Twenty-two

I love you like the ocean loves the sand
The ceaseless waves caress and kiss the land
Impossible to separate the two
I'm who I am today because of you
Although we each have lives that are our own
Together we are better than alone
Two colors intermingled become new
Creating a much deeper, richer hue
So like the ocean's endless ebb and flow
Your constancy and love I'm blessed to know
As infinite as sand grains on the shore
I count the ways I love you more and more
Through stormy seas or placid swells we ride
The waves of life together, side by side.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, The Perfect Love Poem (posted late so my husband won't see it before our anniversary on the 25th!)

Where the Softness Resides

I heard your words and
gained courage to speak
Your words
wrapped around me
like a warm, hand knit blanket
The ice began to melt from my fingers
and my heart

Your words showed me
how disappointment and failure
can be beautiful
How confusion and fear
are worthy of love
I keep that blanket
near me always
in case I should ever forget

The edges of that blanket
are most loved
Rubbed threadbare
Chewed on
Warn and frayed
These are the most comforting
It's where the softness resides.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Tuesday Platform

So Sweet

Super Powers by Howard Finster

I've got a devil on one shoulder

and another on the other

Baby, I try to be good

but it's so so hard

with these devils of mine

jabbering all the time

One whispers in my ear

for me to do wrong

and the other one, Lordy
it cheers it on

I listen for an angel

but she's been gone 

gone a long long time, baby

and I don't believe 

she's ever coming back
home

All of my sin
must've drove her away

just like you say I'm doing to you

I know you speak the truth, baby

but the devils got me tied

up in lies

But, baby, if you could love a devil

just a little 

I could take the heat, 'cause

Heaven knows,

burnt sugar is so sweet.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, What's Your Vision?

Gefilte

Behold the gefilte

Is it fish?

It is not

It has no fins, no tail, no gills, no scales

It swims in cold jelly

A lump

Fish lump

Dressed up with limp carrot

Lounging upon pale lettuce

Let us

behold the gefilte.

submitted (late) for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Caution: Tender Buttons

Uterine Blues

Well, I woke up this mornin'

Felt something out of place

I looked in the mirror

Checked my hair and my face

I walked into the kitchen

to start off my day

when, I swear, I felt my uterus

had wandered away!

I've got a wandering womb

Oh yeah, I've got a wandering womb

And a womb that's off to wander

Well, that ain't no good

I'm thinking that my uterus

is misunderstood.

Well, I hurried to the doctor

to get me a cure

The doc, he said, don't worry

He had seen this before

What troubles you, my lady

is quite easy to see

Hysteria we call it

Now just leave it to me...

Oh no! I've got a wandering womb

Dear me, I've got a wandering womb

And a womb that's off to wander

Well, that's really sick

Gotta get my uterus back home

real quick!

Now I was really feelin' anxious

I was a mess

The doctor claimed the cure, it lay

under my dress!

He took a pair of gloves

from the top of his shelf

"No thanks," I told him quickly

"I will do it myself!"

I've got a wandering womb

Oh yeah, still got a wandering womb

And a womb that's off to wander

Ain't really a plight

'Cause now my uterus and I

are feelin' all right!

submitted (with aplogies!) for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Friday, Sing It Toads

Remember?

The Swing

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

How do you like to go up in a swing,

   Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

   Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

   Till I can see so wide,

Rivers and trees and cattle and all

   Over the countryside—

Till I look down on the garden green,

   Down on the roof so brown—

Up in the air I go flying again,

   Up in the air and down!

Source: A Child's Garden of Verses (1999)

Remember the feel of your very first poem?
Remember the rhythm and rhyme?
Pleading with Mother to read it again
Feeling its music each time

Imagining every scene in your head
The rivers and garden and all
The words painted pictures so deep in your mind
Even though you were so small

How I would love to go back to those days
Back to when life was so new
How I would like to go up in a swing
Up in the air so blue!

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, What Sparked Your Poetic Heart?