Verses In Time

By Jack Scholze

Jack Scholze poems are generally short and emotionally charged. A variety of subjects are explored from multiple perspectives, often in a concurrent manner, where different perspectives are aligned unique ways. He attempts to fin a multi-layered and multi-dimensional resonance of rhythm, meter, phrasing and subject in order to present a unified

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kdeli Partners
• Release date: Jun 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088147672

Book preview

2

Poe Tree

The poe tree is full of lines and limbs,

leaves and hymns

The poe tree grows in a dozen places

wherever shoots emerge

and joy displaces

the soils of earth

with jewels of plant

and wordy rant

extolling life

by verse and branch

anywhere seed or pen

explode at home

or on the ranch.

The poe tree

elicits storied grace

from Edgar Allan

and frees all space

for Anna Lee

and love so free

the jealous angels

come just to see

its beautiful reality.

The poe tree grows

in storied tendrils

where sentiment flows

and worry goes

so far away

that frowns are rare

and every care

has a golden case

until erased

and each stem and vase

regain their proper place.

A splendid tree showing off its yellow finery

3

Tulip

Whose narrow pistil flames to augur spring?

Whose sextet of pretty petals frames a limb?

The tulip bud’s unfolding grace does ring

All morning round to lift the twilight dim.

Whose unseen spirits effloresce apace

Among the teeming tendrils on the field?

The tulip blossoms urge a happy chase

where clapping children’s faces are revealed.

Only autumn’s death by leafy shows

Can somber summer petals glad insight

For round about them spirit sprightly glows

Effacing gloom for purity and light.

May tulips keep you focused toward the fair

And jocund spirits kiss you if they dare.

Aging Robin

An aging robin drags a wing,

still in the dawn light hear him sing

carols to the new day;

songs of dainty blue eggs in the bush,

songs of nest building in a rush,

songs of fledglings getting serious air,

songs of long spring mornings without care.

Next to the hermit thrush

his song is quaint

yet he manages to paint

orange breasted pictures

for Saint Francis

with his sonorous complaint.

4

Relativity

Does not the solemn, craggy mountain

watch the turning centuries,

and measure in seconds

the seasons flashing by?

Does not the whirring, darting hummingbird

watch the turning seconds

and measure in centuries

flowered moments in the sky?

Dreams are Purest Fair

Dreams are purest fair,

and true as signals sent

by an angel deep into your heart.

You may awaken with a start,

or a tender soothing part

may prompt you back to bed

for forty winks to get

back to the confused but

happy narrative prominently

starring you, bare running

or too solemn for words

dancing in a bubble.

With a wish to capture

some wispy thread

alluring through and through

with impossible logic

in leafy textures displayed,

peopled by your bare emotions

trembling with cares, loves,

and terrors

all along the labyrinthine

corridors of splendid sleep time.

Hours of Glass

In God's hourglass is the finest sand

found only on white equatorial beaches

where the albatross flies and reaches

through space-time as though planned.

This hourglass never seems to run out

with a top in heaven and a bottom

conversant with Agarthans round about

a clock without a clicking pout

rather with wheels of wishes fed

that leads to great times ahead.

Where is the worry in this flow

where do you really have to go

but in an ascendant craft

your hands have fashioned

with loving care fore and aft

flowing like Noah's big old raft

on seas and seasons without end

where every broken heart does mend.

5

Dust-off and Make Merry

Merry is a word I've heard used by jolly elves

and friends removed from dusty shelves

where they languished without song

thinking the circus had long since gone

and glee was really not for their shy selves.

Jump off that rail and look at the sun

as directly as you dare and run

toward that place of swings and gates

and dark and dismal never grates

the hobos used to call it catching freights

where with rush and sprint you happy reach

a place where motion and ascension waits

and when dry you pray just for a peach.

You may call it anything yet you must call

out for splendor, love and tender

above the din you prod and poke your chin

and show the world that impish grin

that mocks all woe and welcomes in

joy's eternal lights where all love begins

and shadows shrink as you deeply drink

the ambrosial liquors from great round kegs

extracted from the turquoise turtled sea

infusing effulgent warmth for you and me.

Cerulean Blue

I visualize myself standing straight and tall

without any problem at all.

I see myself spin round and round

just about 10 feet off the ground.

I feel a song burst from my chest

urging me to be my best.

I hear a melody so sweet

it makes me jump and move my feet.

I love a girl so much and true

she keeps the sky cerulean blue.

