From the great fan of
alluvial pebbled man I
Took up one what caught my eye

With great regard he
Became unscarr’d examplary
Of how me thinkst a man should be

Enamored thus with clouded eye
Enriched I did strive
Ere towards him did drive

Followed him beyond his grave
All the way to mine
And lying here in my last bed
Wish I followed another instead

20260114 draft

Folsom Prison Blues

Conceived in stars

Infant Dawn arises.

The navy on the horizon.

Something shifts.

Her teens turn dry grass

Golden in anticipation .

As she grows, clouds glow

As pinks populate Maxfield skies..

How can we not smile?

This is what our eyes were made for.

The first quadrille of the new year is to bring smiles that is a poem of 44 words one of which is “smile”. I hope this brought you one, and for more smiles visit. https://dversepoets.com/2026/01/12/quadrille-239-smile/ for more talented poets

Inspired by but missing the mark d’Verse poets pub prompt to run through the alphabet. https://dversepoets.com/2026/01/08/mtb-first-to-last-letters/ How can such a poem not be epic, grand in scope, allencompassing? That task, of fitting my thoughts into the requested form, failed me. Stymied nothing of note came. You can still see sections of this, here and there. But I couldn’t keep that ruse alive. Once those hounds were off leash, they treed my muse and she sings thus:

Life’s long lesson, maybe,

Is learning what its lesson is.

It’s discovering what I truly need.

Those heretofore unheardof

Hidden hankerings

Tugging on my marionette strings,

Playing me. And when I can

Finally articulate that all I need right now

Is just for you to hold me. Shh, just hold me

Please.

And let me weep those deep sobby bleats

Let that unrequited longing, the dark one long repressed, leak out my eyes into your arms…

Then, then! Of course! Before I can ask for that a second time, the next lesson, a meaner one comes: learn to do without

That need. That desperate deed goes unfulfilled.

If I can inhabit that strange habitat to the hilt,

Hold that horrid hollow feeling half again as long as I can bear

Dig deep into despair

(Here words fail, in fear.) I won’t go there

Won’t dare pass its event horizon.

I tell my self and any who will listen

That the way out is through

To surrender, to let the black fist

Enclose me, and squeeze the juice from me

Pulverize my pulp to constituent stardust.

Die.

Mount my marionette strings

On the last remaining stradivarious and the music that then resounds…. !

Not body nor mind nor

Something so small as a soul, no.

This tune hums tremors

Earthquakes its rhythm in veins

From Wains and wagons

Unleashed no vehicle nor medium…

Above the great tree rise

Treasuremap stars chart the course

X writ on the sky marks the spot

Victory is so near

Yet, I

Zzz

Do you have kiwi, says me
Right this way, bounds he!
Says I, you remind me of me
Replies he, what’s the secret to be-
ing, to life. I could see
It there in his eyes
So this I replied
To love it.

Oh god break his heart wide open!
He’s so close. And me also
If it please you

20251216
An encounter in the grocery store, part 1

These demons are a surly bunch
And think themselves pretty slick

This one want to
Keep my heart
Locked in a box.

He’s a one trick pony though
Whenever love begins to shine
He reminds me of sex with an ex
And though that was quite fine
It’s only the latch on the box

That one wanted me to scribble
His masters name in the lobby guestbook
In a church I infrequent. No,
He says, too obvious. How about
Darkening certain letters in
other people’s entries.

And why would you want to do that
I asked. His reply
To get a rise out of them sheep
wake em up, shake em off
To show I have some power

But by gods grace
Strength galore
With him, much more

Those demons are a surly bunch
And ply themselves petty tricks

20251207

Perhaps it began

With that space under the bed

Knowng that all is not as it seems

Sensing a presence

That somewhere just beyond

The edge of our senses

Lurking in those deep places

Coiling and furling in the dark

All brimstone and tentacles

And thick with ancient malice

Stay afloat!

Keep in your boat

Don’t let even one lock

Touch the surface

Stay abed!

Keep under your blanket

Your evening armor till dawn

Don’t let ankles dangle

Or you’ll be snatched

And drawn below

There danger beasts do dwell

Far beneath your mortal shell

Be they unearthed by dwarvish greed

Or harnessed as the devils steed

Beware lest ye be drawn under

Or lashed with balrog flame

For in the dark grues do lurk

Known to adventurers fame

Should caverns or loch nor

Oceanic trench reveal

No firm evidence

Your heart knows the deal

And dare not plumb

The deeps in your own soul

20251202

DVerse looks at mythical beasts. Inspired by kraken, balrogs and the watcher in the water, and those things that dwell under your bed and lurk in your closet.

https://dversepoets.com/2025/12/02/poetics-tuesday-creature-feature/

Now the year is drawing nigh
Again the red carpet is rolled up
And stashed away for another
Seasoning.
Now the fear is blowing cold
Again the waves reach far ashore
And stewpot awaits another
Seasoning
Good thing we left all that
For Digitalia and ramen
All those salty ones
Cut with callous zeros
Sent from my phone

20251201
This began as a response to a prompt but it quickly took its own course so doesn’t apply But I thought it wasn’t half bad so here you go

The grasses here hold not
The autumnal splendor of
New England maples, no.
Rather they fade without fanfare
To dusty dried browns
Enduring winter in tattered
Unfestive robes.

Stickbrown swaths of the deciduous stand
Between field and fen
Like hairbrushes on their backs
Pockets of pines keep the green.

Some streams are sucked
And irrigate certain squares
To squeak a few more leeks
For human hunger this season

More and more of those fields
Are, one by one, planted with
Perennial domiciles
Fanned out in curving rows
Worse than hogweed
Or kudzu

tacking this onto the final open link night of the year for https://dversepoets.com/2025/12/18/openlinknight-398/ the poet’s pub