Now hear this! To be a poet, one must strive to pose in dramatic fashion; that is, to stand at times, looking into the distance as if having a vision.

The poet must think of oneself
as a peddler of pathos; as an
almost tragic figure, steeped
in the deepest irony and aloof
of the merely mortal and
pedestrian "poetry business"-

Cavorting of course with gods
and the ancient muse of Greece
and Rome, being of a much
higher plane and loftier endeavor -

Forsooth! ~ sayeth Jay Licata ~

( hmmmm...got my eye on a
black cape; nah, wouldn't
play well in Bellevue )

Jay Licata Haiku 999

Cat black sits silent
Spring drops glistening his coat
Warm rain mulling thoughts

Jay Licata Haiku 888 ( In Full Bloom )

In full bloom am i

Passing this way once again

Back unto the stars

Jay Licata Haiku 777

Slate gray Northwest May
April sun in the drizzle
Wild flowers and frost

Jay Licata Tanka 777

Slate gray Northwest May
April sun in the drizzle
Wild flowers and frost
Barred owls in the moonlight
Ice water down the mountain

Lady in the Movie House

During a moment
In the darkened movie house
Of the showing of "The Postman”
A tear drop swept and wept
Down her sculpted cheek

And kissed away tasted,
This moist jewel
In the mind’s eye,
Shown a prism
Through which could be seen,
The resplendent beauty of her soul

And blended with dew drops,

Rain drops and grace,

Glimmered and swirled

Evening's early light sky,

Rose dusking the edges

Of her beautiful face.

Jay Licata Haiku 555

Cold morning first job
paper girl and paper boy
Sunday's news heavy

Jay Licata Tanka 555

Cold morning first job
Paper girl and paper boy
Sunday's news heavy
Brother nine red hair girl ten
Dog Dakota, Mother boss

Jay Licata Haiku 444

Spring songs of Orca
San Juans to Cardigan Bay
Falcons skim the quay

Jay Licata Tanka 444

Spring songs of Orca
San Juans to Cardigan Bay
Falcons skim the quay
As goes the Orca goes man
Drinking rosewater and tears

Jay licata Haiku 333

Poet on Grub Street
Suffer rhymes of sweet madness
Winter leapfrogs Spring

Jay Licata Tanka 333

Poet on Grub Street
Suffer rhymes of sweet madness
Winter leapfrogs Spring
First lyrics heard from the womb
Now songs from the other side

Jay Licata Haiku 222

Oh Missoula Lake
Late Spring geologic time
Her ice dam broken

Jay Licata Tanka 222

Oh Missoula Lake
Late Spring geologic time
Her ice dam broken
Swept down the Columbia
Sculpting Washington's belly

Jay Licata Haiku 99

Windmills in the snow

Memory ice on Winter's pond

Fields of red Tulips

Jay Licata Tanka 99

Windmills in the snow
Memory ice on Winter's pond
Felds of red Tulips
Chocolate soft on the tongue
Warm water two cats waiting home

Jay Licata Haiku 88

Yellow dress woman
Fresh cotton Sunday morning
In a Kansas Spring

Jay Licata Tanka 88

Yellow dress woman
Fresh cotton Sunday morning
In a Kansas Spring

Wheat stone church choir girls sing

Prairie lightning amber gold

Jay licata Tanka 88b

Yellow dress woman

Fresh cotton Sunday morning

In a Kansas Spring

Wheat stone church choir girls sing

Amber gold fields of Eden

Jay Licata Haiku 77

Old hands soft kitten

Blue sky morning first warm rain

Spring love Winter loss

Jay Licata Haiku 66

Grandfather long dead

Shave and a haircut six bits

Flower bed dreamer

Jay Licata Haiku 55

Fall's last Swan lingers

Circling her ice water pond

Wreathed leaves frozen brown

Jay Licata Tanka 55

Fall's last Swan lingers

Circling her ice water pond

Wreathed leaves frozen brown

He sleeps nearby she waits old

Love's last Winter's quiet sound

Jay Licata Haiku 44

Blue Butterfly lands
Upon Spring's first white flower
Small girl in China

Jay Licata Tanka 44

Blue Butterfly lands
Upon Spring's first white flower
Small girl in China

Picks blossoms with happy joy

Little brother runs smiling

Jay Licata Haiku 33

Before morning sun

Last dream from the faraway

She turns warm thoughts sweet

Jay Licata Tanka 33

Before morning sun

Last dream from the faraway

She turns warm thoughts sweet

Deepening breath curling feet

Lilacs under the window

Jay Licata Tanka 33 B

Before morning sun

Last dream from the faraway

She turns warm thoughts sweet

Deepening breath curling feet
Long ago love lace and heat
 

Jay Licata Tanka 33 C

Before morning sun
Last dream from the faraway
She turns warm thoughts sweet
Deepening breath curling feet
Memory's dance Springtime heat

