POEMS [uncollected]

Jim Clark

The poems listed here are all copyright ©James L. Clark, and none of this material may be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without permission. Poems will be added gradually, so readers are invited to check occasionally.

In a way, poetry is to prose what an overture is to an opera…sort of an artistic thumbnail sketch of a thought in a vastly different format from an equally artistic but longer treatise on the same subject. Think of the eight stanzas (32 lines) of William Cullen Bryant’s “To a Waterfowl” as compared to a lengthy sermon on the subject of God’s creation/possession/direction of Nature. Poetry, especially that which is composed of consistent structure, of which there are many forms, can be much more meaningful than a prose piece since it is far more easily memorized – often unconsciously – in the same way that hymn texts are easily remembered since they’re delivered through another art-form – music. I favor consistent rhyme and rhythm, but much great poetry is written in free verse. These poems are not included in the book of poetry noted above.

And Stops At Once
Arlington
Apes Are Us
Ballad of the Bailout
Calvinism and the Tire
Dear Wife
Democracy

Diversity
Campaign 1996
Celebrate - Football...or What?
Dropkick Me Through the Goalpost
Frog & Turtle
God Wandered By...
Hitler & the Christi-Cons
I Love You More
Jesus Loves the Little Dino
Modern Theological Christmas
Moon at Midnight
Morning Sun
Ode to Climate Change
Old Warrior
Pearl Harbor
Reason
Solitude
Sonnets for the New Year
Sparrow
Sunset
The Swill...So Fine
Thief Odes
Thirteen
Ticker
When Shots Rang Out that Night
XLI
Year's End - 2009