriously
rethread and tune
so someday
when nimble fingers
pluck my upon
my heartstrings
the song they'll sing
will ring out true

cacophony

in the aftermath
the silence is what strikes

in contrast to the cacophony
of disaster's display
the quietude of dismay
muffles sensation
like a wet blanket
choking waterlogged grief

the sole sound
a gasping to breathe

teem

salmon swimming
up the urban stream
commuters teem
in writhing wiggle
push and shove
and jiggle the doors
stick to the floors
eyes askance
or in a trance
willing the train
down the track
hating the person
who wears a backpack

bardolater

I must confess that what you guess is true:
in every thought and every twisting rhyme,
my love for Him suffuses through and through,
to Him, I will return time after time.

He taught me how to love and how to hate,
(and though schoolchildren in him oft despair)
he showed me best to rail against my fate.
I find his wordplay well beyond compare.

Bardolater I am, and without shame,
"Twas ever thus," he whispers in my ear...
Sweet Willie Shakes, to call him out by name
to any logophile that holds him dear.

Tragedy, comedy, or history -
his facility is the mystery.

finicky

we defeat ourselves
so finicky in choice
that we deny the pleasure
in plain sight and so
we lose the thing
most desired
mired in a mind set
that leads to regret

prescind

chaos abounds
chattering cacophonous
surrounds as a swarm
of clicking pincers
pricking piece by piece
so from the storm
prescind perforce
to find surcease
from chaos into peace

wiseacre

click your clever claws
and smugly smile
like the cat that caught
the canary but beware
your precarious position
is fraught for some
will learn what you've taught
and turnabout is fair play
you'll eat tomorrow the crow
you dished out today
for now you may have
the upper hand, but alas,
the wiseacre is plowed
by the dumbass