A New Spin on an Old Tale

Little Miss Muffet

climbed on her tuffet

to sit on a branch of an oak

With her curds and her whey

she watched butterflies play

when a spider dared give her a poke!

Little Miss Muffet

suffered a buffet

when she saw its four pairs of mean eyes

But she quick gained her wit

and before she got bit

gave the spider a bit of surprise!

Little Miss Muffet

told the spider to stuff it

when he tried to put her in his web

A lassoed arachnid

that does just what she bids

Makes Muffet a certain celeb!

submitted for Thursday Think Tank #103 Fractured Fairy Tales at Poets United

The Short but Sad Tale of Tick Girl

submitted for Poets United, Thursday Think Tank 100, Eccentric (inspired by the poems of Tim Burton)

Playground Games

The Circus With the Yellow Clown, 1967, Marc Chagall

Come over here 

and join the fun

We'll make you dance 

We'll make you run

Don't be scared 

I'm just a clown

We'll play a game

I'll hold you down

Let's all pick teams

Which do you choose?

Now don't complain

about that bruise

And don't go home

and tell your mother

unless you want

to get another

Do you think

that it's not fair

because we like

to pull your hair?

Don't start to cry

We're all just friends

We'll meet up when

the school day ends

There is no use

to make a fuss

They're playground games

Come play with us!

submitted for Thursday Think Tank, #97, Playground, at Poets United

and The Mag, 118

Don't Let Them Steal Your Wonder

Deep blue by buleria

 Don't let them steal your wonder

Don't let them get you down

If you feel you're goin' under

Kick out hard and you won't drown

Don't you let them make you jaded

Don't you let them make you cold

It's their own souls they have traded

and their hearts that they have sold

They just want to make you smaller

They just want to make you crawl

They've forgotten how to rise up

so they need to make you fall

Don't let them steal your wonder

Be protective of your dream

When they tell you to be quiet

That's the time you have to scream.

submitted for Thursday Think Tank #94 Wonder at Poets United

Piano Man

Morning Sonata

I went with you to the practice room

watched you play piano

Your fingers hit the keys

and another pin fell into place 

in the lock deep inside me

Your style was not graceful

You didn't coax music from the instrument

so much as expect it

demand it

Yours were hands

not to be trifled with

I wanted those hands to unlock

the music I thought had died

I wanted those hands to make me sing

love songs 

in the key of ecstasy.

submitted for Thursday Think Tank, #92 Key, at Poets United

Run

You can run til you drop

but you can't lose your shadow

You can hide from your pain

but it always will find you

You can get yourself high

but someday you have to come down

You can watch yourself bleed

but the blood's gonna run again

Spend nights with a stranger

but the sun's gonna rise

You can keep tryin'

but you just can't escape from yourself

So go blame your mama

Go blame your dad

Go blame the love you think you didn't have

You can blame the alignment

of stars in the sky

Go on and keep asking

Why?

But your houses keep burning

and you fan the flames

by turning your back

and changing your name

You can keep runnin'

but you just can't escape from yourself.

submitted for Thursday Think Tank,  #91 Escape, at Poets United

Take a Sad Song

I didn't know who Jude was
but I remember thinking
there were a lot of instructions for him to follow
and some I didn't understand
like "let her under your skin"
but still
when I heard that song
from the back seat of the car
I knew
it was my favorite
I had never paid much attention
to the radio before
I was only about five
but when that song came on
I listened
Somehow I felt like it was telling me something
important
Maybe it was coincidence or
maybe it was synchronicity but
I have spent much of my life
trying to take sad songs and
make them better.

submitted for Poets United, Thursday Think Tank #90, Music

Fire/Light

source

Now I know

the brightest light at night

isn't a star

It's the light that dances in your eyes

that sparks the flame within me

Kindling kisses

We burn through the night

throwing ourselves on the fire

to fuel more

and more

until the last glowing ember has

extinguished itself

with itself

In the morning light

we drink our coffee

In the sugar bowl

are ashes.

