April 26: Do Not Be Afraid

 

 Do Not Be Afraid
      by Tom King

One clings to life like a Texan at the Alamo
   Knowing death is coming for certain.
Knowing that the end is inevitable.
  Not knowing what's beyond death's curtain.

Another knows for sure there's nothing
   Because there is no order to his universe.
Death is little more that sinking back to dust.
   No meaning, nothing better nothing worse.

Beside him stands another knowing naught
   But that rest lies beyond the catacomb
A Lazarus sleep, a dreamless waiting
   For Him who will call us one day home.

In the end we all get what we want.
   Eternal  nothing, pain and flame,
Or eternal life if that's what you accept.
   God gives us if we want it all the same.

The universe does not need a place to torture
   Sinners forever as if God's love's restrained.
Like some vindictive celestial Hitler.
   Who cannot live without a place of pain.. 

When the fires finally burn themselves out
   Darkness gone all that's left will be light.
No more suffering no envy, evil, death
   All heaven scrubbed, eternally, clean and bright

© 2022 by Tom King

Greater poets than I have tried to figure out about heaven and hell and whether there even is such a thing. I come down on the side that believes evil does not have to exist to "balance" good, God does not need the Devil. Happiness does not need sadness to be happiness. The devil would like you to believe he is essential to the universe. He is not. The whole point of Earth is to get us to a perfect universe. Unless Hell burns itself out, it would always be a blot on a perfect universe.  - Tom

 

April 25: Like a Song in the Night

 

Like a Song in the Night
          by Tom King

Something sings in the dark
In the wee hours before us.
Sings me off to sleep in peace
And night birds join the chorus.

Something about the early dark,
Night full of the moon and stars
Drifting overhead with the planets
Making music Venus, Jupiter and Mars.

The night in its silence makes song,
You can hear it if you're still and quiet
And in the distance galaxies play music
And stars and nebulae run riot.


© 2022 by Tom King

April 24: World's End

 

At World's End
by Tom King

The Universe is watching, the peoples of the stars
Sometimes, I suspect, in bewilderment
At what we have done to ourselves here,
In seven thousand years of blood and terror.

I suspect they wonder why - all of them - that He
Would let it go on so long; long past proved
That the rebellion isn't working out so well,
Not the way the devils advertised.

I think I understand for in all of history there are
More now alive than have ever lived and died.
And technology has given us the means to speak
To each of them at once the truth.

He is a jealous God, not wanting even one
That can be gathered to be lost.
When His sons and daughters stand at the ready,
Like lightning He will come to take us home.

The Thunder whispers far off in the distance,
A portent at just the edge of hearing.
We feel it. Smell it on the wind. See eternity rolling in,
A black cloud like a fist rising in the East.

© 2022 by Tom King

April 23: Pathfinder Blood

Pathfinder Blood
by Tom King

 Lanape Chief Nemacolin was a pathfinder
And a direct ancestor of mine.
A guide and blazer of trails for colonial troops
Through woods of  birch, and larch and pine
Highways trace his trails across the Cumberlands
Down the Ohio and Great Lakes
He knew Washington and others of my kin,
Marked forests, valleys, plains and cedar breaks.

Our ancestors once cut trails into the wild untrammeled West,
Built railroads, highways, villages and towns
Through wilderness uncharted, not yet traveled,
Our grandpas plotted farms and hunting grounds.
Today Door Dash descendants of these pioneer folk,
If on the GPS my home's not showed,
They cannot find me on a map and in frustration.
Toss my groceries out along some random road.

(insert face palm)

© 2022 by Tom King

 

 

 

April 22: What? Me Worry?

 

What? Me Worry?
        By Tom King

I once worried about the state of the nation;
Asteroids, earthquakes, conflagration.
Tornadoes, typhoons
And nukes on the moon.
But for now I'll give my worries a vacation.

© 2022 by Tom King

 

April 21: Can I Get an Aspirin?

 

 Can I Get an Aspirin?
           by Tom King

Now I've got a headache; it's been coming awhile.
Add to that my galloping arthritis,
I inherited it from Mama's side.
Along with allergies and dermatitis.

Oh, I've got ailments aplenty to talk over with friends,
Relatives, or loved ones who answer their phoneses.
As I age, I collect more aches and more pains.
Helps me keep up with the elderly Joneses. 

