Afar
Twinkle twinkle little star
I can’t approach you with a car.
A train can’t reach you, nor a plane.
To walk up to you is inane.
Though I crave your brilliant shine,
I fear you never will be mine.
I’ll be content with lesser things
like fairy lights and diamond rings.
But when I see this earthly bling,
I will not think of anything
except for you, so far above.
Things out of reach prompt longer love.
The prompt word today was “Twinkle.”
Lack of Direction
What am I doing here sitting on the street
looking like a vagrant to everyone I greet?
I know this is the day. I put it in my book.
Also on my laptop. I have another look.
9 a.m. on Saturday. I do not have it wrong.
I drove like a madman. The way it was too long.
My older dog just wouldn’t eat, my alarm didn’t work.
I rushed like crazy to be prompt. Didn’t want to be a jerk.
Yet when I got here on the dot, the salon was shut tight.
I sat down on the steps to contemplate my plight.
It’s been awhile since I have had a haircut here.
A month or two, or perhaps more. Perhaps it’s been a year!
I do not have the number to ask her what is wrong.
But wait! It’s on my laptop that I have brought along.
I prop it on my lap and open up the lid.
I rifle through my purse to find where my phone has hid.
I find my phone list and I dial, hear it ring and ring––
but just my luck my hairdresser must not hear the thing.
I leave a message but I fear I’ve made a big mistake.
Her name’s no longer even on the door, for heaven’s sake!
She hasn’t changed her phone for it worked for the appointment,
but when it comes to keeping it, I fear a disappointment.
Then from the corner of my eye, I see a woman waving.
It see her face and raise myself, slowly, from the paving.
She’s moved her shop across the street and down the block a bit.
And when she peeks outside, she sees the place I chose to sit.
She waves me in and now my hair is washed, conditioned, snipped.
I sit with toenails soaking, soon to be detipped.
So even though a big mistake started out my day,
it seems somehow that once again, good fortune found a way!
(And, best news of all, Edith’s Salon has the best wifi connection! I got this entire blog finished while I was there. The photo depicts what a perfect office spot this turned out to be!)
Jarred and Unjarred
Seeing the world through crystal walls
curving around, protecting me.
Safely alone, I sit observing—
never jarred by what I see.
Infrequently, the lid screws open,
and sweet music streams into me.
Then I reach, sealing it tighter,
content to watch instead of be.
The prompt is to write a poem of exactly 44 words on the subject “Jar”
https://dversepoets.com/2016/08/15/quadrille-13/
jdbphoto
Surfaces
I do not denigrate the surface of things–
that outer shell that holds back all
that might otherwise leak out and fade away:
the snapshots and the clay cup,
the crude paintings on the refrigerator by a naïve hand,
the roses scattered to complete the collage
of a life composed of surfaces:
your hard muscled arms,
the curve of the brush,
the sharp steel of the edge that cut
you out and then back into my life
in silhouettes that, lacking one dimension,
revealed so much more.
Surface meaning is an oxymoron.
Surfaces are never the meanings themselves;
but instead, like a cup, they hold our lives.
Without surfaces the world would be but an idea,
and perhaps not even that.
Who knows but that ideas themselves are surfaces,
clinging to protons and neutrons and quarks.
She is only on the surface?? Impossible—
perhaps just unable to convey what lies beneath,
for every surface of the world lies deep as well.
The leaves have a deeper significance,
as does the sonata and the sonnet.
It is when we do not look beneath the surface
that we fail to see what is connected beneath.
Always, always, a surface is an ocean you can swim in.
It is outer space and inner space.
Geometry tells us that a surface
has only two dimensions, like a square,
yet boxes are comprised of squares.
Everything in our world is more complex
than some would make it out to be,
and surfaces are both doors
and invitations asking us to enter.
Please join me at open link night to post a poem, read some poems or do both at: https://dversepoets.com/2016/08/11/open-link-night-177/
Heading for the Door
When someone starts to get abusive,
that’s when I become elusive.
(Camp day, folks, so that’s all she wrote!!!)
Disclaimer: Naughty word implied in this poem. Do not read if easily offended.
Retired
Mr. Clock, Mr. Clock,
though your advances I try to block,
my attempts you seem to mock
with your continuous tic tic toc,
echoed by my neighbor’s cock
crowing from his noisome flock.
No longer cheerleaders or jocks,
nor femmes fatale with flowing locks,
in Birkenstocks, flip flops or Crocs,
(worn in the winter complete with socks)
we huddle safe behind our locks,
afraid of terrorists with glocks
or neighbors’ children tossing rocks.
We hear your phone calls and your knocks,
we know you gather in your flocks,
your PTAs and your ad hocs,
while each of us sits in our box
as stubborn as a mule or ox,
busy in our painters’ smocks
or cooking spinach in our woks.
Our homes all sealed up like Ft. Knox,
we have no need of the world’s shocks,
its pestilence and chicken pox.
We have our pensions and our stocks,
our Lean Cuisines in our ice box.
We shun your CNN or Fox!!!
Our TV sets set to the past
neglect to show the latest blast
as all the world seems set to cast
Armageddon, coming fast.
So as you watch the latest drone
on your notebook or your phone,
as you predict and hate and moan,
please leave us the f— alone!
jdb photo
Carefree in My Labors
I’m not so good at carefree, don’t know how to be gay.
When others loll out on the grass, I’m always cutting hay.
While other people spend the day on some fun and dumb thing,
something whispers in my ear I should be doing something!
When the alarm bell signals, my day’s labors start:
feeding dogs, then writing, sorting, filing, making art.
Even when at leisure, my mind is always working.
If I’m not doing something, I feel that I am shirking.
It’s one thing when you’re with someone and sharing repartee,
or watching interactions you encounter day-by-day.
It’s another to rethink all that has been done or said––
to mix them with the other things you have in your head.
If I put them all together, they make a lovely story––
sometimes love and romance and sometimes sad and gory.
And that is what I think about even in my bed.
I guess my retirement will be when I am dead.
Thumbscrews
At what point might your courage fall
and might you deign to tell it all?
What waterboard or thumbscrew might
cause you to give up the fight
to tell the secrets of friend and kin
just to stop the pain you’re in?
Please friend, before revealing facts
involving secrecy or pacts,
consider what I tell you here
before you choose to grace my ear.
Never would I tell your pain—
repeat your secrets e’er again—
under normal circumstance,
nor betray by eye or glance
anything once told to me
with a vow of privacy.
Until, that is, the knives come out
or waterboards? Without a doubt
gross cowardice would be revealed.
To torture I would surely yield.
In short, in matters of gross pain––
I would repeat your words again.
So if you have a secret dark
that you have a need to park
inside the conscience of another,
please tell your sister or your brother,
for a wise decision it would be
to choose a braver soul than me!
Nocturn
With half a life lived in the dark,
an owl’s hoot, an answering bark,
the moon across the water scattered,
ragged clouds, wispy and battered––
I float in night and solitude,
the night determining my mood.
I lie in darkness and I brood,
a momentary interlude.
When sunlight comes in fits and starts,
The day brings out my other parts.
They rise in me from dawn to noon,
dispelling powers of the moon.
Thus balanced between dark and light,
each half consumes its daily bite.
I welcome each within its time
Life varied, balanced and sublime.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/darkness/
