Writing Short Rhyming Poems with Metaphors
Short Rhyming Poems
NOTE: You'll find many short rhyming poems on other pages of this site as well as on this one.
(All the poems which appear on this page are taken
from 21ST CENTURY BREAD � 2007 by Leland Jamieson.)
Change Pace Poetry 19: Short Rhyming
Poems in Narrative Couplets
Father of the Groom
In memory of G.M.P.
Our parents like each other, get so high
my Mom insists that Papa let her tie
on him his gram�s old yellowed linen bonnet
(sometimes �the moment� seems to be right on it).
Genetics sculpted his bones with his gram�s.
He glances at his grandma�s portrait, hams
it up, and he could take her place in gilt
above the fireplace, hanging at a lilt.
Hook and Ladder
A siren blares. The yellow light goes red.
The giant firehouse door glides overhead.
A gleaming lemon hook and ladder truck
roars out and bears strong men of ready pluck,
especially him who rides up high and steers
its great rear wheels. Thus, easily it veers
round corners far too tight for its great length.
It rears its ladder built with so much strength
it bears all hoses, firemen, and those folks
they pluck from flames to smoky shoulders� yokes!
Ingenious device! I would I had
some such to fetch down night dreams� ski-high chad.
Their message-bearing snow-mites past recall
on waking � tongues all rhyming � so enthrall
me that I doze again to listen. More!
But I can�t ever turn that corridor
of archetypal images and speech
I left, and now so much would like to reach.
If only I�d a psychic hook and ladder
to steer, to pluck . . . . But would I be the gladder?
All One Has
For G.K.J., who holds that
art is not a competitive sport.
One�s character is all
one has, and it grows tall
against all droughts with a taproot
burlap cannot wrap.
One�s character�s revealed
in action one�s concealed
from ogling eyes� cold praise,
from klieg lights� hazy rays.
(The public will accept
clich�s, and is adept
at avoiding deeper feeling �
although it thirsts for healing . . . .)
When unobserved, and free,
what does one do to see,
to be, make tangible
a hidden life that�s full?
To find and do that thing
emboldens one to sing �
art�s character impart,
its taproot got by heart.
Change Pace Poetry 18 Short Rhyming Poems
Potter
For G.K.J.
Escaping the glaring sun, the heat's ennui,
his soul mate -- forty-three years plus -- and he
explore The Shed to replace mugs they'd lost.
Nearby, two droning, throbbing fans exhaust
the shed-bound, moist, and fragrant earthy smell
of drying work five potters soon will sell.
They each move slowly, carefully appraise
a little vase that shines in a slate-gray glaze:
"Nasturtium nosegays would look nice in this,"
she says. He now recalls how she finds bliss
in hardy gentle flowers she re-seeds
each spring in barren clay, and gladly weeds.
She steps behind a potter at her wheel
who trims a bowl and adds more eye-appeal.
He sees, within his soul mate's eager eyes,
a thirsting ardor she would minimize --
it's clear they shop not for a mug or vase
but with a purer need she must embrace:
She has a yen to shape soft silicate,
extract from it what may authenticate
her gift for comely, strong design -- that stole
she wears which births and clothes her maker's soul,
gives thanks for every free-form gift of mud,
and consummates her clay-self's trial by blood.
Force Fields Elevate the Feeling
"Life is always insipid to those who have no great
work in hand to elevate the feeling."
-- Horace Bushnell, 1802-1876.
These iron filings strewing paper plate
show horseshoe magnets can intoxicate
by means of force fields we can't see or touch --
make dance what otherwise just isn't much.
So by what force fields can we shift to drive,
get rolling toward what each most needs to thrive,
by indirection new directions find
and lift tired bodies free of the wearing grind?
A horseshoe magnet's but a bar that's bent.
Opposing valences can both present
unseen their force field's ambiguity:
adverse yet patterned tugs of high esprit.
We humans are like filings -- or drawn wires
that wrap round armatures -- without desires
'til negatives and positives we face
en-god in us the strength of their embrace.
Astral Traveler
In memory of L.S.J.
A young familiar fell in stride
within an airport concourse I'd
not walked, not ever seen, before.
He spoke. I felt a warm rapport
(a gift for which I'd no account)
and as we walked, it seemed to mount.