I hate talking about medical conditions,
But when we chat with folks our same ages
It takes 20 minutes to cover our surgeries,
And describe our failing kidney's last stages.

I miss the days when I used to discuss,
Hobbies, sports, next summer's vacations.
Instead, we obsess about anesthesia.
And the side effects of our medications.

Right now, I'd like to talk about boats,
Fishing, carburetors, movie ratings.
Anything but the last thing my doctor told me,
Or that I'm steadily deteriorating.

© 2022 by Tom King

April 20: Twitter - A Limerick

Twitter - A Limerick
          by Tom King

A social media site let's call Twitter
Saw it's numbers go into the shitter.
Till Elon acquired shares
Said, "Now let's make things fair."
Now their board has gone all a twitter!

© 2022

April 19: Sharing My Birthday However Unwillingly

 

 Sharing My Birthday However Unwillingly

                             by Tom King

Today's my birthday which is kind of weird.
  Cause it's not just mine alone.
All sorts of birthdays, anniversaries and such
   Share the date with me.*
I first noticed this in the early 1990s,
   When my Sweet Baboo was making a cake
For my birthday and we were listening
   To the news and puttering around the kitchen.
And we watched the Branch Davidian compound
   Catch fire and kill those inside.
Again on my birthday a terrorist blew up
   A federal building in Oklahoma.
I began to look back at birthdays past.
   I read a disturbing science fiction story,
And in it the world ended April 19, 1954 -
   My actual birthday. It was kind of creepy.
In history, I found I also shared the date with
   The shot heard round the world in 1775.
   The San Francisco Earthquake
And various massacres, shootouts, riots and such
I don't like to watch the news on my birthday.
   Feels like that way nothing bad will happen
To innocent people or a war will start
   It's not that the date is bad juju or jinxed.
Or that my birth has anything to do with catastrophes.
   My dog died on my birthday which spoiled it for me.
I've taken to celebrating my birth two days early and late
   With my birthday in the middle. I call it Cinco de' Tom.

I figure spreading it out dilutes the actual birthdate's significance,
   In case the devil's trying to creep me out.

© 2022 by Tom King

*Some Things That Have Happened on April 19: 

• 1775 The shot heard 'round the world - Battle of Lexington and Concord
• 1775 Paul Revere and William Dawes ride and are captured by the British
• 1861 Baltimore riots- Civil War secessionist uprising
• 1897 Boston Marathon begins
• 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
• 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising
• 1985 FBI & ATF agents seize The Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord's Arkansas compound
• 1989 USS Iowa gun turret explodes
• 1993 Branch Davidian siege ends in fire
• 1995 Murrah Building blown up
• 2013 Boston Marathon bomber killed in shootout
• 2018 Derry Northern Island riots
• 2020 Nova Scotia massacre -22 killed
• 2022 Three mass shootings in just this past week (which included my birthday)
  

 

April 18: But I'm from Texas

But I'm from Texas
     by Tom King

They think we are afraid of them.
They think they've almost overcome,
The weight of Christian history
The strength of American character.
They think with naked propaganda
They can just obliterate the old ways,
But  the old values are stubborn things.
And while a few may give up more easily;
Succumb to a constant flood of words
And apparent "popular" opinion.
And draw a feeble draft of courage from the mob
Convinced they've overpowering strength in numbers.
But I'm from Texas. We understand, how to pick
A place to stand; the value of fighting a losing battle,
Till the last of us are fallen for what is right,
And the field is littered with the defeated enemy.

I still remember the Alamo, guys.
You don't mess with Texans.

© 2022 by Tom King

April 17: Minions

Minions
by Tom King

I read a pack of lies today,
Fresh delivered to my social media.
An eager debunker of my point of view.
With the confidence of an encyclopedia.
But someone this guy respected,
Told him to disbelieve his lying eyes.
Things are better when it's done the way
Conforms with all they philosophize.

Minions do that sort of thing,
In their eagerness to belong,
To feel the way the cool kids feel,
The herd's siren call so very strong.
It feels so very powerful to share,
The opinions of the mighty crowd.
To trample the voices in the dust,
Of naysayers speaking up too loud.

