The Daily Poem

WHAT SHE WAS LIKE

He stood as tall as she was smart;

    He talked as much as she was frail;

And every aspect of her heart

    Was written out for him in braille.

His blindness never made her doubt

    How much she loved her little man,

Who rattled on for hours about

    His super-duper future plan.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem615

Quatrain Stanza

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (19)

~ The Daily Poet

CHICKENS ON DEMAND

Chickens on demand,

From eggs that promptly hatch,

Made just the way I planned,

A slick and tidy batch.

Grown to hens by noon,

With legs and thighs and breasts

Enough to make you swoon,

All perched on downy nests.

Come on in and browse,

there's one that's right for you;

And certain to arouse

Your taste for cordon bleu.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem614

Quatrain Stanza

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (18)

~ The Daily Poet

G.R.I.N.

Pause for a moment and think.

Wasn't it us on the brink?

Wasn't it all out of joint?

How did we get to this point,

Sitting all sassy and fat,

On a grin of a Cheshire Cat?

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem613

Rhyming Couplets

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (17)

~ The Daily Poet

FOLLOW THE BLIND MAN

Follow the blind man down,

Down through the darkness and gloom

He's not afraid of the things he can't see

Down in the dying room.

Steps he has counted all,

All to be able to lead

People like you who are learning to stay

All who are doing the deed.

Careful he takes you there,

there where the softness falls

Easing your mind with the cool of his voice

There in the silencing halls.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem612

Quatrain Stanza

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (16)

~ The Daily Poet

LOOKING FOR YOU

Where were you then:

In a fishing boat in labor through the swells;

In a wedding gown gone missing from the cnhurch;

In a sound of swallows through the choir bells;

In a pigeon diving off a famous perch?

Where are you now:

In a bolt of lightning splitting through a chair;

In a treasure rising from the ocean floor;

In a cowboy hat just tossed into the air;

In a rusty knocker on a broken door?

Where will you be:

In a mirror crossing town by taxi cab;

In a moonless night of wind and herbal tea;

In a silent claw of a stranded fiddler crab;

In a place inside where you believe you're me?

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem611

Novel Verse Form

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Conerto Inn - Lamma Island (15)

~ The Daily Poet

THAT VERY THING

I can have that very thing.

    You can play it far and wide.

I can do it on the wing,

Yes on the wing,

    And not go wrong.

You can make a big to-do.

    I can take the other side.

You can ride your hula hoop,

Yes hula hoop,

    And sport your thong.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem610

Novel Verse Form

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (14)

~ The Daily Poet

CRUSADERS, INC.

The companies are gathering their strength

Like bold crusading kings of revenue,

Unfurling flags that go to any length

To take the beach with marching retinues

Of economic weapons-men who plant

The standards deep along the well-shelled coast,

And a troupe of branding priests to teach the chant

To all the natives baring rumps to roast.

Painstakingly the profit's bottom line

Is marked indelibly with ironware,

In a double slash of snaking dollar sign;

It's all for some and some for all to share.

The companies are gathering their strength,

Unfurling flags that go to any length.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem609

Sonnetelle

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (13)

~ The Daily Poet

CANDLEPOWER

Fifty-six is really old,

    But experts say it's not.

With every candle, I've been told,

    You're getting just more hot.

For Mimi

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem608

Quatrain

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (12)

~ The Daily Poet

SUBWAY PRAYER

God of love who ever listens

    Ever watches, ever guides,

Keep Your ear and eye upon me,

    Though my wandering spirit hides.

In my heart I love You dearly,

    In Your presence I belong.

Let my every thought be tainted

    With Your harmonizing song.

May I touch the broken people

    Faint and weary on the way.

May Your Spirit reaching through me

    Ease them toward that brighter day.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem607

Ballad Meter

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (11)

~ The Daily Poet

AS SOON AS NOON

Ignore the second-guessing doubts

The hollow What's-It-All-Abouts

And just get down to what it is.

Pick your poison, add some fizz,

Tip it back with one quick shot,

Give it all the jazz you've got.

Don't erase the scribbled drafts,

Lose the tears and find the laughs.

The day you die I'll sing and dance;

You did your thing, you took your chance.

It's done and gone and that's OK,

You knew I knew you couldn't stay.

I'll see you there as soon as noon.

