My Bamboo Grove

My Bamboo Grove
Rondeau
7-25-13
dgw

My bamboo grove grovels in rains
And snows, and blocks the passing lanes.
His leaf retains the water like
A kind of airborne lake or dyke.
It binds him as would silver chains.

Friend to the necks of watchful cranes,
And the rich man's walking canes,
And the clay warrior's looming pike,
And placard staves when workers strike,
My grove stands tall, when wet refrains.
My bamboo grove.

But with the dew or fog he strains
To lift his burden from the drains,
And, like the fender of a bike,
He bends. He loves his yoke, unlike
Most, so infrequently complains.
My bamboo grove.

Monotony

Monotony

Rondeau

7-19-13

dgw

Monotony is a parade

Of same.  A low-grade masquerade

Of masks with no specific heat.

Subject, verb of being, repeat,

I parse, and pull the window shade.

Why so much share in the charade?

Why cloned columns in colonnade?

Why press all pedals into peat?

Monotony.

Deep down, of course mélanges pervade.

Could you name just one Everglade?

If you could, it would be discrete,

Not "ever." Elided, incomplete,

Ungrammatical, unafraid.

Monotony.

Hanukiah on Field Azure

Hanukiah on Field Azure

Rondeau

12-25-08

dgw

Hanukiah on field azure.

Gold windows wink, a shamash sure,

As sky sprouts red, then bluest felt.

And in the East, like scattered gelt,

A tenement of lamps endure.

What mean these lights and why occur?

From what whale the oil procure?

What gilded Tarot is here dealt?

Hanukiah.

These candles must a thing make pure,

Some colorless contagion cure,

Some goodness from some bad ore smelt.

If to one star three wise men knelt,

How many more do nine lights lure?

Hanukiah.

The Bus Expressed

The Bus Expressed
Rondeau
7/15/13
dgw

The bus expressed at unmarked time.
Unexpected, but still true: I'm
Often walking along the route,
And I'm reasonably acute.
Sometimes surprise is a minor crime.

Imagine in a calm a chime.
Or if suddenly sang a mime
In a clear voice, or a mute.
The bus expressed.

And if they sang of truth sublime
That stung, tart and quick, like key lime,
Or like the famous windowed lute,
Which, if you heard, your hopes made moot?
Such was the gist of the driver's rhyme.
The bus expressed.

Lonely Plate

Lonely Plate
Rondeau 7/4/13

dgw

Lonely plate on plate conveyor,

Tunnels through a metal lair,

To re-emerge, I've come to think,

In a tall, bright room with a sink,

Raised by a guy with a sprayer.

From the booths a young soothsayer

Foretells Nothing past the lair:

"All cups go clink! Over the brink!"

Lonely plate.

But I am a little grayer,

And so closer to the play, or

At least I see the stage.  I wink

At the sprayer; he takes a drink

And turns back to the conveyor.

Lonely plate.

Exploding Us

Exploding Us
Rondeau
7-3-2013
dgw

Exploding us I praise and curse.
Bullet-born, by bombs laid in the hearse.
With rockets mark our holy days,
Every last guy a Fawkes ablaze,
And every friend also a nurse.

Healing phrases are rendered terse;
Diplomacy is even worse:
Faint hope of truces or of stays.
Exploding us.

I call on Love's gigantic purse
To open and to reimburse
The hurt with balm of calmer ways
Like those of Rutherford B. Hayes
Who, post-war, penned a peaceful verse.
Exploding us.