The confidence of minions,
Resists evidence of reality.
Their religion must be always right,
In its utter and complete totality.
Not a detail may with fact be challenged.
No deviation from "our truth" permitted.
So powerful the urge to be the winning team,
The herd is willingly dim-witted.

© 2022

April 16: The Miracle of the Sabbath Rest

 

 The Miracle of the Sabbath Rest
                by Tom King

When I was a kid, Sabbath afternoon we'd disappear,
The grownups would warn us to be good.
It's not like we were going to work or throw a dance party.
Mostly we'd head for a favorite spot in the wood.

Out of sight of the adults, we'd find a creek or stream and build
A dam; moved earth like we had bulldozers in use
So much that had our parents demanded we work that hard
We'd have called the cops and charged our folks with child abuse.

Once we'd backed up a small pond's worth of water
Deep enough we'd wade in the cool water, but careful to obey,
The rule about how far the water could come up your shins before
You went from legal wading to swimming on the Sabbath day.

Give us a tree or mountain and we'd climb like Edmund Hillary
Up Everest, scampering rock to rock to reach the crest.
We'd chase wildlife, hike for miles, build cabins from dead branches,
And the work, fresh air and sunshine made us feel refreshed.

Now I am old. The cracking of my knees and trembling in my arteries
Have limited any woodland rambles and spontaneous mountain climbing.
That I might have once attempted as a way to rest on Sabbath,
When I was young. Now Sabbath afternoons I spend reclining.

Old folk like me find our Sabbath rest by actually resting.
I KNOW! It's so different from when we could sit on a rock a minute,
And be recharged, restored, renewed and once again,
Ready for some strenuous new challenge and we'd begin it.

The Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath day,
To remember our Creator in the days of our youth it seems,
And for those of us who once remembered Him by running through the woods,
We lean back now and drift to sleep, and rest in youthful Sabbath dreams.

© 2022 by Tom King

April 15: As the Sun Goes Down

As the Sun Goes Down
by Tom King

As the stillness falls upon the evening
   The sun going down, the wind whispers,
Singing airy hymns up high among the branches'
   Gentle percussion attending Friday vespers.

The Earth seems to settle down to rest,
    And nature slows its pace; dismissing all that's pressing
I can feel the planet exhale, a long slow breath,
    And opens wide its arms to welcome Sabbath's blessing.

The fading light, enfolds and gradually
   The night arises, wraps the world, mutes creation.
And the holy day begins, by hushing children of the Earth
   To rest, to share His gifted, the spirit's liberation.

© 2022 by Tom King
  

 

April 14: Timeline

 

 

Timeline

by Tom King 

Here we are the little people crawling
Through time like bugs upon a line.
One way only, no way to turn around
And go back to fix mistakes, to redefine
Our past so things could come out better.
When we pass again through the time,
That we wanted to change so badly,
That we felt the need to redesign.
It's probably good we can't go back because, if
You can't look forward, you shouldn't look behind.

 
© 2022

April 13: The Pieces of a Soul

 

 The Pieces of the Soul

by Tom King

In the beginning God formed a man from dust,
The elements of the Earth woven into every cell.
Made altogether of the stuff his home planet was made of.
Ready for the installation of what will make him whole.

When the dust was fully formed into a man, and then
God bent down and breathed into his empty lungs.
And with the divine breath, life coursed through his veins
And the man became a living soul.

Before the body and the breath, the man was nothing.
Supernatural mathematics is here at work.
Body plus Breath becomes a living soul,
A sum much greater than its parts.

And when I lay me down to sleep at life's conclusion,
My soul remains only in the mind of God,
To awake when body and breath are reunited,
And if we answer He says, "Rise!" And gives to us eternity.

© 2022

April 12: Angels at the Gates

 

Angels at the Gates
           by Tom King

The signs are there to see these days,
Like the fig tree's leaves in spring
Tell of the summer coming soon,
Or the first frost warns of winter's imminent arrival.

We've a journey ahead of us when it's done,
Him coming back's a big deal and we've
A trip through space and all those stars to see.
And a landing in triumph at Heaven's spaceport.

There will be angels at the gates, each carrying
A golden card that opens that extravagant pearl portal
For us. Opens upon that vast city of wonders
Beyond imagining, Where streets are durable gold.

