Good Morning

image source

Butterfly kisses

Flit down my neck, shoulders, back

Love in the morning

submitted for Poetry Potluck 48, Passion, at Jingle Poetry

Windmills

image by Skip Hunt

I used to be afraid 

to love you too much

fearful

that should you leave, I would long 

for your return

I didn't want 

to miss you so badly 

it hurt

to whisper your name

to remember your smell

I held a part of myself back

for myself

so you couldn't take it all with you

when you left

If only I had known

that hoarding food makes you hungrier

unquaffed water evaporates

and all the windmills in the world

won't bring the wind.

submitted for Magpie Tales, 76

Poetry Potluck, 46 Love, at Jingle Poetry

Not Quite Still Life

Little Girl In a Blue Armchair by Mary Cassatt

This is Miss Cassatt, Child
She has brought her paints
She's here to do your portrait so
There best be no complaints

Sit upon this wooden stool
Do not make a fuss
Be a little angel and
Do not embarrass us

But Mother, dear, this stool, I fear
Is really much too hard
I'm tired and I'm bored
I want to go play in the yard

Don't be so fresh! You listen now
Or else I'm going to scold
Get yourself up on that stool
And do just what you're told

Perhaps that big, blue armchair

Might be a better fit

I'll even let my doggie come

To be in your portrait

Okay, I'll try to sit still but
This dress, it makes me itch
It's stiff and hot and pokes me
I can feel its every stitch

Stop slouching, Child, you've wrinkled
Your lovely little dress
And get that pout off of your face
This portrait's such a mess!

submitted for Poetry Potluck 44, Painting Whispers, at Jingle Poetry

The Wall

image source

We take our assigned positions

They make a wall

We march through

They shout at us

We walk silently, stoically

Protecting our charges

Getting them safely to the other side

Almost like a game of Red Rover

But we're not children

And no one is laughing

Each side has its uniforms

They-  crosses, placards, leaflets

We-  orange vests

And the women we battle over-

Lost, stunned, exhausted stares

Realizing they've just stepped into

A war zone

There's even a priest

Who dares cross to our side

Offering up hot coffee on an icy winter morning

My first instinct, to reject his offer

But the coffee's warm and the air is cold

I thank him for his kindness

And we share a moment, shivering together and drink

Then retreat

To our positions

submitted for Poetry Potluck, Week 43, Life in Free Verse, at Jingle Poetry

Francis Takes a Vacation

image source

Francis has a bad case of the burn-out

He's real tired of this sainting gig

So he figures he'll take himself a little vacation

Do some much needed meditation.

"What you should do is some trout fishing," suggests Neot.

Francis shakes his head and says, "Nah, I wouldn't feel right about that."

"There's great skiing in the Alps this time of year!" says Bernard. "I'll lend you my skis, man."

"What about a nice Caribbean cruise? Work on your tan?" Erasmus taunts.

Francis just sighs.

"Can you picture me in a Speedo, really?"

John, the Baptist, says, "Paterson, NJ is really nice!"

There is silence.

"Sorry," John explains. "I'm the official patron. I'm required to say it."

Francis settles on a quaint little villa in Tuscany

With a vineyard, olive trees, and lots of quiet.

Before he leaves, Dymphna scurries over to him, biting her nails, and stammers,

"What about the animals, Francis? Who will take care of them while you're away?"

Natch. 

Leave it to Dymphna to harsh his mellow.

Francis replies, "Let Darwin take over for a while. Survival of the fittest and all that rot."

And with that, he's off.

Well, I've been marking the calendar since his departure

And I have to tell you that I hope he comes back soon

Because I was driving down the road this morning 

And it looks like a war zone

And the animals are losing bad.
I don't believe the drivers are the ones needing the protection, Chris.

Squashed squirrels litter the street 

Deceased deer on the sidelines like they passed out drunk

And despite my calling on Jude for that turtle

Trying to cross to the greenery on the far side of the median,

I strongly suspect it will become asphalt soup.

How about one more glass of Chianti, Francis?

