The Daily Poem

THE DREAM OF THE BURNING HOUSE

The floors are all on fire and the walls

are glowing red with sheets of steaming ice.

I don my metal slippers lined with fur

and follow out the door the fleeing mice.

One turns to me with crimson eyes and says,

"It's not the fire, it's you we're running from."

"But why, " I say, "I've only ever thought

of you as friends who share my gypsy rum."

The ceiling crashes down between us swamped

in flames, and diving down the stairs I fly.

I mean I really fly. It's awesome how

I've suddenly escaped. I don't know why.

And then I'm on the snowy grass outside,

just watching as the house goes up in smoke.

I want to cry for all the lovely things

I've lost, but burst out laughing, "What a joke!"

"Go on and laugh, you stinking cad, I hate

the way you manage to be free of pain."

I turn around to find the voice and there

in tears, my brother, leaning on his cane.

"Don't cry," I say, "I've loved you every day.

I've missed your eyes of soft philosophy."

And suddenly, he's just a small-faced boy.

I lift him up and say, "Come stay with me."

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem691

Elegiac Quatrains

Oak Harbor, Washington

Lat: 48' 17.6" N, Long: 122' 38.6" W

JOURNAL: Ivan & Virginia Lathrop's House

~ The Daily Poet

DARK CIRCLES

Late to bed and early to rise,

Leaves dark circles under the eyes.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem690

Epigram

Oak Harbor, Washington

Lat: 48' 17.6" N, Long: 122' 38.6" W

JOURNAL: Ivan & Virginia Lathrop's House

~ The Daily Poet

STILL THE SAME

And suddenly it's me who's done

the thing so often dreamed about.

It's me who's made the grade, who's topped

the list, who's earned a bit of clout.

I feel a barometric change;

there's something subtle like a kiss

That's brushed its passing butterfly

and left its hurricane of bliss.

The cyclone in my head appears

to no one looking through at me.

If I don't tell, they'll never know;

if I don't show, they'll never see.

And yet it's me who took the chance,

who went the distance, won the game.

But if I keep my secret safe

they'll all believe I'm still the same.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem689

Quatrain Stanza

Oak Harbor, Washington

Lat: 48' 17.6" N, Long: 122' 38.6" W

JOURNAL: Ivan & Virginia Lathrop's House

~ The Daily Poet

THE BEGINNING PLACE

If I could map the memory of my skin

And draw my fine conclusions on its pores,

I'm sure I'd find a place I could begin

To life a little off the limit-shores,

to rise a fraction into better sync

Invisibily with those who will not go

Back down the traveled floods they used to brink

As if they could control the swirling flow.

There must be some topography of thought

Expressing to the surface from the deep,

That hints of what may be and what may not,

That points like truth down narrow crags of leap.

If I could map the memory of my skin,

I'm sure I'd find a place I could begin.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem688

Sonnetelle

Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Delta Airlines Overnight Flight from Honolulu to Seattle

~ The Daily Poem

THE DEAD

What have the dead ever done to us

That we should fear them so?

And what have we ever done to them

But never let them go?

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem687

Quatrain

Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Hyatt Place Waikiki

~ The Daily Poet

MEMORIAL BUBBLE GUM

We had no choice, we had to go,

We took ten million men.

We brought them home in body bags,

How brave they all have been.

We celebrate their valiant names

Engraved on bubble gum.

We chew them in our mouths awhile

Until the flavor's gone.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem686

Ballad Meter

Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Hyatt Place Waikiki

~ The Daily Poet

EGO

Inside a bit of luck,

Between a split of time,

As tiny as a speck,

But big as dynamite.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem685

Quatrain

Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Hyatt Place Waikiki

~ The Daily Poet

PUPPY LOVE

I really didn't want her but she came,

The puppy on my doorstep with a name.

I picked her up and carried her inside.

She licked my face until I nearly cried.

I felt more love than I had known in years.

If only I could love without these fears,

If only for a day believe again

That someone loves me now and without end.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem684

Rhyming Couplets

Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Hyatt Place Waikiki

~ The Daily Poet

JANUARY SIX

Its January six two thousand twelve,

A day to dive and dredge, to dig and delve;

To find, to clean, to catalogue and shelve.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem683

Epigram

Maui, Hawaii

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (11th Night)

~ The Daily Poet

TRAGIC BIO

Born on the sands of intangible pains,

Raised on the swamps of indelible ploys,

Lived on the slopes of unstoppable gains,

Died on the peaks of unbreathable joys.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem682

Quatrain

Nawiliwili, Kaui, Hawaii

Lat: 21' 57.107" N, Long: 159' 21.457" W

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (10th Night)

~ The Daily Poet

PLOT

At last the island lifting into view

At last the endless ocean left behind

This brightly painted epitaph in greens

A tomb to plant my magic Might-Have beans.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem681

Quatrain

Hilo, Hawaii

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (9th Night)

