haiku

petals in the stream
voyagers to who-knows-where
my heart goes with you

*    *   *

© Gregory V Driscoll  2013

haiku

storm past    out walking
on the path  bright petals strewn
beauty midst the mire

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© Gregory V Driscoll  2013

Running at Daybreak

Sun, flaming mouth of guitar,
with some cirrus clouds trailing
across your lively face –
I run to you, aubade of my day.
You spread your arms toward me
poet panting in the early morning.
To my left runs the river
companion chanting waves of rapid dream.
And the little-used rails pass,
pass once more – parallel hymns
streaked with oxide of light and shadow.
The trees try to hold me back
with their oh so lithe bodies
offering their sex in flowers
to any transient wind.
They cannot, they cannot grab me
so preoccupied are they
with their filigreed task.
Upon me fall two small petals
kidnapped by a wicked wind.
And the earth!  How the earth trembles
with the hunger to inter me!
But you do not let that befall me
my sun of unbridled guitar
while toward yourself still you draw me –
me with feet of verse and clay.

*    *    *

© Gregory V Driscoll  2013

plainsong for Spring

floral embryos    placental earth
roots roiling and thrust of sap…
cantor sun    lunar priestess…
faint groans of growing    thrust of sap…
pulp exploding    fiber rending…
whirr of wings   twigs a-bending…
petals fetal    damp and warm…
growth of groaning   thrust of sap…
sun seducer   lunar languor,
silent mating   thrust of sap…
buds beg that bugs not bed…
north wind pruning    south protecting
thrust of growing   groan of sap…
day on day blooms unwinding    sun presiding
night on night  moon descending…
heat and mist   time amending…
blooms alluring    life unending…

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(c) Gregory V Driscoll  2012

delicias de horticultura / gardening delights – a poem in Spanish with English translation

eres una flor y me gustaría
hacer abrir los pétalos
como hacen la lluvia y el sol.
¿y yo?  tus pétalos ya abierto
me voy a hacer un abejón
o un astuto picaflor.
¿el resto?  lo que surge naturalmente.

*     *    *

(translation)

you are a flower and it would please me
to make your petals open as the rain
and the sun do with other blooms.   and i?
with your petals already opened,
a bumblebee i’ll become or
a cunning hummingbird.  as for the rest?
all that which comes naturally…

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(c) Gregory V Driscoll 2012

Examination of Conscience – a poem in antique style

Here I lie in this flower’s core,
the bee’s prey.  Gently I caress
the petals’ pelt.  A leering light too bold
seeks me out.  But I cannot flee
the day’s pursuivant eye.  Night, come!
This blossom’s heart hides me not.
Rather – it impales me for light to delve
deep for thoughts I would as lief leave dark
and german to the far side of the moon.

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(c) Gregory V Driscoll  2012

On hearing, years afterward, of Roberta’s death

First met in our salad days,
she was one dearest, one most hotly loved.
First, time and distance sundered us.
Now, the fiat of death drops a pall between us.

Mind of wonder, voice of songbirds,
forthright heart open with untrammeled love
for all the world; mouth of red rose,
strawberry breasts, thighs lithe as wind –
now all for me mere memories.
Such images take their substance
from one who exceeded all praise.
To her they compare as would
wrecked petals, sere fruit, a desolate sigh.

Her youth and her beauty’s shadow
haunt the angry silence of my tired heart.

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(c) Gregory V Driscoll   2011