New Poems from Clifford K. Watkins Jr.

Gesundheit

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The words reach a deafening peak

And then diminish into frivolity

Echoing with the short-lived potency

Of a gesundheit in between sneezes

 

 

 

Cold-shouldered Subterfuge

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Cold-shouldered subterfuge

A mere caricature of indifference

Treading compassionately through your sanctum

Finding consolation in a warm smile

Hobbling through a drudgery of shadows

Floundering with an arrow through my heart

 

 

Theatre of Echoes

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

A hastening creek's elevated voice

Resonates even in sound-proof rooms

Unremitting despite the circumstances

Hell-bent on rendering you captive

Incapable of drowning out the echoes

Imprisoned in the theater of nocturnal dreams

 

 

A Random Passerby

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

An old man's drunken belligerency

Thrust upon a random passerby

Finding hilarity in his blundering stab at aggression

I assist the elderly fellow to a rickety chair

And he soon nose-dives into unconsciousness

 

 

The Absence of Words

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A puddle's iridescent splendor

Muddled by deafening footsteps

Echoing without words

And I'm an enchanted witness

Always covetous

Despite inconspicuous footprints

 

 

 

Taxing

~~~~~

 

 

Testing the wind of despair

No longer sated with recurrent imaginings

As your voice reverberates in this heart

Rendering me wholly exhilarated

And yet perplexed to the point of jousting at stars

 

 

A New-fangled Dawn

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Fly-by-night enthrallment

Seeking liberation from a withdrawn tinge

Superfluous to the morning's wake

Repressing you into the unconscious abyss

Welcoming the restorative sunbeams

 

 

 

Wittiness Dispels Gloom

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

The unrelenting mirth-filled tempest

Numbing my ears and stinging my fingers

Reverting to trouble-free times

Unable to fathom horrific darkness

Revelling in the enlightenment of wittiness!

 

 

 

Laughing Pond

~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

 

Laughing pond of foolery

Scrutinizing words in a mind of desolation

Adversely affected by a distant voice's silent echo

At wits end with rock-bottom ambivalence

A prattling scribbler revels in darkness

Warming his hands over a burning fence

Milliseconds from heavy-handed realization

And the fleeting face of bliss

Becomes a pasty-colored mimic of ridicule

Baffling no one any more than herself

Yet she continues to read

And words reverberate endlessly

 

 

 

 

Onlookers

~~~~~~~

 

 

 

The dreaded face of vainness

Mercurially looming for most mortal beings

Sent cascading down into chasms of uncertainty

Leaving the weary onlookers questioning humanity's function

Enlightened spirits transcending shades of doubt

Or merely scanty rations for an insatiable tomb

 

 

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