The Daily Poem

DEEP TEARS

You reached inside my flesh and bone

And held the tears that felt like home.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem791

An epigram for JR

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

THE CORE OF ME

A thousand million dollars strong,

    More money than I'd ever need,

    And yet somehow I figure greed

Will send a whispering tag-a-long

To coach me in the ways of lust,

    To open up my eyes to more,

    Chauffeur me easy toward the core--

In me and only me to trust.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem790

Quatrain Stanza

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

MY FIRST REAL CAPPUCCINO

Two men in white apparel came

    To Starbucks Coffee where I sat

Alone in the bathroom head in hands

    In contemplation working at

The problem of this living game

With all its turbulent demands.

And yes I mean appeared inside

    The bathroom shut and locked.

I don't know how they made it in.

    I won't conjecture or concoct

A theory of how space divides

Or molecules like magic spin.

I don't remember words per se

    But spoken thoughts as clear as bells

Like memes uploaded in my mind,

    Like stuff you learn that no one tells

You just wake up and know one day.

You do not seek, and yet you find.

It was a number, like a code,

    A zip code thing but not for mail,

It was for me and who I was,

    My rank in finger-tipping Braille.

They said that God in love bestowed

On few this gift of His applause.

On aggregated indices

    They said you humans rise and fall,

But not like cream that separates,

    But set apart, like a snap cabal

That just this one decisive sneeze,

God bless you, yes, initiates.

They smiled and laid their hands on me.

    They gave me superimposable clothes,

All new, but every stitch the same,

    A pure disguise from head to toe.

And, of course, they said, it's secrecy

That matters now, it's not a game.

You'll soon discover more they said,

    And others tagged like you today

To play the wheels with a subtle hand,

    To say the words you'll know to say,

But hold to silence in your head,

You know we know you understand.

And just like that the men were gone.

    I washed my hands and dried my tears,

My life and times now clarified,

    The days no different from the years.

Your cappuccino's ready, Don,

She winked, you're sure to be satisfied.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem789

Novel Verse Form

Ventura, California

~ The Daily Poet

GENETICALLY MODIFIED FARMERS

No cows to milk, no crops to tend;

    It's only been a hundred years.

What will they do at century's end?

    Potatoes have eyes and corn has ears,

But wait till you see the New Farmer blend.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem788

Quintain

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

HER OVERLAPPING IMAGES

She's grappling with her overlapping images,

    Iconic and distorted fairy grim,

The lettuce heads have crystalized to cabbages

    With faces that remind her mind of him.

She's telling lies but hasn't figured out they're true,

    Unfounded in their eloquence of bliss,

And though you're not, she thinks you're only you,

    Conveys her vacant heartache with a kiss.

She's tripping up the stairs in insubstantial dress,

    A look of I'll-Believe-If-You'll-Believe

In twinkles round her mournful eyes of more or less

    The same as what you've known is up her sleeve.

She's grappling with her overlapping images,

    Iconic and distorted fairy grim,

The lettuce heads have crystalized to cabbages

    With faces that remind her mind of him.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem787

Elegiac Quatrain

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

CLIPPING THE ICARUS KING

He's one of the ultra-wingspan teasers,

Somebody really should get out the Caesars.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem786

Epigram

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

MIRROR IMAGE

And then one day you wake up clean,

    You're double fresh as the morning dew,

Scrubbed and polished to a silver sheen,

    Reflecting all the good that's you.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem785

Quatrain

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

LOCKED-IN LOCOMOTION

Safe inside my exoskeletonic

    photoelectric skin;

This is where I begin.

Charging the synthetic electric

    blood cells of my suit full-solar-go;

This is what I know.

Pouring their power into my

    finger-lightning barely brushing wheels;

This is how it feels.

Pumping a fibrillating jitterbug

    of membranous waves;

This is how it behaves.

Endless regenerative rhythm-conjured fuel

    takes to the global trees

With omnidirectional ease.

Flying in this tetra-buffer zone

    of frictionless finesse;

I love it here, I must confess.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem784

Novel Verse Form

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

"NEW DAWN" DEPLOYED

My auntie, a vision named Joy,

Who grieving her husband and boy,

    Gave all that she had,

    Like a launching pad,

For me to roll up and deploy.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem783

Limerick

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

SNAKE CICADA

Molting my old skin,

    I am the raging snake cicada,

Peeling away my thin

    Irrelevant balderdash sonata.

Silence concentrates

    The scream of changing redemption;

Life obliterates

    The living without exception.

