Some days are sum daze.
Blahs drop in
clock ticks on
knees creak
clouds seep in
wallows win.
Sun days are better.
Basking in bright
morning and night.
Safe, sheltered, fed.
Blue veined hands
pick daffodils in spring.
Life’s Bouquet
aging
Birds of a Feather . . .
She adored attending church,
not to finger her rosary beads
or murmur prayers upon her knees,
but to wear her finest hats for all to see.
Purposely arriving late
she strutted down the aisle
showing off her plumage,
much like the Tall Crowned Crane
and the Secretary Bird
she visited often at the Diego Zoo.
We’re trying on hats today at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe.
First two photos are from the San Diego Zoo: first is the Tall Crowned Crane and second is a Secretary Bird. That old bird in the third photograph is me some years back. I always say, if you’re going to wear a hat, wear a HAT!
Poem is fictional….I’m not Catholic, don’t use a rosary, and certainly don’t strut in church.
A Carroll for the Ages
With walking sticks in hand
golden agers cross the field
all in the golden afternoon.
The aged aged man smiles,
his love beside him today
and all these many years.
Beach house waits patiently
weathered bench outside.
They stop and look and sigh,
then reach slowly to touch
initials carved so deep that day,
when first they fell in love.
They sit, tremored hand in calloused one,
gaze across the lake.
Vision blurred beyond optician’s help,
still they recognize shapes afar.
A boat beneath the sunny sky
prods his memory back in time,
remembering . . .
. . . remembering . . .
he pats her hand and smiles.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Sanaa asks us to consider a Candy Crush Saga! One option we have for our poems is to choose three titles of Lewis Carroll’s poems from a long list she gives us. We do not have to include the titles in our poem, but our poem should be inspired by them and we should give credit to his titles. I was most familiar with Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland so this was interesting to see some of the many poems he’s also written! Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!
The Lewis Carroll titles I included word for word within my poem are All in the Golden Afternoon, The Aged Aged Man, and A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky.
Time
Time is a glutton,
no pause in its diet.
Time is invisible,
except in heights marked
on a kitchen door,
candles on a cake,
tombstones in cemetery plots.
Time can not spin backwards.
Its lust for more seconds,
more days, more weeks,
more years, more decades,
insatiable.
Time eats each word I write.
Time, the ravenous glutton.
Image from Pixabay.com
Thoughts on a Friday
Looking at the ancient eucalyptus tree’s
gnarled and peeling bark
in the midst of verdant greenery,
I see beauty in its maturity
and feel content in my skin.
Photo taken yesterday from the patio of our San Diego rental, which overlooks a canyon. This stately aging eucalyptus tree fascinates me.
Juxtapositioning
Ancient eucalyptus tree.
Pock marked bark-skin,
peeling, barren in places,
adds beauty to greening canyon.
Elderly man in thick glasses,
blue-veined hands hanging limply,
shuffles across street.
Driver sits, hand poised over horn.
Musing, I ponder our value system.
We should learn from nature.
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse where the word to use (or a form of the word) in our exactly 144 word poem sans title is “muse.”
Photos taken yesterday from our patio, which opens to a beautiful canyon. We’re in an apartment rental in sunny San Diego until early March, escaping Boston’s winter (as in 11.2 inches of snow on Friday!).
Which Reflection?
I seldom use it –
the full-length mirror.
When I do, it makes me wonder,
who is that person?
I’ve had fun with crepe paper.
That weird webbing you could stretch.
Make it wider and longer.
Hung it all over the family room
for many a birthday party.
So I have crepe skin on my arms.
Okay, be honest. In other places too.
I understand the term’s origins.
How did my mother climb into that frame?
Save your clucking tongue,
your “you haven’t changed a bit” comments.
I prefer to see my value in other ways.
In my husband’s eyes.
In my daughter’s forty-seven year old smile.
In my forty-five year old son’s weekly calls.
In the tik toks and quick texts shared with five grandkids.
I’ll wear capri pants, sleeveless tops,
sparkly eye shadow below my thinning brows.
I love my almost pure white streak
in the midst of my grey hair.
Save your tears for somebody else.
I’m quite content to be a septuagenarian.
The mirror be damned!
Today I’m hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I’ve asked folks to go to the website https://mybirthdayhits.com and plug in their birth date. The site then gives you the musical hit that made #1 on the charts for every birthday you’ve celebrated until 2021. So for example, if your birthday is today, September 28th and you were born in 1952, you plug in that date and the site will give you the #1 hit for every year on September 28th from 1952 until 2021! AND the site gives you a recording you can listen to as well. Such fun! So the prompt today is to take at least one of the #1 hits from your birthdate and include the song title, word for word, in your poem. You can use more than one #1 hit if you wish.
My birthday is May 13th: In 2007, my 60th birthday, the #1 hit was Makes Me Wonder by Maroon 5; in 2021, for my 74th birthday, the #1 hit was Save Your Tears by The Weeknd. You’ll find those titles in my poem today.
My Love and I
Wine me this evening.
Let us sit together
sipping and listening.
No words needed.
Waves roll in, roll out.
No other sound.
Love can be silent.
Side by side many years.
Children raised, married,
parenting their own.
We have time to reflect
on what was,
what is,
and what is yet to come.
The years ahead,
far less than those behind.
And yet we smile,
sit together,
sipping and listening.
Attitude is a Choice
Sum days her mirror reflects the years.
Grooves etched beside eyes,
crevices left from emotional stress.
Blue veined highwayed hands tattle,
leaving behind tremor shaken script.
But open-toed shoes reveal her true self.
Shining sterling peace-sign toe ring,
defiant purple glitter-polish on her nails.
Quadrille written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today De is hosting and asks us to use the word “groove” or a form of the word, in our Quadrille (a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title). Image from Pixabay.com
At my age . . .
. . . my to-do-list is
much too mundane to do.
*Laundry
*PT exercises
*Vacuum
*Clean out drawers
So I sit, pen in hand
page waiting to be filled,
adorned by words.
Words like scintillation
fantasia, pomegranate
or perhaps persimmon.
Images, dormant in my mind,
waiting to appear on the page.
Orange sherbet sun
flirting with shapeshifter clouds.
Raucous carousel horses
racing round a blurred world.
Pen over vacuum? Easy choice
to clear the cobwebs from my brain.
lillian the home poet 