Saints

I invoke them frequently,
these patron saints of poetic grins,
what would Jessie do,
and polemics of poetry for southern boys.

There are shrines for favor-seeking
poets in search of consonance,
assonance, alliteration, and
caesura.                              Dosed medication
packed in portfolios of place.
Fluid thought clears mental
mists. Lions’ roars are
interpreted over Africa.

Grace comes in the form
of muse and salvation
does not hang upon a cross or
gleam in church windows, cold stone
statued eyes peering
from dark heights. Rather it is
doled out in comments and
criticisms,                          gentle petitions,
from a sect of seekers
in pursuit of another divine light.

Lost Colony

There is a community unfolding,
a cyber-space or poetic movement.
An electronic school of thought
spanning the Beats, Firesiders,
Dark Room Collectors, Ethnopoets,
Fugitives, Confessors, and Slammers.

No historic homes perchance
will stand to remind the world
where we lived. No worn down
warehouses to echo our style.
No neighborhoods to tell our stories.
Only stones, urns, and cyber copies.

Years from now, what will they call this?

Detour

My mind is rambling,
an untamed ox,
the zen monk would say.

Passengers in planes
to japan sleep
while i size up hale-bopp
and the egyptians who last saw it.

The faitfhful attend mass
en masse, i contemplate
those who painted the walls
and affixed doves to ceilings

In fisted fingers and petal-soft
tongues, i should find pleasure
but distracted only find this poem.

Otherworldly

there is something other worldy
about this: how it speaks
to me through white noise
humming through machines
more distant than a friend
calling from the dark side of our earth
or that train hollering up
from the bottoms, echoing
over the river and climbing
hillsides to stir the night
more like whirring a.m. channels
making their way across clear black skies
to shanties flickering on foreign coasts
or the cold ghostly hymns of
southern churches burned by sherman
something afar: I’ll never know
strange are the places from which
these muses come calling

Ode to @

oh petit escargot
long have the french forsaken you
but your popularity rises
slowly like la lumaca
winding through italian emails
pouncing, spirited cat’s tail
frolicking over Finnish technology
delicious little cinnamon bun
whose swedes take more
than their fair share
playful klammeraffe
rounding your way across germany

here, though, you are all the rage
twittering through american households
hanging among senders and domains
long after business hours have ended
yet why then must your name be so plain
among a country who adores you?

A Strategic Plan to Poetry Writing

first, one must come on out
with an outcome
that has no where
to go but very quickly
does so

but this is intangible
and nothing really
if there is no passion
in the poet’s soul
then there is nowhere to go

but benchmarks are important
because they’re quantitative
documentation that you’re
sharing a sensation
accomplishing something
and getting nothing
in return, sometimes
not even making sense
or cents for your pocketbook

but never neglect to look
for somewhere to start
a bass line
can give inspiration
for a baseline
so speak it loud and clear
and let it be poetry you hear
when the world speaks
in her many manifestations

how does one measure
success and results
is it skills knowledge
recognition emotion
tactics and strategies
increased responsibilities?
just compile then compose
because poems are nothing
without reflection, values,
life’s pleasures or woes
let these be the stories told

Trains or Trainwreck

My brain rambles like a train collecting words along the way,
like passengers at inspirational stops throughout the day
the train clanks, rolling along the rails with its hum
sometimes creating nothing more than conundrum
but sooner or later the passengers disembark
and come together to create a spark:

their hustle and bustle settles into form
sometimes pleasing, sometimes a scorn
i try to gather them in an orderly fashion
and reign them in with well-written passion
the fervor intense, the message sincere
often misty with allegory and sometimes quite clear

they gather together along the blank platform
and settle gently and calmly before the storm
of editing and shifting that surely will come
until to the conductor’s will they finally succumb
and this often is how my mind’s poetry is created,
rolling like a train collecting passengers yet to be stated

© Telly McGaha

Muse

i shall sing
you shall write
of a maid
in a plight,
none shall know
the end tonight

Birth of a Poem, Unedited

you tear from me eagerly
a child breaking lose to walk free,
some precisely hurled circus knife
and i struggle with the strife

of protecting and molding you from the things that be,
like critics, consternation and literary theory

but born already, i can only try
to take your independence in stride
because you are eager to reach the page
as if your mother were a muse
and your father a sage

but no, i am only a cage
against whose bars you incessantly rage
to be free and to fly onto the stage

this time i will neither nurture nor care
what you look like when i see you there
and watch others dissect your every word
the cage door is agape, and gone is the bird.