SUNSET DUCKS

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POETUS INTERUPTUS II

                             Our Tiggy is a cuddle pup
                             Who always asks for a lift up
                             To sit beside me in my chair
                             So while I’m writing, she’ll be there
                             Perhaps to serve me as a muse
                             As then I listen for those clues
                             Of what to write, from the Sublime,
                             Suggesting to me my next rhyme,
                             Or simply so we’ll both be warm
                             As still my versing I perform—
                             But now she’s leapt down from my chair
                             With my verse hovering in mid-air . . .

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INVOCATION

                           Give me, O Muse, my daily sonnet,
                           And place your brightest blessings on it
                           That it may sing in praise of grace,
                           Rising above things bad and base,
                           For poetry should celebrate
                           What things in life are good and great.

                           This poem itself is no such song
                           To join such sonnets in their throng
                           But simply a meek invocation
                           Of what may rise to true elation.
                           Consider this an exercise,
                           A modest little enterprise,
                           To limber up my vocal cords
                           Not meriting praise or rewards.

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IMAGINATION

                    With its imagination, your own mind
                    Can conjure pictures of what’s yet to be,
                    And thus our very future is designed
                    By this amazing human faculty.

                   By it we may foresee what doesn’t yet
                   Exist but may become creation’s goal,
                   Beyond what merely reasoning can beget—
                   Such glory is its visionary role.

                  “Suppose,” we say, “that such and such were so,”
                  And thus begins imagination’s quest
                  To figure out where reason ought to go
                  For our necessities to be addressed.

                       Most glorious of all our human gifts,
                       Imagination blesses and uplifts.

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SIMPLIFY

                    Though modest houses and small cottages
                    Once humbly occupied our neighborhood,
                    Now mansions rise to flaunt someone’s success,
                    A trend that I am loath to think is good.

                   And other signs of grandiosity
                   Appear behind garages’ double doors
                   Where he and she each parks an SUV
                   Displaying private school insignias, of course.

                   Now you may say that envy motivates
                   My scorn, and yet I think that is not so;
                   It’s just that “Less is more” better relates
                   My attitude, who would such luxuries forego.

                        As Thoreau taught, we ought to simplify
                        And contemplate that house where we last lie.

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 THE NEXT DIMENSION

                 When one’s last breath is fatefully expired,
                 Is there a spirit still that then remains
                 To prove a living body’s not required,
                 And many odd phenomena explains?

                 Suppose the soul’s then in another zone,
                 A spiritual dimension we can’t see,
                 No longer tethered to one’s flesh and bone,
                 Experiencing a new reality,
      
                 Which some have keenly seen while briefly dead,
                 Before resuscitation brought them back
                 To claim that angels, spirits gently led
                 Them toward a light that suddenly went black—

                      When they returned to Earthly consciousness,
                      Which then seemed not advancement but regress.

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TRIAL AND ERROR

                    The spirit, soul or essence that is life,
                    The breath we breathe as long as we’re alive,
                    The power that makes such animation rife
                    Is something more than accidents contrive.

                   That life originates from more than chance
                   Implies the presence of a guiding hand,
                   A providential gardener who plants
                   The seeds of life for reasons he has planned.

                   It seems that we especially are made
                   To ponder this essential mystery
                   Discovering how the game of life is played
                   And why it is that we have come to be.

                       The universe arrived at consciousness
                       In us, who’ve yet to prove that spells success.

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