(For those of you who dare to shine)
Oh lightning bug, you firefly;
beacon in a darkened sky.
Your lantern sparks, then fades and dims,
a luminescence from within.
A constant burning deep inside,
your glow attracting every eye.
You dare to shine while others hide.
Oh lightning bug, you firefly.
By D. Ryan Lafferty
DartanionPress.com
Ever aware of the passing time, they’re counting out each phrase.
They read the world in beat and rhyme, even syncopated ways.
Their hearts pump out the dum-dum-dah-do of the driving bass guitar,
while piano chords harmonize with that redhead at the bar.
Pedals pound on a standing grand,
as notes slide from those chunky velvet keys.
The choir belts a soulful song that could bring the faithful to their knees.
The rhythmic drummers pound the sound out deftly in the wings,
as a rousing loud crescendo lifts those lowly weeping strings.
The hollow drone of the big brass horns, so somber and alone,
with space to hide whole worlds inside, composed of pitch and solid tone.
It’s a tidal wall of music,
of vibrato never strained – melody rests and rises before the ultimate refrain.
The romping notes go marchin’ in
right down that slick trombone,
and they’re dancing round the high-hat’s rim,
just to drive that funky rhythm home.
For musicians it’s all timing,
raw emotion right or wrong.
When the leader snaps his fingers,
all is music, all is song.
by D. Ryan Lafferty
When we go to bed, they are just arriving, hot coffee in their hands, stretching and yawning as the machinery in the warehouse switches on.
Deep in the heart of the cerebellum,
they rush into action, for they are pros,
each waving scanners and tapping single handedly on keypads,
racing from stack to stack.
They are honeybees,
fervently dancing from aisle to aisle as they touch and go.
Some robotic counterparts assist,
for they can access the hard to reach corners for the little things: names of hamsters, and of goldfish long departed,
the faces of great uncles on his father’s side,
nothing too heavy.
Rented vans filled with half-sleeping monsters are just arriving.
They scratch away the tiredness with their chipped claws
and groan at the prospect of another long night’s work.
Some check their teeth in the mirror
while others tighten up the laces on their tennis shoes,
getting ready for the chase.
The fears and nightmares are the best sellers
followed only by dreams for a better world.
I don’t mean wishes for peace and prosperity, of course,
but rather for a kitchen and bath that
belong on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens.
Covered in all the amenities of the good life. The kind we see on TV.
Dreams from our younger days lay in the farthest corner,
gathering dust,
rarely ever observed in the hustle.
Free overnight shipping keeps things hopping around here.
It’s rumored that full automation is on the horizon and that,
one day soon, drones will do it all.
Too many accidents are slipping through the cracks these days
and dreams that were never intended for some are delivered by mistake.
Most people notice the error and send them back right away,
but one group is beginning to cause concern.
It seems that when the artists happen to receive the wrong merchandise,
they are never willing to send it back.
No matter how many times they call.
by D. Ryan Lafferty
City of history, pride, and Paine,
Hopkinson, Patience, and Bonaparte’s fame.
Pointe Breeze, the home to that brief King of Spain, leveled by fire, but the townspeople came. Saving his riches and wealth from the flames, honest integrity earned his acclaim.
Farnsworth, Borden, and Lafayette’s names sit atop main streets, alleys, and lanes.
From Quaker beginnings, to Riverline trains,
the hallmark of each generation remains.
Places and spaces where new children play
amid aged reliefs from colonial days.
Cast iron fittings and cobblestones paved
the streets under horse hooves, trolleys, and sleighs.
Slate shingles and mortar, redbrick, plaster and lath,
runny glass windows, and cast iron baths,
an avant-garde blend of the old and the new,
combine to rekindle the home fire within you.
Shutters and dormers peer down from above,
vestiges silently witness the love of community, liberty, the best to be true,
to keep you in comfort like those before too.
The faded and crumbling give rise to new ways.
The foundations of old forge the paths for today.
