Don Quixote Grows Up

Shortly after I graduated from college, I decided that I wanted to make a difference in this world. so, I moved to Baltimore, into the city, to be involved with programs for helping the economically disadvantaged.

In the passing years, I've been held up at gun point. And I've been ripped-off by people that I'm trying to help.

If I had made some kind of impact in my neighborhood, I may be willing to say that it's all worth it. However, day in and day out, nothing seems to change.

Not only have I not made an impact in my neighborhood, I'm beginning to see it impact me. I'm less patient with those I'm helping and more distrustful of anything they say. There's been days in which I started to think that they deserved to be where they are.

So, I held up the mirror and wrote the following.

I mourn the passing of my youth

As it gasps for the last breath

Of its quixotic dream.

No single self-evident truth

Survived this untimely death,

Without a trace downstream.

The promises of tomorrow

No longer have their allure

No longer fuel my hope.

Broken lives, broken hearts, and sorrow

A field of dreams with manure

Made me this misanthrope.

The Mystery of Bella's Blue

Why wouldn't Bella reveal

The mystery of her blue

Even as you wait

While sitting beside her?

Did she hide in her poems

Something to give us a clue?

Words or syllables

That we can decipher.

A Poem for Little Ball Blue

Colleen posted a sketch of a ball with a sad face and shaded blue. With it, she wrote a poem entitled "Ball Blue".

I replied with the following poem.

My heart is sad
When you are sad.

I wish that I can shield from you
All things bad

And chase, from the skies, the stormy clouds
That made blue the little ball on your sketch pad.

What can I do,
Little ball blue?

I'm here and you are there;
My options are few.

So I knelt and prayed that He pours out
The abundance of His awesome love on you.

Monkey With His Fist in a Narrow Neck Jar / Disney Girls Gone Wild

OK, I admit it, I watch "Entertainment Tonight" and "Access Hollywood".  After a long day at work, and after watching the local and the national news broadcast, I let my mind veg out on mental junk food.

Lately, the entertainment news has been mostly about grown up Disney girls "Gone Wild": Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Vanessa Hudgens,... These girls thought they have stardom but instead stardom has them.

The girls' lives reminded me of how they catch monkeys in the southeast Asia.

To catch the monkey, they put dates into a jar. The neck of the jar is just barely wide enough for the monkey to stick his hand into when the hand is not clinched. However, the neck of the jar is not wide enough for the monkey to take his hand out when it is holding a date. For some reason, the monkey is unwilling the let go of the date in the jar, despite not being able to take his hand out.

So I wrote the following.

Monkey with his fist in a narrow neck jar,

He's ruled by his belly,

So he just won't let go...

He just won't let go.

The Man, with a monkey wagon, not too far,

He came from New Delhi

To bring the monkey woe...

Bring the monkey woe.

Monkey has a collar with a big brass star

Does tricks on the tele

To make the Man some dough...

Make the Man some dough.

Disney girl, with cash, driving a fancy car,

Does tricks on the tele,

She's an attention ho.

An attention ho.

Monkey with his fist in a narrow neck jar...

Le Coeur Est Avec Toi Toujours

(Everything sounds so much more romantic in French.)

N'aies pas peur,

N'aies pas peur que nous ayons fini

Quand nous disons "adieu".

Je t'aime,

Je t'aime de tout mon coeur.
Le coeur est avec toi toujours.

Grabbed by the Ocean

I wrote the following in response to another of Colleen's blog entries. She had posted some beautiful photographs from her trip to the Pacific Ocean. One of photographs is of the tide coming up to her feet. Accompanying this photo is her poem musing about the tide at her feet.

To feel the ocean grab hold of you,

To draw you far from life's mundane;

Your soul released to sail the blue,

To see like a child, again.

To lift the backdrop of clutter,

Illusions of necessity;

To lift your arms, to let your wings flutter;

To be caressed by the ocean's raw beauty.

To be at the edge of the world...

To be at the edge of the world

I envy you, young woman named girl.

p.s., Her name, Colleen, means girl.

End of Day Diddle

I wrote the following in response to one of Colleen's blog entries.  She just ate dinner and was exhausted from the day when she wrote about how full she was and how she wanted the pots, pans, and dishes to wash themselves.

Hey! diddle, diddle,

I'm a bit wide in the middle,

Feels like I've swallowed the moon;

"Little pots and pans,

Wash yourselves", I command.

So the dish ran away with the spoon.

Poetry Happens

Lately, I've been reading Colleen's blog quite regularly. She's been posting poetry rather frequently. Although I haven't written poetry regularly since college, her post inspired me to start up again. Surprisingly, the prose, the rhythm, and the rhyme has been flowing quite naturally. So I started this new blog as a place holder for snippet of poetry that happens to come up and called this blog "Poetry Happens."