Category Archives: Poetry

Loved Ones (Sapphic Verse)

Stress and strife, what toll does it take on loved ones?

A marriage of absence does nothing but harm,

Your own progeny know you not in their lives

For selfish advance.

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Busyness has supplanted all else in life

Causing scars and pain invisible to you.

When its too late, only then will your eyes open,

Loved ones will be gone.

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Time is not something that is a luxury.

It travels fast and is gone before we know.

What a shame is your misplaced focus in life

Polluted by zeal.

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May you find happiness on this chosen path,

One you are traveling in solitary,

Blind to the sorrow of those that love you most,

Busyness your mate.

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~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

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We Drink Because We’re Poets – Monday Poetry Prompt #20 – Sapphic Verse – Word: Busyness

Flash Flood – A Tanka

Taken by Dom 9/9/2013 - North Phoenix Arizona

Taken by Dom 9/9/2013 – North Phoenix Arizona, taken outside my office window

The storm rages on

Rivers of mud replace road

Sidewalk riverbanks

When the flash flood expires

Where does all the water go

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~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

 Authors Note: This is something in the 12 years that I have lived in Arizona I have never seen before.  This is a major road which runs in front of the busiest municipal airport in the country, which happens to be right outside the window of my office.  This road is a total of six lanes wide, 3 going in each direction and the river of water and mud nearly met to cover the entire road.  A pretty rare site in this part of the country where it is normally so dry.

Thirst and Hunger

Thirst is not a disease

Nor hunger a plague waged as a personal attack..

The dirty and downtrodden are not animals with opposing thumbs

Foraging through trash bins for food.

Their children are not parasites to be frowned upon!

They love just as you do with the same wants and needs.

Hands cracked and calloused know hard work.

Many toil hard and long for the barest of necessities

Only to fall short, thankful for assistance.

Yet you despise the poor collectively,

Lazy, blood suckers, bums, leeches,

Used as terms of endearment.

Speaking as though you know them or their circumstance

You display nothing but ignorance.

What do you know of their lives, their pain, their poverty?

Many are victims of economics,

Failing of health or disability,

Casualties of familial history,

Deprived of education,

Forgotten or blamed by the very souls with the power to change.

Greed and loathing blind,

Banishing compassion and humanity to the pits of hell.

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~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Call Me Cynical – A Tanka

Call me cynical

For not having faith in you

Lies have tainted me

Asking to trust what you know

Haven’t we done this before

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~~Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

War (Nested Landays)

Each stanza within this poem is an individual landays which I nested with other individual landays to make a longer poem focusing on a single topic.

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I am drawn to your crystal clear eyes

For its there I find truth, peace and love in abundance

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Were it not for you I would perish

Swallowed up by the worlds lack of humanity

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Your tender touch is a reminder

That goodness surely does exist in spite of our faults

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My hope is for better days ahead

Where man finally faces the error of his ways

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Would not a lasting peace serve us all

Ending our torrential thirst for never ending war

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~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

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Authors Note: A landays is form of folk poetry from Afghanistan. Meant to be recited or sung aloud, and frequently anonymous, the form is a couplet comprised of 22 syllables. The first line has 9 syllables and the second line 13 syllables. Landays end on “ma” or “na” sounds and treat themes such as love, grief, homeland, war, and separation. See Eliza Griswold’s extensive reporting on the form in the June 2013 issue of Poetry, in which she explains how the form was created by and for the more than 20 million Pashtun women who span the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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The ending on “ma” or “na” sounds applies to the Pashtun language and was disregarded in English.  Each stanza within this poem is an individual landays which I nested with other individual landays to make a longer poem focusing on a single topic.

Another Dawn

Another dawn,

Sun breaching the adjacent apartment building.

This window open to the vibrant street below.

Oh, were I strong enough to step out,

To join the masses in the frivolity of the day,

But lo!  I am not so bold.

Day after day, Mitty-like I sit,

Alone with my thoughts

Dreaming of what could be,

What could have been,

The chivalrous me,

Rescuing damsels in distress,

Storming the castle,

Slaying the dragon,

Saving the day,

Or simply stepping foot on the sidewalk below,

Is that too much to ask?

I don’t know,

But one can dream can’t they?

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~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

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Word: Mitty –  Meaning: noun: An ordinary, timid person who indulges in daydreams involving great adventures and triumphs.

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Jem Farmer – The Boi Poet – Words at the Weekend Poetry Prompt – 7-8 September 2013

Bougainvillea

Image Credit: mnartists.org

Beautiful, succulent and fragrant

Petals of hot pink

Hiding angers scorn

Not so unlike a woman wronged

Fighting back with female wiles

Resisting with all her might

Bondage of natures torture

Scarred and gnarled by fires storm

Starved and thirsted she lingers on

Reaching, reaching ever higher

Limbs reaching for heavens gate

‘Til chopped low to arid ground

Faking death only to rise from the ashes

Returning to her noble stance

Blooming in summer solstice

Bathed in perfumed flowers sweet

Leaves of green hide thorns to bleed

Arms reaching ever skyward

Praying for peace amongst hellish fury

Born to a life most undeserving

Troubled mistress Bougainvillea

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~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

History (An Acrostic)

How is it that mankind never learns

Images of the past are destined to repeat themselves

Since the beginning of time this has been true

The great, seemingly invincible, eventually fall

Obsessed with their own self-importance

Rarely realize they are collapsing under their own weight

Yielding the inevitable return to the dust from which they were created

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~~ Dominic R. DIFrancesco ~~

Phrase: Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history – Abraham Lincoln

 Jem Farmer – Poetry Prompt – Three on Friday – 06 September 2013

Gentle Hands Caress – A Tanka

Gentle hands caress

Sign of passion without words

The warmest silence

Sharing a love unspoken

With my predestined soul-mate

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~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Will We Never Learn

My face,

A dark reflection rippling in the deep, black of the water.

My soul,

Tainted by the depth of corruption this our world.

My heart,

Cold and pained from the lack of humanity and love.

My mind,

Tormented by the illogic that man inflicts on man.

My body,

Ravaged and aged beyond its years from stress and pain.

My faith,

Broken by the intolerance and hatred shown toward our fellow man.

My life,

Stunted by feelings of helplessness.

My wish,

That all these agonies can be healed

Then, like a cold stone wall, reality hits me,

Breaking my spirit and my will.

As I watch the demons of history

Resurrected time and time again.

Will we never learn?

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~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~