submitted for Thursday Think Tank, #89 Light, at Poets United

Of Moonlight and Thieves

photo by Mariya Mileva

If locked doors make for thieves

I will lock every door

in the world

so you will steal me away

The moon is too bright

 I can not sleep

for the Man's staring

Let the owl pluck out his eyes

so I can fly away with you

unseen

The nightingale

will tell no one

but the stars

Little fox

come raid the hen house

                                             I will be waiting for you

                                             my feathers red in the moonlight

                                             No bounty for the hunter

                                             no eggs in the morning

                                             Just the gossip and squabbling

                                             of sisters left behind

                                             wondering

                                             whether to be sad or

                                             envious

       submitted for

 Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Kerry's Wednesday Challenge,  Triptych-Poetry In Three Parts

We Write Poems, #97, A Study In Transitions

Poets United, Thursday Think Tank, #87, Moon

No Place Like Home

source

 Tap your red heels Dorothy

There is no place like home

Cause home just isn't home no more

You wonder where it's gone

The farm you used to live on

Your uncle sold the land

There's rows of houses now

Where rows of wheat were wont to stand

The local grocery store

Became a giant megamart

And your poor Auntie Em

Can barely push the plastic cart

The farmhands you so loved

Well, they all lost their jobs

They wait for unemployment checks

and became drunken slobs

Professor Marvel's wagon

Was taken by the bank

They had to repossess it

When his show went in the tank

Miss Gulch is in a nursing home

She chased a dog and tripped

She fell down in her garden

Now she's got a broken hip

So if you come back Dorothy

Home's not like it was before

You may say to Toto

We're not in Kansas anymore!

submitted for Poets United, Thursday Think Tank, #84 Home

Choices

License plate on the car ahead reads
"It's a child, not a choice"
And I wonder
Has it really been 38 years since
I was granted the right to
my own body?
And I wonder
why I have to look
over my shoulder
in my rear view mirror
to see who's trailing me
to the clinic
And I wonder
why I have to dodge pamphlets
pushed on me like politician's handshakes
and curses thrown like middle school spitballs
We all make our choices

You say you choose life
so why do you paste a scarlet A
on the doctor's chest like a target
for the snipers to gun him down?
We all make our choices
is what you say
So what do you say
to the man who chooses to rape his daughter?
to the mother who chooses to pretend not to see?
what do you say
to the girl
a child herself
with shame and confusion growing inside her
like a cancer?
Do you choose to call her murderer?
Damn her to hell?
We all make our choices

And what of the child
whose mama chooses
not to feed him today?
Who wears last week's clothes
reeking of urine and
steals money at school?
Does he choose this life?
You cry over the lost tadpoles but
look the other way when the frogs die
in their formaldehyde ponds
another one pinned on the dissection tray
just another day
Go ahead
Slap a bumper sticker on your car
We all make our choices.

submitted for Poets United, Thursday Think Tank, Choices

City

source

Tunnel

vision opens 

grey monsters towering

torn tenements

evil intents

tense movements

quick quick quick

can't stop 

can't look at map

tourist trap

don't get trapped

don't smile

don't make eye contact

don't get conned

don't get

beat beat beat

Pulse of the city beats

faster and faster

feel the blood throb

flash mob

flash flesh

fresh flesh

walking the street

looking to score

looking to scare

looking scared

scarred

looking

looking

City don't care.

submitted for Thursday Think Tank 77, the City, at Poets United

Soul's Whisper

photo by Ella Wilson

The more you scream

the less I hear

The more you insist

the more I resist

The more you demand

the less I comply

Your protestations, judgments

make me more accepting

Your damnation

makes me embrace the damned

Your profligate piety

leaves me revolted

Your smug certitude

makes me question all

No one knows

least of all, you

Faith

is a whisper from the soul

Shut your mouth

Perhaps you will hear.

submitted for Thursday Think Tank, Soul's Whisper, at Poets United

Winter Poem

Winter by whooa

The cold has slowed the noise of restless Fall

and hoarfrost coats the grass beneath our feet

From Autumn's warmth descends December's pall

The cold has slowed the noise of restless Fall

Eath's shoulders draped within a white prayer shawl

We contemplate another year complete

The cold has slowed the noise of restless Fall

and hoarfrost coats the grass beneath our feet.

submitted for Thursday Think Tank at Poets United

Chains

images courtesy of Ella Wilson

This empty shell she called her home

She roams her hell after the gloam

Imprisoned within as a lover's possesion

"I am not free; my heart is chained

By jealousy, my love constrained."

