Poetry

Sammi’s Weekender #242 (goodnight)

Click on the graphic image to be transported to Sammi’s page and other ‘goodnight’ works.

 

Ginny-Ginny is Forever

I wish we were again
She, her; I, me, when
Somehow two were one,
All days and nights were special
When bedtime was large
with Daddy’s love.

I kissed her neck, repeating
Goodnight, g’night so fast, ginny-ginny
became our special time,
She’d laugh, then sleep.

Look both ways at special bonds of love,
for wanting to be better than we were,
for past moments that will never be forgotten.
Mind the gaps of imperfection in humanity.

***

“A daughter is the happy memories of the past, the joyful moments of the present, and the hope and promise of the future.” ~ Unknown

“Watching your daughter being collected by her date feels like handing over a million-dollar Stradivarius to a gorilla.” ~ Jim Bishop

Happy New Year, Dewey (Julie). ~ Me

Thursday’s Rune: Candles in Darkness

Thanks to Dale for the photo.

Candles in Darkness (Time to go home)

The streetlight was
outside my second-floor bedroom window,
about sixty feet away,
kiddy corner from me,
but right across from Packy’s Bar.
At night, it dimly lit my bedroom.

(I didn’t like the pull-chain single bulb
that hung from a chain in the middle of the room.)

There was another light
a block farther up on Main Street,
and another was down on Washington
where a traffic signal clicked
when it changed to another color (all night long).
It had to be late and quiet to hear.

I didn’t care.
When I pushed my bed next to the window,
I could feel and smell smoke-free night air.
I saw and heard street and sidewalk sounds,
I watched the glorious night rain,
and sometimes people who were quieter at night.
Summertime I could see bugs flying around the light
as I listened to the raucous people up at Packy’s.

The light was near enough
to work with my mind adding drama to boredom
as the nearby maple-tree limbs and leaves
silhouetted diabolical shapes and shadows.

That’s how I saw them.
Frightening then. Old friends now.
Along with rain, the streetlight showed me
falling snow or eerie fog on dark nights.

Streetlights comforted me.
Now, when I get up before sunrise, I look out
to see another lonely, bored streetlight father away
on a much quieter street with no bars (just houses with old people).
I recall the days when I looked out for the light to tell me things.

I still do.

Look both ways to see the light.
Mind the gaps, the bars, and the interesting shadows.
Watch people.

Sammi’s Weekender #241 (din)

Click on graphic for Sammi’s blog.

shameful silence

early morning sounds
soft, in silent darkness
distracted by clichéd neon din
imprisoned without art,
terrified by evil’s truth.

Look both ways to see and to say.
Mind the gaps of paranoia while seeking better days.

Inspired by S&G’s hymn to resistance, The Sound of Silence.

Thursday Rune: Arrogant Demerits

I admit it. Sometimes I joke about lesser folk,
about how I am grateful to them
for making me look better than I am.
We called them shit screens,
or wedges that raised everyone else up
the totem as they forced their way into
the bottom of the pile. Isn’t that awful?

I don’t know by what standard I should be judged,
nor how I should think about myself.
I just want hot coffee on cold mornings
and time to think about a full life,
or to worry about people I love,
for no specific reason except I care.

To all those whose tarnished image I have improved
when I wedged my own way down,
or screened out the shit storm on my own,
or played the bug on your windshield,
you’re most welcome,
from the bottom of my sniffy faults.

Look both ways and reflect on things like envy and greed.
Mind the gaps as dysfunction becomes the new normal.

Sammi’s Weekender #240 (pavonine)

Click on graphic for Sammi’s blog.

 

An Old Dog Bit Me

My Dog was a big, ugly, fat fucker (BUFF),
boasting an un-pavonine but prominent
forty-eight-foot-tall tail
painted a horrid unreflective tar-black; likewise,
his underside, from empennage guns to radome nose.

Chemical odors inside mixed with piss and puke
fouled the air; noise enough to deafen,
disaster and destruction filled his big ebony belly.

On command, my camouflaged killer would ‘Cry Havoc;’
wreaking horrible death and terror onto the earth below.

Now, we haunt display grounds at air museums across the country.

Look both ways.
What you don’t see can kill.
Mind the gaps and don’t be a target.

Note: Allusion is to “Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war,” spoken by Mark Antony in Act 3, Scene 1, line 273 of Shakespeare’s history play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.

 

A B-52D (circa 1975), also known as a tall tail or the “Old Dog.” It was the B-52 model (there were eight) used in the novel “Flight of the Old Dog” by Dale Brown.

