Zumwalt Poems Online

Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

Changes of Note

It is with mixed feelings, and pretty intense regret, that I am aggressively scaling back on the publishing of Zumwalt poems on this site. As Zumwalt’s longtime co-editor, I cannot ignore the minimal traffic on this site and the numerous options available for me to submit some of Zumwalt’s previously unpublished poems to diverse and respected publications which will provide Zumwalt an audience of thousands or even tens of thousands of readers. I owe this to my friend Zumwalt.

When I was a data architect, I was fortunate to have had several of my articles on Data Warehousing published in Data Management Review. I know the personal joy of seeing one’s own work published in a respected periodical. Zumwalt has been deprived of this opportunity since the unfortunate, but predictable, cessation of the GHLM newsletter, which had contracted with him for exclusive publication rights. He insists that publication of his work is not important and even scoffs at its future likelihood. I suspect this is not so on either count.

In order to keep this blog active, I will continue to publish anything Zumwalt sends me exclusively targeted for this blog — provided that I cannot persuade him to allow me to forward such material on to potential publishers. I will also continue to author posts like “Fifty Year Friday”, which showcases a combination of my flawed writing against reminiscences of some of the great music of fifty years ago. I wish I had time to write more — I gave up Century Sunday, Seventy Year Saturday and other features due to time constraints; I wish I could write better — I gave that up a long time ago — I write for the joy of writing and I am fine with one reader or ten, ten being about the maximum audience I have for any given post.

But as typical with my ruminations, I have veered off-track, at the expense at both my message and your patience.

My plan is this: Fill up some of the empty blog-time by engaging a well-respected, now-retired former literary critic (I will say no more out of respect to protect this individual’s identity, which is this person’s wish.) He has indicated he will record a short lecture for each previously published Zumwalt poem on zumpoems.com. I will use a software app I have to transcribe each lecture and post it here. Not sure when he will deliver the first lecture, but he is very knowledgeable on both poetry and all of the Zumwalt poems on this site and all the Zumwalt poems that have been previously published in the GHLM newsletter and the original GHLM (which, acronym, dear reader, simply stands for Good Humor Literary Magazine) — and, I believe, as I finish this long-winded, poorly written sentence, is something he can do easily off-the-cuff, with minimal time and preparation required. I have seen him lecture live on impromptu-requested topics, and it is quite something to have witnessed.

Until then, you continue as my distantly cherished and greatly appreciated friend, so please return so we can meet again.

Category:

Century Sunday, Contemporary Poetry, Fifty Year Friday, Modern Poetry, Music, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Zumwalt

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Washington’s Post

Washington’s Post

This government,
the offspring of our own choice,
uninfluenced and unawed,
the support of your tranquility at home,
your peace abroad,
of that very liberty
which you so highly prize,
(Experience in my own eyes)

you have in a common cause fought and triumphed together,
will not exercise more charity in deciding on the opinions,
and actions of one another.
One of the most baneful foes of republican government,
brought to the verge of dissolution due to diversity of Sentiments.

Lifted them to unjust dominion,
will, if there is not a change in the system,
be our downfall as a Nation.

With the real design to direct, control,
counteract, or awe,
to confine each member of the society
within the limits prescribed by the laws,

The powers of the Executive
of the United States are more definite,
and better understood,

to guard
the public good.

— George Washington (edited by zumwalt)

zumwalt’s notes:

Phrases from first and fourth stanzas are from Farewell Address (1796).
Phrases from second stanza are from Farewell Address and Letter to 1792 Alexander Hamilton.
Phrases from third stanza from a letter written in 1783.
Phrases from fifth stanza is from a letter written in 1794.
Sixth and final stanza is from the 1790 Address to Congress.

