Thank you to Editor Mark Antony Rossi of Ariel Chart

for publishing my three poems in the May issue.

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Shake Me True Blue

 Aren’t we lucky

I was the one

to get a dose

of all you’ve said

so many times before?

I want to trust your heart,

stick by you,

whatever you do.

You, depending on me

to watch your back.

You really must decide.

One false move

can put us back,

square one looming.

Let your hope be reborn

at dawn or midnight.

Justice is coming,

you need only confide.

I’ll lead you to somewhere great.

Scan the heavens,

keep looking,

you will discover me.

I have a name.

It is loyalty.

The Hung Clock

 Within the openness of midnight,

this time canonized as most important,

where the tract of the sky

is close to the color of pitch-blend.

Above the bookshelf, 

upon a hanger,

at an easy angle for viewing,

is displayed the front of this clock. 

A fatherly sage watchdog,

within this room, 

in the artificial light, 

within the hothouse atmosphere,

it serves as the manager 

of echoing cathedral sounds.

After each windup,

it chooses the sound,

noise or song.

 The higher pitched ding-dong 

from any woodwind,

the tenor end of a pipe organ,

the comfortable sound of  

the trumpeter of a ship’s horn.

And in syncopation with its voice,

a couple dancing through a minuet,

other small figures

riding atop a carousel of horses.

As early morning nears,

it chimes hourly

in anticipation of 

each new day’s promise.

Teddy Bear

 

A handcrafted silver teddy bear,

with a boo-boo band-aid on his thumb.

It’s unfortunate anyone

could have hatred for this image.

Don’t confuse him with a wolverine.

Henceforth, the carpenter,

by virtue of catechism,

will leave him with an epitaph to guide,

anticipating winged aborted stragglers,

tentative,

not familiar with where they are going,

and too scared to ask.