Antler Alterations of the Alpha Bet

6

It's only words representing a feeling

demanding a common language and

a world view with allowance for the infinite

and the transcendent power of love

and realities beyond the corporeal,

or it's not a message or a poem at all,

only a regular smearing of contrasted

pencil marks on electronic paper,

without the advantage of an organic curve,

and remote from sentiment and sense.

It is rather the loony alphabet knocking

and constraining an extremity of feeling

in a bottle of verse beyond blood

and the staggering aged buck

struggling for a last hour to see

the white shape of winter

before the implacable cold collects him

and he becomes the memory of himself

as the earth stores his tale like squirreled nuts

his fine 12 pointed antlers and his great ruts

remembered by the roots of maple trees

and by the seven Pleiadian sisters looking on

above the smooth pebbles lining stream beds

now icy and silent in the winter quiet

in the vast Russian Taiga and Canadian forest

there once and entirely upon a time.

Alpha Bets

A Antlers aweigh in an astrakh's harmonica

B Bright stars on the Taiga

C Crystalline is your melting smile

D Delight rules the planets

E Echoes reflect Elisha's many voices back to us

F Fear disappears as a trickster's illusion

G Giants stride along with us over the earth

H Home is known in every hello

I Indigo is her night coat, studded by starlight

J Jack Beanstalk grows beans into the clouds

K Kimberly talks softly in thrills to the rolling hills

L Laetitia once upon a lark in the dark

M Meander with Michele and Marty to find the course of heart

N Nestle in a bank of woody boughs for soft respite

O Oh how the heavens glow this blessed eve

P Pamela's heart guides Gabriel on this earth

Q Questions joker tempts and tests our aplomb

R Regal and riotous we glide along in song

S Sweet is Simone Marie’s smile on her horse’s flying coursers

T Twilight transitions us from chorus to hymn

U Unseen spirits try to clasp us to urge our path

V Violets are delivered with violins and vestal verses

W Wonder waxes wonderfully at every whimsical wave.

X Xanthian marbles with xanthic pieces roll like eyes

Y Yonder Paige beckons us with new beyonds to contemplate

Z Zeus joins our play and keeps on tuning the notes higher.

7

The Longing Heart

We know the heart is intimate with longing

as her constant companion even when

love's fire is a hot red furnace cauldron

overflowing with the excess of petaled sentiment.

Along then with this will of wispy tearing

that never halts long enough to bear

its secrets in a calmer light it stays

to forge a hint of forlorn in brightest joy

like signs of precious wear on a child's toy

gradually broken by an excess of care.

Heart longing presses infinity onto finite breath

from places unknown to solemn death

where the truth of joy manifest unclutters

perception and clarity lifts the persistent fog

revealing the stunning rays of spirit lands

pouring on our stubborn face and hands

resistant to take leave of Gog and Magog

and ascend with high pulses toward heaven.

Melody Carvings

For when you sing the galaxy sings along

and neighbors chime and join a billion strong

echoing the joy of new melody's creation

reminding your of a cherub's momentary smile

evanescent as sweet youth's gyration

sweeping in gay zephyrs across spring grass

and catching your heart breath for awhile

in a reverie spawned by memory and fast

you speed your course on feathered path

filled with the color and wonder of love that lasts.

Hard Grape-sized Purple Palm Berries and the Liberty Bell

Upon my walking sojourn to my tree friends in a morning hour I visited bare-footed in the customary manner Natim, Jade Singer, Governor, Bumble Tree, and Suzanne by turns, entreating certain dimensionless arboreal and celestial powers to honor my request, which for the sake of propriety only Sadie from the north country is aware to my unadjusted knowledge. All of my leafy friends were in a good humor entertaining green parrots, Mynah birds and the airy ethereal Manu-O-Ku floating in and out of flagrantly green branches. All except Bumble Tree who has been recently discomfited by a haircut from the tree trimmers. They despoiled and removed branches and weedy habitat round his base, and even quite further up.

The worst sight was the honey bee nest, all plugged up in a slipshod manner, and not a single bee left in sight. Evidently the work of the impatient and ill-tempered tree trimmers who had no compassion for the tireless honeybee and his great work of pollination and honey creation. This brought a tear to my eye. There remained a single large black bumble bee hanging around, who still makes his home underground at the base of this fine tree. He hovered at eye level just to my left, seemingly in sympathy, during our long moment of interspecies collateral cognizance. Nothing sweet, yet the experience was disarming. How sad I could not fly he thought, and I thought the same thing. So once more a place where busy bees are only a memory, another nest peaceful in death.

