"The Swimmers"

During one hot day at work last week, I heard children's voices and laughter. So I wrote this:

"The Swimmers"

by Jeffrey James Ircink

The sun beats down hard - unrelenting.

I react with a sigh of despair.

I wipe the sweat from my brow - take a cool drink,

and rue this day of days, wondering when it will

come to an end.

Who shares my plight? Who pities my condition?

Certainly not those angelic voices I hear breaking

through the dense heat of the day.

No, not the children - whose laughter suggests

their hearts beat in rhythm to a solitary

thought and motion, as they jump and frolic

and shout and swim.

Droplets bead down their faces -

faces the heat quickly dries -

only to once again plunge into their 

liquid refreshment again and again...and again.

I recall with fondness the days when I did the same -

felt the same.

I know how those children feel;

I know what they are thinking.

Do they know what I am thinking?

Do they care what I was once them?

Oh-h-h God...how I hate the swimmers.

© Copyright 2016 Jeffrey James Ircink

Read more!

"maureen". a haiku.

her name was maureen.

"it's not you - it's me," i said.

i can still smell her.

Read more!

"Anthophilatinction"

"Anthophilatinction"

by Jeffrey James Ircink

Bumble bees and mason bees and ground bees three,

Yellow jackets, paper wasps and hornets after me.

Big bees, little bees

Busy bees that swarm.

Pollinating here and there, ‘specially when it’s warm.

Bees in your bonnet

And bees in your knees.

Buzzin’ in the flowers 

And buzzin’ in the trees.

Workers and drones and queens, oh my!

A sting in your finger is better than your eye!

Making sweet honey deep in their bee hives,

That’s all they do with the short, hectic lives.

Apathy is pleasant when it doesn’t bother you,

But when the bees have died away – you’ll be dead too.

photo by Jeffrey James Ircink 2015

Read more!

Happy Days, Walt!

And what a grand 195 years it has been! Happy Birthday, Walt Whitman...you sweet, dear old man. I love you.

"To A Stranger"

by Walt Whitman

Passing stranger! you do not know

How longingly I look upon you,

You must be he I was seeking,

Or she I was seeking

(It comes to me as a dream)

I have somewhere surely

Lived a life of joy with you,

All is recall'd as we flit by each other,

Fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,

You grew up with me,

Were a boy with me or a girl with me,

I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become

not yours only nor left my body mine only,

You give me the pleasure of your eyes,

face, flesh as we pass,

You take of my beard, breast, hands,

in return,

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you

when I sit alone or wake at night, alone

I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again

I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

Read more!

narcissist.

Look at them....posing like that. It's all about them. "Take my picture, Jeff...look how pretty I am!" Narcissists.

"Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed,..."

- excerpt from Walt Whitman's "Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun"

Read more!

dirty limerick.

 

 

My first stab at a limerick. Ever.

 

 "There once was an actor named Hap
who came down with a case of the clap
his ingénue amused,
'a rubber we should’ve used'
with the wife, his clap caused a flap"

Read more!