Beauty is the roses' hue                                                                                  
Bathed in sunlight
Kissed with dew.

A baby's face
Cherubic smile
Brightens up the darkest place.

Tiny kitten, soft and white,
Stately pine tree,
Colorful kite.

When life is cruel and filled with pain,
It's these  which lift
My spirit again.

Too young to know what was going on,
Too young to know right from wrong.
I was just too young.
Too young to know where my parents were,
Too young to know where my siblings were.
Too young to know what courts were or social workers,
Too young to know what foster homes were,
Too young to understand what group homes were.
I was just too young. Too young to understand what
was being dished out to me.
Then...I wasn't old enough.
I wasn't old enough to go certain places

Moles and Voles

           (for the children)

Moles and voles and swans and geese,

and spiders' webs and golden fleece,

and little boys and little girls,

and hissing snakes and smiling squirrels,

and rain and snow and spring and fall,

 and dogs and cats, I love them all.

I raise a toast to Sigmund Freud,
A seer who found my skull devoid
Of any trace of neuroplasm,
And in its place a ghastly chasm.

He proved to be a pioneer
Who plumbed the depths of groundless fear;
And when he asked me, “Yoost vas los ist?”
He brought relief to my neurosis.

And so his memory I revere,
With love and honor quite sincere.
He was a thinker so sublime –
And the head shrinker of all time.

Whenas my Celia walks
My blood flows hot.
Your permeating eye, dear Herrick,
So long ago, has quickened mine.

So now when Celia walks,
My blood flows fire-like
As she moves in polyester so diaphenous. And dances
Such movement glides,
Excites the eye, the mind, the heart.
And when my Celia walks,
Each step pulls tight
The sheath she wears. Then, then...

The search for the Absolute

is tempered in a great man

by a mother who will always

think of him as a child.

He may move kingdoms

with sword or pen

and love a beautiful Circe,

but his mother

sees tin soldiers lined up

on the table, and she knows

when it's time for his nap

by the dispositions on his face.

He pouts and she smiles,

he smiles and she laughs,

he laughs and she thinks of

gods and men and little boys,

and tucks him in at night,

chasing the ghosts away.

In the beginning she came out of a star, as did myself.

They say that in a million years her quarks and atoms

will be flung across the universe.

They say that's the way of all matter,

they call it - molecular decay -

they, they, let themselves decay,

dumb bastards that they are!

I say she will be turning and spinning,

fiery and glistening, as she always has.

But wait for me, promise me, let's ride a comet's tail,

and if we tire of our trip we can dive into a star

and start all over again.

With a big bang.

Walk
The wind, wild,
Whistling, ravaging, tearing
Branches from years old oaks.
Clouds spitting pellets
Of ice, stinging skin
Lightning flash illuminating
Dark corners.
Steady pace,
Heading home
Welcoming harbor
For those experiencing
The storm within.
The storm is a form
Of cancer
Within the body
Renegade cells invade
I prayed
For all who fight
The good fight.
Please walk, run, race or donate to help find a cure.
We can conquer cancer.

How can I fly without wings?
Ah, but you have them.
And feathers?
Yes, those too, you have them.
But where are they? I see nothing.
They are there, dear child.
But I am afraid of falling.
You must persist or you will never fly.
 
And turning aside, the teacher gives a sigh,
for she, too, is afraid of falling.

In memoriam Bill Hickey
& maybe some autobio --
Let's trust that
when hurling hard
to the inmost self
of embattled hitter Job,
often the Lord
took a lot off
his 110 mph fastball
and curve that explodes
like a bomb -- and
sometimes delivered
a very fat pitch.

And what is more delightful
than a sleek young cat
sitting on a window sill
gently licking her tiny wrists,
her cushioned toes,
her crescent eyes narrowing
into slits of conspiracy
as she slowly turns
and looks out the window
at a bird high in the sky,
a small dot of brown
in an ocean of blue,
and she softly rumbles,
- come closer and I'll rip
your flesh to death
and lay you
at my master's feet,
a gift of love -
and rolling over,
she takes a nap.

On her birthday I go alone
down to the Great Northern Mall
and sit on a bench in front of JC Penney,
drinking hot coffee and reading Yeats.

The Mall buzzes with electric noise,
the inside air bright and warm,
yet seeming a winter's darkness.
Busy silent people swarm about me.

I feel invisible, an alien.
I pretend to wait for her
as she shops,
and I become disconcerted.

She is taking too long. 

Joe Psarto, a Westlake resident whose poetry has appeared many times in the Observer, won the grand prize in this year's WCLV Valentine's Day Love Poem Contest with his poem "Blush." Joe beat out over two hundred entries. His winning poem can be seen on the WCLV website, www.wclv.com.

