Even More Haiku!

Potent poetry
Is like a steel fishing hook
That skewers your thumb.

The smiling orchid
Foolishly crosses my path
Dealt the kick of death.

Licking matted fur
With the unruffled finesse
Only a cat has.

Gold foil packages
Laced with red and green ribbons?
Show me the money!

Bountiful bookcase
Bulging with decades-old dreams
A mere megabyte.

More Haiku

Husband hurries home
Where winsome wife is waiting
Holding a striped cat.

Pages from the past
Turn to a new medium
A digital death.

Baring your soul
Through clues in your handwriting
Inevitable.

Simple wooden stick
That holds so many stories
It will never tell.

Each arriving train
Promising to bring my love
Pours out empty crowds.

Dreams have no power
But that which we allow them
Neither do nightmares.

Pithily-packed thoughts
If they were to be unwrapped
Would fill volumes.

Smirking cat sleeping
Atop unread newspapers
Knows more than you think.

A simple house cat
May seem lazy and stupid
But who waits on whom?

Maybe creation
Blinks in and out of being
When we are asleep. 

Sleep is like a rat
That scurries across my chest
When I least expect.

Cymbals held ready
The thunder patiently waits
For the signal flash.

Photographers camp
Those spies with their black boxes
They don't belong here.

Nothing Else in This World

Death is not what I fear, but I dread death denied.
When all reason has vanished, all memory gone
And when loved ones are strangers, how can I abide

That perverted existence that settles upon
The uncounted infirm, neither living nor dead?  
When I plunge to the point where I need help to don

My own clothes in the morning, or get out of bed
Let me join buried brothers, the happily spared-
Do not feed me at all if I have to be fed.

Very lucky are corpses to zombies compared.
Even ghosts are not trapped in some rickety shell.
Will I cross the bar seamlessly, or be ensnared

Forced to languish for years in a half-living hell?
Far too many I’ve seen, unaware of their plight
Wander lost through the halls of the places they dwell.

Days without demarcation, that blur into night
Nothing else in this world gives me more of a fright.

Memento Mori

Photo by Didier Descouens

The cover of settling sleep
Always more a diaphanous veil than a swaddling blanket
Is drawn away
Not by a pale, ghoulish hand
But a soft, silent breath
Which whispers across my face:
Memento Mori.

At the horizon I see
That perennial game of hide-and-seek played out
And I return 
To irrelevant reckonings
When I hear a muted murmur
Floating in the air.
Memento Mori.

I have a great day
But one that is somehow tempered by a simple lesson in geometry
For I know
That I am not a circle

But a line segment.

Who Looks Too Hard For Poems

Who looks too hard for poems never finds them.
A myriad of verses uncreated
Eludes aspiring scribes whose hubris binds them
To wrestle words that won’t be syncopated.

A myriad of verses uncreated
Will taunt the poet overly-ambitious
To wrestle words that won’t be syncopated.
Those budding stanzas, seemingly propitious

Will taunt the poet overly-ambitious.
What most propels the poet into madness? 
Those budding stanzas, seemingly propitious.
Initial jubilation turns to sadness.

What most propels the poet into madness
Eludes aspiring scribes whose hubris binds them.
Initial jubilation turns to sadness.
Who looks too hard for poems never finds them.

Smoke

A pastime which occupies my full attention 
Begins with a delicate flick.
The sweet smell of sulfur is followed
By an orange glow from the kindled tip
Bursting briefly into a big white billow
That dwindles into a slender wisp
As I settle down to hazy remembrance
And evanescing oblivion.

                                             Photo: Leipnizkeks. Wikimedia Commons.

Two fingers and a thumb effortlessly balance
A smooth, stout, oily instrument
While my pursed, pensive lips blow clouds
Toward the ceiling, sending my fatigue far away
Or forming my amorphous artwork into meditations
To share with others.
The phone is ringing, she tells me once, then twice
But I cannot answer it right now.
I'm smoking a cigar.

Thankless Job

I got a thankless job, a thankless job.
They don't pay me enough to get killed
On these mean streets after dark
While drug deals go down in the park
And in front of every "convenience store."
What's it convenient for? I think we all know.
If I fall then I'm a "hero." Well, to me that means zero!
They'll put my name on some plaque or memorial wall.
Consolation's pretty small: a permanent vacation.
But if things happen the other way and I survive
Some hulking psychopath 
Who makes me the target of his wrath.
How the hell do I know why he's reaching into his pocket?
The media puts out some photograph of the deceased
Smiling and all innocent-looking; just the perfect picture of Mama's Boy!
Forget his mug shot. 
I have a mama, too, and a wife and kids who
Pray every day that I put on that badge and strap on that gun.
I'm not going out there to have fun!
In the end, my friend, the only thing that separates a villain from a martyr
Is who lives and who dies.

The Wages of SIn

It's refreshing to see
The last vestiges of legalized vice
From pot-bellied men and apathetic widows
Planted in front of the penny slot machines at the casino
Oozing cigarette smoke like drugged dragons.
Not because they're slowly killing themselves
But that in some secluded places
They're still allowed.

Photo: Vaikunda Raja.

Everyone's Invited

Yellow Emoticon Frowny Face Button. 10 June 2013 by Granny Enchanted. Public domain.

