The Elbows Fouled by Dennis Lange

The guard is close as he can be
…To one who holds the ball,
Who swings his body for some space
…The guard won’t give at all. 

The pivot moves the elbows close;
…The guard then falls away.
The flop is faster than the eye;
…He was not touched that day. 

But slow-eyed ref still called a foul;
…The guard winked from the floor.
Awarded was his team the ball,
…And he with Oscar lore.

—
————————————-

© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

 

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

The Bible by John Greenleaf Whittier

—
We search the world for truth. We cull
The good, the true, the beautiful,
From graven stone and written scroll,
And all old flower-fields of the soul;
And, weary seekers of the best,
We come back laden from our quest,
To find that all the sages said
Is in the Book our mothers read.

—
——————————————-

photo by Adrian van Leen at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mJglONE/Bible+-+black+spine

Read Full Post »

Sonnet 76 – Free To Be Me by Dennis Lange

—

I never was a master or a slave,
Though maybe one, or both, is in my blood.
By kinsmen past is not how I behave
If in me now by drop or even flood. 

What’s gone before is but a sketch that’s pale,
While I am busy now with paint in hand
With all the colors of my present tale
To make my life a masterpiece that’s grand. 

If all my colors clash, there’s none to blame –
Not ghosts or genes or skin or governments.
I am the one responsible for fame
Or failure, not the long ago, or once. 

That some take umbrage at a distant flag
Shows chains of slav’ry that their minds still drag.
—

——————————————————

© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

Read Full Post »

Ghost House by Robert Frost

I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
…And left no trace but the cellar walls,
…And a cellar in which the daylight falls
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow. 

O’er ruined fences the grapevines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
…The orchard tree has grown one copse
…Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed. 

I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
…On that disused and forgotten road
…That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart; 

The whippoorwill is coming to shout
And hush and cluck and flutter about:
…I hear him begin far enough away
…Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out. 

It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not who these mute folk are
…Who share the unlit place with me –
…Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar. 

They are tireless folk, but slow and sad –
Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad –
…With none among them that ever sings,
…And yet, in view of how many things,
As sweet companions as might be had.

 

Read Full Post »

Three Miscellaneous Haiku by Dennis Lange

A Divorce

The largest
I have ever seen –
Crack in rock.

——————–

 

A Cow’s View

Other side –
Luscious, inviting.
Grass greener.

——————–

 

And We Say “Ah!”

Waterfall –
Where a flowing stream
Sticks out tongue.

——————–

Divorce – photo by Nicolas Raymond at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/nFfWt6e/Flowerpot+Rocks+-+HDR

Cow – photo by Elvis Santana at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/oosEHV2/fence+3

Ah! – photo by Colin Brough at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/oiROrSo/Cascade

——————–

* 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/

——————–

© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

Read Full Post »

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
…Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
…For my unconquerable soul. 

In the fell clutch of circumstance
…I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
…My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
…Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
…Finds and shall find me unafraid. 

It matters not how strait the gate,
…How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
…I am the captain of my soul.

 

Read Full Post »

Fall Leaves Us by Dennis Lange

The palette of the artist pales
…When men look and compare
To splash of color in the Fall
…On trees and in the air. 

Fall is a spreading peacock’s tail,
…The rich robes of a king,
The chance for trees to strut their stuff,
…As flowers do in spring. 

Fall is the male of cardinals –
…He shames his shabby mate
With brilliant red, while she’s in brown.
…Two seasons share her fate. 

Fall is a floating festival
…Of color in the air.
The leaves fly by, with wind behind,
…And butterflies are fair. 

But fall’s a firework flashed and gone,
…A meteor whose streak
We catch unless we blink our eyes
…And miss its brilliant peak. 

Fall is a whale with sudden breach
…A quickly scamp’ring mouse,
That runs across the kitchen floor
…And out the door and house. 

In Autumn, there’s a breathlessness
…That just one thing can maul
Its beauty and its rapid rise –
…And that’s its rapid fall.

————————————-

© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

 

Read Full Post »

Feminine Endings by Dennis Lange

There once was a lass from Nevada
Whose actions were filled with bravada.
…The spelling I know –
…It should end in “o”,
But once she whipped Spanish Armada.

—

————————————————-

© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

Read Full Post »

To The Queen by William Blake

The Door of Death is made of Gold,
That Mortal Eyes cannot behold;
But, when the Mortal Eyes are clos’d,
And cold and pale the Limbs repos’d,
The Soul awakes; and, wond’ring, sees
In her mild Hand the golden Keys;
The Grave is Heaven’s golden Gate,
And rich and poor around it wait;
O Shepherdess of England’s Fold,
Behold this Gate of Pearl and Gold!
To dedicate to England’s Queen
The Visions that my Soul has seen,
And, by her kind permission, bring
What I have borne on solemn Wing
From the vast regions of the Grave,
Before Her throne my Wings I wave;
Bowing before my Sov’reign’s Feet,
“The Grave produc’d these blossoms sweet
In mild repose from Earthly strife;
The Blossoms of Eternal life!”

 

Read Full Post »

Three Miscellaneous Haiku by Dennis Lange

Once You Start

In Eden –
Have a hunch they ate
The whole thing.

——————– 

 

Color For Coloring 

For children,
A yellow harvest
For crayons.

——————– 

 

All Too Often

What is true,
The reality –
Distorted.

——————–

Start – photo by Dirk De Kegel at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mgGpO6K/A+bite+in+a+strawberry.

Color – photo by Kevin Tuck at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/nxPYcyE/Farm+crops+in+spring

Often – photo by Dez Pain at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/2dyXyr6/Flight+Over+Water+2

——————–

 

* 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/

——————–

© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

 

 

Read Full Post »