A banquet table set for eight:
We'd no desire to circulate,
so took two chairs. He chose my left.
He said, his words and tone quite deft,
"Do tell me all about your work.
And fully -- nothing wholly shirk."
So warm an interest is most rare
and freed my limbic mind from care.
But waking brought that to an end . . . .
I worried, lest my closest friend
(who else could have concern so pastoral?)
was on his last flight out, in astral.
I called. It was not he, thank heaven.
But who, then, visited, brought leaven
and warmth to this old lump of dough?
Whose heart and mind, in talk's free flow,
could make me feel so boundless -- glad . . . ?
I know! He was my died-young dad!
Change Pace Poetry 17: Against All Odds
Against All Odds
Early September.
Oklahoma City to Memphis via The Rock Island Rocket.
Memphis to Asheville via Southern Railroad.
The upper berth lurched hard from side to side.
Her wheels of steel -- click-clack, click-clack astride
her groaning rails and ties, their changing pitch,
that syncopation past a side-rail switch --
would normally have zonked him out at once,
except he feared that he'd be made class dunce.
Suppose they would not hold the seven-ten
departure, Memphis-bound-for-Asheville, when
the Rock Island Rocket ran a little late?
They said they would, but what if they'd not wait?
He'd miss the Old Boys' Deadline -- be a chump!
The thought turned his whole throat into a lump . . . .
First off the platform, he inquired, "The train
for Asheville?" "Sonny, there she rolls. Retain
your ticket. It is good tomorrow too."
He lurched his suitcase up, and sprinting, drew
abreast the last car's Lookout post and rail,
scrambled down concrete steps -- he dared not fail!
Again he breasted the Lookout post, rail, stair,
grabbed the post, vaulted bag and butt through air,
and landed, teetering. He crawled up-tread,
stood rocking, guts and knees like gingerbread.
The door: locked tight! What could he do? Good Lord!
Up high, "Emergency!" He pulled the cord.
Shrieking, the train stopped dead. Look, men with bags
raced by, their footfalls crunching clinker slags.
He jumped down, ran, caught up, and with them climbed
up through the diner's elevator (slimed
with swill from stinking barrels he pushed by),
and passed a black-faced cook with a knowing eye.
Pretending calm he bumped his bag up-aisle.
"Not taken," said a kid his age (thin smile).
"Oh. Thanks." He gasped for breath, his thudding heart
impatient now to see the train depart
lest someone find him out -- throw him in jail --
and who in Memphis would, for him, pay bail?
"You're really out of breath!" this Thin Smile said.
He nodded, "Out of shape." His face burned red.
He wedged his ticket in the front seat' back,
reclined, eyes closed, and lay upon the rack
of his anxiety until he felt
a forward lurch. His fear began to melt . . . .
Steel wheels and rails were singing when he woke.
A stub, no ticket, wedged the seat back's yoke.
(Thin Smile gazed out, his head against the glass.)
The mountains heaved in view, in greening mass,
and singing wheels on rails dropped down in pitch.
He stretched his forearm, kneading out a twitch.
Thin Smile turned great brown eyes toward him and grinned.
"While you were sleeping, this man -- double-chinned --
stopped by to thank you, left his card for you.
Some lawyer, lives in Asheville, well-to-do."
"Thanked me? For what?" "He said that you would know.
Said twice, 'Magnifico! Magnifico!'"
Thin Smile was chuckling, grinning ear to ear.
"I watched you panting, glimpsed a touch of fear,
observed you didn't want to talk at all.
No cobbler, I'd not twist a sharpened awl
to tap your guts, for curiosity --
you had to catch your breath. I let you be.
"The lawyer, while you slept, described the scene --
said several men agreed they'd never seen
determination like your own to catch
this train -- bold action which alone could snatch
a lost day back they thought was down the drain.
They all send "Thanks!" for helping them entrain . . . .
"What was it drove you on, against all odds?"
"Still greater odds! Drove me like piston rods!
I'm going back to boarding school, you see.
If I were late, I'd dig a stump, a tree
in fact, before I could return to sports.
I'd be class dunce, and off the tennis courts."
"You don't say! That's not Christ School? Could it be?"
