All life is dialogue

All life is dialogue

told by a brown toad

Down by a pond

I scream past

racing the road

and truck my load

to the next

fence post.

Words for citizens

What was the day

when was the time

poets divined

not to sing in rhyme

but legalese?

My professor said

everyone dead

sent copy

to all the other dead

So that it could be said,

"There’s a poet".

'Freedom is only truly freedom

when it appears against the background

of an artificial limitation'

Why does this not

Why does this

not

call for poetry

just prose?

Fractal-ed limbs

against gray sky

climatic air mass

bringing drop & mist.

Why does this

not

talk to poets

less prose?

Personal god

waivers the atheist

when coincidence

makes claim.

Why does this

not

make the poetry

less prose?

The well-penned word

America in the time

of critique

new critics

deconstruction

presidential elites

Longfellow & Whittier & Holmes

may not

enter

the  new formalistic body

politic but

such as Ishtus can

A slim volume of poems

Ishtus constructs

but a monumental volume

of criticism results

But look for Longellow

and you will find

but a poorly published

volume

of rhyme

the inevitable April

A 10-key press

and there you’d be

your voice that is

on the line

unreal.

So simple

how we

can summon up

the disembodied

will.

So long ago

the date’s lost

the inevitable April

you made the choice.

The dump

The dump

is not a dump

for you

You’ve never

been there,

never passed through

Yet you throw

away

what you should save

And you save

the dying day

The benediction

His hand he holds

above the book

as if in benediction

As he notes

the poets time & outlook

on love & faith & Dickinson

He makes a comment

he makes a connection

between poems & poets & eras

Yet the poets aside,

the poems alone

make no claim on a common lineage

Reality's Intrusion

Do they understand

how insignificant

is man?

No, their plan

calls de facto for his

importance.

If you know this

then you can

understand

Why they continue

to spin their

narrative plans.

Quantum Einstein

Classical Einstein

would have you believe

past, present and future

once created, have always been

What else would you expect

treating time as a common dimension

what’s worse is through

rotation

time becomes something like distance

It just doesn’t set well

no matter how long I wait

I can’t seem to reverse direction

and back out of being late

Power of the Will (The Romantic Missive)

Sit back

and watch the heads hang

the romantics

are at it again

The Will supreme

they dream

will bring to man

a godly gain

And last of all

they hope when through

reason alone

will be due

To emotion

as imagination is due

a priori

Poem of Otar

The high mountains

of Southern Appalachia

and the spring step

of Otar

The waving rush

of rain into the valley

finds standing, in battle

Otar

And there instead

of the round globe

he’s purchased

his ancestor’s lands

Where Otar stands

the angel treads

as steady as

a granite stone

Mine is the inheritance

Mine is the inheritance

not some spreadsheet scion

counting great-grand bones

I’ve got the manner

and fire of heart

such counters can’t know

Life without creation's seed

existence without the need

they have nothing to share

Days without magic moments

Dull agendas that limit

times they could have cared