The Daily Poem

CREDO v. CREDO

I'm liquid mercurial bedlam,

An absence of strictures and scales,

I'm dust in the eyes of a Moslem

Who lives past the pier by the rails.

He threatens to kill me with kindness

And prays for me five times a day.

He says, "You're inflicted with blindness."

And hopes that his dogma will sway

My "Silly Judeo-Judeo,"

My "Lackluster Christian belief."

But still, if it's credo v. credo,

It's mine that will offer relief,

I'm sure,

It's mine that will offer relief.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem707

Novel Verse Form

San Francisco, California

Lat: Long:

JOURNAL: Marlin & Dong's House

~ The Daily Poet

THE BIGGEST THING

If I could say what once around the world

has done for what I think of everything,

I'd say the biggest thing it's done is make

me more aware of how immense it is a thing,

And just how much a fool I really am

to try to grasp the whole of anything.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem704

Novel Verse Form

Mill Creek, Washington

Lat; Long:

JOURNAL: Tom & Joan DeYonker's House

~ The Daily Poet

SEWARD'S FOLLY

He bought Alaska from the Russians

At the Baranof Castle in Sitka,

Lounging on their fancy cushions,

Smiling over their vodka;

He paid them just two cents an acre.

Imagine how delightful

For him to find a willing taker,

Nearsighted on the trifle

Of seven million dollars spent—

And what refusing might have meant.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem701

Novel Verse Form

Sitka, Alaska

LAt: Long:

JOURNAL: M/V Matanuska (5th Night)

~ The Daily Poet

THE OVER-YOUR-SHOULDER READING MAN

I'm here just behind you,

My breath on on your neck,

I'm the Over-Your-Shoulder Reading Man.

I'd like to remind you,

That I'm slower than heck,

So please don't go skimming as fast as you can.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem696

Novel Verse Form

Oak Harbor, Washington

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

JOURNAL: Ivan & Virginia Lathrop's House

~ The Daily Poet

OUR TODDLING BOY

You let our toddling boy go back

The complicated way we'd come

back along the treacherous track

To lose himself in canyon-dom

To choose his wayward to & from

Through darkness into where I'd find

Him curled in fetal logic mind.

But no, I couldn't find him there

But no, I'd never find just where

You let our toddling boy go back

The complicated way we'd come

Back along the ttreacherous track

To lose himself in canyon-dom.

A dream

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem694

Novel Verse Form

Oak Harbor, Washington

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

JOURNAL: Ivan & Virginia Lathrop's House

~ The Daily Poem

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

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

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

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 LYRICAL REPORT OF AGENT JACK SYNTAX

The image behind me projected before me

    So no one can see that I come.

By stealth and illusion and reference confusion

    I thresh the Infinity Sum.

I slip through the knotting, where twisted and rotting,

    The moth-eaten murmurers hang.

Deciphered graffiti, the Nui, the Iti,

    The tricks of the poly-new-lang,

All simmer together till something gets better

    And maps of a memory come clear.

And there in the darkness, the solitude starkness,

    I shed what I can of a tear.

My blood is a fire of burning desire

    To see that some justice is done.

Before I'm departed, I want it restarted,

    That engine of energy fun,

    A bit like the light of the sun,

    That helped us get everything done,

    And kept us together as one,

O yeah,

    And kept us together as one.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem669

Novel Verse Form

Punaauia, Tahiti, French Polynesia

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

JOURNAL: Le Meridien Tahiti Resort (7th NIght)

~ The Daily Poet

CHANNEL 6-6-6

At peace with the Beast we romp and play,

We tell ourselves that he's OK,

Just leave him be and he won't bite.

His demon legion skulk the night;

They want to haunt and drink our juice,

But mostly host the evening news.

We click our clicker-crucifix,

But damn!--still channel 6-6-6.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem666

Novel Verse Form

Punaauia, Tahiti, French Polynesia

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

JOURNAL: Le Meridien Tahiti Resort (4th Night)

~ The Daily Poet

ALIGNMENT

Six hundred years ago the moon was full

    And just-eclipsed, and so it is tonight.

