The Daily Poem

THE EMPEROR'S WALL

Imagining the men I walk the wall,

The men who toiling died to grasp these heights,

The blood of each imbedded one for all,

And all for one god-emperor of lights

Who, strolling circles, safe, contemplative inside

His city on the plain, sends word to speed

The workman's pace, to stoke his burning pride,

To make his place in history guaranteed.

A thousand legions slaved their lives to dust,

A thousand legions body, breath anbd mind

Gave everything to feed the emperor's lust,

Who left their bones like mortared stones behind.

Imagining the men I walk the wall,

The blood of each imbedded one for all.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem584

Sonnetelle

Beijing, China

JOURNAL: Dong Fang Hotel (5)

~ The Daily Poet

THAT FINAL DAY

The glory of the Lord is what I crave,

    The brilliant light and flightless lift of praise;

    Eternal moments flooding folded rays

In one expressible ecstatic wave;

One fluted note held longer than its sound,

    Made so much sweeter-than by every gauge;

    One day containing every treasured age

In overlays drawn featherlessly down;

To live that inexhaustible delay

    Where every joy is stretched to silk-thin glass;

    Each fragrant breath feels longer than the last

Dividing endlessly that final day.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem583

In Memoriam Stanza

Beijing, China

JOURNAL: Dongfang Hotel (4)

~ The Daily Poet

IN VITRO SELF

From point to point and brain to brain

    The content streaming upward flows,

A woven braid of neural thread

    In mulit-phasic knowledge grows.

The rates of change variety

    In exponential shells combine

To broader swifter streams of thought

    Through smaller values of super-fine.

I state my name and off it runs,

    With me a carbon echo glove,

Interpreting in slow skin time

    The actions of myself above.

And to myself I pour he code,

    And with myself I clarify,

And for myself this growing helps

    My higher self to classify,

Until in vitro there I am,

    My very own determined fate,

Concluding appetite is real

    Before the tongue can salivate.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem582

Ballad Meter

Beijing, China

JOURNAL: Dongfang Hotel (3)

I rented a bike and rode around Beijing for three hours...

~ The Daily Poet

THE ANSWER IN A FACE

Confounded here in the center of the world

    I hold my woes in check,

Reminded now of the people that I love,

    I know there's no way back.

Before I look at the answer in a face

    There's one sure thing I know,

The eyes won't tell all the secrets of the past

    But in the skin they show.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem581

Ballad Meter

Beijing, China

JOURNAL: Dongfang Hotel (2)

~ The Daily Poet

HOVERING ELLIPSIS

The hovering ellipsis on Beijing

Suggests it's not a finished thing.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem580

Epigram

Beijing, China

JOURNAL: Dongfang Hotel (1)

~ The Daily Poet

STADIUM GAME

The players in the stadium are all the same;

They elbow up to see some action in the game.

Their dream to wrestle past the final screaming stretch

And turn the upside tables down the bettors's bench,

To glory in the moment lost in winning's flame

To hear a million people chant their name.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem579

Rhyming Hexameter Couplets

JOURNAL: MOSCOW-BEIJING TRAIN (6)

Mongolia is high country. Am altimeter has been reading between 1200 - 1500 meters all day...

~ The Daily Poet

BORDER CROSSING

The border guards with sniffing dogs come through

Intent on finding what we've hid onboard.

It isn't me, I'm sure, but is it you?

Perhaps you left your contraband in view,

Just sitting there behind its bungee cord,

As the border guards with sniffing dogs come through.

Or did you fail to split your stash in two

For lack of sacks you couldn't quite afford.

It isn't me, I'm sure, but s it you?

Perhaps you'll drop your careless other shoe

Presuming through inspection you have soared

When border guards with sniffing dogs come through.

Or maybe someone savvy might see through

That flimsy faux-Nigerian drinking gourd.

It isn't me, I'm sure, but is it you?

So here we go, its poker face review.

Don't let your eyes reveal our hidden horde

As the border guards with sniffing dogs come through.

It isn't me, I'm sure, but is it you?

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem578

Villanelle

Russia-Mongolia Border

JOURNAL: MOSCOW-BEIJING TRAIN (5)

Slept hrough te early morning traverse past Lake Baikal...

~ The Daily Poet

AMALGAMATED SOUP

Conglomerates of this and that

    Amalgamated soup

There's always magic in my hat

    Like chickens in a coop.

The fox and I are best of pals

    We plan our nightly raid

We sing them sleepy madrigals

    And spike their lemonade

And then we take them one by one

    And pluck them like guitars

We play the most delicious fun

    And make their music ours.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem577

Ballad Meter

Zima, Russian Federation

JOURNAL: MOSCOW-BEIJING TRAIN (4)

~ The Daily Poet

MONGOLIAN SONATA

The yellow greed and golden red

    of birches' autumn flare,

The pinkish white of feathered clouds

    adrift on Russian air,

And I'm the traveler in the train

    free-bound for anywhere.

The dusty blues and grays of Chinese

    railway cabin cars,

The brown and beige of dining rooms

    and observation bars,

And out my window in the towns

    they wich on winter stars.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem576

Novel Verse Form

Taiga, Russian Federation

JOURNAL: MOSCOW-BEIJING TRAIN (3)

~ The Daily Poet

THEIR UNDOING CHOICE

I couldn't help but notice you were there

I tried in vain to shut your image out

But you stood up and said, "What's this about?"

