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Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. Leonard Cohen

Saturday, April 25, 2015

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!)

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

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



Friday, April 17, 2015

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.



Tuesday, April 7, 2015

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

Friday, April 3, 2015

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

Thursday, April 2, 2015

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?