Author: lillian

Tell Me Do; Tell Me You

lillian10 Comments

She grew up in a poker face house
curtains drawn, emotions stuffed
inside walls, inside heads, inside everywhere.
Except anger. Sometimes it came flying out.
After a lull. Unexpected.
So loud, it shook the rafters.

No wonder she flew the coop,
using that old vernacular.
Married, with kids, she broke the mold.
Babies babbled, inside and out
sometimes screamed, mouths wide open
no plugs, pacies or binkes allowed.

I love yous and table talk
campfire banter, tell me true
talk it through to eyes that listen.
She insisted on a barcode kind of world
emotions easily scanned
on an every day conveyor belt.

Life Long Delight

lillian4 Comments

He took to soap and water from an early age,
standing on a stool, sleeves rolled up
playing in the suds.

As a college chap,
he was a regular with his chums,
second stool from the left at Chauncey’s Pub.

Not in it for the guzzling,
he liked to watch the suds drip down his glass
and feel the foam against his upper lip.

Retired now, no children of his own,
he’s become a summer legend
in the neighborhood corner park.

Washtub at his feet,
nets of string on two long poles
he dips and waves, and dips again.

Magic billows out across the lawn
this man, doing what he loves
is now, and always has been
the bubbles man.

Spring Chill

lillian3 Comments

She wandered outside this early morn
stunned to be alone
last night’s storm, still wet upon the lawn.
She walked the garden
unaware that wisps of cloud
accompanied her overhead.

Reaching out,
she cupped the tulip crown
within her saddened hand
and watched, as petals dislodged,
weighed down with rain,
fell slowly to the ground.

Feet damp and cold,
she sat in one of two chairs
on the cement slab they called a patio.
Eyes pressed shut, face tilted to the sky
she felt the sun, breathed in the lilac scent
and finally understood.

Sea Farers All

lillian9 Comments

Cast your nets wide
let them float o’er time and place.
Savor the brine, its salt upon your lips
antithetical and sometimes complimentary,
to the sweet taste of last night’s wine.

Trail fingers in cool waters
seek star fish and arcing dolphins,
even as sharp-edged crustaceans
fray threads in knotted lines
threaten to disrupt the catch.

Rainbow parrot fish flirt in and out
maneuver through teeming waters.
Beauty thrives, even as leering eel
lurk in darkness, seek their shelter
within life’s disparities.

Sea glass, that human toss-away
tumbled to smooth artifacts
pleasurable to feel, caress, collect.
Dark waters today,
sun kissed tomorrow.

Even the barnacle, crusty and hardened
clings to the worm-holed hull
holds years of secrets in its blight,
another treasure caught
within our thread bare cache.

What Lies Beneath

lillian9 Comments

I’ve searched a lifetime for my soul mate.
I lie here on the ground, looking up, feeling down.
Rock edges poke through new mown grass
like questions nudging through my spine.

I start to ruminate, cogitate
mull over impossible possibilities.
This much I know, our world is round
and I exist right here, right now, on this orb.

If I could somehow push the earth
compress its latitudes,
would I find you, prone like me
somewhere, deep below?

Just a diameter away,
lying still, listening for my breath
through curves in our globe
searching too, looking for me?

Tankas* for Earth’s Children

lillian4 Comments

Volcanoes fester
seethe and boil beneath earth’s skin
like red hot anger
held within, spews forth fury
assaults all within its grasp.

Watch how the clouds fly
sometimes dark and threatening
often soft and light
retreat in black moonlit sky
promise always to return.

Oceans between lands
offer pathways to friendship
teem with life for life.
Waves ebb and flow to all shores,
assure life’s cycle anew.

Sun of mother earth,
shines her perpetual light
nurtures all children,
no matter diversity
prejudice vanquished for all.

Listen my children,
the earth shudders in anguish
sees your refusal
to step lightly on her soil.
Embrace your sameness and love.

 

*My June Challenge Poetry Class assignment was to write a poem within constraints, and the next day’s assignment, to write a poem of instruction. This combined the two. A tanka is a genre of classical Japanese poetry that contains 31 syllables, typically in lines of 5-7-5-7-7.