The Daily Poem

LONESOME FLOTILLA

It's all too small to comprehend.

    We're miniscule as molecules,

    A thin flotilla fond of fools,

Approaching what we call, "Our End."

No message sent has been returned.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem779

Quintain

El Cajon, California

~ The Daily Poet

THE NAMELESS SELF

Doors and windows, windows and doors,

    Sheets and pillows, pillows and sheets,

How can a Dali chest of drawers,

    With nipple knobs for treats,

Just walk away and throw its name

Into the fire and into the flame,

Gone forever in smoke and shame?

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem778

Novel Verse Form

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

AS YOU WERE

Gavel me with porcupines and organ pipes.

    Punish me with every single quill.

Rush to judgment all the staunch collective gripes.

    Send me off to where they break the will.

Knowledge does me like a score of wayward whores.

    Every time I settle down they stir.

Oceans of confusion drown my foreign shores.

    Attention all my soldiers, "As you were."

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem777

Quatrain Stanza

Encinitas, California

~ The Daily Poet

THE VACANT VAST SURROUNDINGS

If I should look too close at Consequence,

I'd see that nothing really matters much;

My giant strokes of sweeping Confidence

Add up to little more than a spider's touch.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem776

Quatrain

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

THE SPLITS OF BILLABONG

I left my body on a bench downtown

To join a few celestial errand boys

Who asked if I could fly a spirit-gown

From earthly woes to loop on heaven's joys.

I told them it had been a while since

I'd taken to the air without a wince,

A bit of shaky staging confidence

Perhaps.

But now I'm feeling better and in fact

I'm flying circles round those boys of late.

Conclusively the things I thought I lacked

Are gone and I've regained my liquid skate.

I tell them every day it won't be long

Until I man just slip outside the song,

Maneuver through the Splits of Billabong

Perhaps.

They say I'd better play it off the books,

Be careful lnot to wheel the gear too far,

But secretly I see behind their looks,

They know I've got it -- airless in the jar!

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem775

Novel Verse Form

Hanford, California

~ The Daily Poet

OF HELL AND PUNISHMENT

We talked of Heaven and reward,

We talked of Hell and punishment,

Eternal life with Christ our Lord,

Eternal death and banishment.

I'm glad to go to Paradise

And live with Jesus evermore,

But thinking of the fire and ice,

The outer dark, the gnashing gore,

The screams caught up in flaming cysts,

The licking godly knives of wrath,

Danteic circling stricture fists,

The sulfurous lake, the molten strath,

The vicious demon screeching cries,

The searing laughter from their lips,

Confessing all their clever lies,

Their finger talking pointed scripts.

And on and on and out of sight,

The smoke goes up forever black;

Eclispse the sun, endure the night,

No exit out, no entrance back.

O God I can't endure the thought,

Perhaps the one I loved is there,

ANd will not share my happy lot

In Heaven with You where all is fair.

But not so fair it seems to me,

This place of burning ever-doom.

How can I take Eternity

Above their sobbing throbbing tomb?

I trust Your love is just and true,

And must assume my human mind's

A shallow thing to fathom You,

My sight too near, too short, too blind.

So please, dear God, with lenses thick,

Correct my eyes that cannot see,

And take my heart so stiff and sick,

And cure it with Your remedy.

I'd gladly trade my heart of stone

For one of flesh that beats for You;

My eyes with scales all overgrown,

For a pair of eyes all good and new.

But if my vision fogs to gray,

And if I still can't understand,

May I remain that chosen clay,

Submitted to your Potter's Hand.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem774

Ballad Meter

Hanford, California

~ The Daily Poet

CRACKER JACK LESSONS

Impromptu lessons in humility are cast

Like falling stars from summersaulting skies.

I cracker jack them all to try and make them last,

Remembering how pitiful the prize.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem773

Quatrain

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

APRIL FOURTH'S DAY

Today is April Fourth's Day

    And nothing third will do;

Nothing second, nothing first,

    I'ts an anti-race milieu.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem772

Quatrain

Encinitas, California

~ The Daily Poet

SHRINKING VIOLET

I shrunk myself and all my stuff

    to half my violet size,

And now my house is twice as big

    and so are the filthy flies.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem771

Quatrain

Idyllwild, California

~ The Daily Poet

FIRST THINGS

As good as gold the memories staying,

    Deep untarnished heavy shine;

A minstrel in the background playing,

    Cool the tunnels always mine.

The lessons of the ancient master,

    Learned in skins I left too small;

Slow as love and never faster,

    Caught in each the codes of all.

