Toward the Sun

Toward the Sun
                    A Haiku

Parallel lines stretch

Away coming together

Approaching the light.

A Haiku
© 2018 by Tom King

If You Could Swing on a Star, Would You?

If You Could Swing on a Star, Would You?

If you could roller skate in a buffalo herd,
   Why on Earth would you want to?
If your chewing gum lost its flavor on the bedpost overnight,
   Why did you leave it there in the first place?
If you got tears in your ears from lying on your back, crying your heart out over me,
   Why in the world would you lie on your back to weep?
If you are your own grandpa,
   Perhaps you shouldn't marry widows who are pretty as could be.
If Grandma got run over by a reindeer,
   Maybe you shouldn't let her go out there all alone in the road?
If there's a dead skunk in the middle of the road,
   Why don't you drive around it?
If you're Henery the 8th you am, Henery the 8th you am, you am,
   Why can't you shut up and behead some wives or something and give us all a break?
If they're coming to take you away ha, ha, to the funny farm where life is always beautiful,
   Do they need directions?
                       ....have them give me a call. I can tell them right where you are!

© 2018 by Tom King

The Little Man at the Bottom

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Can I hold the ladder for you Dad?

I want to stand at the bottom and look up,

And see the steps you’ve taken to get to the aerie heights

Where you conduct your business.

Can I catch the seam of your trousers, Dad?

I want to walk as quickly as you do

With that firm step that says you know

Exactly where you are going.

Will you pick me up Dad?

I’m getting a little tired down here,

And need to rest my head against your chest,

Where it is safe and warm and comforting.

© 2018 by Tom King

In the Land of the One-Eyed King

In the land of the one-eyed king,
   The two-eyed man can see the borders clearly.
Depth perception is highly under-rated,
   By a citizenry that is mono-opic and/or the blind.
So, when the ravening hordes pour across
   The nation's boundaries, waving swords and spears
Only those who can perceive the distance
   Feel the threat of what is coming toward us.

© 2018 by Tom King

Counted Blessings, Uncounted Curses

Counted Blessings, Uncounted Curses

Hardly a day goes by that I

   Don’t try to count a blessing or two

Or three. It’s kind of a race

   I run against discouragement and despair.

Counting a blessing really does work

   Even if that blessing is as simple a thing

As a faucet that works again after an easy repair,

   Or a car that starts the first time you turn the key

When it’s raining cats and dogs and you need it to start,

   Or a something as simple as a banana in winter.

Blessings are everywhere lifting us up

   As effectively as counting up the curses

Makes you bitter, angry, melancholy,

   Less certain about moving forward.

So I call them out one by one by name.

   Even the little goodnesses you seldom think about.

It takes a little effort, staying ahead of despair.

   Counting up the tiny gifts that come our way.

But it’s worth it if it helps you stay ahead

   Of the darkness of the counted curses.

By Tom King

© 2018

Harbingers and Heralds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harbingers and Heralds

There is a warning that comes before

   The moment when a smile lights up your face.

The touch, of a lover’s hand portending

   In that long breath ahead of an embrace,

An electric harbinger of sweetness coming,

   A neuro-chemical nudge in the tangled space,

Among the billion neurons where the mind,

   Whispers, roars, and rushes on apace;

In the dark behind the eyes, the soul knows,

   Whether by instinct, intuition or wild guesses

When something’s coming down the pike.

   Heart tightens as the mind presses

Strings of emotion, playing like a fiddle,

   In the deep places in the dark recesses

Where we gauge the imminently approaching

   Moment we expected as it softly coalesces.

Then there's that smile...

© 2018 by Tom King

By Babylon’s Waters

It seems we all are looking down

   The long road to Babylon these days,

In front of screens flickering.
   Grim images incessantly 

Anticipating the place where we will one day sit

   Heads in hands, humming wistful tunes

That Babylonians would wish for us sing

   In the aftermath of our doom.

Once we’ve crawled from out

   The rubble that must inevitability be

The consequence of civilization’s sins

   And humankind’s lust for zombie apocalypses

And sullen captivity and lots of living dead

   To mete out our punishment.

Down past the breath-taking end

   We know that we will one day sit

In the dust upon the stumps of burned out trees

   We once insisted we were protecting

And we will watch the thick brown waters flow by;

   Waters only God can make run clear again.

© by Tom King