I thought, well
He just died
Did not know
Only twice
His device
Would show
What he denied
While casting his spell
Why can a man
Spew his spawn
Yet never regret
The valued vice
His life would slice
It’s not neglect
But a daily dawn
Maybe a wicked plan
There were no lights
But burning wicks
And delights
Dry fetid sticks
Should you write
Not in braille
Yet lacking sight
Might you fail
Then a battle
to progress
Shake a rattle
To win success
Leave the cave
No climate change
The al fresco rave
Time is strange
I thought, well
He just died
Did not know
Only twice
His device
Would show
What he denied
While casting his spell
Why can a man
Spew his spawn
Yet never regret
The valued vice
His life would slice
It’s not neglect
But a daily dawn
Maybe a wicked plan
Shaman
Show they can
Versifiers
Are deniers
So can
A holy man
Face a librettist
Without shout or twist
Will a bishop
Close shop
When a parson
Threatens arson
Does a witch doctor
Try to factor
The medicine man
For all he can
The gliding witch
Sees how they all snitch
Each other
Rejecting their eternal mother
Poets
Exemplify don’t knows it’s
Spiritualists
Simply say it exists
TO MINDREAD A MYSTIC
I
When seasons end
Poets become mute
Their fun begins
They call it
Madness
It feels so normal
Is tolerance of pain
Suicide’s slow motion
Crippling the insane
The need to give
Desire to share
And they just don’t care
Sanctification
Exists for some
Best in death
II
Aromas bear meaning
Without language yet
Any creature understands
How can I know
If you smell
Just like I do
Only a saint can make
One smell different
To all under a holy spell
Telepathic blood
Speaks unexpectedly
To select of the brood
Incense perfume and mace
Can each shock the face
Depending on time and place
III
The family
Is a prism to display
Many mothers
Not all orphans
Seek their mother
Whose love can smother
A goddess
Can address
The need to repress
When incapable
Of carnal love a virgin
Mother is essential
A perfect mother
Can never fail
The frail
IV
Earth will not change
Hence prayer
To arrange the strange
A soul in a
Healthy man
Disappears after death
A soul in a
Holy man lives
Beyond its owner
One who prays alone
Is admired by many
If able to change the immutable
Leading prayers
Draws many
Acting as one
V
Hard to take one space
To be all over the place
Yet giving no trace
Having but one face
Avoiding one grand disgrace
One without a trace
What the hell is grace
Certainly not clothes of lace
Find that earthly place
Moving at a pace
Reality can’t displace
Nor truth can replace
Rock steady for in case
You are bound to a disgrace
You can keep the pace
Check your mouth
Not in silence
But to realize
That in silence
You cannot control
The muscles
Which you made mute
You won’t speak
Or make absolute
What’s on your mind
So resolute
But defied
By your essence
So you lied
You won’t mutter
An internal truth
Making you an utter
Age of eternal
Stutter
As long as grammar
Deep in you does creep
Warblings of the upupa epops Rattling even the stoic cyclops Without enough mops To swab his tear drops And maddening mares’ clip clops Endangering the crops Of the farmers’ co-ops Foretelling these disastrous non stops Broadway shows bowing as flops Haute cuisine cooking up slops Burglars all outrunning the cops Poetry slams’ relying on mic drops Pajama parties losing their tops Bootleggers neglecting to take hops Beatniks lacking cause to be bebops Even pigeons ruing their plops Couturiers failing the fops Gardeners missing their lops Kiddies seeking lost pops Pullers outing all without stops Plumbers forgetting what unstops Provocateurs provoking sans agitprops Cavaliers shaving their mutton chops Even baldies biding in barbershops Tongue Tied lisping malaprops Fiddlers lacking rooftops Fog lifting when it envelops Negatives hating what develops Crusty bread crumbling for sops Slapstick slapping without props Spills spotting dirty counter-tops Sysops crashing laptops We’ll never know all the flops Even with the help of special ops Assured you'd best be sniffing cow plops Than suffering the singing of upupa epops T. M. Shorewick
Surveying the wood Across a bird full lawn Maybe music could Represent a dawn Where species were drawn And as one stood The spawn of beast and pawn Sharing a primal mood Is there a remedy In the substance of sound A fantasy from melody Shared by all around Pulses that pound Cadence of step that’s foxy Barking of a hound All conversations by tonal proxy The birds sing But at a price Though granted flight by the wing Getting lost in variation is a device Impossible to splice To the music they bring Yet pawns and beast they entice Hearing a musical something Words and tunes Are disabilities Regard ancient runes Relics of forlorn civilities Not dogs’ proclivities To answer croons Even cats’ inabilities To howl at moons The pawns are speakers Semi animals because They need sneakers Having long lost their paws Chanting with empty jaws Pawns think all are talkers But animal claws Draw mere vibration from composers T. M. Shorewick
BLACK HOLES, INFORMATIONAL WAVES and POETRY by T. M. Shorewick Black holes, informational waves and poetry Begin with that elusive singularity Where nothing works No bennies no perks But information Is the same at any station In the universe A truth no more perverse Than the speed of light All critters eyes’ consistent sight Where that speed Is a solid constant indeed So like a grave wave Information is a weighted slave Not to time but space It ever strides all over space’s place Time does not matter Like the Mad Hatter Predictably late For any important date There is no atom, particle So special Bereft of information Thus the fundamental explanation Gravity can be a wave Information its underlying pave Attraction pacing between verity And a black hole’s draining eternity Hence poetry Rails conversely Against a black hole Seeking some author of its parole Whence there is no tense Eternity has no temporal fence While information’s style Piles up a never ending info file Music so deaf and dense Language a ridiculous sense All like poetry born From that singularity forlorn
It is blood No more to say The people devour its flood ✽✽✽ Adam did grow From fine red clay, but know This is the home of Tashtego
The sand drawn vee Mimics tide’s Cyclic identity ✽✽✽ Would myriad dancing feet Breaching the shore Record this sandy score
Empty shells foretell A silence That pebbles endure so well ✽✽✽ Valued shells And eroded ores Bank on ancient shores
Sea to haughty bluffs, atone You are But smooth stone ✽✽✽ How many generations Does it take Sea to jagged edges break
© 2020 All Rights Reserved
The photographs and poetry in this collection originally were published in AQUINNAH, DAWN OF MARTHA’S VINEYARD, by T. M. Shorewick.
ISBN 9781702371148
T. M. Shorewick 