And here we are in the mystic lunar pull,

Not quite as struck by the celestial shadow pass

    As those who saw it must have been back then

But still amazed and feeling magical

    We shutter back to do this day again.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem656

Novel Verse Form

At Sea, Crossing the International Dateline

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (30th Night)

~ The Daily Poem

SWERVE

A swiftly lifting moment ripe and rare,

A taste of eyes, a dish of flirty fare:

What is that luscious swerve of female skin

(Analysis has not determined how)

That like a sonic boom collapses through

The breathless knees of men and makes them do

(No thought beyond the sizzling here and now)

The boyish things they do in hopes to win

A taste of eyes, a dish of flirty fare,

A swiftly lifting moment ripe and rare.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem654

Novel Verse Form

At Sea, bound for Fiji

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (28th Night)

~ The Daily Poet

THE SQUISHY WAY THE FUTURE FEELS

I love the squishy way the future feels,

    Like Koosh ball luscious fuzzy logic dice

Predicting in their bounce the numbered peels

    Of onion skin covalent bonds that hold

    The Moment-A to coming Moment-B,

Then jiggly-quick and jello-charmed congeals

    Around the navel core of here and now,

And safely sets the stage with time-worn seals.

The great embarrassed gentlemen of thought,

    Surprised by what the future twirled their way,

Have taken up their mirrored pipes to pot

    Around with this and that, with Lego sets

    Of multi-colored building blocks of whim

That stretch the strings of things from dot to dot

    Till songs of polygons collide to guess

Some snazzy dream like Nebuchadnezzar forgot.

But I can play the time ahead with ease,

    Control the twists and turns of what may come,

Predict as if through magic joy the breeze

    Of changing micro-fates that counter-mend

    Like fireflies and tumbleweeds the big

Unwieldy motion of the troubling seas

    And then with one pure wink of childhood

Just lock them up and throw away the keys.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem651

Novel Verse Form

Tauranga, New Zealong

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (25th Night)

~ The Daily Poet

THIS I DO

I, I, I and you;

You, you, you and I.

This, this, this is why;

Why, why, why I do.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem650

Novel Verse Form

Rounding North Cape, New Zealand

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (24th Night)

~ The Daily Poet

THE COST

About as much as what you'd need to fly

    Around eclipsing moons and back again,

The razor thin Uranium reply

    Is always yes, if asked the question then

But never now, before the past can ply

    The seas of molten dragon killing men

Who rest their cases on the reason why.

A little more than holding out around

    The fings of silent Saturns sliping through

The shrill Plutonium points of ultrasound,

    Where obstacles of vanished brilliant blue

Refuse the tumult wobbling in and down,

    And every light constricts its double view,

As hones and heated lasers split the ground.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem649

Novel Verse Form

Tasman Sea

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (23rd Night)

~ The Daily Poet

THE TURNING SHAPES OF THINGS TO COME

The turning shapes of things to come,

    Imaginations yet unseenm,

Geometries of lullabies

    Through rippled echoes newly green,

Contort the surface stretching drum,

And every depth of diving skies

Retracts its liquid lidded eyes

    To click some curling magazine.

Denatured shells on shore-like tide

    In gravities of canticles,

No place to niche the movie scene,

    No room to squeeze its tentacles,

Affording poly-lapsing hide

Among and almost in between

    Through metaphoric spectacles.

In blues of subtle methylene

    And carbon fibrous anecdotes,

The newly trolled and blinking things

    Conform to seismographic notes

That bleed the syntax guillotine

And slice the ever humming wings,

Rejoined with love to layered rings

    Of heavy smoke and water floats.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem647

Novel Verse Form

Tasman Sea

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (21st Night)

~ The Daily Poet

CALLI'S COUNTDOWN

Ten, nine, eight, seven,

   six, five, four...

Shout it out or else I make

    you do a dozen more.

    Hoo—Haw!

    Hoo—Haw!

Nine, eight, seven, six

    five, four, three...

Slow it down and do it right

    and count along with me.

    Hoo—Haw! 

    Hoo—Haw!

Eight, seven, six, five,

    four, three, two...

Keep it up we're almost there,

    we're nearly half way through.

    Hoo—Haw! 

    Hoo—Haw!

Seven, six, five, four,

    three, two, one...

Give yourselves a great big hand

    we really had some fun.

    Hoo—Haw! 

    Hoo—Haw!

Written expressly for Calli Gibney

on the occasion of our graduation

from Body Sculpt Boot Camp

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem64

Novel Verse Form

Great Barrier Reef

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (19th Night)

~ The Daily Poet

JASMINE

Collapsing into pints of sweat and nearly tears

    I sleep into a dream of jasmine hands,

My body disconnected by a million years.

Too far removed from throbbing blood and tensile nerve,

    I lose the last of every sweet excess

And turn the dial in to drain my sparse reserve.

What good, what good, what good is life without the mesh

    Of tete-a-tete, the twist of swirling skirts,

The reaching up between the secrecies of flesh?

O take me down and kiss me full of never's end,

    And breathe me please a lesson I can save

Like weaves of feathered skin to lift me up again.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem638

Novel Verse Form

Timor Sea

JOURNAL: Ocean Princess (12th Night)

~ The Daily Poet