April 19 - Confluence of Numbers

 

 Confluence of Numbers

They’re just dates, ages, times and amounts.

Rolling by, leaving marks in history,

That no one a thousand years from now will see.

But here in the moment they feel like everything.

They mark the paths of their lives.

By merest chance a birthday crosses a day

With someone’s death in it;

Losses falling on anniversaries of life;

Days of celebration marked with pain.

It can’t be helped I’m sure.

God knows the way we need to go.

Every day’s somebody’s celebration.

Every day is someone’s sorrow.

Only time will smooth it over,

Eternal life’s the only thing that can

Leave behind the grief and keep the holidays.

© 2016 by Tom King

* Picture courtesy of http://arlingtoncemetery.net/section60-hbo-film-001.htm

April 18 - My Daisy's Bear

Daisy gets a vacuuming in our old chair....

My Daisy’s Bear

She’s gone too suddenly

I’d no time to prepare.

So I sit here of an evening

In our broken down old chair

Daisy thought she was a lap dog

She’d jump up in the chair

With me for her daily cuddle

And take a nap up here.

Sometimes she’d bring her bear

Or squeaky duck or mouse.

We’d play a game of catch and shake;

Romping all about the house.

She’d watch the world with me.

Lying there on her rumpled bed.

Or she’d sit beside my recliner

And make me scratch her head.

Now my chair’s half empty.

And broken down and battered

By a heavy man and big old hound

A Fellowship that to us mattered.

I sometimes see her shadow

On my old companion’s bed.

So I keep her old bear by me now

And sometimes scratch her head.

©  2016 by Tom King

April 17 - Sauce for the Gander

Sauce for the Gander

If you play it loose

The sauce for the goose

Is sauce for the deuce

The goose and gander

Don’t mean to pander

Don’t get up your dander.

I want you to know

The same is so

Wherever you go

I don’t know

You can puff and blow.

But your cultural practice

The simple fact is

And history backs dis'

That the things we like

In front or back of the mike

Every recreation

Came from some other nation

And was an appropriation.

Peace out!

© 2016 by Tom King
* Skeltonic Verse was invented by English honky poet John Skelton (1460-1529). Skelton was a colorful character. He was teacher of Prince Henry, later King Henry the VIII (the original party king). Leading the way for modern rappers, Skelton did a stretch in the big house when prisons weren't the fun places they are now. He also was banned by the Church as a "corrupter of youth".   

Like rap music, Skeltonic verse has two stresses per line and any number of unstressed syllables. Every line is rhymed with the line before it – unless the poet decides to change the rhymed last word. So sometimes you’ll get 2 lines that rhyme with each other and then two more with a different rhyme. The rhymes could be repeated three or four or ten times – however many the poet decides he wants to repeat the rhyme. The rhyme pretty much goes on till the rhyme runs out of “energy”. 

Given that Skeltonic verse was invented in the 15^th century in England, I think it’s fair to say that the rap rhyme scheme was appropriated from ancient Caucasian culture – at any rate, we had it first. In exchange for my foregoing corn rows, I demand that you forego appropriating our white rhyme schemes. 

As John Skelton would say, "If you play it loose, what's sauce for the goose......

April 16 - Daisy's Chains

Daisy’s Chains

She was just a dog, so why the hole
In our hearts, now that she is gone?
We didn’t rescue her. She rescued us.
It was our souls she’d print herself upon.

She danced upon our hearts not long enough
Always underfoot, her foolish lopsided grin
Telling us there were squirrels outside
That needed chasing up their trees again.

A chain of evidence, of a vibrant doggy life;
Everywhere the traces of the love she left behind;
Of a life well-lived among the humans she possessed.
Traces meant for us one day to find.

One by one I’ll collect them all – her toys, her blankets;
Her bed, her brush, her collar, all the things about her.
And her human mom and me, weep over every bit and bob,
We come upon in our struggle to live on without her.

©  2016 by Tom King

April 15 - Ragged End

Ragged End

By Tom King

I think I’ve hit a point in life where I do not care much,

About when all of this will rattle down to its ragged end,

Or whether I’ll even finish all that stuff I wanted to get done

All those years ago when I was standing in the starting gate.

I think we sense when our work in this world is just about done

Or at least when it’s coasting down to some kind of conclusion.

There’s a kind of finality that hangs over everything we do now,

Fog-like, intrusive, nagging at you constantly every dragging day.

I’m not afraid anymore, though. God is watching us too closely for that;

Making all things work together for good and all,

If not for our comfort, then I suspect He does it for our edification.

I’ve learned to live with that after all these years and all I’ve seen.

© 2016 by Tom King

April 14 - Homegoing

Homegoing

By Tom King

I’m far away; a stranger in a strange land.

My heart is elsewhere in the soil of another place.

I used to think I carried home around with me.

But it seems a part of me still occupies a former space.

The power of the familiar draws us all at last,

When our denouement comes stumbling down the lane

And life passes haltingly before us one more time,

The picture album so long closed now opens up again.

If you live to be old, life doesn’t flash before your eyes,

There at the last. It scrolls itself out – pages plucked by chance

From memory - misty, age-dimmed, yet calling softly still; 

An invitation, time-faded, to a well-remembered dance

© 2016 by Tom King

Photo © Copyright Chris Reynolds and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

April 13 - The Myth of Power

The Myth of Power

By Tom King

A wise man said once that power corrupts,

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

But I think he was wrong and it’s always been

An opinion I’ve held resolutely.

You see it’s not power itself that’s the problem,

Anymore than a spoon causes fatitude.

It’s that power attracts the corruptible sort.

It attracts those with a corruptible attitude.

It’s the smarmy, the sleazy, the evil and slimy,

That you find drawn to places of power.

That give us the fits, when they once get their mitts.

On the keys to that terrible dark tower.

It’s hard for a man with money and power,

To pass the eye of the heavenly needle.

There’s only one way and that’s on his knees

It does no good to bargain or wheedle.

So I say to the snake oil salesman parade,

To the charlatans, frauds, and rich few,

You may win for a season, but a reckoning comes,

For there’s a power that’s greater than you.

© 2016 by Tom King