If once,
A thousand times
Trite truths
About unscaled mountains,
Uncrossed rivers
And undone deeds
Requiring only a will
To be past and parceled
Have obscured my vision
By being obvious as my nose,
Making it necessary
That I cross my eyes
In order to make sense.

Noses and Twat was originally published in A Different Perspective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Is it a sin
to choose
to win?
 — when others lose
as triumph’s price …
What joy?
 — if dice
will but destroy
like rocks down-rolled
 — rob gloss
of gold:
prize a dead loss
 — lest lesser part
lets beast
take heart — 
at last, at least …

Dice was originally published in A Different Perspective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A poem by Tyrone Graham

I need

night vision

and telescopic

sight to see

fishermen

out at sea

by those faint

flickering lights

a-twinkle

in the night.

Seeing

is believing.

I need

field glasses.

Dear toy was originally published in London Literary Review on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here’s a palm
merits alms
 — the strong arm
of psalms,
steeped in balm,
to calm:
healing harm,
stilling alarm;
without qualms
in animal farms
’midst a storm
of napalm — 
once a schoolmarm,
now cool and warm
works like a charm
 — Salaam —

Desert Palm was originally published in thewrytr. on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Walk
barefoot
on bedewed
grass
at dawn,
sit
beneath
a tree’s
freshening
breath
at dusk,
beside
a stream
flowing
crystal,
grow
young
constantly.

Walk Barefoot was originally published in thewrytr. on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Music
is emotion
perpetual,
silver chord
divine:
eternal note
that unfroze
celestial
architecture
of the spheres:
the key
that unlocks
forever flow’ring
heart
choral
 — still —

Return to belief, clay sculpture with a spark burning like an eternal lamp,
Return swift as a swallow;
Cease to disregard the magic mirage in the mirror of your inner soul as one of many — 
Recognize it as the surface of images.
Remove those rose-tinted glasses through which you see miracles performed with perplexity,
Discover things to be taken for granted;
Let not dreams of purple eyes of a she from Montevideo darken your doorways to dreams
And cold corridors of thought;
Discard the shackles of kinds of progress and their illusions of advancement
For the content you seek.
Remember a milky ring circling the moon when you see a viper chasing its tail round a lotus
Enshrined on pads on waters of your mind;
Remember, too, the cat on a chair by the fire does not grin cynically
Or know about your opinions of gods and worshipers;
It does not wish to ingratiate itself to you because you could not wish it:
It has its own life to lead.
The wolf howling to the moon shining down has not read volumes that do their subjects no justice;
Has not thought about origins; or
Sat in a furrowed-brow contemplation with ink-well and quill close at hand.
Thrust aside the blizzard of feathers that floats in your crystal-ball of learning
And embrace the trees that sway in unison round an unquestioning fellow felled by lightning.
The spirit warbling on a branch seemingly free of care praises only himself;
Has gratitude for the morning;
And no hint of sorrow or a plea for good times in his song:
He is not an absurdity.

The glacial shift
of seconds
snaps taut
against the sky,
a cutting edge
on target
 — sunlimned and scream
aslice, my silhouette
races the razorback
in chosen
golden flight
for a matter of minutes
 — moving
in an eggshell crack,
the edge
of the world.

On Target (for Orioles) was originally published in thewrytr. on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In a pause,
a lull
full of movement,
a season
came and went
without moment — 
crossroads,
ways and means web
the vista
with a horizon,
always: one more
port of call,
cul-de-sac
havens
tossed for — 
heads you win,
tails I lose.

Paths was originally published in CROSSIN(G)ENRES on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Say, where would omens be
if there were none to see
and recognize signs?
Do omens bind?
Apart from those who believe
there can be no reprieve
from the foretold fate,
are there those who animate
a prophecy till it is tangible?
Or is that the fate of the gullible?

Tyrone Graham for Poetry in Form.

Questions about omens was originally published in Poetry in Form on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.