~ The Daily Poet

MY SORRY SORRY STATE

How happy to be reveling in my sorry sorry state

To candidly ignore such rampant rampant luxury

As if and only if as if my life was born too late

As if and only if as if my tragic misery

Were mine and only mine as fate itself is only fate

As love itself is only love and mine a tapestry

Of finding lost and losing found the pulling threads of hate

Until unraveled reveling in a skein of mystery

The walls around the walls in which I live without a gate

No opening of hope in hopes of being out and free

I take it all and gladly all is this to live and wait.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem680

Novel Verse Form

At Sea, bound for Hawaii

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (8th Night)

~ The Daily Poet

DOME

The lights in the ceiling of the sky are not the stars;

The thoughts in my head are someone else's scars.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem679

Epigram

At Sea, bound for Hawaii

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (7th Night)

~ The Daily Poet

ANOTHER YEAR AMONG THE DYING RATS

Very soon I know it won't be long

Every letter every word I've said

Every deed and every thought-of thing

That ever tumbled through my wicked head

Will come around and bite me with its sting

And drag me off cocooned inside its tongue.

Another year ahead to make mistakes

To baffle all the critics with my crude

And crablike stance on what it is to live

So cheeky fresh and wanker snazzy lewd

Among the dying rats who never give

An inch of anything that money makes.

The resolute the absolutely lost

And lonely state of who I claim to be

Resplendent on my laureled decks of shame

Recounting my advanced liquidity

And dropping every place and ever name

To paint myself a king at any cost.

Very soon I know it won't be long

Every letter every word I've said

Every deed and every thought-of thing

That ever tumbled through my wicked head

Will come around and bite me with it sting

And drag me off cocooned inside its tongue.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem678

Novel Verse Form

At Sea, bound for Hawaii

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (6th Night)

~ The Daily Poet

A TEMPORARY CIRCUMSTANCE

It's just a little tragic dance,

A temporary circumstance;

A few more turns around the sun,

Then count it down from ten from one

And we'll start up again, you'll see,

Our briefly paused eternity.

D. Edgar Lamp

At Sea, crossing the equator, bound for Hawaii

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (5th Night)

~ The Daily Poet

THIS HOLLOW STONE

It might as well

be one ceramic room,

As slick and white as living in a shell.

I'm all alone

inside this heavy place,

No doors or windows in this hollow stone.

I hear the sound

of someone just outside,

Their footfalls close beside my barren ground.

The scream I cry,

(a murmur from within)

And once again my rescue passes by.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem676

Novel Verse Form

At Sea, bound for Hawaii

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (4th Night)

~ The Daily Poet

JUST TAKE ME HOME

Just take me home and let me die

There's nothing regal for me here

I'm just a whimper trying to cry

A shiver trying not to fear

Just take me home and let me die

I'll take my chances with the Sky.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem675

Novel Verse Form

Bora Bora, French Polynesia

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (3rd) Night)

~ The Daily Poet

COOK'S BAY BLUES

Here in the bay of unreasoning sham,

What is the really that truly I am?

Where am I going and what have I done?

Will they remember me under the sun?

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem674

Quatrain

Cook's Bay, Moorea, French Polynesia

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (2nd Night)

~ The Daily Poet

THE VANISHED DREAM

I don't know how to play the dream

Erased, the vanished dream, the dream denied,

The one just out of reach when I awoke.

Go back go back, I said, back up the wide

And tangled way of subterranean smoke.

The knowing Troll is there with cape and cloak;

He'll know, he'll tell, that just-forgotten dream.

So back we went, my sleeper self and I,

One pulling hard, the other full of yawns,

A clamor through the ghostly herd of myths

Of snoring satyrs, pegasi and fauns;

And down and through the soulful trollful depths

Our naked flame ona thousand downward steps

Until the dark distilled into a sigh.

Asleep again, again asleep, but now

What luck we'll need to catch the faded dream

We hold our breaths with fingers doubly crossed

To try and guide the mind's unconscious stream,

But little boats on giant seas are tossed,

And soon we gave ourselves away as truly lost.

"Through phantoms, flood and fear!" We took our vow.

No sooner had we pledged each other our trust,

When there before us on a glowing stone,

The Troll of answered visions took his stand,

Both friend and stranger, known and yet unknown.

He bowed his head and raised a weathered hand.

A smile blew across his face like sand,

His skin as tough as leather, thick with dust.

(in progress)

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem673

Novel Verse Form

Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (1st Night)

~ The Daily Poet

D. Edgar Lamp

THE NEW YES

"Nous" means we, and "oui" means yes,

But yes means some sweet something else,

Like wear your little party dress

And let's go dive some wishing wells.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem672

Quatrain

Punaauia, Tahiti, French Polynesia

Lat: 17' 38" S. Long: 149' 36" W

JOURNAL: Le Meridien Tahiti Resort (10th Night)

~ The Daily Poet