Poetry By Gerald Bosacker from Dunedin, Florida e-mail: Bosacker@aol.com   TO THE JUDGES No stitch mark or discerned stitches, nor pockmarked skin that shows or snitches, this gloried miss is free from glitches deserving crown you could install.  The scars she bears are all inside, her bio skips the nights she cried mute victim of her parent's pride, no sadder star can you recall.  As Queens need more than pretty faces she's well rehearsed in social graces with perfect smile, rescued from braces, segued amid her demure drawl.  You have the power to place her first, or send her home, her bubble burst, no matter which, your choice accursed since you don't see their souls at all.     SUPER GUEST  I love to party but I'm depressed since invitations seldom come. Don't people know I'm super guest, and hardly ever, troublesome.  Learned decorum from the start, my house breaking really shows. I say excuse me when I fart and turn my head, to pick my nose.  In groups, I listen so polite and laugh at jokes I've heard before When parties drag into the night though I might nap, I never snore. At meals, I always clean my plate and use my saucer when I smoke. I tell the cook, the food was great, and did not cause his guests to choke.  At weddings, I bring down the house, my parodies of brides are great! In Church, I'm quiet as a mouse snipping bucks from the offering plate. At functions where the fancy meet, I always clap, should someone sing. I help them out, clap out the beat, or show the band the way to swing.  If you would plan a grand soiree with no amusements planned as yet, I will attend and make the day one all your guests you'll not forget.   In Somewhere Land, no weeds can grow and there are no thorns on roses. Spearmint springs up row on row just to titillate our noses. In March the winds might blow a lot but they are warm so no one sneezes. It only snows when it is hot in ice cream flakes or lemon squeezes. There are no tears in Somewhere Land and meanness is an unknown sin. One problems here where grief is banned, since none can lose, no one can win.   YOU CANNOT CALL THE WIND The wind is wildest of the artful friends that we abide. When wind allows us to share its vigor, you know it's that she intends it for her pleasures. Wind will never spare our prized properties, nor pity our loss. Brash Wind maliciously turns to placid air mass and sets its path to capriciously toss down trees in winnows like freshly-mowed grass, shaking steel towers until they too fall. Wind, like Kings, must always be petty and mean and topple anything that grows too tall or clutters up what wind wants to sweep clean. First primieval man, hunting his food, knew and used the facing wind to hide his scent, stalking the game he'd then bite and chew uncooked. Yet uncalled Wind most provident first provided fire and appetizing smell of roasted flesh. Man could at no time tame the wind, that Pyrenees cave pictures now tell us, man did with fire. For when called, fire came. But man could never call the wind or turn it off like fire. Fire capitulated, to be his lackey, baking mud into brick, burn-hardening wood and giving light to see. Man took skins from his cooking meats and fanned his small fires to smelt the metal from rock and learned to spill the glass from ash and sand. In one small tick of the existential clock fire was harnessed in steel and trained to toil for man. Steam tools burned wood then switched to coal, then summoned motive force from burning oil. Man handled flame, but not its dying soul, escaped as smoke, bestowing poison source as the price we pay for controlling flame. The mocking wind runs free, a feral horse with fume free power we are loathe to claim. Let's harvest the wayward wind that does not smoke like all the soot-wrapped flames we carelessly stoke.   DANDELIONS GROW AT DACHAU Peeking out from slatted stoops and hidden crevices where bleeding saffron stars shed seed to grow sure proof of sin. Bright yellow tufts spring forth, persisting in their proof of shame while penitent Aryan grounds-keepers daily sweep away the past. No detritus of the subjugated horde remains, and wasted cigarette butts and gum wrappers are routinely sent to politically correct incinerators to waft a tame trace of penitent visitors. Impudent yellow bloomed weeds wrap their golden blooms in buds, shrinking away from the grandchildren of the first garbage burners, to escape a little longer and defiantly bloom as tributes to the fallen and trampled flowers that came before. Living memorials profane the sunny blue skies, where millions of jews were brutalized. Dandelions still grow at Dachau, flourishing proof that man cannot eliminate what God has chosen to reflect and echo his glory.   MEMORIES Time won't ignore nor dare deny each past defeat. The trail of hurt marks fine each sigh where they complete a wrinkled trail. The passing years, a subtle knife, carves tattered line of condensed tears that mark true life-line on palms, once supple, now claws where babies rocked to sleep. Each passing year has gnawed away and locks up memories.   DON'T WEEP FOR ME Don't weep for me, my grieving friends for I have lived, and now am free to go back home, as fate intends. I don't go poor, to fearsome site since memories, will comfort me in pleasant sleep, through endless night. Don't think me lost, for I am found and will in peace, triumphant bask for I knew where my soul was bound. The tax for Life, I would defray by facing brave each destined task to glory on this hallowed day. Don't harsh resent untimely call, or brand my death as tragedy. My life's been full, I've treasured all my host of friends, each battle won and precious love of family. These gifts I prize when life is done.   WOULD GODS BE PROUD If there be Gods, they must be miffed to witness mute, while man wild dare pollute their most essential gift of seas creating rain and air. Would Gods be proud, that man has learned to squeeze the oil from ancient clay and fashion goods to earth returned as plastic trash that won't decay? If our Creators, we must please inventive man should soon take stock of chemicals that foul our seas, returning Earth to lifeless rock. We've changed this world to comfort zone without regard for other guests and think the world is ours alone when it's we that are the pests.   