Looking Deep

By Eric Jensen

What is a computer programmer doing writing poetry? Having fun. I hope you enjoy reading these verses as much as I have enjoyed writing them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503580039

Book preview

Snow Fun

There starts a gentle dust of snow

And then a breeze begins to blow.

First marshmallows will top each twig.

The snow gets deep enough to dig.

Around the house where we’re confined

The wicked winter wind will wind.

The snow will grow in sculpted heaps

While everyone who lives here sleeps

But after dawn we’re glad to see

The plow allow us to get free.

A kneedeep snowdrift rates a stare

When next to it the ground is bare.

The house looks eaten up beneath

Long icicles like monster teeth.

But soon you know what we’re about.

We’re digging into digging out.

Communications

Today every minute has noises within it. We’re up to our noses in sound,

Radios shouting and telephones spouting the craziest ringtones around.

From country and city we fly from a ditty that tries to be witty and fails

But stop for a breath, and like taxes or death, the drummers are hot on our trails.

The speakers are gathered. Their jowls are lathered with platitudes heavy with hoar

But sponsors expounding discoveries astounding have already captured the floor.

Admen tattoo directly to you the virtues of brew and of smoke

While singers crack voices on murderous choices of whether to gargle or choke.

Newscasters prattle of prices and battle, of movie stars, horses, and kings,

And actors emphatic describe as ecstatic the pleasures that medicine brings.

You certainly wonder how to stand under this thunder that sends you in fright

From unlimited sounds besetting your rounds from dawn until late at night

So at your behest I strongly suggest the best thought I’ve had all week:

As sages have sung, don’t throttle your tongue. The world is listening! Speak!

Life

Celebrate and wonder at

The grand experiment

Begun when all the world was rock and sea

That in a sterile pool

Reacted chemicals to life.

Celebrate the green pigment chlorophyll

That captures energy from sunshine

And helps to turn carbon dioxide and water

Into carbohydrates and waste oxygen

To build the bones of trees.

Marvel at the mobile creatures

Who use red hemoglobin

To recycle that waste oxygen,

Driving their own reactions that

Regenerate carbon dioxide.

See clearly that unending melee

As each species forms and breaks alliances,

Battles others for a toehold,

Foothold, fortress, shelter from the myriad contenders.

And celebrate man,

Created a little lower than the angels,

Namer of the animals.

How infinite in faculty,

Waste oxygen scavenger for the trees.

Leftover

Being left handed I am moved to write

A sinister view of your dexterous rights.

Why do I always feel like a fool

When you assert your rights?

I had fun in