Save me a seat and a silver spoon.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoems606

Rhyming Couplets

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (10)

~ The Daily Poet

MY DAILY DOSE OF FAME

When images were rare and sacred things

    They sanctified each one inside

    A heavy gilded frame.

But now proliferating streams of light

    Reframe our every golden move

    Inside the market's game.

I can't imagine who I am without

    A picture posted on the net

    To advertise my name.

Please tag my glossy metamorphic face;

    How can I be myself without

    My daily dose of fame?

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem605

Novel Verse Form

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (9)

~ The Daily Poet

THOSE WHO MUST REMAIN

How fortunate the ones who never live,

And fortunate the dead who cannot give

Their lives again in painful sacrifice,

Who cannot offer up their misery twice.

How fortunate the day-old babes who lie

Upon their mother's swollen breasts to die,

And fortunate the aged ones who sighing leave

This life to claim their ripened sweet reprieve.

How fortunate for those who must remain,

Who do not judge the loss or guess the gain

Of complex circumstance and so-called fate,

But, peaceful in their purpose, learn to wait.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem604

Quatrain Stanza

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (8)

~ The Daily Poet

VENETIAN SUNSET

My baby girl is twenty-one

I can't believe it's true

I thought her life had just begun

I think I'll get a blue tattoo

To mark this day and not forget

Venetian Sunset Hong Kong view

My life a brilliant deja vu.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem603

Novel Verse Form

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (7)

~ The Daily Poet

THE PRINCIPLE OF SPINNAKERS

A rise of interest in my blood reminds

    My daring principle of how to grow,

Releasing long protracted rates of change

    To lift their dormant figureheads and go,

Unfurl their spinnakers of speeding range

    And ride the wild reeling seaward flow,

Unwinding every cautious tie that binds.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem602

Novel Verse Form

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (6)

~ The Daily Poet

MISTY NYMPH

She lives in the air and looks out on the sea,

I'm looking at her and she's looking at me;

I live in the sea and look out on the air,

But looking again I see nobody's there.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem601

Quatrain

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (5)

~ The Daily Poet

THE VIEW FROM HERE

The view from here is better now

    I'm just above the clouds

I've left the old restrictive Tao

    Of urban mythic crowds

To make my way on dirt and stone

    To glide on leaves of grass

To walk the way I choose alone

    Where seldom people pass

It's here I've known my night would lead

  And here my day would end

A land of slower golden speed

    Just up around the bend.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem600

Ballad Meter

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (4)

~ The Daily Poet

A SLICK NOSTALGIC TRAP

The semi-modern sliding doors

    And plastic fruit arrange the day

    To fit their measured cabernet

As if to settle ancient scores

That don't pertain to me.

The place where I was born is not

    The place that's dotted on the map

    But just a slick nostalgic trap

To pull me down and keep me caught

Inside a memory.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem599

Quintain Stanza

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (3)

~ The Daily Poet

THE DOW OF JONES

The Dow confounding Jones is up again

    I wish I knew the secret of its turns

The money from its fluctuating pen

    Comes flowing in igniting as it burns

Consuming every give and take before

The tide can reach myprofit-taking shore.

I sit and wait not knowing what to do,

    My little raft of temporaries built.

I ledge and cliff my taken breath to view

    The maybe in its plunging promised hilt

Of all-in shining splendor to the brave

Who risk it all on how the waves behave.

Timidity retards my laughing chance,

    Although I feel the magic in its rise,

I can't ignore the shadow in its dance,

    The hidden throns inside its ribboned prize.

The Dow confounding Jones is up again

With money flowing green and golden in.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem598

Venus & Adonis Stanza

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (2)

~ The Daily Poet

BICYCLE BUILT FOR TWO

Come to bed and make love to me,

    And I'll make love to you.

Up and down wheeling round and round

    Like a bicycle built for two.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem597

Quatrain

Yung Shue Wan, Hong Kong

JOURNAL: Concerto Inn - Lamma Island (1)

~ The Daily Poet

RAT ON BAT

Autocratic rabid rat

Took the Acro from the bat

Ate its food and drank its beer

Sniffed its nose and bit its ear

Both went down to kingdom come

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem596

Rhyming Couplets

Shen Zhen, China

JOURNAL: Maple Leaf Hotel

~ The Daily Poet