Reckless Poet

Winter Run

  Way too early, I open
the door in flimsy
  jogging shorts and bite
my bottom lip from the cold
  pounding rain overwhelming
the earth.

  Stinging hands balled like
babies, feet crashing into
  deep puddles of leg-coating
muck and the rain,
    rain as never before,
not the song-and-dance
  joyful splashing, more like
Noah's-judgment-era cutting
  into new inventions in
waterproofing technology and
  drenching a frigid soul.

The first stretch is all
  uphill and open to
inexhaustible frozen blasts
  of wind, piercing the
darkness of early morning
  and demanding a reason
any human would willingly
  enter into such a
place for other than the
  most dire of reasons.

My pre-coffee brain
  is utterly convinced
to turn back but legs
  keep on, steadily warming
up every stride from
  bottom and top to the
core, till I'm back
  where I began this
reckless journey and
  the percolated cup
awaits, never having tasted
  quite so good or warmed
quite so deeply ever before.

©Ephraim Risho, January 10, 2006

 

unpoet

Sometimes (today is one
example) the gushing
urge to write the
whole thing down, the
thoughts and utter wild
frustrations, dreams, and
precious moments, so much
living done it bubbles,
churns, develops, cries
to surely need themselves
expressed, but then when
moments come to write,
the blankness of the
page somehow will
mock at me, just how
pray tell will you even
begin to capture, hold,
or scribble down even
a drop of all the living
in your soul up till
this moment and perhaps
beyond, mere mortal, with
the curly hair and coffee
breath and giant
toppled dreams, how
can you even start to
hold this slipping,
slipping life which
tumbles to forgetfulness
and mediocrity and
loss and dies a
shallow, useless,
poorly uttered death?

©Ephraim Risho, December 24, 2005

 

The Bus to Taizhong

I was singing on
the bus to Taizhong
and watching things like
pigs on leash, an earthquaked
tree, and toothless
grinning roadside sugarcane
vendors when all at
once it struck me what
a selfish pigly toothless
toppled man I've come to
be all squealing of my
seeming leashed captivity
instead of dancing roadside
in the ruptured tortured
land with foolish grin.

©Ephraim Risho, December 24, 2005

 

The Way to Church

The walk to church
was brisk and crisp
along my neighbours'
well-raked gardens
watching dragon's breath
aswirl from nostrils
golden beams sneaking
patches of early day
through fog, and birds
and cats and rodents
all aflutter.

This, this is pure
creation, God's own
making, silent beauty
in a tree's most noble
posture, surely Christmas
must be coming soon.

And then I pass
the corner to the
Drive, with sudden
potpourri of people,
Muslims, Jews,
Hispanics, young
and rushing Persians,
one old well-dressed
man atop a golf-
cart all bedeckered
with bright Christmas
beads which
bubbles brightly
Christmas laughs
within my soul,
the people, people
everywhere, in
morning smiles,
goodmornings, grins or
staggered headaches,

there, around the
corner is the bright
free daily-news box
telling therewithin of
all the stars'
most recent foibles,
plastered on the
glass there sits
a big white sticker
gladly calling out
Who Cares? to all
us passersby, and
right away, agree I do,
indeed Who cares, this
phoney image glitz
has nearly nothing
new to do with
glorious day and all
creation here this
Sunday morning as
I make my
way to church.

©Ephraim Risho, December 11, 2005

 

A New Day

I wonder what would happen
if today I woke up fresh
and new, a whole new day
arrayed just right for
just ripe living, all that
past is history, I'm free
from latent worries and concerns
and troubles, let on go for
full-on living birthed afresh
and deep inside all that I do
today.

Don't get me wrong, I'd still be
me, same smile, same dues, same
wife, same shoes, but now with
all that past erased they'd seem
like gifts, like precious drops of
grace, their goodness sparkling now
that they have had a memory
bath, it makes me laugh to think if
life could actually allow this kind of
cleansing.

I wonder if I'd be more eager
at my job, or give my wife
another break, or even me , to say,
Dear Self, I'll give you chances
to screw up or miss the mark or
just be stupid, heck, you're new!
Go mess up here and there, don't
worry, just get out there in this
world, don't dream of holding back,
afraid of getting hurt, because
you've never felt it (yet,
today).

And I would dance when
music played, and laugh or cry
with wild abandon everytime a
friend or colleague needed someone,
anyone, to join them in their slice of
living, yep! I'd be there, march on
in, not worried 'bout what people
think 'cause so far every time I've
done it I've experienced life, at least,
today.

