Janice M. Scott

This rainy Sunday
I didn't see who came
Who wiped the water
From your name?

Falling rain; eight falling
Walls of lines of water
Could she be your wife?
Perhaps your daughter?

All I know in
Letters in steel
Still, can't fight
The sorrow I feel.

Patterns flow
Within the walls
Skylines flowing
Move and fall.

Inside the pools
All is down and down.
Yet steel grows and
Rises all around. 

(C) 2013 Norman Dziedzic Jr.

Actors, Painters and Poets

     Like an airport
Everything rushing to meet deadlines
     Eyes darting everywhere
Searching space for direction signs

     However here
The escalators run always down
     Our signs
Lead only to the crown

     Like a negative
The colors aren't what they would seem
     The pictures taken
Whisper, they never really scream

     In our machine
The gears don't even know their place
     Their teeth
They grind 'til memory banks erase

     And the masses
Marching backward, they can't know
     Though they progress
They're moving much too slow

     But the actor
With poet and painter near by
     He can see
And the three of them could tell you why

     And the crown
We know it has no ears
     And the court
No eyes to see our fears

     And I the poet
Like a musician without a song
     Must follow
Even knowing the path is all wrong

Alone - Away

This poem was created by three people each taking turns writing a section. This was circa 1987 when we did this. At first I wasn't that happy with the last part but it has grown on me so here it is in it's entirety.

---

Bathed, she squats silently on a hill
pale and strong and unmoving.
She seems content to wait

alone

Since she has no match and
forever. She is very bold and
set in her (or her creator's) ways.
Why not? Has she even a choice
or a mind or an opinion? She
seems learned in history in especial.
Though it seems fruitless knowledge.

She is frustrated, idolized, and stonehenge.

---

Left to himself (and not by his choice), he
stands, upright; facing the wind from across
empty fields.  He seems awake but his eyes are

away

Since his will has no match and cannot
move [a hill], he tries to change
his (or his creator's) path.
Why? has he lost his choice
or his mind or his opinion?  He
seems smothered in effect in circumstance.
Though it seems a weightless measure.

He is stifled, shunned and bane.

---

He is a cow.

---

(c) Norman Dziedzic Jr, Jeff Moles, James Peck

The Sea King

TheSeaKing, a photo by njdrocket on Flickr.

Coffee Shop Circumstances

Thursday night and almost full
Silently I study the view
From a "comfy chair" in the corner.
Circumstances have made me a

Regular of sorts

But I only recognize one old guy

Kibitzing too long with the barista

Wearing the same bright yellow shirt as last night.

The couple playing Munchkin

are oblivious.   Belonging more at a kitchen table but

good for them.  I envy their comfort.

Mr. Superman T-shirt commands the
study group at the large table too comfortable with the girl

to be just friends.

Random jazz fills the gaps -

The old guy bites his nails.

The man at the counter is all business while
two couples chat and flirt

away from the kids?

away from the bar?

maybe just away.

With jazz and superman and munchkins,

I drink in what I can of coffee

and time and circumstance

Bluebird

Upwards
Climbing freely
Above the barren field
I saw a bluebird in its nest
Sleeping

December's Denouement

Autumn exhales, long and slow
Spent - by the harvest
And the felling of leaves;
Tugging at the last brown stragglers.

The barren maples and birch
Palaver on winter preparations
Warily eyeing the constant conifers
Who hold tight their secrets.

Time is ever even but our division
Shifts toward the night. Drifts
From the light to algid evenings
Descending toward the solstice. 

And then, though imperceptible
Days stretch for the celebrations
Late in the season, late in the year.
December's denouement.

---

(c) 2012, Norman Dziedzic Jr.