Some days I feel as though I’m listing,
weighed down by too much news.
Hantavirus, gas prices,
John Roberts resurrecting Jim Crow,
taxpayer money gilding an extravagant,
exaggerated, excessive, exorbitant,
extraneous, bawdy ballroom
for Mr. You Know Who.

Perhaps a blooming list might brighten my day.
My favorite blooms then, in no particular order:
hyacinth, cherry blossoms, tulips, daffodils,
crocus, lilacs and *panties of the week.

Listing toward eighty now,
purple veined hands, crepey knees,
fading eyebrows, expanding girth.
All changes I can live with.
I can still dance the waltz,
twist lasciviously, bunny hop ridiculously
and show off my *bloomers
doing high Rockette kicks.

So the point is, listing at my age
is more than a poetic feat.
It should tell you I am alive and well,
not planning any time soon
to take a docile back seat!

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Bjorn from Sweden is hosting.

WORDS OF EXPLANATION:
1. The astericks on panties and bloomers. Back in the day, panties were called bloomers!

2. Panties of the Week were a very popular fad in the 1950s. You bought a 7-pack of girls underpants and each one had a day of the week embroidered on them!

3. The Prompt: Bjorn asks us to write a “list poem”. He says, “The use of lists in poetry can be very powerful. You can start with a list and expand around it. Maybe even your shopping list can be made into poetry by reflecting on what the list tells you about the season. The whole poem may be a list, but you may also use a section only as a list.”

So basically we’re to write a poem that involves listing. I had fun with this one!

Image is AI created on Bing Create.