"None other. What? You got telepathy?"
"I'm going there -- read all about that stump
a really big dumb screw-up makes you hump."
"Well! -- let me welcome you. Name's Jamieson."
They shook hands, soberly. "Mine's Bateyson."
Daybreak Nets the Artist's Work
To spin her world, the spider jettisons
the fear she spills her guts in foolishness.
She'll spinnaker on a faithless wind, no less,
to anchor her web for Evening Orisons.
She spins and spins. Her garden row outruns
its night while cold and dampness coalesce
to celebrate her web's widespread finesse --
at cockcrow countless dewdrops glisten suns.
Struck from Lightning
My grand-kids scuff the rug for pinprick bolts
of lightning they can finger-zap on skin --
then giggle when I'm jolted by their volts.
These quanta, of non-local origin,
convey a metaphysical "within,"
illumine mirth in everything absurd --
electrify the heart of this old bird.
Cooling Off with Cayenne
Whose was that deep male voice he just
could hear beneath his study floor?
So late! Who was the neighbor thrust
himself on her at their front door?
Best he step down and rescue her
so she can get some sleep tonight.
Pretext? He'll raid the fridge! Yes-sir!
He clumps downstairs to get a bite.
The voice? Astonishing! Their son's!
How could he not have recognized
their flesh and blood, who now outruns
his ears and holds them mesmerized?
The voice breaks -- up: a child's again . . . .
Now, where'd he stash that fresh cayenne?
Tent of Snorers
I leave my bathhouse clogs outside the tent,
unzip, re-zip the screen, but mutely sigh,
come three o'clock, and thrash in discontent
that sunrise takes so long to paint the sky.
No dream, no nightmare graces open eye,
redeems this time with creativity --
unless it is revealing just to be.
A Modest Hope
Two spotted goats, one brown, one mostly black,
chomp grass in this abandoned burial plot.
They nuzzle round each flat-laid granite plaque,
and take great care (as grounds-keeps who're well-taught)
with bone-bound longings wasting now in rot . . . .
Goats' rancid exhalations -- might it be? --
may spring some unrequited spirits free.
Archimedes' Second Thoughts
A quick take on Pappus, Collectio, Book VIII, Prop. 10, Sec. XI.
"Sure. Give me where to stand. I'll move the earth,"
said Archimedes, searching for a bar
to prize it with . . . . "Said what? And not in mirth?
Sure? 'Give me where to stand, I'll move the earth . . . '?
How place a lever against her spinning girth?
Who, me? Said that? Uh . . . . Wine, please. Red. A jar!
'Sure! Give me where to stand, I'll move the earth�',"
said Archimedes, hitching stool to bar.
That Elixir
He'd hugged her gently in their puppy love,
which felt like it was more than mere romance,
while brightest sunshine graced her most white glove . . . .
Some say that marriage is a hostage-dance:
The taker and the taken in a trance
exchange their masks. Within, they each grow ashen
in search of that elixir called compassion.
In the Crowd at the Big H
I spy them, each in boots and jeans,
calico shirts and cowboy hats,
just barely out of their own teens
waving off horseflies and the gnats.
Among these thousands just like them,
4-H-ers come to show, or see,
Blue-Ribboned livestock, each a gem --
what draws my eye? Not his goatee.
They amble, his hand on her nape --
not a caress. Then, what? A check?
He steer her? Lest she bolt, escape?
One clasps a bottle by the neck,
a woman friend by hand or waist . . . .
Or is she livestock he has aced?
A Farmer Mom Advises Mary-Lynn
Raleigh, North Carolina.
In memory of Jean.
"Your youngster likes to draw, and read, and play
with words and rhymes," the teacher told me when
we met a quarter hour on conference day.
As though I didn't know at all my ten
year old! She said she'd like to "bring him out,
so he'd grow up a man among real men."
I wondered had she drunk straight from the spout
too much corn liquor? But I held my tongue.
No use to bicker. And, I had no doubt
she wanted common sense -- just mouthing dung
and shoveling out an educator's bin.
What's more, she was, as they all are, so young!
I stood -- her eyes went wide -- said, "Mary-Lynn,
don't try to bring my youngster 'out' unless
you know for sure how you'll put him back 'in'."
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