The Daily Poem

STARDOM

Exhibition’s station man

Voyeurism’s dancer girl

Met by chance on Platform’s ban

Breaking through the Crowd’s control

   Looking out on Place’s past

   Crooked Stallion’s took them fast

   Suckled off to Actor’s cast

Dressed to kill with Ceiling’s fan

Paparazzi’s public swirl

   Taking Innocent’s, "At last!"

This they knew and knew it well:

No one left the tale to tell.

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Novel Rhyme Scheme)

ONE ON ONE

There's always a story beneath the face,

   The look on the lookers is not what it seems,

The rules of estrangement will not erase,

One guilty acquitted with masterful grace,

   One innocent hung from the beams.

There's one in a million who chisels fear

   And answers the mask of the hider no more,

Who steps from the crowd with a piercing leer,

One innocent fist that refuses to hear

   One guilty unlocking the door.

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Quintain Stanza)

ARIZONA SCROLL

I own a piece of Arizona,

The easy piece I took to ride,

A narrow strip of Arizona,

Only seven inches wide.

I rolled it up for when I'm older,

To play the memory of that day,

A shoulder soft for when I'm older,

Riding off in dreams away.

Written while riding through Arizona doing a "Saddle Sore 1000."

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Ballad Meter)

THOUSAND MILE RIDE

The full moon's rising on the open road

My bags are packed, my treasures stowed

My tank is full of golden fuel

The midnight sky is clear and cool

For a thousand mile ride.

My engine's tuned to a fine refrain

My headlights beam through the dark terrain

I've left behind the bleak and bland

To stretch my wheels across the land

For a thousand mile ride.

My riding boots are laced up tight

My helmet's snug and feels just right

The folks back home are safe and sound

I'm flying two feet off the ground

For a thousand mile ride.

I'll just be gone a day or two

To catch a glimpse of a wider view

It's hard to tell what I might find

But I'll be back with peace of mind

From a thousand mile ride.

Written while riding out of California doing a "Saddle Sore 1000."

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Quintain Stanza)

BEYOND REPAIR

If you should find me crumpled in a heap

Beyond repair and very nearly dead,

My words erased by quickly coming sleep,

Please whisper gently as you hold my head

And tell me something I might want to know

Like, “Please don’t worry now, & please don’t dread.”

Remind me that this world is not my home

And soon with Jesus I will ever be;

Then dial 9-1-1, but do it slow.

Come ride along in back, and stay with me,

And if you would, please softly sing a hymn

Like “Morning by morning new mercies I see.”

And don't you cry; no sense in getting grim.

Just stay with me, and pray with me, and tell

Me all about the shining Seraphim

That soon will carry me to where they dwell

In feathered flight, no time to stop and grieve;

Hello, hello, and never more farewell.

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Terza Rima)

AWAY

A sharp and fancy jackknife jewel

She perches prim upon her stool

With leggings crossed she plays it cool

As all the boys confused with pain

Refreshed by her sweet dazzling rain

Keep circling circles round in vain

Not really knowing what they want

In jest and swagger nonchalant

While she with lonely-hearted flaunt

Just wishes one would stop and stay

And scoop her up in love's display

And walk her out the door—away.

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Rhyming Triplets)

THE AMPHIBIOUS FLIER

I see a ship come sailing in,

A sculptured frigate long and thin;

Her body’s carved like a violin,

   Her timbers tall

With windmill blades that spin

   The blurring squall.

The gale blows hard and strong,

But lightly like a nursery song

The shining schooner flies along

   Approaching land

As if terrestrially her wheels belong

   Upon the sand.

And as I watch, she leaves the seas

To skim the beach and onward flees

Before the ever-chasing breeze;

   A chariot now

Seduced along by unseen steeds

   Before her prow.

Across the countryside she goes,

Her motion serpentinely flows

As deep within her neck their glows

   A brightening flame

Of blooming energetic rose

   That none can tame.