And when we enter, our loved ones about us,
Another face is there beside, one we seem to recognize;
And somehow know though we've not seen him before,
And I think he'll grin as he walks us proudly home.

© 2022 by Tom King

 

 

 

 

April 11: Elegy to a Dead Houseplant

 Elegy to a Dead Houseplant*
                      By Tom King

Do not our plants deserve our trust,
When we pluck them from the fertile dust?
Yet long they suffer for we forget,
To water, fertilize and yet,
Weeks and weeks we hurry by,
Scarce they ever catch our eye.
So they struggle on for light and air,
Bereft of moisture, starved for care.
Chosen for their green luxurious heads,
Of leaf and branch, and now all dead...

© 2022

* A parody of Katherine Philips' mournful eligy, ‘Epitaph’.

April 10: I Think a Day Skipped Me

 I Think a Day Skipped Me
                       By Tom King

 I was checking the time on the wall
Looked up the date on the calendar
On the off chance I'd lost track of time
And sure enough, I had. I lost a day.
Somewhere between the 8th and 10th
The 9th had disappeared somehow.
I don't know how it done it, but it went into hiding.
So anyway I did something I do every day
Only I did it twice; once for the day I missed
And once for today, while it's still waning.
That's the sort of thing old people do
To keep our fuzzy old brains straight.

© 2022

 

 

 

April 9: Batguy!

 

Batguy!
by Tom King

Dunna dunna dunna dunna dunna dunna dunna dunny,
Got the cape, got the mask, got the tights for money.
Got my sidekick here with me,
My dog is in a Robin onesy.
We're fightin' crime and criminals and bein' very funny.

© 2022

 

April 8: The Venerable Language of Love

The Venerable Language of Love
             by Tom King

Given the divorce rate these days,
It seems love could have a pretty short shelf life.
Perhaps the marriage license should come with a notice,
"Refrigerate upon opening," or something like that.'
My Sweet Baboo and I just finished 48 years together.
We've had some serious disagreements.
I've been called some names that surprised me,
At their eloquence and the depth of exasperation
Arising over the passage of steady marching time,
And the accumulation of sometimes bitter experience.
To my shame I've made a couple of shots myself
That wounded but luckily did not kill or cripple.
Over the years, love, nurtured, grows venerable and wise,
And learns to practice nattering with more kindness.
So that love ends the day, with language that binds; does not divide,
Pecks lightly by day then entwines our hearts by night.

© 2022

 

April 7: Twenty-Six Miles From Here

 Twenty-Six Miles From Here

                    by Tom King

If I walk down the road a ways
To the edge of the Puyallup Valley
Overlooking the river winding upward
To the foothills of Mount Ranier,
And above it all, rises the snow-capped
Cinder cone, the remnant of an ancient
Spate of unspeakable geologic violence.
The ash pile left to remind us to be respectful.

It's twenty-six miles from my front door
Squatting there on the horizon grim and blue.
Pushing the clouds that roll in off the Pacific
Spiraling upward like a big fluffy chimney.
The big guy is overdue I'm told
For another noisy demonstration
Of the mountain's ability to wreak violence,
On a lot of puny mammals that get too close.

Puny mammals like me.
  Living just 26 miles away.

© 2022

 

 

 

April 6: Down the Blue Deep

 

 

 

 

April 5: In the Wake of the Sunset Clipper

In the Wake of the Sunset Clipper

By Tom King

 When I was in the second grade,
I drew a clipper ship on my Big Chief tablet
Not knowing how, I just figured it out on my own.
The shape of the hull, the rigging, the sails.
When Mrs. Rogers the 3rd grade teacher saw it
Hanging on Mrs. Pauly's bulletin board,
She liked it and borrowed it from Mrs. Pauly
To hang upon the 3rd grade bulletin board.
To inspire here art class to new artistic heights.
I was, after all, only a 2nd grader.

Year after year, I drew other clipper ships,
Some sketches black and white, the rigging
Becoming ever more complex; ever more accurate.
Some in color. I remember the year I turned the flags around
Realizing they would flutter in the same direction
In which the sails were filled and drawing.
Once I'd discovered that, I found I added clouds,
The horizon with the sun down low above the water.
Usually to the right ahead of my clippers in pursuit
But I didn't know if the sun was setting or rising.

