The Poems
from Meadow Creek Forge
Here is the complete collection of my poems.The poems are short and pithy, frequently using puns to simplify the expression and enhance the meaning and interpretations. Many of them are available in illustrated form for purchase at MCF Poetry Collection..
The Reformed Gentleman
Sought he her naughtier,
but
Caught he her haughtier,
so
Bought he her Gautier,
and
Taught he her what to hear.
© 2005 Jon Holland
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Platitudes
Pithy remarks,
when bottled up
and distributed wholesale
tend to spoil.
Fluid ideas
ferment well beyond elegance.
The solid waste remaining
settles to the bottom as
pith in vinegar.
© 2004 Jon Holland
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Sculptor's Block
I whittled on the tree of life
till I got bored and I quit.
A friend said,
"Carve your life."
And I did
Until my chisel broke
On the first knot.
© 2004 Jon Holland
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Gossip
Go,
Sip a cup of coffee.
Socialize
With your friends.
Gossip,
A cup of coffee,
Social lies
With your friends.
© 2004 Jon Holland
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Pustule of History
"I said," said Thomas Jefferson,
"I think there is, I think there's one."
"One what?" I said, "There is one what?"
"Not what," he said, "but rather wen."
"How when?" I said, "I wot not when."
He told me then:
"There is a wen in the corse of human events."
© 2005 Jon Holland
Glazier's Lament
Here I sit
All brokenhearted.
Came to fit,
But only sharded.
© 2005 Jon Holland
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Spelling Rule 42:1
h-e-a-r-t or h-a-r-t ?
e before a
except
after the water brook
© 2005 Jon Holland
Life's Syntax
Soul
is greater than
the parse of its hum.
© 2005 Jon Holland
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Recovery
While working through
my own set of personal issues
walking the walk
I met a woman
a victim's victim
speaking anguish
as a second languish
accent ague
accent grave
talking the talk.
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Commuted
salvation
pastor said
first a whisper
then a breeze
finally a gale
swept away the holy babble
and revealed his trance position
slavation
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Depletion
I see tomorrow
as a few
cheer the manic cry
Oil is lost!
We have no energy
to go on.
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Domestic Xenophobia
peanut fanciers
fail to attain
cashew
with the nut lovers crowd
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Long Lasting Love
Ulysses
returned in rags
after a long day at the office
to find his wife
stringing the beaus along.
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Nightmare for Lazarus
aliens
immigrants
not enough fences
not enough detention camps
buildmo
gitmo
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Royal Stats
winsome
loosesome
some reigned out
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Virtual Burial
Criminitly!
plaintive scene
the light to truth
be calm
Cry my nightly plaint
I've seen the lie
to truth become
She laughed she cried she loved
she died
and the sign
on the cemetery gate says
CLOSED: Do Not Inter
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Minimum Rage
Morph for Them
i-n-c-o-m-p-e-t-e-n-t-s
i-n-c-o-m-p-e-t-t-a-n-t-s
i-n-c-o-m-e-p-i-t-t-a-n-c-e
Minimum wage is the
income pittance
promised by the rich
delivered by their lackeys
to the working poor.
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Wickedness of a Candle
Waxing ideas
from sense and thought
rise through my mind
and burst into flame
illuminating my life,
perhaps yours.
The wick
is the vehicle.
All the rest is fuel.
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Talk Radio
DMZ
Korea has one.
We could too
if we had troops on the border,
but we don't.
so
What M word could we use?
My God!
Will these people never quit?
© 2006 Jon Holland
Looking In
The sound
of my reflection
is the
mere roar
of my mind.
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Imperial Evangelism
Ambassadors
favor curry with the king.
Settlers
curry favor with the diplomats.
The natives
curtsy to their captors
and suffer their conversion.
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Cause, C'est Libre
If my friends and I
bitched and griped
for a noble and worthy cause
threw rocks
burned property
broke things
and looted stores
throwing a public tantrum
in the middle of the city
police and swat teams advancing
tv and news crews watching
their audiences looking on and crying
or cheering,
Then we would have invoked
that universal social ideal
equal riots for all before the law.
© 2006 Jon Holland
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My Daddy Said
Everyone knows a person who . . .
We all remember a time when . . .
That always happens whenever I . . .
Personal observations
parlayed to conclusions
bearing the weighty credence
of common sense
our fathers' legacy
anchored in our past
the settled proof of the middle ages
running rampant in our world today
lacking curiosity
mocking rigor
dismissing science
never to change.
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Brittle
My door is ajar
with sweet expectations
of your return,
My heart is ajar
with hope.
Close it gently if you must
but please do not slam it shut
and shatter my dreams.
© 2006 Jon Holland
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The Public Stand
Lemma Nayed
Bush Ferment
Sours
Decider
© 2007 Jon Holland
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Impediment
For five years
he was Uncle Woger
coming to visit
his damaged niece.