Tomorrow, like a sweet subduction,

    Pushes under lifting slow;

Volcanic aftermath of motion,

    Buries treasure far below.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem770

Ballad Meter

Idyllwild, California

JOURNAL: Home

~ The Daily Poet

THE WAY IT WAS

Come out, come out, wherever your are,

Hiding in your crystal cave,

Slurping smoke like caviar,

Sleepless in your hazy rave.

Hiding in your crystal cave,

Melting glass to help you see,

Sleepless in your hazy rave,

Come, sweet child, come home to me.

Melting glass to help you see,

Pawn your watch for another buzz,

Come, sweet child, come home to me,

Don't forget the way it was.

Pawn your watch for another buzz,

Burning years in a hollow bowl,

Don't foreget the way it was,

Skin tight dread on a narrow soul.

Burning years in a hollow bowl,

Slurping smoke like caviar,

Skin tight dread on a narrow soul,

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

For Kim

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem769

Pantoum

Idyllwild, California

JOURNAL: Home

~ The Daily Poet

SOMETHING IN YOUR RUNNING SHOE

You come inside and close the vent.

You tell yourself a thing or two.

You can't remember where you went--

There's something in your running shoe.

You take it off and shake it out.

You can't believe what's hiding there.

You jump up crazy, scream and shout--

A diamond-studded wingback chair!

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem768

Ballad Meter

Idyllwild, California

JOURNAL: Home

~ The Daily Poet

MOON WAR ONE

Forget the slaves all stuffed in stinking ships,

Forget the famous holocause catastrophe,

Forget the sixties Vietnam menagerie,

It's time to change the color of our lips.

    Come over here and kiss me,

    Someday you're going to miss me.

Come dance me now before I'm good and gone,

And buried in a lunar Forest Lawn.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem767

Novel Verse Form

Idyllwild, California

JOURNAL: Home

~ The Daily Poet

FRESH PEPPER

I need a bit of loving if you please,

A bit of your fresh pepper for a sneeze,

To drop me smiling down upon my knees.

O yes baby, O yes please.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem766

Monorhyme

Encinitas, California

JOURNAL: Mark & Kit's Cottage in Leucadia

~ The Daily Poet

DOLLY GRIP DREAM

Trio Tango Tantamount,

Lives on movies Paramount,

Reads the credits every one,

Never leaves until they're done,

Knows each Dolly Grip by name,

And hopes one day to do the same.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem765

Rhyming Couplets

Encinitas, California

JOURNAL: Mark & Kit's Cottage in Leucadia

~ The Daily Poet

RUGBY BOY

Two weeks later than expected,

Two pounds heavier than expected,

    Not-so-little Eli came;

Big & tall, and black & blue and

    Ready for the rugby game.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem763

Novel Verse Form

Encinitas, California

JOURNAL: Mark & Kit's Cottage in Leucadia

~ The Daily Poet

BIRTHDAY NIGHT

We're waiting for our baby boy,

    He's on his way tonight.

He's going to need a tiny toy

    That he can hold real tight.

He'll grab it with his little fist,

    And chew it all day long.

And if you listen carefully

    He'll coo a little song.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem763

Ballad Meter

La Mesa, California

JOURNAL: Mark & Kit's Cottage in Leucadia

~ The Daily Poet

TWO SMALL WISHES

If I get rolled by a rolling stone,

Hope I don't lie there and die alone.

If I get felled by a falling tree,

Hope someone comes to bury me.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem762

Quatrain

Encinitas, California

JOURNAL: Mark & Kit's Cottage

~ The Daily Poet

COME DILIGENCE AND PROD ME ON

Come Diligence and prod me on

I never was real good at this

If I could be your whipping boy

Perhaps I'd do a thing or two

I'd cry and cry and never stop

And you could be the reason why

Although I've never asked you why

I'm asking now and forever on

There is no place for me to stop

No place on earth to give me this

It's you and me, yes just us two

Although a man I feel a boy

I was a good and faithful boy

I acted out the reasons why

If one was good, then I took two

The truth was what I leaned upon

And though I never hoped for this

I knew the push would never stop

Though many tried to make me stop

To do the things that make a boy

I always went my way to this

Because I knew the answer wy

And ever would I travel on

If not for a life, then maybe two

Regard me not as one but two

I am the you that will not stop

The alter ego pressed upon

The man though still a little boy

Unsure of who or what or why

But going strong with only this

And if I die with none but this

I will have lived the life of two

I will have answered every why

I will have gone without a stop

From where I started as a boy

To where I found myself and on

I've only this and will not stop

Together two, a man and boy

Together why, together on.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem761

Sestina

Idyllwild, California

JOURNAL: Home

~ The Daily Poet

THAT MOVIE

Once you see it

You'll always be it.

D. Edgar Lamp

TheDailyPoem760

Epigram

Idyllwild, California

JOURNAL: Home

~ The Daily Poet