And as I watch, her sterns ignite,

Her double sterns now rocket bright,

Careening to a stellar height

   In one swift arc;

And left behind her streaking flight—

   A question mark.

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Burns Stanza)

ACQUITTAL

I woke up late and walked outside

   To take a look around.

Though nearly noon my cast-off pride

   Still lay upon the ground

Just where I'd left it late last night

   When first I let it go.

The look of it was thin and slight,

   A latticework of snow.

I picked it up and tried it on

   But it had shrunk so small,

I swallowed it with half a yawn

   And one quick swig of gall.

I felt a wave within my chest 

   Of something leaving me,

A swift exchange of hornet's nest

   For hushed tranquility.

 ~ D. Edgar Lamp (Ballad Meter)

THE ASTRONAUT STRIPPER

The astronaut stripper confessed,

"My zero-gravity breasts

   May flatten I fear

   In the atmosphere,

So please let's get on with these tests."

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Limerick)

REACH

I have eleven thousand verbs

   That I can chose to Do.

I give the cue, the brain perturbs

   The nervous system stew,

And all at once I'm doing just

   The verb I thought about,

With no real time to think-adjust

   Before the action's out.

But if I switch the mode to Speech. 

   Allowing just pretend,

When I say "reach" I do not reach

   Though mental arms extend.

What is this act I did not do?

   What difference did it make?

Is there a meaning to construe?

   Is anything at stake?

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Ballad Meter)

THE ALLERGIC NOVITIATE

The allergic novitiate Katherine Quinn,

Began her vow of silence again

   Whenever she sneezed,

   Falling down on her knees

Crying, "Bless me Father for I have sinned!"

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Limerick)

ONE DIMENSION UP

Let's say for sake of argument

   That like a map which signifies

A territory not itself,

   This earth of ours beneath blue skies,

   This habitat we call our home,

Is just a map of someplace else—

   Some Kubla Kahn, some pleasure dome,

Just one dimension up the stair

From map to globe, and globe to there.

And if our supposition's true,

   That This is just a map of That,

Then every stone and leaf and face

   Is pointing off to where it's at,

   An emblematic metaphor

Of some immense uncharted place;

   Degrees of freedom to explore

Beyond our tethered flesh and bone,

A field of vision still unknown.

What follows then from this new view,

   This paradigm of shifted scale?

How should we move toward this new light

   From our topography of Braille?

   How would a two-dimension man

Imagine climbing, jumping, flight,

   Beguiled within his diagram?

If we would go, then let's begin

By asking God to change our skin.

For David H. Lamp & posted at www.cognidyne.wordpress.com

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Novel Rhyme Scheme)

H2

It’s colorless, odorless, tastelessly bland,

But makes up three-quarters of all that’s at hand.

It’s solid by land, and liquid by sea;

You breathe it in you and I breathe it in me,

There isn’t a place where a Hydrogen’s not

No matter how cold, no matter how hot,

No matter how far, no matter how near

There’s even a Hydrogen stuck in your ear.

It’s made of just one tiny proton of stuff

And a speedy electron that give it some fluff.

Wherever you go you’ll find Hydrogen there,

And wherever there’s one, you’ll find it’s a pair.

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Rhyming Couplets)

CONSTRUCTION 3: FLYING KEYBOARD 

Unfold your laptop till it breaks in half,

   Then burn the screen with Kerosene

   And don’t feel badly if you laugh.

Then get a tube of gold, a tube of green,

   And carefully on every key

   Paint brand new symbols never seen.

Encrust the rest with reddish two's & three's,

   Then left & right attach a kite

   And fly it on a Florida breeze,

And keep it flying high by lantern light,

   Between a calf & a giraffe

   Until the middle of the night.

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Novel Rhyme Scheme)

PROTECTION

Protection is the platinum I crave,

   To stay the grief and chain the beasts of pain;

And if robust enough, to misbehave

   Without a consequence to entertain;

Immunity from any poor result;

A place to thumb my nose as I exult.

