Photos From The Avant Garden - 6/21/25

 

Avant Garden Poetry Amphitheater

Saturday, June 21, 2025

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Infinite Harmony: A Classical Guitar’s Soliloquy (Triolet)

Nylon strings sing under tender hand

The guitar rings with melodies pure

Music born of an enchanted land

Nylon strings sing under tender hand

Each chord, a flame to be gently fanned

Classical refrains that have endured

Nylon strings sing under tender hand

The guitar rings with melodies pure

From Humble Seeds, Majestic Trees

Welcome to a brighter page

Not born of bluster, free from rage

Kind actions unveil paths anew

Let every step be firm and true

Speak softly—not to brag, but share

Lift others up and tend with care

No prideful claims, no restless need

From humble seeds, majestic trees

Morning Gratitude

Good morning, friend—the light is near

A brand new day is drawing clear

Give thanks for breath, for voice, for art

For music, color, soul and heart

For poems’ spark, for hope that stays

For gentle hands and honest praise

For blessings gifted from above

For all that fills our lives with love

Step into this day with grace in view

Let all you do reflect "Thank you!"

Amphibious Inception

In quiet pools, where waters rest

Amid the woodlands, lush and free

Sunbeams dally in playful jest

Tadpoles swim with endless glee

Through verdant banks and shady grove

In graceful dart, a blithe display

With veiled intent, aqueous rove

In the depths, metamorphic ballet

With every dawn, a nimble rise

To the future's grounded fate

From liquid realms to earthly guise

From pond's milieu to land's estate

Transformation, a watery rite

Passage from this lively bog

With patience, growing, day and night

Once the tadpole, now the frog

Photos From "The Book Group"

 

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Basho 5: Year's End

Memorial Day 2025: Parade, Garden, Beach

 

Happy Memorial Day!

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Past, Present, and Future: 10 Minute Play Festival

 

Catch me in this on Friday, May 30th!

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Basho 4: In the Cicada's Cry

Basho 3: Autumn Moonlight

Basho 2: In the Twilight Rain

Basho 1: The Old Pond

Danse Haiku: Act XIII

Scene 1

Botanical intruders

Gardens choked by ample weeds

Earth's unwelcome guests

Scene 2

Faces kept out of view

Venetians masks conceal lies

Only eyes show truth

Scene 3

Dirty cups and plates

Kitchen sink, a spongy fate

Time to clean the slate

Stand

No surrender

Imagination
Brought you this far
Let discipline
Guide you
Into the stratosphere
 
Spit out vertigo
Excellence never comes
Without a sacrifice
This pedestal
Is yours
Alone
To destroy

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Cookie Jar Ajar

Ceramic vessel

Plump with intention

Holds the calm of sugary diplomacy

Peaceful crumbs settle

In its belly

Dulcet chime, lid clinks

Lifted to reveal sweet accords—

Molasses treaties, cinnamon pacts

Butter-wrought armistice

That melts on tongues

Quiet rests

Between stacked confections

Each baked dictum dissolving dissent

Vanilla lullabies

Coaxing discord

To rest

No fists clench

When grasping shortbread

No voices rise when chocolate chips linger

Only the candied implosion of resolve

When the cookie jar

Opens

Cherry Renaissance

They arrive

Cherry blossoms

Powdered algorithms

Cracking open the shell

Of winter’s code

Riot in pink

Currents

Speak them in riddles—

Syllabary of scatter and petals

Branches hold this brief madness

Like monks caught laughing

In the middle of a fast

No nostalgia

No apologies

In these pastel eruptions

Only the fierce syntax

Of becoming

They fall, yes

But fall like strategy

In calculated drifts

Negotiating gravity

Not romance

This is architecture

This is renaissance in floral design

This beauty is not gentle

But iterative

Tomorrow, the streets

Will wear their blush

Ankle-deep with the proof

That something exquisite

Can arrive without warning

And change

Everything

Photos From The Poetry Festival

 

Poetry Festival, Long Beach, NY

Saturday, April 5, 2025

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Poetry Festival

 

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Wiltless

Tulip sways

In a gnarled garden

Petals flushed with fire, edges bruised

Perfume drowning in stench

Withered nettles, soured earth

Breeze carries traces

Damp decay, rust-bitten thorns

Hungry for what they cannot become

Dirt clings, acrid, insistent

Mocking sweetness with charred musk

Roots below ask a strangling question:

Why bloom when ruin is law?

Still, the stem

Stretches upward

Honeyed scent spilling

Into poisoned air

Refusing to wither

Refusing to yield

Rot is not the only ending

Beauty, once breathed

Lingers