In our belligerence we reject
the Apache medicine man
and the Shinto monk of old Japan
who assign life to rocks and rills,
and mountains and hills, and clouds,
and the flashing lightning, too, and
speak to their dishes and pots,
thanking them for their services.

We say it is nothing
but superstition and myth,
a waste of time, a poetic madness.

Yet I find myself - my very self -
talking to the trees. And as for flowers,
I cannot pass by those blushing ladies
without a nod,
and, for the dew-covered ones,
a crimson sigh.

They buried her beneath the earth
and left me weeping there.
And from my post I could not see
dark eyes, sweet face, soft hair.

The air fell dead and nature paused
as silence entered in.
Then moon and stars and angels
came with a Palanquin.

They carried her up from the land,
dark eyes, sweet face, soft hair,
and quitting me for fleecy clouds
she left me weeping there.

When summer days were dry and sunny,
A farmer lad, for pocket money,
Came into town to cut the grass
For city folk of higher class
Who did not care to push their mowers
But spent spare time in boats as rowers.

Now when the boy became a man,
He built a daydream and a plan,
And since more fit for storytime
I’ll put it into words that rhyme.

Upon My Way To Scotland Yard

Upon my way to Scotland Yard,
I met a statue of the Bard
I doffed my hat in deep respect
And fondness for his intellect.

I turned into the avenue
and met a stately row
of young pear trees
shimmering in the morning light.
They were dressed in white flowers 
where the night before 
had been twigs and branches 
of bent-naked-wood.
And when the sun hid 
behind a fluffy cloud,
leaving a feathery glow 
across the land,
they became an Irish lace, 
a cloth of royal pedigree.
And with the wind 
holding their hands
they danced a dainty jig for me.

Air so crisp

It bites.

Frozen landscape

Crunches, crackles, dazzles

In shades of white.

A cloudless sky

Stars so bright

They glisten.

Murmurs of

A Winter's Night...

Listen.

I'd like to coach girls in sports

for a while.

They don't know many cliches;

they speak basic English.

A refreshing change.

Names.

Identifying words,

And more:

Expectations when given,

Challenges as received,

Meanings while lived,

Legacies remembered.

Words are common,

Names are not,

Each uniquely

One’s own.

Buddy, why did the boss reject

your football headline

that, sparingly, spoke

of backfielders? --- 

What does he call the baseball 3

who patrol the outfield

I never get what I want when I want what I want

because my want all looks the same.

I never say what I mean when the time comes around,

I never say what I mean to say.

If all you can think is how great they can write

and your pen will never mean a thing,

silk pillow
you are too soft
I will flee to the mountain

rock mountain
you are too hard
I will go back to my pillow

soft pillow
hard mountain
my wife - it was you all the time

The oak leafs are dying
and they don't seem to know it.
Golds and reds and oranges,
with sweet, sweet voices
like sea nymphs,
are drawing them into a
final moment of glory
after a lazy season of green.
 
The leafs sparkle and sing
in the cool breeze,
twisting and tinkling
and dancing a jig.
 
But it's a daemon painting
the wonders across their skins.
The leafs back away,
too late, too late,
 
and begin to fall.
 
And all the while
the Watchers shout,
- how beautiful it is -

God made man in his own perfect form,

Then for each critter established a norm.

And if you won't freely His powers admit,

Take the best of the animal kingdom, to wit:

An ant-eating mammal so legendary

That it always comes first in the dictionary;

A diaphanous fish with a touch like a tickle,

And the rough-coated fellow that once graced a nickel.

Yet before He reflected and found them good,

Made a beast with a trunk, and a snake with a hood;

An hombre that drinks without bending his knees,

And pokes his head from the tops of the trees.

And if He could make all these creatures so grand,

With harts in the highlands and heads in the sand;

A bald-headed scavenger riding a gale;

A four-legged hoofer escaped from a jail;

An impeccable bird that wears a tuxedo –

Why on earth did He make the ...

...the insect that brings epidermal sgraffito?

(Done 04/07/1976 for U.S. Bicentennial)

Sing jubilee four times:

for world-heard shot the year before,

for pen in hand,

and blood and treasure.  ---

Great bell did joy

the taproots of our now.

 

(Toward 2010 Bay Village Bicentennial)

Hail Cahoons and Osborns, et al.

and splendid-looking beach

and ours who fought

at the 'Canal and Bulge and since...

Others and we will say more pre-'10.

Ah, October,

A beautiful month.

You gladden my heart,

With your reds, oranges,

Greens and golds.

Harbinger of winter's wonder

And nature's slumber

You are a mixture

Of hope and despair

As all life prepares

For the challenge of

A long winter

And the promises of

Another spring.