A Thursday Rune (walk with me)

’tis Raining Intimacy

Here’s the thing, people think I’m crazy
when they scramble for cover
seeking unrequited protection
from spit and sprinkle.
As my smile betrays my thing for rain.

Well, you see, proud me knows
what they don’t.
I feel something
they flat-out won’t.
Yet I’m not alone.

I dig walkin’ in all the rains—
deluge or drizzle,
mist or mizzle, or
let it pour a storm.

Control Nature? I cannot!
But guess what that
atmospheric effect does for me.
If I could, I’d make it so, and gawd,
you’d see; it would rain a lot.

I dunno, though,
cuz here’s another thing;
what I get is more than wet.
Rain’s just Nature’s grace
poured out on us
says no less than the likes of
John Updike. I get what he meant.

Anyway, it’s more than water,
more than moisture,
rain refreshes me, spiritually
cleanses me, it quenches my thirsty soul.
You know what I mean?

And Jeeze Louise, we always need rain.
It’s a feeling—a cosmic commune—
with what, I’m not so sure, but it,
in fact, flows with cycles of life.

Okay, I get it. No freezing cold.
Likewise,
I’ll pass on thunder and lightning
so close
it makes me mess myself.

Don’t worry though, I dress for temperatures.
On warm days, it’s shorts and old cotton tees;
my warm red rain jacket at colder times.
I eschew ducking under umbrella’s shadow.

I wear wet-able shoes. And I walk alone.
But then again, don’t you know?
I’d never refuse a fellow Pluvio,
and we’d want to dance
to the music and the rhythm of falling rain.

Look both ways.
Feel it, smell it, taste it, hear it, and see the rain;
all that it does, all that it loves.
Mind the gaps, the dips, and the puddles, unless you’re five.
Then, just dive right in.

dVerse Quadrille #142 (tinsel)

Thanks to Mish for hosting (and sucking me into this post which I did not plan to do).

Back in town

tinsel tensing nuts in town
leaders, all bozos

and clowns,

suky tawdry for a.g,
macheath and mackie messer,

for all the world to see

liars swear another judge jackleg

threepenny opera

death was healthy,

good is bad, bloodsuckers’ protagonists,

what do you want now?

Look both ways to tell the good guys from the rest.
Mind the gaps in a saint’s past and the sinner’s future.

Click on my cigar for more wonderful poems.

Sammi’s Weekender #239 (smuggle)

Click the prompt graphic to teleport to Sammi’s blog and other poetry or prose.

Egregiously Absurd

Smugglers
of humans seeking better lives, liberty, to taste
freedom, asking only workman’s wages.

They flee to us with wicked problems,
bringing constantly changing confusion,
due to undefinable inequalities of states.

By coercion or consent, trusting snakeheads,
coyotes, or polleros; at great cost and risk,
begging asylum from worse.

We pick them up, send them back;
our failed fences, blank walls.
WTF is beautiful about that?

Look both ways and “Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too.”
Mind the gaps on the high road of morality.

dVerse Poetics : Passions Stamped on Lifeless Things

Click on the tractor for link to dVerse post by merrildsmith in Poetics.

Old tractors can’t retire with much dignity.
Ours rests over yonder, near the barn.
With winter’s cold, snow, and ice,
or dry poundings of hot summers,
she tries to show well, just a little rust,
peeling paint, heavy worn tires.

Made to plough and cumber a heavy beam,
an ox of steel and rubber, she carried men to work,
sowed seeds, and tilled the soil.

A mammoth farm and ranch hand, she
pushed and pulled cultivators and harrows,
drug fertilizer wagons,
pulled mowers, rakes, and bailers
with tires heavy with water and mud.

I still remember the day I first grabbed ahold
of her wheel learning to drive and work hard.

Thank you, my friend, for teaching me
so much about life, work, sweat, tears,
and the weather. But mostly about how
to age gracefully and with dignity.

Look both ways but history teaches more.
Mind the gaps, find the truth, keep your pride and dignity until a tractor retires.

Sammi’s Weekender #238 (familiar)

Click to go to Sammi’s blog and read other literary wonders.

A Poet’s Niche at Night

I sit alone,
here in my nook
surrounded by dark night’s midst,
awakened by who knows what.

It’s not gloomy to me
in my shadowless gray nest,
with familiar walls tinted sepia
by computer screens,

And light from my
black plastic, ergonomic keyboard.

I like it dark without sounds
I couldn’t hear anyway, just midnight feels.
I like them, too.

As I think,
I write
this poem thingy
cuz that’s what poets do,
in the middle of the night.

Look both ways when you sit alone in the darkness.
Mind the gaps,
the things you hear,
the things you feel,
and especially those you don’t.