D A Phinney Poems

For a long time I waited motionless
Holding
Being still
Almost breathless
...

There comes a time when beatings are not welcome
Attempts at murder can't be overlooked
One finally shies away from being plucked
Before his goose is cooked
...

What is it about you...
Is it that the Moon strikes so deeply
I want to be the man in there
...

There was a heart
That shook the invisible eye
But what is only addition
Cannot be multiply
...

She could never get a grip on things
Nor find out who she was
Three husbands and divorces
One child confiscated by alcohol
...

On the rocks
Standing above sea-cold sand
Mute all-staring lighthouse
At my back
...

Launched like a thousand ships I send my words out into space,
That vast more vaster than eternity, twixt you and me;
And wonder how mutated after their generations,
How changed they will arrive;
...

A world have I to conquer!
For my mind is straight
Mind the running chalk-
The world's a slate!
...

some who had it were persecuted
some driven from their homeland
some brought low
others hung high
...

I see your face at the railing
Among a sea of faces.
Across, on another shore, someone has offered
Flame to the moth
...