Now at seven
with focused attention
her lips and tongue just so
Uncle Roger is beaming with surprise.
In five years
when her muscle memory
has taken over
Uncle Roger will have forgotten
his mispronounced self.
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Public Outcry
Lemma Nayed:
Bush Ferment Sours Decider
© 2006 Jon Holland
Kudos for Commerce
Our neck of the woods
had a creek in it
three miles from the highway
pure, potable
proud and perfect.
Now the interstate crosses over
this drainage channel
abraded, bladed, and graded
dressed in concrete
fated to be a relic of my memory.
Our neck of the woods
has a crick in it.
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Good Times
Double the first
You get the second
Double the second
You get the fourth
Double the fourth
You get the eighth
First and second
You get the third
Double the third
You get the sixth
Second and third
You get the fifth
Double the fifth
You get the tenth
Third and fourth
You get the seventh
fourth and fifth
You get the ninth
Now you're finished
Now you're done
Good times
Have just begun
© 2006 Jon Holland
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Prolific
His greatest desire
was to write
volumes and volumes and volumes
tantalizing sketches
illuminating glimpses
comprehensive biographies
replete with unimagined detail.
The sole review
of this dyslexic author's
only published work
credited him as
singularly profilic.
© 2006 Jon Holland
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...to Draw the Line
Raster is faster
but
Scalable is salable
© 2007 Jon Holland
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Floodgates
The floodgates of despair
pushed hard against
the rising tide of confidence
holding back
a creative storm surge
redolent with success
in honesty of expression
and competent execution
The floodgates have collapsed
releasing a vigorous
beckoning odor of hope
a spoonerism
of the mechanism of depression
the good flatus
a new beginning
© 2007 Jon Holland
View from the Back
an old woman
short cropped gray hair
hooded jacket and sneakers
in a wheelchair
at the next table
holding up her left hand
gnarled and twisted with arthritis
not quite as high as her chin
waving her fingers
at herself
as if exercising
staring at them
wondering?
what is happening?
© 2007 Jon Holland
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Survival
We needed them then
We need them now
protesters
those unkempt
free loving long haired
students calling for
free speech
love, peace, and community
no more war
dow shalt not kill
an end to napalm and agent orange
rejected by their parents
and some of their peers
for their
freedom of expression
outrageous demeanor
hair
uncommon often unruly
persistence and commitment
forced a change
from darkness to cloudy sunshine
a better day
The skies are graying again
We need the free-wheeling spirit
of that age
their laughs
their libertines
their hirsute preppiness
We needed them then
We need them now
© 2007 Jon Holland
The Burden of Admonitions
I have no illusions
of our reality.
yet you accuse me of dreaming
wishing
the impossible, the impractical
into our lives.
I consider existence
beyond our common ken
and live there a while
alone together
watching and remembering
as a child learns.
Yes, I am a wistful thinker.
© 2007 Jon Holland
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Reptile Diction
In fantasies
of reptile diction
rattlesnakes
are fanger than 'striction.
© 2007 Jon Holland
Truce Denied
Diplomacy is dead:
their heels dug in
daring one another to falter
neither listening nor yielding,
no common ground to
meet upon and embrace.
There's not a dime's worth
of deference
between the parties of this fray.
© 2007 Jon Holland
Escapement
Old and dazed
he slides back into his past
seeking release from
bone pain, forgetfulness, and withering
to a time of
youthful vigor
mental clarity
and aching from hard work.
The olden days
a comfortable refuge
as the clock ticks along.
© 2007 Jon Holland
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Connection
Thanks for calling,
keep it up.
Thanks for listening,
keep it open.
© 2007 Jon Holland
Anthropomorphic Guilt
Ferns and other
vegetative creatures
share asexual
special features
for which they suffer
shame and strife,
sporiety is the
vice of life.
© 2007 Jon Holland
Dimming, then Winking Out
Skeptic calls
of an angry wide-eyed populace
have brought into focus
crime, thuggery, and deceit
lurking in the shadows
of ostentatious patriotism.
This secretive administration
of our White House
bewilders Americans
embarrasses the nation
and darkens the glow
of our shining city on the hill.
© 2007 Jon Holland
Last Twill and Vestment
Take it to the chaplain
and they did:
shame, dishonor, lying, deceit,
cheating, demons, pain and grief
streams of anguish
webs of dismay
clumps of hatred
floods of stress
punctuated by rays of insight
momentary glimpses of calm.
He heard it all
and gave them everything he had.
Now he lies here spent
loyal to his troops
faithful to his convictions
a quiet hero at rest.
© 2007 Jon Holland
Stewardship
Daddy Quail
came round the corner of the house
past the sculpture
scouting his path to the catclaw tree.
