FLASH

SOMETHING FISHY
Fresh brook trout is a pricy treat
sauteed by Chefs before it's dead
then served, full dressed, for you to eat
with baleful eyes still in its head.

I may be crude, to not eat trout
if it expires while being cooked
with crusted sneer upon its snout,
from tortured lip where it was hooked.

Diners might laud this oppressed dish,
but I believe it ranks obscene
to pay surcharge for half dressed fish
that no one cared to even clean.


A LONELY TREE
In the middle of a field of high yield corn,
stoops this oak tree, to stubbornly mourn
its siblings harvested for oak barn beams
while it yet survives. The lonely oak dreams
of a grove of descendants, shedding seed
quite sterile from chemically tilled of weed-
killers making a fertile former wood land
uniquely corn. Does this sole survivor stand
as victor, or only as a token of the past?
For one century this spreading oak cast
cooling shade for explorers, and pioneers.
Now, in it's heartwood, fresh new rot appears,
hollowing the trunk that dared not bend
to winds that proclaim a great tree's end.

An old, fading poet comments on his obsolescence and irrelevancy...

CASTING PEARLS!
Sooooeeee, Sooooeeee! It's feeding time.
Digest these orbs of nacreous matter,
Ignore the fool who made them rhyme.
Don't push, don't shove, don't block the trough,
word choices forced are mindless patter
that meekly earn, your right to scoff.
Cram down, gulp quick, subdue their shine
each gem will hardly tint your taste
if they are first dissolved in whine.
Porcines decry my rhyme unsung
its wisdom missed as banal waste,
their music mute, sad bells not rung.

CONCERNING DEAD SOLDIERS
Consider the sadness of the dead
when Gods, that final truth supply
as boon for lives unfairly shed
in service to persuasive lie.

Do they envy the fallen few
embalmed with poison of the truth
partook while sat in chapel pew
or sniffed wile in their voting booth?

Do they impatient, count the days
until they meet again the liar
who justified his war and preys
on young to stoke in Ares pyre?

Do they despise their coffin's flag
or covet the colors of their foe
and wonder if dead men should brag
or now, more calm, their bold outgrow?

Or wasted do they silent sleep,
mute promise of the young that died
for empty glory purchased cheap
and charged to chauvinistic pride?

        REASONS FOR RHYME
For each fresh new thought, exists the right word,
        each listener taught that each little turd
        by being has wrought a crap loving bird.

That well chosen word, to last for all time,
        most often is stirred by nuance sublime
        with import inferred in flexible rhyme.

Each word should be chewed, not gobbled intact
        its meaning reviewed, so you can extract.
        when structure's unglued, each relevant fact.

Don't lazily waste each rhymed line you hear,
        with suspicions placed on meaning unclear,
        with acrid distaste, word chosen sincere.

A DEATH IN VENICE,

Prostrate Casanova glumly eyed

his impudent sentry, now aflame,

standing erect and purpled with pride,

or was it blushing from dark shame

that branded his too fickle friend?

Maybe just pressure of accrued

juices of sour grapes poised to send

residue from toasts un-brewed?

Or possibly, that nether member,

only now, alert and awake, would choose

to dance round the May Pole in November.

Slumbering through calls to arms. We lose

the esteem of just one fair flower

in vast gardens. Those blooms ignored

while open and fulgent, soon sour

or turn brown, and wear their discord,

that freshest of new buds will see.

Casanova eyed his standing spear,

with vile contempt. "They will doubt me,

expecting the passion of a steer."

I too, now blush from cowardice

that powders my face with shame,

in fear that when I rise to piss,

you will deflate, hang limp and lame.

Gone again, my weak and cowardly friend

and amatory comrade? Why pose the tear

in your eye? You rested while sabers bend

I cried, embarrassed by my final affair

 

You are the same age as I.. How

can you wear out while I still feel

the young man's needs. Why now

when I most need love, does your steel

backbone turn to limp spaghetti?.

Grateful Ladies once tore apart their best

nightgowns to make bright confetti

to salute my lusty conquest."

The rest of Casanova died of shame

when his biographer turned wary

while passing years had doused his flame

and left his shaft too soft to bury.