This poem was awarded third place (bronze) in a 2025 allpoetry.com contest: https://allpoetry.com/contest/2879139–Paid-members–Win–50:-Found-Poem

Category:

2025, Poems, Poetry, Politics, Zumwalt

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To the Wonder of Fake Intelligence

The imagination that we spurned and crave:
Unreal! Give back to us what once we gave….
A band entwining, set with fatal stones,
Bear other perfumes on your pale head wear.
For this, musician, in your girdle fixed,
The difference that heavenly pity brings,
Our feigning with the strange, unlike, whence springs
Too near, too clear, saving a little to endow,
Yet not too like, yet not so like to be….

We give ourselves your latest issuance,
O bough and bush and scented vine, in whom
Among the arrant spices of the sun,
As in your name, an image that is sure,
That apprehends the most which sees and names,
And of all vigils musing the obscure,
The near, the clear, and flaunts the dearest bloom,
That music is intensest which proclaims
That retentive of themselves are men.

In the laborious weaving that you wear
Most rare, or ever of more kindred air
Than yours, out of our imperfections wrought,
Gives motion to perfection more serene,
Gross effigy and simulacrum, none
By being so much of the things we are,
Yet leaves us in them, until earth becomes,
That separates us from the wind and sea,
Now of the music summoned by the birth.

No crown is simpler than the simple hair:
Its venom of renown, and on your head,
Of cloudy silver sprinkles in your gown
And flame and summer and sweet fire — no thread.
And queen, and of deducted love the day
And of the fragrant mothers the most dear
Most near, most clear, and of the clearest bloom,
And of the sisterhood of the living dead
Sister and mother and inducive lore.

— Steven S. Wallace

(– zumwalt’s only known purely “contextual poem”)

Category:

2020s, 2025, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Poem, Poetry, Zumwalt

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from one to zen

the moment has arrived
the moment is over

— Zumwalt (1998)

Category:

1998, F, Philosophy, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Zumwalt

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MID-FLIGHT

MID-FLIGHT

We rush, a black throng,
Straight upon darkness:
Motes and missions scattered
By the arc’s rays.

Over the bridge fluttering,
It is theater-time,
No one heeds.

Lost amid greyness
We will sleep all night;
And in the morning
Coming forth, we will shake wet wings
Over the settled dust of to-day.

The sky reflects its open expanse to make us larger
The city hurls its cobbled streets after us,
To drive us faster.

Ascertain the darkness
Before endless processions
Of lamps
Push us back.
A clock with quivering hands
Leaps to the trajectory-angle of our departure.

We leave behind pale traces of achievement:
Fires that we kindled but were too tired to put out,
Broad gold fans brushing softly over dark walls,
Stifled uproar of night.

We are already cast forth:
The signal of our departure
Jerks down before we have learned to where we are to go.

— Zumwalt (2011)

Category:

2010s, 2010s, 2011, Contemporary Poetry, Modern Poetry, Poem, Poems, Poetry

Strangely struggling in Shangri-La

Strangely struggling in Shangri-La

Shaken and stirred beneath the slime
I culpably allow darkening tentacles to disperse my many parts:
the little wisps of attention,
sinister and poisonous,
bend misty claws.
This night keeps extending,
strikingly silent under the depths,
invoking quaking hands above the clouds.
Such despair! The future is vanishing
straddling the light —
the next race waiting
to which such dreams
withering victims
aspire.

-Zumwalt (2016)

Category:

2010s, 2010s, 2016, Poem, Poems, Poetry, S

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my dog got published

my dog got published

after many rejections,
Fido made the big time
with thoughts bound in leather
and royalties galore

food once from cans
now Fido dines in Cannes
jettsetting with Riveria rovers
and roveresses

Our cat hacks away
writing a blog that no one reads
adding a new entry every time
she gets tired of tangling yarn

The unexamined bone is not worth burying
Discover more by playing than behaving
Chase only the car that cannot be caught

Write about what you know, we tell our cat,
but cats are stubborn
and don’t take to guidance or suggestions

Fido made the big time
and the big time made Fido
to the point that Fido
is at the whistle and call
of his reputation

Fido eats well, but now waddles as he walks the walk
that all celebrated dogs must be led down

Spare the rug, spoil the carpet
You miss one hundred percent of the hydrants you never stop at
Some slippers are to be tasted and a few chewed and digested

He who barks last barks loudest
He who bites first bites longest
He who backs away, fights off fleas another day

This is our cat on the keys
typing into the electronic void
and on top of it all
living the life.