I remember it like it was yesterday
though I should have forgotten it then
like it was 10 years ago
which today it is. 
I felt like Charlie Brown
who never got to party
and like Mark Twain
who would have found it the perfect party
the one to which he had not been invited.
Johnny's Halloween party was the buzz of
the building.
"Everyone's invited," the said.
Except me.

I heard excited clamor
which seemed to decrease dramatically
in volume as it drew closer
trailing off to a drowning whisper.
I have my own plans, I thought. Really
awesome plans.
But when the uninformed asked me if I
was "going to Johnny's Halloween party,"
I donned a thick mask of sarcasm
which was lost on them.
"Of course," I replied. "Everybody whose
anybody's going to Johnny's party!" 
"I wouldn't be caught dead anyplace else!"

Before the spread of the texting pandemic
E-mail was the state-of-the-art 
communication.
Maybe my invitation was lost in
cyberspace.
When entering hundreds of e-mail
addresses, inadvertently omitting one is easy.
The maintenance man, the janitor, and the
mailman all came. 
I later heard that the janitor went as
Hong Kong Phooey.

I played it cool.
Of course, I couldn't ask, "Hey, Johnny, 
can I come?"
If he doesn't want to invite me, who
needs him.
Everyone's invited.
When I finally let it slip
that I was in a snit
had my proverbial panties in a bunch
Johnny told someone, who told someone
who told me,
"Of course, you're invited. Everyone's
invited."
I spent that night listening to an old
Statler Brothers song instead.

Copyright February 19, 2012 by Allan M. Heller

I'm Lovin' It!

Through the heart of Philadelphia, on I-95
I am driving much too fast, but I suppose that I'll survive.
In my brand new Lamborghini I am causing quite a stir.
To all the other cars I'm passing, I must look like a blur.
I'm lovin' it.

I'm doing shots of tequila in my favorite seedy bar
Where the dancing is as fast and loose as all the women are.
There's always poker in the back room, and if I play my cards right
With the blonde sitting next to me, I won't be alone tonight.
I'm lovin' it.

I prop my feet up on the railing as I'm sitting on my porch
And I'm puffing a big fat cigar that's smoking like a torch.
A hedonist I'm proud to be. Politically correct?
Those individuals stand for everything that I reject.
I'm lovin' it.

I'm at the best hotel in Vegas, sitting at a blackjack table
Placing hundred-dollar bets, not winning yet, but still quite able.
With a thousand now at stake, I decide to double down.
My 11 becomes a 21, and red I paint the town.
I'm lovin' it.

Feeding the Flames

Flickering steadily

With the tempo of a tiger pacing in its cage

Every fire seeks escape

Hates confinement. 

The tiniest flame

Dancing on the tip of a candle or match

Possesses an insatiable appetite.

Orange megalomaniac.

Wants to burn big and blue

Furtively spits sparks

Hoping to find an ally

In a suicidal piece of paper

Wad of cloth

Or better yet, spot of grease.

So if you must, then you must.

But be very careful

When feeding the flames.

Published in The Midweek Wire (of Hatboro) on July 8, 2015.

Another Cup of Coffee

Tasse_Kaffee, by 3268zauber.

Give me coffee! Hurry up!

I need to have your biggest cup!

Too much cream! Never mind!

Four sugars, if you'd be so kind.

I'm at the office, none too soon.

Another cup holds me 'til noon.

No, not 'til noon; my mistake.

At 10 a.m.'s my coffee break.

The coffee at my job is free.

A good thing; this is number three.

A shot at lunch, and I am set.

At least it's not a cigarette.

At nearly five, I've drank but four

So I consume a couple more

When the boss has stepped away

Which totals six by the end of the day.

After supper, with dessert

I figure one more cup won't hurt.

Such late hours I seem to keep.

Why is it I can't fall asleep?

Published in The Midweek Wire of Hatboro, July 8, 2015.

Wise Advice

Some wise advice I shall dispense

For which I seek no recompense.

I hope you have the common sense

To heed my words without offense.

This might just save your life one day

So listen well to what I say

If you would keep bad luck at bay

Then I know of no better way.

Didacticism's ineffective

Nor will I thrash you with invective.

Because, in fact, my main objective

Is to provide advice protective.

Why do you roll your eyes at me?

I'll say this once, then let you be.

But I need your attention, see

And afterwards you may feel free

To do exactly as you choose.

My humble counsel you may use

Or not, but please do not refuse

To even listen to my views.

So now you find my speech protracted?

You'd rather have a tooth extracted?

That pain, and worse, may be exacted

If my advice is not enacted.

I hope that you are satisfied.

My wisdom now you'll be denied.

For I cannot recall what I'd

So earnestly sought to confide!

(Published June 10, 2015 in The (Hatboro) Midweek Wire.

And Always Faithful Will I Be

I constantly hear people ask
Is wedded bliss a tiresome task?
Perhaps for some, but not for me
And always faithful will I be.

So many years I was alone
And countless vices did condone.
But gone is youth's debauchery
And always faithful will I be.

I have no need to hide or mask
That trace of insincerity.
In honest sunlight I will bask
And always faithful will I be.

If I am hurtful, I atone.
Her teary eyes are hard to see.
No star like her has ever shone.
She is the universe to me.