All these years later, I still am drawn to clipper ships, tearing
Across the water faster than any of the other old windjammers.
But, I have figured out the thing about the sun, a last detail added.
Definitely it's a sunset and my ships are sailing in its wake 
Trying to keep up and prevent the sun from setting;
To keep ahead of the gathering dusk following along astern.
This I do know I cannot keep the pace much longer.
Darkness in a while will overtake my vessel despite
Her straining halyards, creaking masts and snapping sails.
The wind will die, and I will coast silently into eternity.

© 2022

 

 

 

 

 

April 4: Train on a Bridge

 

Train on a Stone Bridge
by Tom King

I used to build bridges when I was a kid.
I used to make them first from blocks,
Then from Legos, an Erector Set and finally
A dedicated bridge-building set my Matchbox cars fit on.

When I was two I got a Lionel train - OScale
My Dad played with it all Christmas day.
I loved my train. Mom used to plug it up for me.
I would lie on the floor and watch it go round.

I'd set my face by a curve and watch the train
Race toward me, then turn at the last second
And flash by with all the cars in tow
And disappear into a painted stamped metal tunnel.

One day, Mom was next door talking to the neighbors
And I wanted to plug the transformer in.
I thought, at 3, I was big enough to do it myself.
And in the process discovered what electricity is.

Mom cut the cord that day and my train became a pusher.
 Mom knew I could not be trusted to resist plugging
My electric trains with its painted tin tunnel,
And all the bridges and crossings I was planning.

I still love watching trains, big ones crossing bridges.
Stone bridges, truss bridges, suspension bridges
Watching them cross deep chasms on complicated
Wooden structures creaking and groaning with the weight.

Trains and bridges, tunnels and stretches of track
Winding along rivers, snaking up mountain passes,
Dragging a hundred cars behind a big black engine
Pouring great clouds of smoke into the sky.

In my garage there's a big board upon which
I plan to build mountains, tunnels, and most important of all -
Bridges - trusses, cantilever, stone arches and suspensions.
But, I'll be careful with the plug so no on euts my cord.

© 2022

 

April 3: Along The High Frontier

 

 

Along the High Frontier

by Tom King

I have never slipped the surly bonds of Earth
   Save firmly strapped in a seat in a big aluminum tube
Rocking along at 25,000 feet, someone else at the stick,
   Who knows how to fly this thing at preposterous speeds.
And ridiculous altitudes, but not in any danger of reaching space,
   Though if you can afford a ticket, perhaps...........

The high frontier for now is the province,
   Of very rich guys and scientists and celebrities.
Someday perhaps before the world blasts itself to atoms,
   A regular schlub like me might catch a ride
Beyond the stratosphere to where space proper has its boundaries.
   And I'd need a special suit to step out on the station's porch.

The High Frontier someday will open out before us,
   When we have had the time, the millenia to to figure out the tech.
Once the work of Earth has been completed and we humans
   Scrubbed of our sins and able to be turned loose out there
In the galaxy, without the fear that we will mess things up,
   There is so much we have yet to learn along the high frontier.

© 2022

April 2: Packages

Packages
by Tom King

There's nothing like a package
   Arriving in the mail
Unexpected or expected
   A kind of joy that does not fail
To make you feel all special
   Though you bought the thing on sale.

Even if it came from Amazon
   And you bought it for yourself,
It's the mystery of the packaging
   It's the hidden thing itself.
It's that moment of anticipation
   A happiness for myself.

I mean I know just what it probably is,
   And I knew that it was coming,
But still it is the mystery
   That sets my heart to drumming.
That pleasant little mystery,
   That sets me happily humming.

The thing is that until you tear away
   The paper and the shipping tape,
It might be something else than what
   You ordered. In a box the very shape
The other thing was supposed to be.
   From boring just a small escape.

Little mysteries, small offerings,
   Some big, some very small,
Some from near, some from far away,
   From romantic ports of call.
I love arriving packages,
   Wherever from, I love them all.


© 2022
  


 

April 1: Hats made of Fruit

The Girl from Saint Lucyer

I once knew a gal from St. Lucia,
She was know far and wide to be beautier.
When on her head she wore fruit,
She was really quite cute;
A work of art by the island's master frutier.

Tom King
© 4/1/2022