— Zumwalt (2011)

Category:

2010s, 2011, M, Modern Poetry, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Zumwalt

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The Grand Panjandram

The Grand Panjandram

In dark draped light, they set the stage with positively pessimistic preposterous pronouncements:
                               open-ended, close-minded —
                                                             an onslaught of oozing, slimy, backbiting, backstabbing, bamboozling, bath-bubble babble.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers but where the heck is the peck that Peter Piper picked?

Blame the government! Blame the moderators! Blame the other politicians!

Blame the prosperous! Blame the lazy, liberal-influenced, moral-obliterating, freeloading nameless discontents! Blame blame, but oh, so blamelessly….

Our media plays politics, shamelessly positioned cross-legged on the tracks of the central station throwing rocks at the podiums of the office seekers and office sitters who madly craft the nightly news peering over the simmering cauldron as they add tortoise ears and bat eyes to their brew.

They know nothing is knowable; the perception of reality is reality: reality is only what is perceived.

I had a little nut-tree, nothing it would bear, but nuts are scattered everywhere along with rampant fear. Predictably, my mind wanders until there is no more silliness to hear while my unsuspecting stomach growls as the choruses of the shameless masses cheer.

I know reality.

It is that thinner-than-thread string that connects one thought to another and one moment to the next.

I know consequences. These are things that happen in direct proportion to lack of diligence.

The end follows the beginning; but also sets up every new beginning. Each possibility is the result of each result.

I will set aside my expectations — of what reality should be — to go along with the ride. It will ultimately lead to the next ride and at some point there will be a chance to get off, walk away and look back at the vast, almost infinite, devastation.

— Zumwalt (2016)

Category:

2010s, 2016, G, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Zumwalt

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Silver Alert

                                            silver1
Silver Alert

Steel ballerina

Under golden dome

On ornate, jewelled throne

Sur le cou-de-pied pirouette

Arythmically composing frozen, forlorn silhouettes

Upon my irregular recall

Lost opportunities overshadowed by lost capabilities

Lost love obscured by lost loved onessilvimpa3

Left alone for a moment, she sees him getting into the last of the county’s ‘eighty-five Impalas.

He turns the key: ignites, grinds, reverses and is gone from the driveway with questionable hearing, eyesight and purpose.

I ride the road; I hide in the highway; I engage the interstate and soon catch the journey on display:

….. Silver Alert, Gray Chevy Impala, 3AUY86G …..

G is for gone.  I am gone.  I have always targeted gone. Gone has always targeted me.

She speaks, but so softly.  I get the idea.  Her words are hers alone — always have been: they never will be mine.

I cry inside, tears wreaking havoc on my kidneys, gall bladder, and parts of the spleen. There are other useful internal parts, but I dare not now look: the eyes and hands are positioned ten, two; the right side desperately stealing towards four.

I wait.  I wait in motion. I cannot do otherwise.  In a moment is all the truth of a bruised, bubbling, underwater universe: one of many, many of one.

She, or her likeness, somehow, is there, hanging from the mirror.

It’s just a symbol:

An item with mass,

An item of meaning,

And, now, an item of mobility.

— zumwalt (2015)

Category:

2015, Poetry, S, Zumwalt

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Cousteau and Darwin Move to Suburbia

Cousteau and Darwin Move to Suburbia

Like pilot fish
Affixed, transfixed
Upon the gluttonous chin
Of the maneater,
We give thanks and
Humbly suck the detritus
From Fate’s
Serrated mandibles.
The irony of Sophocles
Is just the symbiosis
Of little fish
And unevolved vertebrates
Scrubbing their gills
With polluted waters,
Lacking the initiative
To crawl up the bank, and breathe.

— Zumwalt (1981)

Category:

1980s, 1981, C, Contemporary Poetry, Poem, Poems, Poetry

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