DYING LEAVES Dying leaves, dancing in the wind, halt and rest in patchwork piles. The roaring wind shouts loud "This is my quintessence, my colors, my very best truth, much more lovely than the bare boughed tree". The nude and embarrassed tree, can only brace against wind that blows harsh on wintry eves icing white each branch, to rashly place snowdrifts over its collage of betrayed leaves. At last, comes Spring, and brash wind tries to blow down the stalwart tree it did not freeze with heated breath that stirs the frozen sap to rise bestowing verdant cloak, strip-teasing summer breeze.   A POET'S FATE A Poet's fate, I sadly find is seldom praise, or reviews kind, yet I persist, by fate inclined o leave a trail of words behind. Each night time thought that begs me write must face the glare of bright sun light. In rhyme, beliefs must shine contrite like dogs that bark before they bite. When comes the day, I must atone for all the words I've flippant sown, stood meek before my maker's throne, I'll find one place, my writing's known.    THE PERFECT GIFT At Christmas time, my sweetheart pleads what gift would please me most. When I assess my urgent needs, my needs are met, I'm quick to boast. A kindly God has blessed my life with gifts I treasure more than gold He sent to me the perfect wife, to share the joys of growing old.    THE POET CLOWN If somewhere a clerk with self-righteous smirk records my acts of folly. He'll underline twice, this only bad vice, I'm never melancholy. Grief, masked by my laugh earns choice epitaph, "He's always been jolly!" While others might cry or soulfully sigh faced with disaster or worse I don't want to frown, but laugh, play the clown providing whimsical verse. When comes my last day, I'll beg for delay as exit lines, I rehearse.   WE DO FORGET At day's end could we peaceful sleep had not we cleansed and buried deep each thoughtless word from that day's slate on notebooks we, with gall, create? Do friends whom our approval seek, deserve from us for query meek, our mean retort, creating debt of hasty words we'd best regret? Do we ignore our past misdeeds when pious mob new target needs so all can *pharisize with stone their sin, yet kind, forgive our own? What guilty wretch could we convict if deeds, so wrong, ourselves depict? We host our memories but never let our guilt survive, we do forget. Could we, when praised for worthy acts, abashed recall demeaning facts, or righteous glow, ourselves entranced by our past deeds, by time enhanced? At last when at the Judgement throne when asked what sins we must atone, since Life demands all payments met, it's kindest gift, we can forget! If death would let us fresh begin, to heal past hurts, erase each sin, would one of us refuse that break, the past undo, accounts remake? For when we're laid to endless sleep but sleepless lay though buried deep, and past misdeeds still cause regret it's nice to know, folks do forget. *Verbalization of the act of a Pharisee.   TWO TREES Awed by its grace, we celebrate the fervent glory of this great forest king, growing tall and lean, in select company with its green-topped, ancient redwood neighbors. Selfish, they gobble each ray of sustaining sun. Yet, small flecks of rich gold dust permeate expressing life to mushy moss and spidery ferns that profusely hide below. Just the precise amount of mist penetrates through uncounted duff stratum to saturate this living floor, and kindly sate this monster's bibulous roots. Surpassing equivalent neighbors in this caucus of giants, is rare for prestige comes easy where need's assuaged in perfect measure. Ten miles west, a different treasure, sprouts from barren and sterile rock abruptly perched, lonely and awkward, just above the pounding, salty surf. Harsh elements assault this tree. Ponder how it still survives, unhealthy, scraggly fir, primal cousin to the mighty and pampered redwood. Unsightly twigs, defrayed of chlorophyl bearing needles, wave in foggy air. This hero cypress does survive its harsh environment. Alive, but dwarfed, it's grown but one new branch this century. This wonder did more than was expected, assays first when change is checked and its accomplishment measured, that triumph gloried and treasured.    THE TRACKS OF GOD If there be God, some proof we'd find. I'm sure, some tracks he'd leave behind. Some distortions or some flaws, we'd find in physics' constant laws. Since elements expand with heat, (water alone does this law cheat) but water as frozen bloats, and we exist because ice floats. From ice locked seas no clouds could feed on water for that rainfall seed. To grow each living cell must sup, to assuage thirsts, sip ocean's cup. No cells could grow in solid sea, nor from that ice could new breath flee to wrap the earth with clement air so life might try to flourish there. Who said this juice of life be changed, one law of nature rearranged? Could chance create by oddity, aberration that had to be? We might ignore explicit proof, if we can't see celestial roof. Just as we accept gravity, why not this God that we can't see?   CASTING PEARLS! Sooooeeee, Sooooeeee! It's feeding time. Digest these orbs of nacreous matter, Ignore the fool who made them rhyme. Don't push, don't shove, don't block the trough word choices forced are mindless patter that meekly earn, your right to scoff. Cram down, gulp quick, subdue their shine each gem will hardly tint your taste if they are first dissolved in whine. Porcines decry my rhyme unsung its wisdom missed as banal waste, their music mute, sad bells not rung.    CONCERNING DEAD SOLDIERS Consider the sadness of the dead when Gods that final truth supply as boon for lives unfairly shed in service to persuasive lie. Do they envy the fallen few embalmed with poison of the truth partook while sat in chapel pew or sniffed while in their voting booth? Do they impatient count the days until they meet again the liar who justified his war and preys on young to feed to Ares pyre? Do they despise their coffin's flag or long for the colors of their foe and wonder if dead men should brag or now more calm, their bold outgrow? Or wasted do they silent sleep, mute promise of the young that died for empty glory purchased cheap and charged to chauvinistic pride?   UNWELCOME QUESTIONS Will seals applaud the end of man who made their seas his garbage can? Will wily whales surviving still miss human trail, the dread oil spill? Will something care when man is gone? Not hunted deer or orphaned fawn! Will trees, our smoke makes weak and bare, no longer purge our poisoned air? Will oceans, once with algae green, replenish air from seas unclean? Will we meet doom we justly rate? Condemn our reign to terminate?     Top | Back to Collected Poems | Back to Main Page