Mom followed looking
left, then right, left again and right,
checking on her four youngsters
not in tow as they were this last spring
but running well off the safe path
testing their youthful wills,
all headed for their family gathering
in the shade.
It's late July now, nearly August,
in September the hunters will arrive
and this family will become a covey.
© 2007 Jon Holland
To the Well Meaning
How dire you project
the outcome of my plans!
Would that you turn to stone
petrifying your sappy
wooden-headedness
and leave me to pursue my dreams.
© 2007 Jon Holland
Confetti
Many of us
looking on the blight
sighed collectively
baffled by
rape, killing, conquest, and imperial plundering
blessed by medieval arrogance,
corporate branches
tightly bound
round the Crawford axe
shredding our constitution
cross cut
Paparazzi in The Hague
America in the perp walk
conviction certain
© 2007 Jon Holland
U Logs
Great...Wonderful...Thoughtful...Kind...
We throw them on the funeral pyre
heaping the altar over with good words
well meaning praise for the dead
a vocal sacrifice
hoping to gain credit for our
beneficent caring after death.
Let us speak of the person's
acts and behavior
encouraging the eulogy to emerge
from the minds of the communicants
filling the sanctuary
with loving empathy and thanks
for a fellow life lived.
© 2007 Jon Holland
The Blade in the Bundle
Seek solace in your privy, Liege.
Keep up your merry talk and racy tales
of sin and redemption.
Celebrate your bigot revival
knowing it's hard,
hard to sustain the hot heat of hate
simpler to let your warm anger ring
numbing the nation with that
innocuous drumming worldwide ringtone:
"The war will never die."
while troops and citizens
shed their lives and fortunes
for your bottom line.
© 2007 Jon Holland
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Presidential Empathy
Support the war!
Go shopping!
Fill our corporate coffers
with your hard earned dollars.
Sweep those shelves clean
with your war spending sacrifice.
Support the troops!
Shop till they drop.
© 2007 Jon Holland
Freed and Exposed
Profound expressions of enduring ideas
too often languish on the pages
of dusty volumes of poetry
shackled by rhyme, meter, and obscure vocabulary
an imagined badge of essential poetic skill.
The sense of the world
sent to us from great minds
undelivered, unopened, and unread
entombed in the forgettable past.
Today the course of poetry
lively and intense
has slammed into free verse
careening through generations
of young writers
speaking in the voice of the populace
exhuming the eternal thought of the ages
for a welcoming consuming audience.
© 2007 Jon Holland
Left? Center? Right?
The question persists
the arguments rage
Which side are you on?
Each burning issue of the day
is a common point of origin
on any of an infinite number of axes
of thought.
The outermost limit
the horizon
of this aggregation of rays
is uncertain and unstable
forever expanding and retreating.
So who can say
with confidence
with finality
where the center is?
© 2007 Jon Holland
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Historian and Scholar
Bent over old texts
and obscure source documents
sorting and thinking
he teases out a closer look
at the reality of the past
setting the current popular myth
on its ear,
only to be ridiculed and belittled
by mindless indoctrinated followers
of the old stories
believers in the immutability of history
learned from their fathers.
Those who pore we shall always
have with us
but why the angry?
© 2007 Jon Holland
Evolution of Personal Faith
The pastors
preached their fire and brimstone sermons
expounded their sanctimonious chatter
chiding their congregations
for failing to
pray correctly, devoutly
testify publicly, often enough
give generously of their pocketbooks,
their meager incomes.
They set themselves up
for a holy ride
their sacred duty
to shepherd flocks of wooly souls
through life's perils
to heavenly rewards.
The CEO of God Incorporated
watching for love
looked over his world
and finding fear
shed his puppeteers
his minions of madness
gone awry.
© 2007 Jon Holland
Pelting Mots
We tell our children
America is a melting pot
a cauldron of simmering
cultures and faiths
softening our social edges
blending our moral values
rendering us all
more or less
as one people
strengthened by the heat of
national unity.
The myth persists
the melting pot
lingers on our lips
a comforting childhood protection
a defensive distraction from
the reality of senseless wild bigotry
sexual slurs
racial epithets
ethnic stereotypes
petrified words of hate
we hurl at our neighbors
crushing their love
destroying their community
demeaning our brotherhood.
We are stoning ourselves
to civil and moral death.
© 2008 Jon Holland
The And Bigots
We are programmed
by our parents, churches, and schools
to recognize ourselves
in the faces and behaviors
of others like us.
We are the world
We are the doers
We are the message
Those who don't fit
who don't match
our common sense of identity
they are the ampersands
surrounding us in vast meaningless numbers
all those others whose existence
carry no weight
express no ideas
present no point of view
simply place holders for white space
We are the doers, the speakers
We are the message of the world
© 2008 Jon Holland
Dear, Dear
Does deer hart
fawn
hind stag buck?