If only pure impunity were mine,

   A Teflon coating thick and slick as ice

That no contrived suspicion could malign,

   No finger pointing out some minor vice,

But free & clear and sailing through the fray,

I’d glide the gauntlet’s maze like child's play.

Indemnify me, mollify me, stage

   A coup d'état before they pick the lock

Of my encrypted antiviral cage.

   Let none approach me, no one knock

Or tap or tamper with my crystal calm,

No agitator cockle my aplomb.

Protection is the platinum I choose

   To thwart the silver rounds of circumstance,

That will not ever fail to always lose

   While I outwit the sloppy rules of chance.

I’ll flirt with every game that can be swayed,

Completely safe within my masquerade.

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Venus & Adonis Stanza)

STEERAGE

Hello there Captain Burton, Sir,

I never thought you’d stoop to this.

Why aren’t you topside wearing fur

And sipping bubbly, kiss by kiss,

With your propitious dilettante

Who surely knows just what you want?

I can’t believe you’d climb down here

Below the decks of decadence

To chew the fat and bend an ear

With all us bums-in-residence.

We tip our gallon jugs of rum

And take our women as they come.

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Daffodils Stanza)

THE MANUSCRIPT

If only I could find the manuscript

I buried underneath the house last spring

Inside a freezer bag both locked and zipped

All strung up snug with fifteen yards of string

And duck taped thick with two full rolls of tape—

A silver bullet brick of dynamite

To blast a ragged crack for my escape

From Dawdle South to Northern Expedite—

I'd be the happy man I thought I'd be

When way back when I first imagined it,

And sweet significance would shine on me.

I'd have the very thing to set me free

To grant myself the laurels of legit

And humbly cede to my celebrity.

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Sonnet)

FOLGERS FOREVER

A coffee cart somehow came loose

And started rolling down the street.

The guy in charge, Barista Bruce,

His latte loving Marguerite

All French and kissing him hello,

Was unaware until he heard

The homeless cowboy yelling, “Whoa!”

And saw the cart just crossing Third.

He left that latte loving mouth

And dashed down Main in tragic haste,

While overhead and flying south

A flock of geese no time to waste

Descended on that coffee cart

And lifted it with honks of glee

Like some surreal performance art

Ignoring Bruce’s frenzied plea,

“Come back you geese! That’s all I own!

That’s all I have for Marguerite!”

Just then he felt his mobile phone,

It was a tender touching tweet

From his true love just two blocks back.

Her text went, “Darling, don’t you fret,

For kissing French, you’ve got the knack,

There’s always money we can get.

But what we’ve got cannot be bought.”

The second tweet, “I’ll marry you,

If you’ll just bring a coffee pot;

I’ve got some Folgers we can brew.”

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Ballad Meter)

THE DROWNED CATHEDRAL

Adrift in my craft on the after-storm ocean,

   The clouds have departed, the moon's nearly full,

   While Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel and Saiph,

(The limbs of Orion) unmoved by the motion

Of little disturbances, tiny distortions,

   From where their important celestial events,

   In sync with the turning of seasonal shifts,

Hold fast to their golden indwelling proportions;

I suddenly find in a moonlit enchantment

   The sunken cathedral immersed in the flood,

   My eyes disbelieving, my mind welling joy;

I've found the safe harbor, the place of pure moment,

Unsinkably solidly founded on something

   Akin to the four in the heavens above—

   A cross in the sky with a Trinity nave,

A cross in the sea with the power to save.

Inspired by M. C. Escher's "The Drowned Cathedral", Woodcut, 1929

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Novel Rhyme Scheme)

SOMETHING SLOW

Dear God, Your majesty, Your highness stands

   Much higher than

   The orders of our ego-smitten world

      In self so curled

   That not unless You cut us free, unwrap

      Our arms that strap

   Our selves within ourselves all tethered sick

      Of living quick...

We long for something slow and pure and true

   Like loving You.

~ D. Edgar Lamp (Rhyming Couplets)