And somehow with my wife of
all these years, I'd look in
wonder at her, Say! What splendid
beauty, grace and courage she's
replete in, such a full-fantastic
friend, so what if she has hurt
or criticized me, all that's wiped
on off and buried deep, today
a brand new man looks at her
and desires her for the woman
she's become.

Yes, Yes, if all that happened,
if today comes fresh, then count
me in! I want a douse of
spunk relivened up instead of
holed up, frightened living with no
risks or real delights, I want
a risky reckless run at things
'cause frankly this today could be
the only real day that I have
left.

© Ephraim Risho, November 17, 2005

 

 

If I Were A Cat

If I were a cat
I'd sit around and
enjoy life for once,
eat birds and mice,
go bushwhacking in new
territory, explore the
great bushes of 827,
the mighty mounds
at 802, allow my
curiosity to get the best
of me and climb a
tree till there was
nothing but treetop and
the best view of the
sunrise! I'd be
the best mouser of
the block and say
hi to every passerby
and when a lap would
come, I'd be there,
jumping in and nestled
down, a full-fledged
snuggle through and
through, and when
the bills would come I'd
see the postman, not those
silly little envelopes all
stuffed with writing,
and I'd make sure
that man got rubbed
the right way, maybe
even get myself a pat,
the perfect day for
kitty, and then one
day I'd round up
all the other cats
around the block and
start a revolution!
'cause there's more to
life than this, you see,
and kitties would agree
and we would lose
our peace and laziness
and maybe gain some
purpose fighting for the
good of kitty-ness
and though we'd take some
casualties at once we'd
see we'd win this war
and then to earn the
right to purring,
nestling, petting, wondering
why we left it all
behind to start with,
isn't all this mess and
turmoil much more suited
to those silly humans?

© Ephraim Risho, November 2, 2005

 

The Rush

Impatience grips
the wheel in
the rush-hour of
my swerving,
aching hungrily
the chance to
get there sooner
as if my peace
depended on it,
being first,
in front, the
dream, but so
much traffic
makes it
nigh-impossible
and so this my
life is plainly
in the middle
of the mess
till suddenly
the light turns
Red! and
helpless me's
so far behind
I just don't
make it, now
I'm FUMING,
aching, quaking
and my rankled
soul's embittered
at this awfully
abrupt halt
to all my living,
and the
time goes by
so slowly I
could count it
like it just
might never end
and then it
strikes me as
the light
turns green that
quite unplanned and
ordinary here
I've come up
first as if
in life sometimes
when we let
go the striving
that's when
we can truly
get ourselves in
place to get
on living.

© Ephraim Risho, October 31, 2005

Moving On

it finally got so
infected and ruined
it was hopeless – we’d
just have to dump it
out, no matter how much
work we’d put into it,
how masterfully crafted
and artfully created,
it simply had to be
buried, and so God
in His grief cried
gargantuan tears and
all creation got
drowned, that is
except some guy
named Noah, his
family, and a big
box jam-packed with
stinky mammals and
squawking scallywags

and we were super
sad cut through the
heart to the bone
that things had spoiled
and we had no choice
but to start over,
and a friend said hey
cheer up and pray to
God, except this time
it was God who
needed cheering up,
and so God, in all
His Grandeur Greatness
went and found his
smile not in some
airy-fairy angelic
host but in a
somewhat cranky
old codger named
Noah

and he moved
on just
like me.

©Ephraim Risho, October 16, 2005

 

Jogger

The old man laughed
  when I stopped to stretch
     grinned and hollered
  'cross the street
    he's in better shape
Than me, what's yer age?
  with a smirk.
    Thirty-one, my first words.
Oh! So young!
   and he laughs now again
  and I look at his wry
    wily lie and surmise
      I'd be wise
         to put busyness
    on the back-burner and
  bite back rebuttals
         to listen.

And sure 'nough soon he's
  crossed over giving me
 most recent life-lessons
      people and politics
   roofs and the sewers
 how to beat taxes
   and right over there
     at that corner
 the reason it's all crusted
   bumpy is that sixty-odd
 years in the past
   it was muck,
 just a bog through and through
  mud and million mosquitoes
   it's true
     this whole street
 here was gravel before some
    odd chap went to Europe.

And busy I fidget
   but then suddenly there
 in his old toothy grin
    I can see the whole
  reason for living
    right here in a
  big concrete city--
 this time he now spends,
  no, he GIVES to me,
    this is a small-towny posture.

And startled I wonder
  perhaps I'm so busy at
    getting myself into some
  better place that
   this gabbing old grinner's
  got me beat, and, in fact
   it could be that yes he
    is indeed the one
 in better shape.

©Ephraim Risho, July 19, 2005