Birthing through this grave,

    Extruding what in time I borrow;

Nothing left I hope to save

    Except a fragment of tomorrow.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem782

Quatrain Stanza

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

NOTHING

I open up the well

    To draw my images and dreams.

There's nothing much to tell

    It's nothing like they say it seems.

I drop the heavy lid

    To close the awful nothing out.

But still I can't get rid

    Of what the nothing's all about.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem781

Quatrain Stanza

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

GOLD GONE MISSING

A miser, a thier, and a gambler

    Went down to the river to pan;

Anticipate the drama,

    Imagine the plot if you can.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem780

Quatrain

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

LONESOME FLOTILLA

It's all too small to comprehend.

    We're miniscule as molecules,

    A thin flotilla fond of fools,

Approaching what we call, "Our End."

No message sent has been returned.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem779

Quintain

El Cajon, California

~ The Daily Poet

THE NAMELESS SELF

Doors and windows, windows and doors,

    Sheets and pillows, pillows and sheets,

How can a Dali chest of drawers,

    With nipple knobs for treats,

Just walk away and throw its name

Into the fire and into the flame,

Gone forever in smoke and shame?

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem778

Novel Verse Form

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

AS YOU WERE

Gavel me with porcupines and organ pipes.

    Punish me with every single quill.

Rush to judgment all the staunch collective gripes.

    Send me off to where they break the will.

Knowledge does me like a score of wayward whores.

    Every time I settle down they stir.

Oceans of confusion drown my foreign shores.

    Attention all my soldiers, "As you were."

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem777

Quatrain Stanza

Encinitas, California

~ The Daily Poet

THE VACANT VAST SURROUNDINGS

If I should look too close at Consequence,

I'd see that nothing really matters much;

My giant strokes of sweeping Confidence

Add up to little more than a spider's touch.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem776

Quatrain

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

THE SPLITS OF BILLABONG

I left my body on a bench downtown

To join a few celestial errand boys

Who asked if I could fly a spirit-gown

From earthly woes to loop on heaven's joys.

I told them it had been a while since

I'd taken to the air without a wince,

A bit of shaky staging confidence

Perhaps.

But now I'm feeling better and in fact

I'm flying circles round those boys of late.

Conclusively the things I thought I lacked

Are gone and I've regained my liquid skate.

I tell them every day it won't be long

Until I man just slip outside the song,

Maneuver through the Splits of Billabong

Perhaps.

They say I'd better play it off the books,

Be careful lnot to wheel the gear too far,

But secretly I see behind their looks,

They know I've got it -- airless in the jar!

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem775

Novel Verse Form

Hanford, California

~ The Daily Poet

OF HELL AND PUNISHMENT

We talked of Heaven and reward,

We talked of Hell and punishment,

Eternal life with Christ our Lord,

Eternal death and banishment.

I'm glad to go to Paradise

And live with Jesus evermore,

But thinking of the fire and ice,

The outer dark, the gnashing gore,

The screams caught up in flaming cysts,

The licking godly knives of wrath,

Danteic circling stricture fists,

The sulfurous lake, the molten strath,

The vicious demon screeching cries,

The searing laughter from their lips,

Confessing all their clever lies,

Their finger talking pointed scripts.

And on and on and out of sight,

The smoke goes up forever black;

Eclispse the sun, endure the night,

No exit out, no entrance back.

O God I can't endure the thought,

Perhaps the one I loved is there,

ANd will not share my happy lot

In Heaven with You where all is fair.

But not so fair it seems to me,

This place of burning ever-doom.

How can I take Eternity

Above their sobbing throbbing tomb?

I trust Your love is just and true,

And must assume my human mind's

A shallow thing to fathom You,

My sight too near, too short, too blind.

So please, dear God, with lenses thick,

Correct my eyes that cannot see,

And take my heart so stiff and sick,

And cure it with Your remedy.

I'd gladly trade my heart of stone

For one of flesh that beats for You;

My eyes with scales all overgrown,

For a pair of eyes all good and new.

But if my vision fogs to gray,

And if I still can't understand,

May I remain that chosen clay,

Submitted to your Potter's Hand.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem774

Ballad Meter

Hanford, California

~ The Daily Poet

CRACKER JACK LESSONS

Impromptu lessons in humility are cast

Like falling stars from summersaulting skies.

I cracker jack them all to try and make them last,

Remembering how pitiful the prize.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem773

Quatrain

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet