F is for Folderol
An old word for silly when
Something must be said though
No language is required
Folderol, la, my dear
Folderol, ha, be near
Okay, few words—mostly
Un-worded sounds are sung
Maybe to fill in a fear, if
Singers think there should
Be a lyric, and none shows
While love is there, shouting
In the mind
“No Bad Dogs”
A while ago, maybe
In the eighteen-eighties
(Sorry, I’m tired),
There was a dog-
Trainer named Barbara
Woodhouse
Who reasoned that
Dogs were fine—it was
Their humans who
Screwed up
I can see that; here,
There is an understanding
That when dogs go
Outside, treats are given
On returning
One dog, two dogs, no
Difference—all dogs get
Treats
Apparently, timelessness
Is a contract point as
Well
And so here I am,
Sitting with dogs in the
Middle of the night,
Not midnight but the
Middle, which means
Later
They bark (bad for
The neighborhood),
Claiming the need
To retreat to the yard,
One canine or the
Other (there is a
Tendency, a strategy,
To tag-team it)
Many times with
Treats each time, as
Earlier negotiated
So here’s what I
Learn: on TV at three
And four a.m., ninjas
Make coffee while
Dragons sell blades
(Presumably katanas,
Too)
The Twilight Zone
Prevails (I like that show),
Until we’re told that
Inductive cooking’s best
No virtue in deductive
Cooking? Cooking with
Pre-Socratics or with
Sherlock Holmes?
There’s news, but it’s
Recycled every hour;
Local news takes over
Pre-dawn time
So, after scant hours
When we all agree
That sleep is good,
We wake up to start
A new round of table
Talk and trips for
Treats (maybe I’ll
End up hating
Hallowe’en—nah, I
Don’t think so)
(But) who let my sister
And her spouse out of
The country? With
Such intransigent
Dissident doggies
Still stateside with me?
At least, when today
In just-dawn light I
Open the paper (that I
Don’t take at home)
I read that the
Pakistani student union
At the university
Is painting henna
Designs on children
And others to raise
Peaceful awareness
That’s good news
And, besides, “Who let
The dogs out?”
That is me
No Bad Dogs, Barbara Woodhouse, Touchstone, 1984
“Who Let the Dogs Out?” performed by Baha Men, 2000
E is for Erato
(the muse of love poetry)
We breathe in and out our
Bodies matching moving hearts
Delight in joined revealing
Opened and shared at last
Love lingers, and that’s important
But in this time it’s passion
Sending a siren-song whose
Magic we shall not escape
‘Til breathing slows and sacred
Act eases into other life
Old Poodle
Old Poodle’s rather useless,
Like his step-brother also
Old beyond his breed’s
Allowance
But none too bright with too
Shrill a bark—fine with him,
Since his hearing’s hard
Looking to command him
Is a whimsical try, for he
Has cataracts thus can ignore
Any words he doesn’t want
To see
I think Old Poodle likes things
This way—no expectation
Presses, while his interests
(Not surprising, is it?) take
Away all other precedence
After all, anything not sensed
Can become preeminent
Useless, loud Old Poodle is a
Dear—‘til God wants him, we
Want him here
D is for Dactyl
A metrical foot consisting of an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables; the words “poetry” and “basketball” are both dactylic. Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is written in dactylic meter.*
Into the Valley Relentlessly
Tennyson’s name is dactylic and
Powering into the cavalry riding in
Symmetry into the broken lines
Forcefully facing foes orderly
If much less pow’rfully
Others have dactyl-ly crafted this
Metred way so that a moving sound
Makes rhythm stronger thus
Aiding the pounding desired in the
Poetry
Dactyl for your verse and also
In mine
*(http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-term/dactyl)
Crueling Month
(in response to Dajena’s kind challenge)
February’s kinda cruel
First, there’s pronouncing it
(In Arabic months or Hebrew
Or Chinese it might go
Better), then facing it as the
Last full month of winter (In
The Northeast)
I don’t know what to make
Of Valentine’s Day, an
American confusion
But the month offers two
Gifts at the start and end
My favorite, shapeless
Holiday on the second, a
Day for groundhog-prophecy
That celebrated in any
Undetermined way is good
And sometimes like now
(This year) we get an extra
February day
But then
It’s an added winter day:
Why not be offered in a
Temperate season?
Compensation for all
Lengthier other months, I
Guess
https://moonskittles.wordpress.com/2016/04/04/cruel-month-a-poem/
C is for Chorus
We bend our knee to no one;
No one surrenders to us
Human players are tragic:
Even in our comedies, vicious
We bend our knee to no one;
No one surrenders to us
What we see can blind, but
Unlike Oedipus can’t self-maim
We bend our knee to no one;
No one surrenders to us
Our role is comment for you
Who attend our seeing-place
We bend our knee to no one;
No one surrenders to us
Like Antigone, we’re horrified
In forsaking our heroic dead
We bend our knee to no one;
No one surrenders to us
Cynics abandon Parnassus;
We will stay, the human voice
We bend our knee to no one;
No one surrenders to us
Atomic Child
I used to look up into a blue
And yellow and white sky from
Walking up the dry unplanted
Incline toward the community
Pool on the brighter days of
Summer on my way to swim
In seasonal cool water
I saw contrails of planes touch
The top rim of the sky
Now and then I heard a sonic
Boom
And this is what I feared:
That a slender and silver missile
Would fly down without mind
And touch the ground
Detonating all the earth and
Sky I knew into a final flash
Of heat and dissolving senses
Now the Nuclear Security
Summit meets in Washington,
D.C.
Godspeed to stop then take
Apart shined-up machines,
For now, of nuclear disuse
clcouch123 
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