Poetry

Sammi’s Weekender #276 (bandage)

Click the graphic for Sammi’s blog and more bandaged 61-worded wonders.

Keepin’ Safe

‘hello-‘ello! C’mere, lad.
I hope you’ll be keepin’ well.

It happens every year
after a wee bit, a donnybrook
somewhere near here,
sorry now, so
me shillelagh’s swingin,
callin’ fer bacon.

Not well then are ye?
wackin’ the cod,
wi’ narry a nod, nor a bandage
or pad to be had.

T’ank you for feelin’
brave to go, smart to not.

Look both ways on whisky drinkin’ festival days.
Mind the gaps at the tube and lads at the pub.

The annual Donnybrook Fair near Dublin included fiddlers and dancers, but it was best-known for the frequent eruption of whiskey-fueled fighting – often involving heavy clubs known as shillelaghs. “Bacon” is Irish slang for police and “cod’ for fool.

Monday’s Rune: On Labor Day 2022

Let Me Clarify

They were not smart or rich. Some might write. Few to none finished school. In many ways they were all slaves.

The children, the men, and the women were trying to survive, to make it through the night.

No great athletes, not a genius among them. The company was the enemy. The boss.

I think of them on Labor Day. About my dad, the filthy coal miner, who swore I’d never work in the mines.

He was right.

When the mines shut down, he was lucky to find any job. He was a plumber’s helper. He mowed lawns and dug sewer ditches. Finally, as a nurse’s aide for the same pay I got as a teenage knucklehead, for my summer job, as a gardener’s assistant, he worked until it was finished.

Mom was a cleaner of footwear in a shoe factory. She had to take two early morning buses and often walked home. Her hands were always dirty and stained from cleaning factory shoes. Sucky work.

I never did piece work, nor had black lung, but at a young age I knew all about both.

Labor Day! I love it, but the more I think about it, and the more I learn about the labor movement, the more pissed off I get.

Wars and soldiers did not build this country. The rich damn sure didn’t. Cowboys (not the jerks in Dallas) and labor did. Workers built America.

Damn it!

“No gods, no masters.”

Look both ways and try to understand.
All workers and all labor around the world are brothers and sisters.
Mind the gaps and may we treat them well. Welcome to America.

 

Sammi’s Weekender #275 (avian)

Click the graphic to fly to Sammi’s blog page to submit and to read other’s prose or poems.

Got My Six

His name was Jay.
We called him Jay Bird
due to his avian-like
looks and behavior.
Callsigns were
seldom complimentary,
like Maverick or Viper.
Jay Bird was my friend.

Look both ways in life but memories are treasures of the mind.
And mind the ever-present gaps as you connect the dots and wonder why.

A Haibun of Shelter

Written for dVerse Haibun Monday: Give Me Shelter, 8/26/22.

Competitive Cooperation

Soldiers, farmers, and lovers all seek the same shelter. Protection from nature’s miseries is ubiquitously sought and taken. Adapt or die. Respect not given wisely results in lessons learned only for brief periods.

Her glorious beauty shows in the warm sunrise that follows the night’s frightful, unsheltered story. The singing bird allows for the climax of thunder as from lightening, all seek cover. Even snakes warm in the sun.

Rain or dry seasons, Nature judges the foolish lover, the seeker of warmth without cover, harshly. Live and learn; learn and live.

respect nature first
awesome beauty is the beast
take cover or die

Look both ways when seeking escape or shelter.
Better to mind the gaps and wait for the storm to pass
than to win the latest Darwin Award.

Click here to find more Haibun.

Monday’s Rune: downtime

Wednesday

at the park, the
San Gabriel River slow flows as
trees, grass, and gardens grow,
ducks and squirrels search
while dogs wander;
people—few kiddos play,
adults do nothing—just relax while
idle athletic fields recover, empty
picnic tables under shade; and
boulders and benches go unused,
feel the summer zephyr, nice,
some souls are alone, but
I’m with you.
It’s Wednesday. Recover.
Relax. Everything else
can wait.

Look both ways — up and down stream;
mind the gaps for crossings over to another side.
Sometimes just go and be —  hear, feel, and wait and see.

