Wrap around porch with hanging swing
iced tea chats and potted plants
playing dolls with Junie Z
on a summer night lit by fireflies.
Sliding glass door shut ramrod tight
concrete slab with charcoal grill
removed from prying eyes.
Two steps to double locked doors
reined in yard with triple garage
and wooden horse blinder fence.
The word neighbor? Gone.
It hopped a moving van,
took a right on the expressway
and drove right out of our lexicon.
There once was a gnat who hungered for gees.
He nawed and he nashed on narly young trees.
The nome, his old friend
warned the gnu round the bend,
he’s coming, use Deet, as fast as you please!
In limerick style:
3 long and 2 short lines, aabba rhyme.
We walk, you in front of me
one created flesh and bone
the other born of sun
elongated faceless gray.
Seamlessly
we stroll the beach
arms out wide, now close in
darkness plays with light.
I stop you stop
your head turns as mine.
We follow a gull’s flight
rising from the sea.
If I turn, reverse my course
will you dance behind,
like the kite that zigs and zags
when its master loosens hold?
Revised, revisited from a very early post. How I love Cape Cod and playing with my shadow!
There it was. Audition.
Wanted: 100 dancers
for three months prep
to perform in Boston’s Copley Square.
No experience required.
I did the same thing,
twenty years ago
in Iowa.
Auditioned.
And was selected to perform.
Ninety-nine hoofer-wanna-bees
plus Gene Kelly and me.
Thousands watched us
in the Big-Ten half-time show
or took a trip for hotdogs
and the john.
So I did it. Again.
And made it.
Again.
Ninety-nine plus me
two nights every week.
Loud fast rehearsals
with slow
every day repeats
at home
to video
online.
I should have known.
I was twenty years older
not newer
and certainly not digital.
One month to go.
On our burgundy shag carpet
five-six-seven-eight
and again
right-turn-slide-spin.
Repeat at studio
on unforgiving wooden floor.
Five-six-seven-eight……
Crap.……dancer down.
Legs sag. Muscles be damned.
Relegated to RICE.
Rest-Ice-Compression-and-
– – oh hell. I forget
what the E stands for.
Originally posted on March 23, as Self-Portrait: Dancer Down, just my third post ever….revisited and revised. No Likes then, no comments, two followers (my family members)!
Drowsy day snippets
up too late
trying to find some words
pen in _ _ _ _
words flit in _ _ _ out
eyes a _ _ _blurred
mind foggy too
time to give _ _ up
and j_ _ _
take a _ _ _
zzzzzzzzzzz……..
She was the argumentative sort,
preferring a corrugated path,
emery boards not allowed.
She was not a cook,
the Cuisinart soufflé pan
Calphalon pots and
ten-speed blender, simply signs
of her optimistic soul.
Tanka fun: 5-7-5-7-7 syllabic lines.
lillian the home poet 