dodgy-eyed smile
backhanded compliment
brash innuendo
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All posts for the month April, 2014
“Allegory of the Morality of Earthly Things”
Painting by Tintoretto
From wikipedia.org
lost in the gaps
where tight seams
should join generations
smooth transfer of values
diminished
cultural legacy
disarms youth against
onslaught of decadence
are we new Rome
eating our glory
starving our virtue
with empty Barbary ethics
giving love
powers change
grows our most
human aptitudes
love received
confers clarity
alters self-image
forever enriched
My days are but loans
Of time that God owns
Till the scale of St Michael swings
I flew the high zones
Peered down on men’s thrones
But this eagle’s now folded his wings
My body bemoans
The sins it atones
Through pain that due penitence brings
Like a sackful of stones
My bagful of bones
Sinks into the tar of stilled things
I’m six-hundred years old
and by merely one toe
my life straddles millennia
a miserable fortune
this era beyond me
too fast and too hostile
too ugly with philistine princes
I belong to that past when
minds opened to rigorous
learning when eyes adored
arts that perfected humanity
raising up visions aligning
reborn aspirations to
limitless new possibilities
it can’t be right that I die here
so far from my home from my
time from the forces that even
when brutal gave substance
and shape to my animate dreams
it’s not right that my renaissance
ghost be so cruelly abandoned
to wander and wail disconnected
from everything touched
by familiarly intimate hands
unable to find in the strangeness
the path made by God to
the white gates of paradise
then again it is only the stillborn
who die in the same place
and time of their birth so it
must necessarily follow that
every ghost suffers and
shares the same tragedy
stranded afraid in environs
unknown heaven always
and deeply concealed leaving
only to genuine virtuous souls
the endurance and means
to its blessed discovery
pulling the iron
from within my convictions
crude geomancy
expected to weaken me
misjudged my perseverance
“Flash Flood”
Painting by Van Winslow
From fineartamerica.com
flash floods of fear
gorge through channels
that courage first cut
sprung from confident brawn
in rough rivers of city concrete
but the brawn is now wasted
and courage has no route to run
save discretion’s retreat
threats and dangers abandoned
for forest and flowers
and safe flowing streams
among creatures and neighbors
less fraught with ill-motive
but not so completely
to let down my guard
my skilled marksman defenses
or ironwood staff
when I’m out and about
͠͠͠͠͠
truth be told
I don’t get so much out and about
but I hate to admit it
conceding my weaknesses
pisses me off to no end
yet I know of great warriors
toppled by blind self-delusion
so if I go down
whosoever whatever is standing
will know
they’ve just had
the hardest fought fight
of their fortunate life
but for now
I’m at peace
View original post 13 more words
I am pleased and excited to announce that my publisher, Stonewood Press LLC, has just released my seventh full-length collection of original poetry
“Bohemian Scents: New Poems from Old Thoughts”
This volume contains original poetry that delightfully celebrates the art of language as it excites the senses. Filled with the author’s creative observations, memories and imaginings, this contemporary collection of poems and haiku will appeal to the heart, mind and soul.
Provocative questions about life and the circumstance of nature provide a wide ranging feast to the curious minded. Variously sweet and savory, it will satisfy the most eclectic of appetites.
A number of these poems pay homage to various personalities that have impressed the author, his gratitude offered in finely crafted verse.
“Bohemian Scents” is newly available on Amazon in both paperback and kindle versions. Similarly available are my 6 earlier books,
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• City of Pawns
• Range of Motion
• Two-Cornered Rooms
• Pentimento
• Music of Scars
• Bullets from Bones
If you would like signed or inscribed copies of any of my books, please contact me by e-mail at pflenzi@aol.com