Compulsively Aimless

                              Lake Michigan Rock Mineral striations of green, red and brown compressed into a sleek shape minding its own business since the Precambrian Era present for the movement of glaciers across the landscape unknown to me until twenty summers ago when I pocketed that formation of history and art and took it home to hold as a paperweight. For more poems go to http://www.verse-virtual.com/john-kropf.html

                      Photo (c) John Kropf   Two new poems of adventure near and far.     Backyard  Everyone should have a backyard at least once in life You can dig to China Play badminton Tend to your hydrangeas Pitch a tent and camp out with your best friend Mow a lawn Sun bathe with a cool drink and if you wait long enough watch the stars and galaxies reveal themselves You can rake leaves and send them back into the sky by bonfire And if you ever dig all the way to China you could end up in someone's backyard. 042214 __________________________________________________ Lost City To the untrained eye it was nothing But when I heard they found the lost city covered in the sands of the high desert I thought of the last inhabitant on his last night inside the the city walls and how he walked away from its crumbling ruins into the morning sun turning the city into a tomb...

Odyssey at Roslyn Metro Station De-training on the upper platform commuters sprint from the downward escalator Their broken formations rush toward the closing doors of the Orange Line with the same desperation as Greeks storming the walls of ancient Troy My escalator’s steady ascent toward the light converges with three beautiful women who descend opposite like the daughters of Demeter assigned to the Underworld. I could be as Orpheus and rescue them but they don't seem to need rescuing and for that matter I'm not much with a lyre Instead, today is the day when I break the surface enter into the light and know my good fortune is enough to buy that winning lottery ticket. 041014 __________________________________________________   Ask the Help Desk My processor needs a core capacity set to imaginations of Beethoven and Botticelli. Reformat the Operating System to run on the collective soul of humanity. I’ll need ...

                        Desolation Haiku Bag flaps in bare tree white wire hanger in dark closet frontiers of sadness 040314 __________________________________________________ Morning Commute: December 9,  6:38 AM Black at the station Rain in a dark, steady stream Everyone on the platform in layers, hats and hoods A vision out of the Dark Ages congregations of 10th Century Monks in their over-sized cloaks and vestments or battle weary soldiers waiting to board landing craft. Our train arrives door chimes form up under the rain and board in silence assigned to our congregations and battlefields. For more poems go to  http://www.verse-virtual.com/john-kropf.html

  The Last Day of Childhood  Friends would marvel at two rope swings hung from the rafters One thousand feet of newsprint slung on a spool with a bucket of American Crayons (not Crayola) Supplies to build great structures of the world Legos, Tinker Toys, and Lincoln Logs carried by caravans of Tonka Trucks Superior to the Great Library of Alexandria: picture books on geography, WWII, treasures of the art world American history and Charles Addams cartoons Archives of Donald Duck, Batman and Archie comics         --selected by my sister         --bought by my mother         --read my me         --and hauled away by my father Off in the forbidden realms: my grandfather's workbench and its cast iron vice that clenched and healed dolls, bikes and chairs In the opposing corner whiteness and humming of an ever industrious washer and drier Gurgling and rumbling in dark rivers below lies the crocodile of...

Winter arrives as death but when winter departs does it die? That patch of snow the last one the scab left over from winter’s fight Arriving at night as flurries and fanfare It disappears in the day silently shrunken by the sun I was against it but now I’m for it because I realize it’s the underdog that is destined to lose at the end of the season More poems at Verse-Virtual   http://www.verse-virtual.com/john-kropf.html 

Everywhere and More A short bus ride away from world’s end and around the block from the empty quarter lies the last strip mall complete with nail salon mattress store dry cleaner. More poems at Verse-Virtual   http://www.verse-virtual.com/john-kropf.html