staying up all

night riding poems.

Simile eyes

black as periods on

end-stopped lines.

We saddled them

with conceits

over blankets

of metaphor,

spurred them on,

reveling in each

galloping anapest

and cantering

dactyl.

          Your poem

carried you far,

its tetrameter

opening up

a fervent gait,

but my poem

lost its footing

on a broken

enjambment and

I had to put

it down.

 - As Published in  Common Threads Volume 69, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2009.

All Poems on this Page are Copyright 2007-2009 by J. R. Simons

Streetlight Sonata by J. R. Simons

It started with a backbeat

that Danny laid down on a pair

of garbage cans and a couple of street signs.

Then Billy expanded on it

with a bass line he thumped out

on an old wooden telephone pole.

And Johnny joined in, strumming out

a rhythm on the telephone lines

stretched across the black velvet sky.

Jerry did us proud with a screaming solo

wrung out of the wrought iron

fences lining the cul de sac.

And I, for my part, sang some maximum

rhythm and blues dredged up from

somewhere deep inside a dark night of the soul,

My voice joining with the band, a siren’s song,

summoning the demons of rock and roll

to seduce heaven’s horniest angels from their hymns.

- As originally published on the website Whispers from the Unseen at  http://www.unseenwhispers.com/

Poems on this Page May Not Be Produced or Reprinted without Express Written Consent of J. R. Simons

The Sparrow with the Broken Wing by J. R. Simons

You came to us a sparrow with a broken wing.
We took you to our hearts
And warmed you by our hearth
And taught you how to sing.

But your little wing we could not heal
Despite our patience and our zeal,
So we sought the help of one
Who only helps little birds like you,
And with skillful hands,
Guided skillfully from above,
He knew just what to do.

You have a fighting chance now, little bird,
To fly with all the other little sparrows.
And when the time comes
To leave our nest,
Much too soon to seek your own way,
Know that we have given you our best,
A wing on loan from an angel
For you to soar on each and every day.

- As originally published in Common Threads, Fall/Winter 2007-8.