Licata Haiku - 22

Blackberry jelly

On her lips in Sunday's nap

Dreams white horse running

Licata Tanka - 22

Blackberry jelly

On her lips in Sunday's nap

Dreams white horse running

Fingers tracing muscled flank
Heart racing riding rain wet



 

Elegy, Ode and Verse for My Grandfather, William Hopkins Lawton ... by John Jay Anthony Licata

                               William Hopkins Lawton

                   

Gathering years
Upon the face
Youth is swept aside
From time and tide,

And left are silvering mantles
Of patina and pride
Against this shifted wind
Under light's dimming cloud,
With steady eye and tilted chin
Life's last stand be proud,

As long the sculpting heart

hammers hard in tempo
To the drum beats

Of the Nineteen Sixties,

And the songs of freedom's cry
Words of justice still warm the lips
And the American Eagle,
Aloft and still upon the high,
Her wing beats of the Eighteen Sixties
Echoing across the sky

And my mother's grandfathers,
Are standing tall with Lincoln,
His voice ringing like silver
And his horseman in the night
Is galloping, flag unfurled, towards destiny
As banners Americana
Seek Liberty's morning light.

" The Pink of Two Flamingoes "

She dropped from Pacific blue
Into my life
With the pink of two flamingoes,

And landing in my hillside garden,
They wintered over, they three
And rested and preened and gleaned
What aid and succor were offered,

And it mattered not
That her tandem
Was plastic pink
From the garden shop,

And that her heart was hidden
As she thought it black and blue
Tho I saw it colored,
A brilliant rainbow true,

Remembering, as they turned
In the shard of a moment,
And when their silent flight
Had lifted them off,

That I winced and shuddered
To think of no goodbye,
Nor fare-de-well,

For left to wander in my reverie
And wonder in my thoughts,

I sometimes search the skies to ask
If they had circled once again
And looked from where
The Seahawk flies...

" GONE "

No more
To my door
Scraped and bleeding
From a falling
With a bicycle.

I patched and cleansed his cuts
Tho not the hurt
And sent him on his way
Always, I would send him away,

Tho now he’s gone
No more to come to my door
Bringing God knew what,
The poet man
Brought to me
Pelicans and potpourri -
His collected things
For me to see.

For no more to my door
To find him
In sun-faced anticipation
Only for me
To rain anger precipitation
And send him away
Mostly frayed
Not allowed to have stayed.

He went his way
But I’ll be damned
He came again
The very next day -

Again, I sent him
On his way,
Scolded him
Bit his ears
And in the sunlight
It could be seen
The green of his eyes
Had the glean of tears

As always, I’ll remember
Throughout each year
Moments in a lifetime lost
To assuage my fear,
Now sitting by windows,
With heart dreams and wishes
That he would appear.

No more to my door,
Leaving his silly bric-a-brac
Verse and cards
And sometimes candies -

He was just a fisher
A-chumming me?
Or, was he stick-and-stay
A little boy man
That I sent away?

For now,
I look into my future
And see a-comin’ around -
Soft and quick,
Without a sound
Those empty nights
Alone in my bed,

An older woman
Getting older
Until as an old woman
My vision of
Who was the fool?

Will come to visit
And revisit me
Alone in my self-sought history
I see he really cared for me,
Loved but me
and yet I wrought this misery

And tho sent away
Day-after-day
A little boy - his little boy,
Would come to ask
Me out to play,
Day after damn silly day -

And thinking I had won,
Sending him off
Until no more
Did he come to my door -

For some others
Saw him lost one day
And closed their doors behind him.

And so I placed this victory cup
Upon my mantle of sins and memories
And it grows dusty with the past,
As the Thornbird sings:"I’ve won at last?"

To a chorus of night time echoes
That I think I sometimes hear
As a knock upon my door,
And as an old woman
From bed I trudge along the floor
But he is never, ever standing there
Nor ever shall
For evermore.