Sammi’s Weekender #274 (opera)

Click this opera thingy to find links to more operatic writings

For Opera’s Sake

Poets find inspiration in
music
I do,
not opera
or classical,
Whitman did.
Likewise Nazim Hikmet,
Dickenson, Bishop, Doty,
and the barstool bard,
Charles Bukowski
who wrote,
“To The Whore Who
Took My Poems,” and
said, “opera sickened me.”

A romantic, Hank was,
by some accounting,
a perv, drunk, dreamer,
a dirty old man
and misogynist
(he claimed not)—a lover
of women and classical
music.
Buk’s been saluted by
diversity like
U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers,
Nirvana, Bush, the Cars,
and Concrete Blonde.

I’ve been
accused
of being mused by
Bukowski
and his oeuvre.

Look both ways for the sin of admiring the imperfect,
the toil of the briar patch, the desire for love and passion.
Mind the gaps lest we stumble into the First Self-righteous Church.

This is the poem, “To The Whore Who Took My Poems” … done operatically (a bit risqué). My apologies if this youtube does not work for you.

Monday’s Rune: Drove my Chevy to the levee…

But Buyer Be

My family didn’t own one—so,

I knew nothing of
automobiles back then
except about how to drive
(not well) and add gas—

My first (legal) car
was twenty bucks—
I got it for fifteen;
Mom said,
(Dad didn’t know, yet—
he called cars “motors”
and expensive things “dear”)
but she said, “Oh, dear,
I wonder
what’s wrong with it.”

I was about to learn so much
about oil,
rings, pistons, and
timing points, and why not
grab hold of a bare spark plug wire
on a running straight six,
and about positive and negative.

Guys at school, the ones taking
auto mechanics shop classes,
(learning something useful)
were not the ones to ask
even though I took
English III (again) with them.
(I’m still grateful for how
smart they made me look
and feel—but
another story there.)

Because
while those know-it-alls
claimed auto knowledge,
helpful they were not,
and I’d already bought
my old green Chevrolet
capable of burning
a quart of oil
per city block or
country mile—either way,
lesson learned late.
Learn first, then buy
(now I tell me).

And used car salesmen—
that lesson took a lot longer.

Buyer
beware. Be aware.

Look both ways as time keeps on slippin’ into the future.
Mind the gaps, feed the babies, shoe the children, house the people livin’ in the street.

Looks better than mine did. Click on pic to hear Don Mclean’s song, “American Pie.”

Sammi’s Weekender #273 (alcazar)

A 76-word, first-word, acrostic poem, using alcazar, meaning a Spanish fortress, palace, or castle.
I did not use the prompt word as a theme.

Click this graphic to read more writings of alcazar,

Wind, Rain, and Life

All I ask are a few good poems and stories and to have

Lived and loved my seventy-six years as me. My

Children and my children’s children brought me to heavenly happiness

As rain brought new life later claimed by the dry range and the breezes of soft

Zephyrus gently passing us by, like time-forgotten memories

Around our lives with now-shortened horizons pointing to sunsets

Restoring my faith in the discovered purposes of life and humanity.

Look both ways to protect your citadel from plunder and attack.
Mind the gaps of your castle walls which may be vulnerable to the darkness of passing time.

Monday’s Rune: Special Times

Photo by and © Dale Rogerson

Candlelight Creates Memories.

It happens
like this
it all comes together
too seldom,
so brief
but when
it comes,
we feel it
forever.
It’s more
than love,
family,
sisterhood;
life has enough
pain and suffering
and sadness.

Forget that—
remember this—
time always was
always will be
just because when
it’s like this
it’s cosmic.

No
everyday thing.
That wouldn’t work.

The right people,
the right time and place
discovering high levels
of special happiness.

We need to do that
more often—
again soon.

One bottle passed through
snifters near dripping candles
lighting empty chairs
reflections
light and dark
happy and sad
yin and yang
simultaneous synergy
of family energy.

Look both ways to find soul in family.
Mind the gaps. Set the stage. Live the love.

Sammi’s Weekender #272 (dazzling)

Click this pic for more dazzling 53-word wonders.

Candled Darkness

She dazzled—
blindingly brilliant.

I was humbled, dim and dull—
overwhelmed by sadness and shame.

Yet, in her glitter and gleam,
She loved my blackened heart,

kept me close, when other
men were blinded by her glare

She smiled.

Au contraire, mon amour.
Darker nights make brighter stars,
the moon shines even more.

Look both ways but listen with an open heart.
Mind the gaps for that’s where stars shine brightest.

Caption me.