And then please get back to work.

submitted for Poetry Potluck, 41, Saints, Monks, and Meditation

Sonnet For a Friend

photo source: Gordon Haslett

How do I say goodbye to you, my friend?
I wish on stars but see a waning moon
And though I want to be there til the end
I fear that I may pull away too soon

How to protect a heart from pain I know
There is no anodyne able to heal
The scars I'll wear within me when you go
And grief from sorrow's reach I'm loathe to feel

But who among us has the strength to dare
Consider Death may swing her scythe's blade too
Toward any of us, living unaware
Perhaps, my friend, I'll lead the way for you

And so I'll give you all I have to give
For whatever time that you have left to live.

submitted for Poetry Potluck, Void, Loneliness, and Sorrow, at Jingle Poetry

Tyrant

image source

All day long you fret, complain
All the night long too
Loving you is such a strain
The things you make me do!

I cook your food just to your taste
You stare at it with dread
It's not enough it goes to waste
You throw it at my head!

I choose your clothes with love and care
You'd rather look a mess
But then you go and make me wear
Your lunch upon my dress!

You whine, you cry, your selfish deeds
Why love someone like you?
You only think about your needs
Can't wait 'til you're not two!

submitted for Poetry Potluck at Jingle Poetry

Liz

I drank Janis's rage and sadness with my Kool-Aid

Sang of Bobby McGee while other kids sang their ABCs.

I daydreamed about clouds with Joni

And was schooled about men

who wear women on their arms like expensive watches from Carly.

I longed to fall under the spell of a Magic Man

as I inhaled the earthy, herbal smokiness of the concert hall air.

But the next morning I was still myself

Their world would never be my world.

And as much as I wanted to be like her, Tori was fairytale beautiful
 And I was too old to be either a Cornflake or a Raisin girl.

Then along came Liz.

We all knew Liz. We were Liz.

She was the girl next door who swore like a sailor.

She was the seductress who got screwed.

She was the cynic who just wanted a boyfriend.

When she sang of a Flower

it was an O'Keefe painting come to life.

Liz was a storm.

She thundered onto the scene screaming like a girl

And we heard her

Because she was one of us.
 We were in Exile too.

She spoke our language.

Used words that we had been told nice girls don't say

But she knew we had been thinking all along.

Her world was my world.

Her words were my words.

She helped me find my voice.

submitted for Poetry Potluck, Inspired by a Song, at Jingle Poetry

Mystique

The artist's paradox: 

image source

To capture a moment
To recreate it
     With paintbrush
     Pen
     Pencil
     Camera
Destroys the moment.

Putting a frame around it

means one is no longer

in the moment 

but an observer.

The mystique is gone
for the artist
but is evoked again
in others.

submitted for May Poetry Challenge, Mystique, at Verse in a Nutshell
and Poetry Potluck 36, Sketches, Images, and Impressions, at Jingle Poetry

Gates

image source

                                   

We live behind gates
    in our communities of strangers.                  
We make
     small talk
           with our
               small minds
                    while eating
                         small food
at the annual holiday party.
We roll our eyes over the cheap wine
and boast about how we buy
     organic or
     local.
We hurry back to our
     Fortresses of Solitude
     for another year. We have
          tvs in every room so there's always something to look at
          other than each other. We have
               everything we could ever want.
We live behind gates
     to keep out the undesirables. We deserve
     to feel safe. Is that so wrong?
But what do we do when the fruit is rotten from
     the inside?
          Polish our silver
               and
                   detail our cars
                        and
                             landscape the yard
                                  and
                                       enlarge the pool because our kids are
drowning
in
stuff
but starving for attention
     (at least that's what the psychiatrist says when he hands out the prescriptions.)
We live behind gates
     to keep in the kids.
We don't want them mixing
     with bad influences.
We send them to private schools
     where they can get drunk
          and
               high
                    and
                         carve their skin                  
with a better quality of friends than at the
     local high school and where the
lawyer moms and dads can
     make charges disappear
     if things go really wrong
because they're good kids, not like those others who live
    on the other side, not like us.
We live behind gates.