The barber poll spins in an endless cocoon
while fireflies dance and sparkle in June,
a soft orange sun sets in the late afternoon.
The winds high on the bluffs blow a sweeping low tune
with a chorus of crickets under a deep autumn moon.
The city looks sleepy and resting supine,
like the Delaware’s current that’s hidden behind
that calm placid surface it rushes and flows,
the deep and the deadly strong undertows;
a hotbed of passion where creativity shows
a richness of culture, the community grows.
Clara Barton’s old schoolhouse was moved, but still stands,
her lifetime of work and her kind healing hands.
The John Bull’s mighty steam engine brought together a land
so far-flung and distant, the longest it ran.
After sailing Old Ironsides, his famous command,
Commodore Stewart left to the children his land.
The Bordentown School where Johnstone now stands,
high on the hill hosting youthful remands.
The landscape, it changes, it shifts and it bends,
as time marches forward, the tale never ends.
While we’re building our vision and resources spend,
the next generation arrives and extends.
Long after we’re gone,
with our families and friends,
a memory, a moment,
the city transcends.
Bordentown rises where that great river bends.
by D. Ryan Lafferty
In all the fables, I never read the story of the man who waited.
Waiting, not like the yammering two, expecting Godot,
but for things that only a lifetime of truly tried patience can keep.
There must be a long-lost tale,
spun by some grandfatherly slave to teach the virtue to his masters’ spoiled children.
A shot in the dark,
a blind hope,
to maybe,
just,
by some,
miraculous chance,
one day,
to dream,
that this wait might end.
Burning, starving, growing,
more intolerable with every second,
and somehow longer now,
as anticipation makes every passing traveler seem a false arrival.
He waits for something new.
A thing seen, smelled, and almost tasted,
but never offered in kind.
by D. Ryan Lafferty
Did you mean, for everyone?
Or maybe just for anyone?
Well, for whichever one… (if ever one)
My proofreading eye, didn’t catch the y,
my not-so-clever one.
But, if you’ll abide, the truth’s inside,
our time together’s just begun.
Could it just be for you and me, the fabled city, Everone?!
And this is where, we’ll find it here,
ensnared in pages, every one.
For these brief moments that we share, I wish that you could carry me,
first impressions, mere reflections of what it is we wish to see.
Imaginings and daydreams, coyly staring back at me.
They always say that there’s a soul out there for each and everyone.
That we should be, somehow together, one.
But for those of us who never won
and far fewer those who’ve ever won,
we know that love is not always enough for everyone.
A squeamish thought is dawning, like the lonesome, rising sun.
That the ending will return us through the same way that we’d come.
Into this crowded world we’re born, solitarily as one.
Yet in spite of our affections or simply forged connections,
we proceed forever on.
for everone (oops, I meant for everyone).
Ha!
Illusions all,
-forever, one
by D. Ryan Lafferty
Though it could be any time of day.
There are no windows here to spoil the image of the world.
The view is always the same; paint-laden canvases,
layered thick with trees, oceans, and countless bowls of fruit,
all held by tension in heavy, golden frames.
I love the colors,
the shapes, and shadows; the forced perspective.
It always makes me think of how I should have painted that can of soup,
the lonely chair,
or those languishing sunflowers nodding off in a sweltering vase.
How easily I might have coated that incandescent bulb with errant blobs of acrylic as if it were life’s drop cloth, somehow capturing too,
the abiding sorrow of the human condition,
not to mention the mannish woman smirking on the wall.
But no, These are the greats,
and me, well, I’m mediocre at best.
Sometimes I just don’t get what all of the fuss is about.
A boiled red lobster holding the phone,
A single dot on the wall seems meaningless to me.
Is it simply art for art’s sake?
I’ll probably never know.
I yawn as I make my way toward the door,
leaving the otherwise vacant room
and giving one last glance as I pass a picture,
which earnestly assures me that,
it is not a pipe.
by D. Ryan Lafferty
Literary Crumbs: Poems & Short Stories to Savor by D. Ryan Lafferty 