Love of splash in shady corners
drives the lone graffiti artist
to spray graphics bold and shortest
heeding neither law nor orders.

Heeding neither orders nor law
an artist paints on walls plain bare
round-bellied letters with wild hair
declare where I do dare to draw.

When I dare to draw or paint rhymes
words and lines dance free in the air
I give them weight all they can bear
but it’s not my weight nor my times.

Not my times nor even my weight
lie under the rhyme and the sound
I dig through the lost and not found
for the one way to box my freight.

For the one way to freight my box
leads me onto old crooked roads
of sound, only sounds are the loads
that hold the tock of my rhyme’s clock.

Lynne

Darkened abruptly eerie day
steps from the shadows in the room
and begins to sculpt shapes of gloom
spread outward through me and away.

Spread outward and away through me
shadows stuck tight to my feet sweep
through a dark crisscross of the street
longing to skip their heels and flee.

To skip their heels and flee along
a river of asphalt too black
for shadows to play in the cracks
let light change soft shape into strong.

Let light change the stark eerie shape
of tree branches writhing to knit
street lace on a sidewalk still lit
on and off by a neon drape.

A neon drape blinks with the flash
of cursive opens and light beer
colored light bound to interfere
with shady corners’ love of splash..

Lynne

Once lost our balance and graces
go for rides on big flying boats
around the oval balance floats
while graces assume their places.

While the graces assume their place
we try to dance on two left feet
dipping under the wrong up beat
behind the time with every pace.

With every pace behind the time
our rhythm shifts from twist to waltz
the pattern outlines all foot faults
squeezing folly from pure sublime.

From sublime to stumbling folly
should be a long arduous climb
but folly needs so little time
a blink to slide through to sorry.

Only blink to slide to sorry
the step from firm earth to quicksand
asphalt to weed choked dirt path and
day abruptly darkened eerie.

Lynne

While in my yard standing alone
the unused furniture spills rust
on concrete that wants to adjust
to the shift of underground stones.

The shifting of underground stones
is what cracks solid foundations
tilts geometric relations
and sets up vibrations in bones.

Bone vibrations quickly set up
a quake in a once rigid spine
submerging the ear with the whine
of coffee trembling in a cup.

While coffee in a cup trembles
the hand shakes almost the same beat
keeping time with uncertain feet
a feat poetry resembles.

Poetry resembles the feat
oft referred to as herding cats
but I think a belfry with bats
is the idiom to repeat.

With the task undertook all’s square
in the world of rhyming quatrains
and why I am here to complain
that four lines each day is not fair.

That four lines each day is not fair
has naught to do with this project
for I’m the one with the concept
to write for a year on a dare.

To dare to write for a full year
three hundred sixty five verses
seemed a mild task with few curses
not too hard a project to fear.

A project I fear not too hard
and I can toss any four lines
in very few minutes most times
while standing alone in my yard.