submitted for Poetry Potluck, Fortresses, Castles, and Palaces, at Jingle Poetry

The Saints

We are from water and to water we return

True believers baptized in the muddy surge

The water gives, the water takes, our children learn

We build our homes, we catch our food, respect we earn

The waters come, our land, our lives,our hopes submerge

We are from water and to water we return

Tears are cried, rain pours from skies, the waters churn

Both saint and sinner taken in unholy purge

The water gives, the water takes, our children learn

Displaced, divided, in our dreams of home we yearn

Diaspora upon us from this watery scourge

We are from water and to water we return

Persephone dragged back to Hell, another spurn

But as spring follows, just as surely we'll emerge

The water gives, the water takes, our children learn

Our eyes reflecting flames, we watch our water burn

God or man, upon our land the fates converge

We are from water and to water we return

The water gives, the water takes, our children learn.

submitted for Poetry Potluck,  Thunderstorms, Floods, and Power of Water

The Critic

image source

The critic gives a bad review

Another play won't get its due

"The leading actor tried too hard

He isn't worthy of the Bard!"

The actor's back on waitstaff crew.

The painter unveils his new work

Our man critiques "It has a quirk!

"His recent work is amateurish!"

Dismisses it with a flip flourish

Walks away with a smug smirk.

The critic loves to boldly bash

The new composer's piece-"It's trash!

I couldn't stand a single note!

The woodwinds bleated like a goat!

I'd prefer to hear cars crash!"

The singer gives it all she's got

The critic says, "Her voice is shot!

She shouldn't be up on the stage

At her geriatric age!

Bring on a girl who's young and hot!"

The writer publishes his book

Reviewer barely takes a look

"The plot is dull, the language stale

This author's work will surely fail!

One more word I cannot brook!"

Others' work the critic judges

Their successes he begrudges

He lives only to berate

For his own art he can't create

Through such a hollow life he trudges.

submitted for Poetry Potluck-Muse, Art, Music, and Poetry at Jingle Poetry

Thank you Jingle for all of these awards!!!       

London Daydream

image courtesy of James Rainsford

Touchdown at Heathrow

London love affair is born

Oxford aspirations

West End wishes

Topped with chocolate sponge pudding

 Her rural southern roots

Confine her

Like a prisoner in a tower

She dreams of escaping Underground

To emerge speaking the Queen's English

"Stop"? 

Oh no. She's just beginning.

submitted for One Shoot Sunday at One Stop Poetry
also for Poetry Potluck-Favorite Things

Creative Memories

photograph by India Hobson

She takes scissors and glue to her past

Memories can be recast

A picture here, a picture there

A collage of images hazy and fair.

Creating memories page by page

Erasing the pain, replacing the rage

The friend who betrayed her is once again true

By deft rearranging, old boyfriends are too.

A friendship that died from a hurtful word

Now vibrant with laughter that can almost be heard

Photoshop fixes the postpartum blues

A glowing new mother she'll carefully choose.

She's tired of memories less than ideal

She'll trash scraps of life that don't hold appeal

Forgetting the parts she wants to conceal

Her scrapbook life will become what is real.

submitted for Potluck Poetry, Week 29, Photographs, Memories, and Nostalgia

also submitted for Poetry Clambake

and One Shoot Sunday at One Stop Poetry

Tuscany

Life is slow; the grapes can grow

We stroll among the olive trees

And feel the gentle mountain breeze

This land I've quickly come to know.

Barn swallows swoop down to below

They steal our bread with studied ease

Life is slow; the grapes can grow

We stroll among the olive trees.

Each morn we hear the rooster crow

See sunflowers taller than our knees

Each sun's alive and hums with bees

No clock to dictate ebb and flow

Life is slow; the grapes can grow

We stroll among the olive trees.

submitted for Poetry Potluck, Trips, Travel, and Vacation

                    Experimenting with Poetry Forms, Rondels
One Stop Poetry, Rondels II

Eat This! or A Tale of Love, Pies, Lies,and Revenge

She set her sights on the fine young lad

Said "I know how to make him mine."

Took out her recipes and she cooked

All sorts of foods most divine!

She sent cookies up to his office

Sugar and oatmeal-raisin

On the tray was her telephone number

Oh my! but the girl was brazen!

He asked her out for that Friday

A movie, dinner, and dancing

She accepted demurely but devised impurely

More gastronomic romancing.

She brought him lunches to work every weekday

Sandwiches, salads, and treats

Muffins and cupcakes, hoagies and cheesesteaks

No dish was too great a feat.