This world in which we live and work
Is daunting to get hold of —
For in each step in life doth lurk
A hazard we're not told of.

There are books on all the -ologies,
Tricks in all the -isms;
Your heart may pulse with steady beats,
Then switch to paroxysms.

No matter what you start, it seems,
You must tiptoe twixt the orifices;
And the firmest bases for our dreams
Are eternal metamorphoses.

Franz Kafka turned into a bug,
Ground wheat becomes a blintz,
There was a frog, from kiss and hug,
Emerged as charming prince.

Radiation is expressed in rems;
A whale has coughed up Jonah.
London Bridge no longer spans the Thames,
But stands in Arizona.

The Moon has now been walked upon,
Niagara Falls repaired.
So if all icebergs soon are gone,
Be not alarmed or scared.

A volcano has erupted
on an island paradise,
a hurricane is ripping
through a Mississippi town,
an Asian war is breaking out,
a famine threatens Africa,
and a meteor of iron and fire
is crashing towards the earth.

But all I want to say to you
is that last night the moon
made my white roses even whiter,
a summer breeze is shaking
and quaking the aspen trees,
butterflies are really small angels,
rain drops little diamonds,
and that I love you.

The owl down by the barn
is playing a cello,
and the ripened apples
are falling for it.

At meadow's end
Where the land falls swiftly down
The wooded slope to the ravine below,
Wild phlox contrive in a line of isolated clumps,
To flaunt their fuchsia opulence
And paint a pastel perimeter
That stops the eye — mesmerizing it.

Yet I know, beyond this dazzling rim
Deep in the ravine below,
Though hidden now by broad-leafed maples,
And an aspen's silvery quake,
Two creeks collide, blend, and head north
Toward the river
Seeking ever more mysterious depths.

Ahead lie unknown rocks, pebbles or sandbars
To be caressed with a gentle, rippling touch.

As a friend and I descend the slope
To walk along the low banks
Of this confluence as it proceeds
Softly, sinuously northward through the valley,
We hear pileated woodpeckers pounding
And warblers singing without the competition
Of civilization's mechanical clank and grind.

We feel the relief of absolute nature.
We breathe the cool, fresh air beneath
Ancient oaks, or smooth, gray beech trees,
Or shagbark hickories, whose tops
Disappear into the sky.

As we walk, a whiskered muskrat slips
From behind a hollow fungus-covered log,
Shrouded by ferns, and then vanishes with a plop
Beneath the surface of the stream.
A rotting stump green with lichen, blocks our path.
Half-filled with rain water, it teems
with mosquito larvae, and probably
A dozen other amoebic life forms.

Abruptly, we feel a shattering smash.
A beaver slaps his tail flatly, forcefully
On his pool's surface as he plunges down
To the privacy of his dualistic habitat.

Thus, nature is not always so placid, so
Lacking in the tensions of necessity.
Then I notice a partly chewed-off sapling
Leaning at an angle against the trunk
Of a giant ash.

The shock of this minor drama jars my mood
And suddenly changes my thinking —
For if the beaver, by his grit, fells timber
To encase his watery lair of ecstacy,
Is man really so different, then,
So unnatural, when in his metropolis
He builds a tower of stone
Reaching for the stars?

Speak, skylark, of your swift and day-long quest
Through shortening moments of this late season's hours.
Explain what dream still gives your flight its zest,
Gliding high where lately grain and flowers
Graced the verdant fields beneath your wings.
And what fulfillment do you seek before
The joy that springtime mating always brings
When nature gives its rebirth to explore?

Eurasian child, brought here by human hand,
You've kept your plumage and your song serene.
By now your race recalls no other land,
No softer climate, nor any childhood scene;
For here you walk among us like a native --
Adroitly slip past leaf and twig as agile
As the breeze itself. Do you enjoy
The perfume trees exhale, so faint and fragile
Like that the distant locust blooms employ
To tempt the nectar-hungry to their thickets?
And do the ceaseless notes of music flowing
From warblers, crowds of katydids and crickets
Bring to your inmost soul a happy glowing?

My friend, the winter’s chill will soon unfold,
And all year 'round you are a neighbor near.
How do you meet the spectre of the cold,
Or face the bleak and sunless days so drear?

Surely you must sleep, and strength restore.
But where is restful shelter to be found?
Not likely while in frigid air you soar;
Nor windy treetop, nor on frozen ground.

Still, bravely, through it all you do survive
And seem to find the snowflake's icy touch a kiss
That makes your heart so glad to be alive,
And gives you hope to dream again of bliss.

So if the summer sounds and scents and textures bring
Your deepest spirit realm a gentle smile,
You know by now they'll be reborn in spring,
Though you must be denied them for a while.