So walking along on the bare-footed earth by turns I stepped on hard grape-sized purple palm berries near the Liberty Bell, which is an exact copy of the one in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but cast in France and donated to Hawaii in 1950, bearing the inscription Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. I could not help but notice that this liberty apparently did not and does not apply to honeybees and their homes, nor to the Polynesian settlers of these islands and their ancestral homelands. The hard grape-sized purple palm berries hurt my feet so I stopped to pick them up and throw them at the Liberty Bell, which resulted in soft but pleasant ringing tones and encouraged me to volley the berries at the sonorous target, better bell a cow's ear than a bull's eye I never used to say. Bella the Cow Seer would agree the cards for you and set you aright. I was able to pick up some of the berries with my toes, but it was hard to get the hang of throwing and release of toe born berries, but I made a small project of that activity, until I saw the uniform coming, with the pugnacious and bureaucratic air of a person charged with petty security and not charged with the heavenly propensity to foot fling a series of hard grape sized purple palm berries at bells or at the proboscis of snooty waddling authority figures anywhere you may find them.

You can’t do that here mister. he said, apparently to me. He looked like a sheriff, who thought about lunch often, even after work. It isn't that hard really, if you learn to wiggle your toes I replied. He looked irritated but confused. What did you say? he asked. You heard what I said, did your mom ever teach you how to wiggle your toes to do something useful, like picking up a sock or an eraser from the floor? After a bit more of this sort of twaddle, we both parted company and waddled away from the vicinity of the great bell. One way or another there will always be bells ringing in our heads, mostly inaudible or improbable, so with connections to brother and sister bells in our hearts, which keep us bouncy and above the firmament until our firm amen.

When visited by sounds and sweet airs, when your heart lifts in a way that frees you from all cares, then know that place as home and there you are unbound, a creature scarcely on the ground, but glidely on in your chosen dance, to waltz or Crocodile rock or twist or locomote. Travel light with not much more to tote than the token dress, trousers or Aloha shirts and perhaps be one who never skirts the issues. I put some of the hard grape-sized purple palm berries in a bowl of earth with water and await the germination as much as I await the pollination of dreams in a vagrant hour by thought of great pealing bells of Liberty in every land where love and truth rule folks hearts by virtue of entertaining the Archeology of the soul, with beer and pancakes.

Stay spell bound then, and when you are done with that ....

Ms. Bumble Be e on her way back to Bumble Tre e

Blue Moon

This august pair of fullest moons

share attention with the shaking earth

Late summer when lovers in heated swoons

Collect nectars of fondest care and their new birth

Babes impatient to plant feet and dreams

upon the earth and imprint their schemes

of gyroscopic compassion in orange beams

under the blue moon's transcendent gleams.

Then Gaia smiles when hearing psalms

from singing youth whose longing care

promotes glad tide's incessant alms

breathing in and out great draughts of sea.

The great pale orb hangs out in silence

from mountain top to valley town

now we can lose that worried frown

if we only seek what we adore

when walking the blue moonlit shore.

8

Congeries of Song

For a little time and times we stay to play

with a song in our heart that waits

longing for the day when we up and say

this is it then, I'm all in and my plates

of prior states have crashed in merry tinkles.

The air is clear and that melody is so dear

it must be sent forth with my new wrinkles

to ears avid for SImone's tones sweet and clear

which prompt all manner of sonic healing

as her singing vibrates from cellar to ceiling

transforming mere houses to orchestral castles

and high harmonies in our hearts congealing

into indigo and purple crystal rays all warm

with transcendent layers of love's contentment

that surround us in a friendly swarm.

9

Heartache

Heartache is nothing like a headache

since no ameliorative appears to work

except for the solace of solitude

when by breaking the breath of despair

you may once again inspire mere air

and not feel as though your heart

is being ripped out by a great fork

fashioned by some love lack devil's handiwork

who would else grow sentiment berserk

fashioned from things you never see

in places you don’t want to be

down paths of black darkness and perfidy.

Awake then my heart to the fullness rapt

leave off this gloom where you have napped

Look to the sun full rising in the east

more constant than any man or beast

let gladness clasp and love beguile

and infect my demeanor with a smile

that caps my climb again with a feast

of joy and welcomes artless timeless art

her place again at my side.

Between Beats

Listen to your heart awhile sometimes

between the beats are profound sounds

inaudible to the mundane ear

high and pastel hued with harmonies clear

past all care and embarked on rounds

of memory, distant echoes leaving fear

as far away as light years to an aunt

who never studied vast astronomy

yet expands the universe a little more

when she gives her little dog Totone a bone

and knows true love to the core

prods and pokes with sweet vital signs

to practice and learn the pretty score.

10

What is Joy?