And all the people turned as one to stare

I wanted to delete myself for good

Erase my memory from your puzzled face

But there in verbs of gothic lettered lace

Your burning pen engraved my optic wood

And in my eyes the people read your voice

And in my eyes they saw what I have seen

And in my eyes the truth of what has been

Conforming now to their undoing choice.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem575

Quatrain Stanza

Sverdlovsky, Russian Federation

JOURNAL: MOSCOW-BEIJING TRAIN (2)

~ The Daily Poet

TONGUE TIED SCALAWAG

The little mice have scurried through the cracks,

The foxes twice have darted down their holes,

And everywhere I look the busy tracks

Reveal the final thoughts of the patrols

Who on the fly dispelled the straggler doubts

And slid like firemen down their silver poles.

And here beside my intermittent bouts

Of horse-like pride, the shiver haunts my back,

And caving in I scream my silent shouts.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem574

Terza Rima

Moscow, Russian Federation

JOURNAL: MOSCOW-BEIJING TRAIN (1)

(Train 4, Car 7, Cabin VIII, Beds 29 & 30)

Stored luggage at the Ibis Hotel. Took green metro. Ate lunch. Picked up train tickets from travel agent. Walked to Red Square. Toured St. Basel's Cathedral. Metro back to Ibis Hotel. Taxi to the train station...

~ The Daily Poet

NEW BLOOD MILLENIUM

The sad suspicion sinks their heavy heads

But vodka lifts their eyes enough to see.

The deep depressive urge of unmade beds

That calls the weary workers back to sleep

Is held at bay by anger pushing back,

A flicker in the dark for what they lack.

O come away my dreamless Russian friends,

Your fathers have abandoned you as slaves,

They've taken all the gold to far-off ends

While you have spent your means to gild their graves.

I promise you a life of sweat and tears,

But with new blood you'll thrive a thousand years.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem573

Venus & Adonis Stanza

Moscow, Russian Federation

JOURNAL: Ibis Hotel

Shaved off my beard today. Feels good to have it gone, but strange to see my face again.

~ The Daily Poet

ABANDONED INSTRUMENTS

There's something in the air I can't explain,

A shadow on my sensibility,

A leggy tease of sharp stilettoed feign,

A clamp & sponge industrial reality

The surgeon left in haste to close,

The surgeon left but no one knows.

I look from face to face to find a cause,

But all I see is more of what this is,

The uniform of a surgeon Santa Claus

Who slept the people promised with a kiss,

The instruments digested now are gone,

The instruments they still rely upon.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem572

Venus & Adonis Stanza

St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

JOURNAL: Overnight on the St. Petersburg to Moscow Train

~ The Daily Poet

IT'S HEAVY HERE

It's heavy here from wall to wall,

A wrecking ball, a gothic sneer,

I feel a tear about to fall.

I feel a tear about to fall,

A gothic sneer, a wrecking ball,

From wall to wall it's heavy here.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem571

Novel Verse Form

St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

JOURNAL: Russ Hotel

~ The Daily Poet

FEDERATION DIESEL

We disembark the train,

St. Peter at the gate,

He welcomes us with pain,

It's getting rather late.

Agreeing on a price,

We say OK and go.

His car is not so nice,

A Soviet tableau

Of things that went so wrong;

The sadness of it all,

The weak that once were strong,

The shattered nesting doll.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem570

Quatrain Stanza

St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

JOURNAL: Russ Hotel ("The Skuzzy Three-Star")

~ The Daily Poet

HELLO SWEET BABY

Hello sweet baby safe inside

Your mommy's tummy-bump,

Your daddy nearly bursts with pride

Each time he feels you jump.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem 569

Quatrain

Helsinki, Finland

JOURNAL: Hotel Grand Marina (Scandic Hotels)

Arrived in Helsinki onboard the Gabriella from Stockholm at ten o'clock...

~ The Daily Poet

EGG SLICE COLLAGE

Fertility of thought

Is maybe so & maybe not.

The mind well-scissored snips

The image maps of different trips

Proliferates the ties

Conjoining vagrant alibies

Between unlikely things

Like palace guards & apron strings

And what-if"s grinning might

Is all that's left that may be right.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem568

Rhyming Couplets

Stockholm, Sweden

JOURNAL: Overnight on Viking Lines Ferry "Gabriella" from Stockholm to Helsinki (a 5-star cabin on the Captain's Deck).

~ The Daily Poet

LUCY IN DISGUISE

First she took off her clothes,

Then she took off her fat,

Left nothing on but her hat,

And the rings on her tiny toes.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem567

Quatrain

Copenhagen, Denmark

JOURNAL: StayAt Hotel & Apartments (Stockholm, Sweden)

First there was the unhelpful taxi drivers from Afghanistan...

~ The Daily Poet

INSIDE JERICHO

He tried to keep the people in

With the wall he built in East Berlin.

But everybody wanted out

Graffiti march & hammer shout.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem566

Rhyming Couplets

Berlin, Germany

JOURNAL: Cabinn Scandinavia

(the best little 2-star hotel we've seen)

~ The Daily Poet

THIS NINE ELEVEN

Today One World Collective holds its breath;

Humanity is not the same as then.

Inside the greatest nation airborne death,

Succinct as a sound bite gnashed through CNN,

(No quick undo) came roaring from the sky

Igniting every mind with fear and rage,

(No fast rewind) the haunting question why

Encrypted into every coded page.

Encrypted into every coded page,

Lies one non-blank reality of hate;

Encrypted into every coded page,

Voluminous precursors of our fate.

Enjoy no more the towering views of youth,

No more the innocence of easy truth.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem564

Acrostic Sonnet

Ceska Trebova, Czech Republic

JOURNAL: The 2240 Overnight Train, Car 41, Beds 23 & 24, out of Warsaw to Szczecin through Poland. 

~ The Daily Poet