By his hand she died after making confession.

submitted for Thursday Think Tank, #69, Haunted Houses, at Poets United

and In-form Poet: Tri-Coupled Sestet, at Poetic Bloomings

Red

On Thursday September 15^th, the Virginia Board of Health passed new regulations for the twenty-three abortion clinics within the state. The new measures impose regulations on the clinic itself, including rules about ceiling height, hallway width, size of operating tables, and number of parking spaces. Proponents of the plan deem it necessary for safety reasons, but the majority of abortions performed in Virginia clinics occur during the first trimester. First trimester abortions are extremely safe and rarely present complications...The Virginia regulations are the newest anti-abortion laws in a string of state-level legislation passed since the 2010 elections...Backed by the new Republican majorities in many state legislatures, restrictions on abortion are becoming increasing common. http://www.americavotes.org/node/1660

Tie the doors shut with red tape

It's a real red-letter day

victory for the red, white, and blue morality police

wipe the blood stains off their hands

Scarlet women put in their place

faces red with shame and fear

roaming back alleys after sunset

searching

Watch the blood flow

red and redder

Watch as it floods the streets

taints the sheets

Watch them die in

rivers of crimson

Red is the color of women's suffering

Red is the color of rage

Clay soil

under the nails of the men who

dig the graves

for the women

for the girls

who don't stop bleeding

red roses atop 

their graves.

submitted for Thursday Think Tank, #68 Red at Poets United

Windows

image from Poets United

You were once as open as the sky

As boundless as the fireflies in June

Watching life through window panes of glass

Your light has dimmed too early and too fast

As boundless as the fireflies in June

Saved inside a Mason jar for keeps

Your light has dimmed too early and too fast

Without air, a fire will not last

Saved inside a Mason jar for keeps

A precious treasure transforms into dross

Without air, a fire will not last

Your windows make you blind as well as masked

A precious treasures transforms into dross

The panes you trust to keep you safe inside

Your windows make you blind as well as masked

An illusion to shut out your past

The panes you trust to keep you safe inside

Watching life through window panes of glass

An illusion to shut out your past

You were once as open as the sky.

submitted for Form For All, Pantoum, at dVerse Poets Pub

and Thursday Think Tank, Windows, at Poets United

Ello

image source

I am a La-Z-Boy
I am a lap
Lay your load on me
Lounge
Lie down
Linger
Lean back
Laze
Loll
I'm L
mntary

submitted for Thursday Think Tank, #62, The Third Letter at Poets United

Waiting for Petrichor

The July heat has burned

the grass to pale, dry straw

It crackles

as we step

scratching our ankles

pricking our toes

Sweat stung eyes squint

at the air

the heat

a palpable presence

stubborn and lazy

Even the dog stays

inside

Too hot

to fight properly

we gnaw on eachother's words

choking on the chalky dust of

resentment

waiting for petrichor.

submitted for Thursday Think Tank, 59 Grass, at Poets United

Unopened

She felt more lonely with him

Than she felt being alone

Love given but not returned

A gift unopened

*This poetic form is called a Dodoitsu. It is a fixed folk song form of Japanese origin, often about love. There are 26 syllables in 4 unrhymed, non-metrical lines containing 7, 7, 7, and 5 syllables each.

submitted for Thursday Think Tank, 57,Loneliness, at Poets United
and In-Form Poet: Dodoitsu at Poetic Bloomings