Joy is anticipation of large unfoldment

of your latent individuality in totality.

Joy is looking at beauty and noticing

it looking back at you.

Joy is the smile mom reserves

for her child in his bath or bed

when she knows he has been fed

well enough to see dream angels

preening and protecting his path ahead.

Joy is the sparkle in your eye

never dimmed by a century of woe

since it takes you to places that require

only a human heart which cannot expire.

Joy is your kiss and your face always near

which sustains me and erases all my fear.

Joy is the song of a dancing child

energetic and uplifted with melody mild.

Joy is the rain on my face and a rainbow

showing what is elicited by mere mist

when light has caught you by the wrist

to show you a direction you might still go

if you free your heart and take your show

on a fling you once knew but somehow forgot.

Joy is the melody that sways your limbs

from rock and roll to gentle hymns

and makes you sing along with the vigor

god gave you to spread like sugar

on whatever sorrow damps and dims.

Joy is every new day's sun

rising like a glowing bun.

11

Absolutely Mist

Only messages in the rainbow mist

and now and then a leaf rooted sign

where all of a sudden my heart twist

yields love's clear signal so fine

wrought by silversmiths divine

by Fibonacci's old fractal design

to tell me an absolute line

has been held and crossed

hugged and tossed

as certain as the joy

which tickles a newborn's giggle

into my life's gamble that

can never be lost.

This is infinity's penalty

for knowing a heart so well

creation herself rings a bell

for the party to begin

and great old agony quell

to roast in fiery hell

The Singing Hair

Elisha grew her golden lion's mane

along her route of healing passion

combed only for taming the unruly

never tempted by contingent fashion

that insults and sullies against the grain

Of wisdom cultivated for an hour's sally

bringing even the hair of hares along

in that sunny valley where she longs to dally

even when called to duty for so very long

she sometimes forgets her joy in singing

every note from her heart kind wringing

ineffable vapors of love

undulating in the air

between the planets flying

we can hear goddesses sighing

to join the chorus of her earthly care

set aside in honor of Saint Cecilia.

Nike's Sole

Preface

If my birth here was by my choice

only then listen to my voice

else this earth I must disown

other places need I roam.

None cares hearing a sad refrain

born of sorrow and sharp pain,

ten shall I be quite mum

and only in the silence heard

that sits on midnight's head

far beyond and past all dread

for what is yet to come.

Prophecy

I gave you my heart

but you gave me your sole

attached to a pretty foot

nails tainted all red bloody painted

This is how Nike keeps her place

in Zeus' great chariot race

deriding love's uncertain dance

each starry notion that might else advance

to grow a tree in earthly ecstasy

is something she will never see

For this rather minor indiscretion

the moon will give her regular indigestion

until she leaves great Zeus' tall employ

to bear in light a baby boy

called Gabriel the white lions' joy.

12

Kissing You

My love is indomitable straight and true

never leaving a thing to rue

as close to heaven as flesh can be

with each kiss sense our immortality

that courses through each artery and vein

our path of great joys all to sustain

past vicissitudes we heartily disdain.

Beyond the fleeting our bond never strays

between merry galaxies it always stays,

prompting us by songs and plays

so vitally through all our days

we fail to sleep in its purple haze

and stay up nights just to shift our gaze

and jump to every minstrel call

embracing in a waving dance

in spring and summer never to fall

into deep despond since we have

like celestial reindeer learned to prance

at last sailed far beyond all care

to places where Gabriel and Uriel

have decorated a lovely lair

with childlike faces everywhere

who stay to save us with their play

a starring part for all who merely say

I love you.

13

Vio Lense

Violence cannot change the world

in reality it has no effect on it.

That terrible blood and screaming pain,

cracking earth, floods and fires

born of our baser desires,

can change anything is the greatest

illusion of our age.

Huge bombs and blasted limbs

force new creation at a quicker pace,

they do not ever even one single

love or kind sentiment erase.

So we must see the divine in every

place and each and every face,

or we are destined but to chase

burning buildings and bodies

all round the place

forgetting that harm is powerless

in the presence of a single grace.

This is the earnest lesson of our age,

to learn the worthlessness of rage

that every man and woman is a sage

when by tender touch they soft engage.

14

Where Is True Love?

Where is true love?

In your heart of hearts surely

when by passion viewed all alarmed

or by calm meditation disarmed

in that place of thought discarded

by wrenching twists of hot desire

amid sparks of divine inspired fire

kalachakra some have opined

as flashing merkabas get intertwined.

Where is true love?

True is plainly redundant

since love is only truth

and never could be more

or clever enough to be less