Sonnet 15 – Pain Inflicts Pain by Dennis Lange

        Sonnet 15 – Pain Inflicts Pain

A small, but constant ache can nag a soul
Just like the dripping water sets on edge,
Until his patience, taxed, fails muster-roll,
And irritation flares to drive a wedge.
A wounded dog may bite the hand that feeds,
A snarl rising from his anguished throat;
The inward pain revealed by outward bleeds
And then passed on as one would pass a note.
Poor brute – he cannot reason why he turns
From love one moment to a madness next
Like weather changes with a shift in wind,
Like mood swings sour from a Dear John text. 
   It’s often hurt that makes one growl and bite;
   Men must, in pain, still treat the other right.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2013.

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The Trick Is The Treat by Dennis Lange

       The Trick Is The Treat

All Hallows’, the worry is witches;
Their curse might bring scurvy or itches.
   But those trick or treaters
   In turn, are big eaters.
It’s sugar that curses, swells britches.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2013.

 

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On Seeing The Elgin Marbles by John Keats

Elgin Marbles (Photo credit: Phillie Casablanca)

On Seeing The Elgin Marbles

My spirit is too weak – mortality
   Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
   And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship, tells me I must die
Like a sick Eagle looking at the sky.
   Yet ‘tis a gentle luxury to weep
   That I have not the cloudy winds to keep,
Fresh for the opening of the morning’s eye.
Such dim-conceivèd glories of the brain
   Bring round the heart an undescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
   That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old Time – with a billowy main –
   A gun – a shadow of a magnitude.
 

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Halloween Haiku by Dennis Lange

 

Are you scared?
Get under a sheet –
Be a ghost!

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Skeletons?
None after the treats
Is skin, bones.

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Halloween
For tykes; rest: grow up.
Not for teen.

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A goblin
Door to door – candy.
Then, gobbling.

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Wee vampires,
Better than blood, like
Chocolate.

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Witch cauldron:
Bubble, boil, bubble,
Bubble gum!

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Neighborhood:
Houses too scattered –
No one knocks.

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photo by Crystal Woroniuk at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/nxwVPLA/Halloween+Pumpkin

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* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.

See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed: https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/
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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2013.

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Sonnet XXX by William Shakespeare

                       Sonnet XXX

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste.
Then can I drown an eye (unus’d to flow)
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan th’ expense of many a vanish’d sight.
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
   But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
   All losses are restor’d and sorrows end.

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The Rain Falls On The Hill Above by Dennis Lange

The Rain Falls On The Hill Above

The rain falls on the hill above,
   And some runs through my yard,
Across my driveway, and then down
   The sloped road, rushing hard. 

In silver streams and waterfalls
   And rapid, churning foam,
It charges to the creek below,
   Like students hurry home. 

The creek, flushed with the rushing flow,
   Swims faster to its friend,
And joins the river’s swollen surge –
   And they, together, wend. 

The river rages, current swift,
   Filled with ferocity,
And down the sloping country runs
   And follows land to sea. 

The sun beams on the ocean’s face
   To see the water there,
And sea sighs with a moistened breath
   That rises in the air. 

And in between the sun and sea,
   Their offspring rise and grow –
At first a little tad, then more –
   Oh, children blossom so!         

The wind, a nursemaid, sends them out
   Across the land to play.
Then, some come to my hill and house,
   Make night from brightest day. 

They flash a smile, then loudly shout;
   Their booming rattles panes,
And rumbles in the sky above
   Like bowling pins in lanes. 

Then, rain falls on the hill above,
   And some runs through my yard,
Across my driveway, and then down
   The sloped road, rushing hard.

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Eccl.1:7 All the rivers flow into the sea,
Yet the sea is not full.
To the place where the rivers flow,
There they flow again.

(written by Solomon about 940 B.C.)

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2013.

 

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Got Nothin’, Get Nothin’ by Dennis Lange

         Got Nothin’, Get Nothin’ 

I’ve heard that Astros and Time Warner
Talk of games for tv to garner.
   A product to offer
   Would open the coffer,
But Astros aren’t even Pop Warner.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2013.

 

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Far-Far-Away by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

                          Far-Far-Away

                            (for music)

What sight so lured him thro’ the fields he knew
As where earth’s green stole into heaven’s own hue,
     Far-far-away? 

What sound was dearest in his native dells?
The mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells
     Far-far-away. 

What vague world-whisper, mystic pain or joy,
Thro’ those three words would haunt him when a boy,
     Far-far-away? 

A whisper from his dawn of life?  a breath
From some fair dawn beyond the doors of death
     Far-far-away? 

Far, far, how far?  from o’er the gates of Birth,
The faint horizons, all the bounds of earth,
     Far-far-away? 

What charm in words, a charm no words could give?
O dying words, can Music make you live
       Far-far-away?

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Three Miscellaneous Haiku by Dennis Lange

 

When You Can’t Take Any More

Just confess.
Which one of you is
The last straw?

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One’s Tanning Right Now!

Special tan.
It’s how they became
Blue Man Group

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Mt. St. Helens

There she sleeps,
Under snow blanket –
A killer.

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Can’t Take Any More – photo by Marja Flick-Buijs at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mhzihR0/Straws

Tanning – photo by John Boyer at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/ml1eLQE/Swim+N+Tan

Mt. St. Helens – photo by Martyn E. Jones at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mirRsSO/Mount+St+Helens

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* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.

See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed: https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2013.

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Friend, Foe, Salesman, Wrong Number by Dennis Lange

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Friend, Foe, Salesman, Wrong Number

Quick!  Jump to your feet – the phone’s ringing,
With Mercury’s feet to it winging!
   We’re so trained by Ma Bell,
   Pride in Pavlov must swell –
Saliva is in our mouth springing!

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2013.

 

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