Musing

Its December. Another year is just about over.
Standing in front of a mirror in a bathroom
Is a man. He gazes into the face looking back at him,
Combs his white hair with his fingers and then begins to muse:

My hair it seems is always whiter during
The winter months. It really isn’t
But seeing hair already gray, aging
Becomes a prime concern. My life, a glint
In darkness; insignificant footprints in time
Is always struggling forward, nearing some
Unreachable ideal, lacking rhyme
Or reason. Now I ponder life's outcome
This cold December, standing here alone
In front of glass. The image looking back
Is old! My God! Is youth that fleeting? Prone
Toward dependency, asthma attacks
And wooden canes? He winks and shakes his head
And smiles, then says, ” I’d sooner be old than dead.”

poem by Albert Ahearn
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Yin and Yang

The television downstairs is blaring
“Americans don’t want National
Health-care” from the Fox network;
But there are no conservatives
In our house
To listen to that stations commentary.

Upstairs my wife is in her sanctum
Chatting with cyber junkies on facebook.
What I consider a waste of ones time.
But she works all day and if she wants to
Push a mouse
Around a pad and type the keyboard, Amen.

It is amazing how different we are:
What she considers something relaxing
And fun, I think it banal and dull.
Telling her that, I would come across
As a louse
And I wouldn’t want that said of me.

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poem by Albert Ahearn
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Greenhouse Gas (Triolet)

The features of the Triolet are:
· 8 lines.
· Two rhymes.
· 5 of the 8 lines are repeated or refrain lines.
· First line repeats at the 4th and 7th lines.
· Second line repeats at the 8th line.
· Rhyme scheme (where an upper-case letter indicates the appearance of an identical line, while a lower-case letter indicates a rhyme with each line designated by the same lower-case or upper-case letter) :
A
B
a - Rhymes with 1st line.
A - Identical to 1st line.
a - Rhymes with 1st line.
b - Rhymes with 2nd line.
A - Identical to 1st line.
B - Identical to 2nd line.
***********************
Our blue marble is imperiled
Due to excessive CO2
Like being over a barrel.
Our blue marble is imperiled.

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poem by Albert Ahearn
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Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

This sonnet was inspired while celebrating my daughter’s birthday. Everyone was eating cake except me. I hardly ever eat sweets. “A moment on the lips, forever on the hips”. Anyway, while they were enjoying the moment, I began to muse. Later that evening I composed this:

My daughter is older by a year today.
She is thirty-seven. I wonder where
The time has gone It seems to melt away.
It’s like an imperceptible glacier
Receding slowly, leaving once unseen
Destruction bare, exposed to view, behind.
I see what time has etched on me between
A youth of yesteryear and current time.
The mirror reflects wrinkled lines and spots.
And not to mention, but I will! The gray.
And like the ice, receding hair, a lot
Is lost. My exploratory survey?
It can be said, expressed this way: Ahem!
I once had youth but now it’s gone, Amen.

poem by Albert Ahearn
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That Rose And I

Though a lone rose in yonder bed
Blooms all alone in remoteness
Its regal grace reaches beyond
Its small cultivated confines.
Its blood-red petals capture
Sensuous eyes of passerby's;
Thoughts of love materialize
And some are stricken teary-eyed
By measured memories of love.
Then there are those aesthetic hearts
Who are dazzled by its beauty.
As for me, I assume that rose:
The empathy I have for it
I become its flowery soul.
Though a lone rose in yonder bed
Blooms all alone in remoteness
Its regal grace reaches beyond
Its small cultivated confines.
Its blood-red petals capture
Sensuous eyes of passerby's;

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poem by Albert Ahearn
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Them

What I love most about poetry is that a poet has the license to write poems about subjects that are not necessarily the reflection of him. Case in point is the following poem. I was inspired after reading the atheist author Christopher Hitchens book “god is not great”

They live in a spiritual universe
Where life is controlled from birth until death.
God and religion are somewhat perverse
Their morrows all dawn without any mirth.
The clergy worship tithing’s surrendered
Fleeced from the faithful flock each Sunday.
Sermons of dread are read to each member
Spreading the fear of forthcoming doomsday.
The young and elderly kneel on their knees
While a pretentious priest preaches his lies.
The fold mumbles prayers on rosary beads
In hopes of salvation when death arrives.
Poor souls! Lived their lives by the golden rule
To find out too late they’d all been such fools.

poem by Albert Ahearn
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A Mondo Gory Poem

Faces of Gore (1999) is a mondo shockumentary video that depicts graphic footage of bloody, mangled bodies which guides viewers through explicit scenes depicting a variety of ways to die and violent acts. I wanted to try my hand at Mondo genre poetry. I promise you I’m not a nut case. I’m just a highly imaginative poet.

An ominous cloud lingers in my head
Portending pernicious consequences.
My sixth sense informs me what lays ahead
Foretelling dire events in sequences:
At first, a flash that's followed by thunder.
But it’s not what the mind is telling me.
A cloudless sky, than smoke, and no wonder
A bomb tore asunder all that I see.
The blood, ash and bone, dismembered bodies
All littered the site once a theater.
The mayhem and carnage that I foresee
Was the work of a lone perpetrator.
A marquee lying that stood heretofore
Reads: Coming attraction, “Faces of gore”

poem by Albert Ahearn
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An Autumn Scene

The autumn sun shines through the near naked trees exposing recent abandoned thrush nests those months before were hidden from Mans eyes. The lingering colored, crisp, dying leaves precariously cling until late November winds and rain end their brief lives leaving only their scented remains on the ground.

A scorpion sun shines through near naked
Trees exposing vacant, forsaken nests
Where blue robin eggs laid comfortable hid
From probing Mans eyes and unwelcome guests.
The lingering, colored, crisp, dying leaves
Cling to the branches precariously
Until the blustering wind starts to heave
Its gusts from the north unrelentingly.
Apropos of rain it soon will follow
Deluging hapless, defenseless brown leafs.
The wind and the rain display a grand show
Dislodging the leaves whose lives were so brief.
After the lull of the wind and the rain
What’re left on the ground are scented remains.

poem by Albert Ahearn
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Deathbed Discourse

This past week I lost two good friends. The one friend I lost to cancer. The poor guy suffered horribly. All through his ordeal his wife was by his bedside. I began to reflect on this and I tried to put myself in his place. What would I say? What would I think knowing I was about to die? Shortly after musing, I composed this sonnet.

Weep no tears for me at this time and place.
A thousand eyes change not my destiny.
All living things must die eventually
Except my love for you, which I embrace.
Feel not sad for me looking at my face
Although it's old and wrinkled you can see
A budding rose should age so gracefully.
My time grows near my love; in any case
Your life goes on nevertheless my love.
So wipe those eyes dry of life's mournful dew
And think not this time undeserving of.
Life had been kind, more so, finding you.
A lifelong companion envied above
By angels and cherubs alike, love!

poem by Albert Ahearn
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A Haunting Ride

Riding alone along a path
that runs parallel, north and south
Alongside the Lehigh River
I became acutely aware
of the beautiful surroundings
As they sped pass me on both sides.
As I pedaled along, the ghosts
of yesteryears took possession
of my mind and began to speak
in unspoken telepathy.
'you picked wildflowers on this path;
remember the white campions
you picked for your girlfriend Alice?
And coming up on your right, there!
that very large sycamore tree
where you once climbed it, showing off
for Alice, fell and broke your arm.
Remember? Sure you do, Albee.
And there! Coming up on your left
that special place near that cove,

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poem by Albert Ahearn
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