Tag Archives: poem

February 11, 2016 · 4:26 pm

My Dreams Have Wings

Wings of Imagination

My Dreams Have Wings (a poem)

Sometimes when I fall asleep,

I don’t drift down to slumber,

I grow great red wings,

And I take to the air,

To soar…

To escape…

To live…

Or simply fly away.

Adolphe William Bouguereau

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Filed under Paffooney, poetry

Tagged as Bouguereau angel, flying dreams, hope, inspiration, paffooney, poem, poetry

January 25, 2016 · 4:47 pm

Chicken Soup Time (a twelve-line poem of recovery)

There comes a time when life really stinks,

A day when the life force grows green-brown and sinks,

Yes, I am ill and my every breath kinks,

And I cough and I burp and the end of the nose pinks,

So, I gather together under the covers,

The rotten parts of me over which the fly hovers,

And cook them in heat of the dreams of old lovers,

And fantasy dreams, whose richness discovers…

The stories that make the sum of my life,

And memories of people who’ve hurt me with strife,

And good things and great things and details all mixed,

And stew while I’m sleeping til things are all fixed.

Blue birdsxxx

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Filed under humor, illness, Paffooney, poem

Tagged as humor, paffooney, poem, poetry

October 31, 2015 · 9:21 pm

Rainy Saturday Blues (a poem about depression )

I must make a confession about crippling depression,

Cause today I have the blues.

It requires a concession of time for regression,

And dark days enveloping all views.

There is no progression in a working profession,

Cause clouds leave me missing all news.

I start the procession of blue notes in session,

And all melodies tend to be blues.

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Filed under Paffooney, pessimism, poem, Uncategorized

Tagged as battling depression, blues, depression, paffooney, poem, poetry, songs

October 27, 2015 · 1:58 pm

So Grumpy

Grumpy (a poem about Grumpy life)

Dang it, you old grumpy man!

You annoy me as only a grumpy man can.

You grouse and growl and sometimes howl,

And pace the house like a cat on the prowl.

You worry me, weary me, and generally nasty be,

And of course you are… yes, you are… naturally me.

So why do you worry me, weary me, moan and make bother,

Now that you’re old, and you sound like your father?

Because you are cranky now, creaky with age,

And know you now, soon, the book’s turning its page.

And, though you complain, you do love your life,

And, loathe you will leave it, and your sweet-smiling wife.

*Footnote* I was in a foul mood when I wrote this poem, but my favorite team, the Cardinals, won a football game with a last second interception by Tony Jefferson in the end zone.

*Double Footnote* Yes, my wife will be smiling when I am gone because I am so GRUMPY!

*Triple Footnote* Yes, I was talking to the mirror in this poem. I took the picture in the mirror and then reversed it on my laptop.

*Fourple Footnote* Yes, I know. Too dang many footnotes. Dang it!!!

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Filed under humor, photo paffoonies, poetry

Tagged as humor, photo Paffooney, poem

September 17, 2015 · 2:23 pm

The Doorway at the Top of the Stairs (A silly rhyme of Paffooney making)

At the top of the stairs and the end of the hall,

Is a doorway to wonder and the pith of it all.

I have lived a long life, and I’ve lived it well,

But a life isn’t over with a story to tell.

So I set to work justly with my ink and my pen,

And I draw and I write and remember when…

But there has to be more to this door in the hall,

A studio’s not just a hole in the wall.

I write about Seuss and his silly red rhymes,

And I think and I write and remember the times…

And the verse can come faster, or the verse can come slow

But the verse is about all the things that you know,

And you must pass it on to them that come after,

And you post your ideas on door, wall, and rafter.

And when the long day finally comes to its end,

There will be a sharing with a good ear to bend,

And a book, or two books, or three they can read,

That reveal all the secrets that they’ll ever need.

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Filed under humor, Paffooney, poem

Tagged as art studio, autobiography, goofiness, humor, my room at home, novel writing, Paffoonies, poem, poetry, rhymes, work space

May 10, 2015 · 1:24 pm

Once upon a time, the English poet and, I would argue, cartoonist, William Blake once said, “You look at the sky and see clouds, while I see the assembled heavenly host!” This is why my literature class in college about the Romantic Poets of his day made him out to be a certifiable nutcase who probably belonged in in a mental institution. (And back then, in the 1800’s, the sanitarium was a place where inconveniently crazy people went to die.)

Look at a couple of my cloudscapes. Do you see angels?

Cloudscapes (a poem)

Blue and white and filled with light…

The cloudscape burns with angels…

And wholly bought with grace unsought…

I long to fly with angels…

Are they really there in the cloud-filled air?

I see them there, they’re angels!

So, there you have it. I’m a loon. I don’t even have the excuse of being a Romantic Poet and well-known for my poetry as a defense against the loony bin. But as the matter stands, I am fully willing to accept the consequences. Creativity has its price. And, while you may not agree that I am somewhat creative, I am swimming in a vast ocean of perceived revelations that enriches me and fulfills me at the very same moment that it drains all the energy from my soul. If that is not what it means to see angels… then I do not know anything of use to anyone but me.

The word “angel” (according to Wikipedia, the source of all true knowledge) comes to English via Late Latin and the word “angelus” which the Romans stole from the Greek ἄγγελος ángelos, The ángelos is the default Septuagint’s translation of the Biblical Hebrew term mal’ākh denoting simply “messenger” without specifying its nature. (Notice, I am giving full credit to Wikipedia because it is far more all-knowing than I.)

I have many atheistic and agnostic notions in my ultimate belief systems, but still, I claim to be a Christian and believe in God Jehovah… within limits. I still communicate with God on a daily basis, and while I don’t publicly pray anymore (a notion promoted by the Biblical Jesus) I find answers to my questions and solutions to my problems from the observable universe around me.. the messengers of God. So, now that I have fully rationalized being crazy as a loon, I am going to tell you where that craziness is taking me. I started a new Paffooney for one of the books I am working on. Here is the pencil sketch;

This will be a picture of Valerie Clarke and her Daddy, the farmer Kyle Clarke. In my fiction, Kyle loses his farm to the bank (in the Family Farm Crisis of the 1980’s) and believing himself incapable of any longer supporting his family, kills himself. But the thing is, the love of his daughter transcends death for Kyle. She is able to reconnect with him time and again because the angels work for her as well as for Kyle. I may be loony and ill in real life, facing the Angel of Death myself, but I am not done doing God’s work… not yet… not for a long time to come.

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Filed under humor, Paffooney, poem

Tagged as angels, creativity, goofiness, humor, metaphor, novel writing, paffooney, pencil sketch, philosophy, photo Paffooney, poem, poetry, religion, William Blake

March 29, 2015 · 1:34 pm

Art Self-Edited

I have been working at illustration and drawing for the majority of my life, but it took computer technology and digital photography to allow me to maximize the use of my abilities. Let me go through a couple of case in points.

The Red-Haired Girl picture is a good example of what I can do. I originally drew the picture to illustrate a Charlie Brown poem. Here is the poem if you don’t remember it. (A convenient excuse to re-post something and fill this post with words already written.)

Little Red-Haired Girl