© 2008 Jon Holland
Moral Erosion
The rutting of our parents
that animalistic act
conjugation
condemned by pastors and preachers
despised by the church
the sin of the flesh
constrained by marriage
relegated to procreative duty
eternal punishment for
original sin.
Train up a child
set him set her
on the proper path
mindlessly plodding
through life:
the rutting of your child's
mind and spirit
is assured.
© 2008 Jon Holland
Criticism 101
The critic's role
is not to shoo
but give a work
its rightful due.
So keep your wits
don't join the few
who chid off more
than they could boo.
© 2008 Jon Holland
Homeless
A sea of human lives
broken and lost
forgotten but for
their damnable presence
silently sharing the same longings
unable to tell their stories
for the lack of an audience
the same loves
the same pain and anguish
that the rest of us suffer.
We see only an ugly static world
of miscreants and misfits
lazy leeches and worthless wretches
always present
never seeming to change
a slum ocean view of humanity
to be spat upon.
© 2008 Jon Holland
Éteignez mon Âme
toute l'année
les quatre saisons
passé sans joie
mon coeur est cassé
peut-être mes pensées sombres
peuvent faire une brillance
dans ma vie
il n'y a aucun espoir
© 2008 Jon Holland
Legacy
Was it the murder
or Cain's dissemblance
that sent him packing
wandering in the east
expelled and demeaned
but not disgraced
saved from a vengeful death
by that ironic divine mark?
Corporate retailers
clothe us in sweat soaked shirts
exploiting sick and dying children.
Corporate free traders
close factories and export our jobs
rendering whole communities idled and broken.
Corporate union busters
grind our workers into poverty
sending them scraping for sustenance.
Corporate labor sourcers
sell our neighbors into oblivion
shattering families and extinguishing hope.
Our soil is soaked with
children's sweat,
workers' idleness,
laborers' scratching,
vanishing ambition and dreams.
The mark of Cain
emblazoned on America's forehead
shines brightly in this nation
with impunity
begging that impertinent question
"Am I my brother's keeper?"
© 2008 Jon Holland
Victor's Faith
That final thrust
The ultimate resolution
The Viking's trust
A Thor fought conclusion.
© 2008 Jon Holland
Tent Meeting
Two-bit preachers
pitch penitence
in rural meadows
and small city fairgrounds
succouring their congregants
offering up soothing relief
for the shame of a sinful nature
the loving wrath of a caring fearful God
then passing the collection baskets
the believers' price of admission
to paradise
only to pack up
and drive off next morning.
© 2008 Jon Holland
Existential Entropy
beset belittled bereft betimes
before betrothed betrayed bestead
beseemed besieged betwixt because
beloved beshrewed bestowed behoof
bethought belated bewildered bemired
beseeched betide besought behest
bestride between beleaguered belays
bereaved
besot
befogged
benign
© 2008 Jon Holland
Writ of Calumny
We invited them
There was no answer
We requested their presence
There was no response
They ignored our subpoenas
Federal court ordered them
"Appear and produce the documents"
They replied
in universal indifference
stellar erasure
a black whole
of redacted text
© 2008 Jon Holland
Priority News LLC
TV's widescreen aspect
diminishes the perceived depth
of their thousand word images
only to be obstructed
by a translucent banner
inciting prurient spectacle
beggaring our minds
with creeping crawling distractions
newsworthy distortions
impatient enticements
we just can't afford to miss.
The chyron disappears
when the commercial comes on.
© 2008 Jon Holland
Inured Offense
They promise to help
granting purchased assurances of trust
for a fee.
Their contracts
unregulated and unilateral
replete with ironclad detail
awash in parsed generalities
invite denial of claims
daring the buyers
to grovel and beg
for their rightful due.
© 2008 Jon Holland
Cross Culture Brunch
Pass them syrup tissues, Lee,
But be sly about it son.
I don't want no one to catch on
I'm not one of them, you see.
© 2008 Jon Holland
- The And Bigots
- The Blade in the Bundle
- Impediment
- Gossip
- The Reformed Gentleman
- Escapement
- The Burden of Admonitions
- View from the Back
- Depletion
- Prolific
- Nightmare for Lazarus
- Left? Center? Right?
- Platitudes
- Cause, C'est Libre
- Commuted
- Glazier's Lament
- Life's Syntax
- Long Lasting Love
- Kudos for Commerce
- Imperial Evangelism
- Wickedness of a Candle
- Looking In
- Minimum Rage
- Virtual Burial
- Good Times
- Domestic Xenophobia
- Recovery
- Royal Stats
- Sculptor's Block
- The Public Stand
- ...to Draw the Line
- My Daddy Said
- Brittle