He fell for her just as she'd planned it

They married one day the next spring

He kept eating her chow and came time for the vow

With his finger too fat for the ring!

They were the perfect of couples

She baked him all flavors of pies

He ate all her food and she fed him real good

But all that he fed her were lies.

The best way to man's heart's through his stomach

She'd followed those words to her best

But when she found out he was cheating on her

Then she shot him straight through the chest!

image by lolita-art at deviantart.com

submitted for Poetry Potluck: Food, Drink, and Indulgence
also for Poetry Potluck: Lies, Deception, and Misrepresentation

Bubbe's* Gift

* Bubbe is a Yiddish word for grandmother. When I was seven, my grandmother,who loved to read and to write, gave me the book 101 Famous Poems for my birthday. I have it to this day.

My love of words began my seventh year

A small green book you pressed into my hand

 And though I was too young to understand

I knew that it was something you held dear

Into those magic poems I would peer

The distance between you and me was spanned

Your writer's mark on me you left your brand

And to this day I always keep it near

Because of you a truer voice I found

You taught me how to write from what I live

You taught me to observe the world around

You taught me how to listen for the sound

I read your words wrapped up like gifts to give

Each time I write, to you I will be bound

poem submitted for Poetry Potluck

Thank you to Jingle at Thursday Poets Rally for this award!

Does This Cape Make My Butt Look Fat?

You've heard of the Hulk and the Fantastic Four
The Norse God of Thunder with hammer is Thor 
Superman's strong, and he flies - what a bore!
We hormonally challenged women need more!

We need a hero to fight for our needs
One who is tough and who never concedes
Ladies, my efforts may just be last ditch
But I bring you our new hero now:  SUPERBITCH!!!

I am no Batman, I don't wear a cape
In sweatpants and robe I will make my escape
There had best be a phone booth to which I can dash
To rip it all off when I get a hot flash!

Iron Man's hands can shoot rays through bad guys
When I'm angry, I shoot rays right out of my eyes!
My glare is more scary than you've ever felt
And I have a scowl to make Iron Man melt!

Spiderman may climb the walls to attack
But SUPERBITCH will climb all over your back
Aquaman swims and can hold his own breath
But I will hormonally rant you to death!

So bad guys, villains, jackwagons, take heed!
Before you engage in that next irksome deed
There's a new superhero, I'll say it again
Her name's SUPERBITCH, and she needs estrogen!

submitted for Poetry Potluck, Week 24

There's No Place

Too many nightmares and not enough daydreams

Too many monsters and not enough knights

Home is no sanctum when your house is haunted

Her room was not safe when she turned out the lights.

image source

Too many closets and not enough windows

Too many corners and not enough space

Too many shadows and not daylight

She couldn't wait to get out of this place.

Trying to shove her past in a suitcase

Deciding what  to leave behind

Every possession she owned felt tainted

She hoped that her future would be more kind.

submitted for Poetry Potluck, Week 2/20/11

We're Still Here (For David)

photograph by Augusto Gandia at Photograph Prose

It's four a.m. and I'm awake again
My mind keeps replaying how it could have been
But then I count your breaths like I'm counting sheep
And pretty soon I'm smiling and I'm falling asleep

We're still here
We're still here, babe

They say a tree grows stronger in the broken parts
I guess that it's the same way with broken hearts
And though we've hurt each other some along the way
My love for you keeps getting stronger every day

And we're still here
We're still here, babe

And who would've thought that the boy from the band
Would fall for the girl who couldn't carry a tune
But now you've got me dancing under the stars
Singing silly love songs up to the moon

So now I don't care if the world stops spinning
'Cause I would still wake up in the morning grinning
I know that other loves may have come to an end
But I'm sticking with you because you're my best friend

Yes, we're still here
We're still here, babe
We're still here
We're still here, babe
Yeah, we're still here.

submitted for Jingle Poetry, Poetry Potluck 22: Love, Bonds and Relationships
submitted to Photograph Prose
submitted to Thursday Think Tank, #42 Love at Poets United



On 4/25/11 my husband and I celebrated our 18th anniversary! I am so thankful to have him in my life.