Naturgy — Sailboat And A Rummage Sale Canoe: Revolutionary ConTEXTing Haiku(s)

His friends like power/
in their boats. He relaxes/
with paddles and wind.

Rummage sale canoe:/
A man’s time machine back to/
youth, nature and peace.

Was I Haskell-Free? Revolutionary ImproVerse Haiku

I think back on my/
youth and wonder if I was/
an Eddie Haskell.

The Emergence Of The Grown, Cocooned Youth: Revolutionary IMprov Poem

The young,
optimistic s/he,
running,
happy,
care free,
observing,
enjoying,
creative,

Withdrew.

From fear,
through a desire
for self-preservation,
and wrapped itself
deep within
the shell
that grew
and matured
and thrived

and took the blows
and the arrows
and the doubts
and the pain.

But one day
the cocooned,
energized,
insightful,
observant,
joyful
protected being,
who had grown
and been nurtured
and cherished,
realized it was time.

Time to emerge.
Time to reveal.
Time to risk.
Time to take
its rightful place
as owner
and operator
and thinker
of its soul
and mind
and destiny.

It was scary,
at first,
to show itself.
To say “Here I am,
again,
for the first time.”

But it felt the warmth of the sun
on its face.
The cool breeze blowing through its hair.
The moist mist of early morning
fog lifting.
The passion
and compassion
of love.

And it knew,
having been sheltered
and protected
and nurtured
and walled
for so long,

that free,
and fearless
and embracing
and empowered
and enjoying
and joyful
was where it belonged.

Here.
Now.
Being.

Checking In Worrying: Revolutionary ConTEXTing Haiku Lamen t

When youth don’t check in/
as promised, concerned adults/
worry. We’re the same.

What Goes Around … : Revolutionary Poetic Lament

As youths,
we would laugh
and loudly whisper,
(when we thought
they couldn’t hear),
about physical oddities:

Mr. M’s errant
and grey
eyebrow hairs.

Mr. C’s gut
that stuck
out so much
you could balance
a martini glass
on it.

Uncle B’s bright white,
bra-less moobs that he showed,
shirtless,
in the summer sun.

Mr. B’s stick legs,
covered to mid-calf with
white socks that matched
his skin.

Mr. P’s back hairs
(we wondered if Mrs. P
brushed or combed them).

Mr. E’s chest hairs,
curling white against his
tan and leathered skin.

They are all dead.

Now I hear,
again,
youthful whispers
and laughs
from behind
my back.

On Being “Grounded” In Love: Romantic IMprov Poem

A woman, for whom I’d written the previous poem, read it to her daughter over the phone, almost as it was created. Her daughter laughed. The woman said: “She keeps me grounded”. This was my IMprov response:

She keeps you grounded?
Stuck
in what?
The muck
and the mire?
The dirt that’s the death
of romance’s fire?

The young think they know
what it means to feel passion’s glow.
But they don’t.
It’s only youthful lust.
As age comes, so arrives patience
and trust.

And the romance that fuels
our aged desire
is the very thing which pulls
us out of the mire
and sends our passionate flames
soaring ever higher.

So when we fall, exhausted,
in each other’s arms again,
we’ll arise, phoenix-like,
from where youth has never been.

Wisconsin Skinny Dipping Cleanse: Revolutionary Improv Email Sonnet

The west wind and whitecaps churn
on my long-fetched Midwest lake.
I relish the violence and yearn,
as I have from my youth, to take

a naked dive,
to absorb nature’s dual power;
to be alive
in the storm’s most blustery hour.

I’ll swim and be swept, alone,
unashamed, unabashed, through the foam
of the surging, pounding freshwater sea;
and will learn, again, how it lifts and carries me.

I know when, at last, I emerge, from its power cleansed,
I’ll breathe deep in my soul and feel fully alive again.