" Long Ago Love, Sicilian Beaches, Sardinian Nights, Corsican Moons " and " Before Ever And Never "

We were meant to look

To gaze one another's eyes,
To see ourselves again
From the long ago
Of unrequited love,

The promises
Many seasons of moons ago,
Back-dropped against time
And the hills
And the shores
Of Sicilian beaches

That only now,
Tasted away,
Once vague and muted yearning
A thousand years ago,
Without relent 'til this moment
When our starlight swath of destiny
Rode the timeline
From all your mothers
And mothers yet again,

Who waited epiphanous
In vigilance
For us to be,
That we be pressed
Against our hearts,
In the sweet languorous
Of Magnolia
And Lemon scented
Sardinian nights,

Star-Jasmined held
In bouquets of perfume
And the hands of Saint Destina
And the pasticcio of lovers' whisper
And breathless talk,
Brushed tears of notes
In honeyed nights
Of lyric and lace,

The swell and rhythmic cadence
Of hardened rosebuds
And the fleshed iron
Of my fathers before me,
Ancient mariners all,
In quests and voyages
Of hundreds of years
Of wanting to hear
Once again,
Your love song's call
In the night.

" Before Ever And Never "

Before we ever
came to be -
I knew you.

Whispered Willows
Wind, storms and billows,
Your glimmerings gladdened,
Gathered me up
Through glade to glacier
Walking my odyssey
With thoughts of Thee
Before we came to be,

Lived an eternity,
Ridden the waves of the sea
Marched aside destiny
All before we came to be.

I searched for you
And saw you in sunsets.

If music hath your soul,
It played upon breezes
As echoes of tomorrow
Beckoned me onward,
Trudging pain from purgatory,
Your soft visage
Was in the heavens’ morning’s sun
And in the rain of dawn’s tears,
Rainbows painted the sheen,
The glint and glaze
Of your wondrous ways,

Of Summer’s love
Days of passion, of grace
An angel’s face of affinity
This quest for Love’s divinity
Came before
We came to be.

Boulevardier on a Bench

... In tomorrow town
Waitin' for the trolley
And the coming Spring
Of the heart's desire.

There are benches
For every metaphor of life -
Benches and cafes
Where a man
Might go to sit and wait,

For serendipity and fate,
Wild dancers and destiny
And English ladies drinking tea ...

"The Last Passenger Pigeon"

The last Passenger Pigeon
Died alone in 1914
At the Cincinnati Zoo.

The only one left and lonely
Of the once many millions,
Spread out majestic and splendorous
Across America’s mid and prairied west,

That with her death,
Last soft breath,
Lifted her up and out
And bore her over,
To the freedom to finally join
Those migrating ghost flocks
Seen on full moon nights
Eternally crossing the Ohio River
Setting John Audubon a-quiver,

For to her silk-ilk
Of feathered minions
She fled
Coming home to echoes
Of “last call”, she sped.

"I built a Shed in the Fall"

I built a shed.
I laid down those planks,
Those cornerstones,
Made that flooring
Upon those beams.

Lifted them heavy
Put them along
And lined them up
And put them strong.

I Built a shed.
Rose up and lifted
Those joists and walls,
Set them proper and tall.
Struck them firm
The decking, the roofing,
Cannot fail, cannot fall.

Lifted up to the eaves,
Rafters and beams

I built a shed in the Fall
Before the Winter comes.

I tacked hard the shingles
On the roof,
Hammered the shakes
Upon the wall.

I built a shed
In the Fall
Right before the Winter,
In my early Winter
I am sixty
That is all.

I built a shed
In the Fall
I ached,
Tho did not suffer
And sore each night
And alone,
I built a shed in the Fall
I am sixty
That is all.

Sore each night
And alone
I dreamt you held me
Once again,
When I was young,
Handsome and tall.

I built a shed
In the Fall
I am older now
That is all.

"Waiting for Lenore" : An Homage to Poe and Blake

Waiting for Lenore,
There is ice
On the widow's walk
Not far from shore,

Looking out onto the sea
For that proverbial ship to come,
Pacing and glancing seaward,
First glimpse, she brings
Warmth to me.

For it has been cold
on the widow’s walk
With metaphor
For voyages home
And welcoming warmth
at the end
Of the wait
of a lifetime.

With renaissance ship,
Her sails of silken garments
Flowing in the breezes.

Of sea saddled vigils
And endless nights
Of cold lookings-out
Onto moon luminations
Of the whales' spout

And gentle mammaled migrant herds
From the iceberg terraced North,
Enroute to warm watered,
Mexican lagoons.

As Dead black night watches
On the chilly widow’s walk
Turn to sun-blind, brilliant days
And the ocean sprays
The notes of salt-bird cries,
Again and against the view
Of weary eyes,
The phantom ship upon
The horizon dies.

Thus unrequited, yet he tries
And steadfast, visions-out
To slip-skim the waters
To where the Seahawk flys.

And later,
From the widow's walk that night,
The Gods of Neptune
Heard him talk to her
Of love and grace.

For upon a shimmered ocean light,
Her resplendent angel's face gave sight
As he wept and stumbled
Towards the shore,
Into the chilled water he dove
and swam out, then deeper
Until he was no more.

Last breath, last words
from his lips were "Lenore,
my Lenore, I pray thee not
to join the fair Elenor".

Be thee not ghost
Nor mermaid
At Poseidon's door -
But return with me
Where once along
The sunny and sandy shore,
We walked hand in hand
Towards tomorrow's evermore.

Tho merely a man
against the sea
This love for you,
These Gods shall not undo
nor damp the glint and sheen
that astride the lights of eternity.

De Novo De La Poem De Licata

De Novo De La Poem De Licata
 
As once stardust
And stardust to be,
Dare to destine
To Coalesce anew,
Light-years and voyages
Of looking for you.

Far within the galaxy,
Throughout immortal time
And nebulas eternity,
Astride the Auroras
And the widow’s walk,
I will wait for thee.

Earth Hearts and Starflowers,
In fields of Summerly
Under Nirvana moonlight
And Starlight’s canopy.

The calling to Camelot –
Quests for Justice and Love.
The same dust that made thee,
Made the Angel and the Dove.

The warrior weeps
To see the face of God,
Children of the universe,
Turn from where
The war has trod.

" Ever See a Cheetah Run? "

Explodes yards
Into a mere few seconds
With a power and grace
Only matched
By the human heart’s
Quest for love...

"The African Cheetah"

Catsped, brilliance to motion
Burning like a comet
Dust-bound
Across the ground
Catsped, quadruped
Fed and fled
By millenniums
Of floods
And blood broods
Of golden and dark-mottle stripings.

Catsped Cheetah-bright
Unfolds, explodes
From sight
To fast-fanned
Colors of whirl
Sling-shoted across
The treeless plainsongs
Of ancient lands.

In flashes of Flurry to fury
Look quickly:The blurry, scurry
Of a cat-in-a-hurry
Catsped and blurringly
Unfolds in the shard
Of seconds
With speed
That freed
The Gods from mortal space
The Grace
Of the Cheetah’s pace
Across the face
Of old-age soil
Catsped springs the coil
Of brightly comets
In the Nightly
Out of the eye
And out of the sightly
Of the right prey’s
Wrong day
Last to see: Catsped

And thunder-bolted
The frightening, lightening
Homing in,
Slow motioned in the brain
Timeless last refrain
In drizzling cold the rain.

Down falls the Zebra!
Upon the African plain.

Down falls the Gazelle!
In Story to story
And ageless to tell
Of death-breath dances
And sad beauties in hold
Last circle to pirouette
Of the meek and the bold.

Beach and Bay

Beach and Bay
Held cupped
In palm opened hands

Betwixt Point Lobos
And the Pebbled shore

Of low flying Pelicans
Sunlight montage and Fog 

" The Water Wagon and Van Gogh Sun "

 

The Water Wagon

Running after the water wagon
Dusting down the meandering roads
Through fruit orchards
And blossoms fallen.

Little daughters
Of Italian and Portuguese immigrants
And the wee boys of the families
Of the Valley of the Heart's delight -
This Santa Clara Valley.

Van Gogh Sun

Without you
What of this coming day

Without you
To walk my way

There will be no sun
As Van Gogh saw
Only Wheat fields gloomed
With the Blackbirds caw

Nor stars to shine
Sans winds to blow
For this, a love lost 
For all to know...

( "Wheat Fields With Crows" -
Painted 1890 by Vincent Van Gogh
Dutch 1853-1890 )

"Old Man Quiet Hungry"

To see so sharp
To boot a ball
To play the harp
To pen some lines
To touch a heart.

To pay the toll
To play the part
And at the end
A rocking chair in the sun
With vague and muted memories
Of what was won.

And with only a few
Hours of Winter sun
I search my heart
and find that you
were the only one.

" Sir Wilton the Cat "

He is not Wilt-the-stilt
Nor Wilton-at-the-Hilton
And with his extra ounces
No longer tries his trounces
And piddles instead of pounces.

And his extra, added girth
Has brought the mirth
To Lady cats
And taunting rats
Who know he slides
Instead of scats.

I guess he's come to be
A paunchy history
And ought to spend his time
In a kitty nursery,
Telling old cat stories
Of younger days and glories...

" Mea Coda "

From fire
To steel
To sculpture
To rust.
From dust
To poet
To dust...