Category Archives: Poem

Remembering Grandma at Christmas

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Remembering Grandma at Christmas

The years have chosen to abrade
the paper angel Grandma made
that year when Christmas cheer was thin,
because for weeks we were snowed in.
Even Santa ceased his action
for his reindeer had no traction.

Weeks of snow and sleet and fog
even kept the catalogue
from providing a Christmas doll
when Santa couldn’t come at all.
And so the holidays that year
did not reflect our usual cheer.

No tree, no lights, no heavenly choir,
our only heat a roaring fire.
We kids complained to Mom and Dad
and by Christmas Eve, they’d had
as much of kids as they could stand
and that’s when Grandma took a hand.

Her silver scissors nipped and flew
creating something that was new—
a Christmas angel feathery light
that floated that December night
above our heads in fire glow,
hung by a string, rotating slow

around the room with wafting wings
descending from above on strings.
And from the dark a heavenly song
prompted us to sing along.
My Grandma led, with timorous voice
that song that always was her choice:

“Silent night, holy night!
All is calm, and all is bright.
Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child.
Holy infant so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Sleep in heavenly peace.”

One by one, we entered in,
our voices first halting and thin,
but when my Grandma chimed a bell,
our family choir began to swell
up to the ceiling, throughout the room,
dispelling darkness, cold and gloom.

Mom made cocoa on the coals
while Dad made popcorn, filling bowls
we strung on thread to deck our halls
from curtain rods to lamps to walls,
along with paper snowflakes that
twirled on their strings to tease the cat.

In the firelight’s magic glow,
they made things magical and so
every normal Christmas since,
we love our turkey and pies of mince,
Christmas presents to poke and squeeze,
bubble lights and towering trees,

but what’s most special is when Pop
puts Grandma’s angel on the top
of the tree covered in flakes
and popcorn strings the family makes.
And when we sing her special song,
if angels sing, she’ll sing along.

Prompt words today are angel, lover, abrade, traction.

Drone Study

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Drone Study

When it comes to a crunch, you’ll find he’s not there,
for he’s sleekit and stealthy and silent as air.
Indignation won’t faze him. If you say he’s to blame,
he’ll suggest you mature and get back in the game.

He won’t give you a hand when you’re down on your luck.
He’ll just say you lack courage, endurance and pluck.
If you peel back his surface, there’s not a next layer.
All out for himself, he’s not a team player.

When it comes to friendship, he hasn’t a clue.
He’ll ask for a favor, but will he help you?
It’s not likely for when it is time to repay you,
you’ll usually find he was just out to play you.

So get rid of this fellow—this slick opportunist.
It’s best if done quickly, in fact at the soonest.
How to get shed of this ultimate jerk?
Just produce a shovel and ask him to work.

Prompt words today are sleekit, silence, crunch, indignant and mature. Image by Sammy Williams on Unsplash.

An Objective Perspective

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An Objective Perspective

Bosses who choose to use invective
might not be half so effective
as those who ask for the perspective
of other folks in their collective,
making decisions more elective.

 

Here are five word prompts Forgottenman gave me. That Turkey!!! Anyone want to play along?
The words are: invective, effective,  elective, perspective and collective. Image by Julien on Unsplash.

Sadje also chose to accept the challenge HERE is her poem.

The Arts: Wordle 531

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Click on photos to enlarge views.

The Arts

Do stories flutter round your head and brush your ears with wings?
Do words sift down like embers and ignite sparks in things?
Do crystal visions in your eyelids scare away the blues?
Do new rhythms lift your spirits and install taps on your shoes?
Do staffs of music fall like rain to shift your mode of thinking?
Fall like water from the sky until you feel you’re sinking
into overtures of gratitude for what life has been giving:
words  and music, art and dance  that make your life worth living.

 

flutter stories haunt spark lift words wing staff shift water gratitude crystal

 

For  Sunday Whirl Wordle 531

First Date Optimism

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This week, the prompt words were doozies. It might help a bit to explain that the incredibly obscure word “demesne” (which is a piece of land one has sole title to) is pronounced to rhyme with “pain.” I’ll leave it up to you to determine the meaning of “whiffle” and “obfuscate” from the context in which they are used. Not my fault, folks. It was in the prompts!!!!!

First Date Optimism

You exaggerate the matter if you say I’m your demesne.
That untruthful statement is purely most insane.
What started out a whiffle, you’ve made into a gale
by weaving our first date into a fairytale.

But I must take exception to your bending of the truth.
You are not my Boaz and I am not your Ruth.
If you think I’ll marry you after our first date,
As I said in the beginning, I fear you obfuscate!!!

 

Prompt words for the day are obfuscate, except, whiffle, demesne . Image by Priscilla du Preez on Unsplash.

Felling the Tree

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Felling the Tree

Today my eyes teared over
as they bulldozed the tree
in the undeveloped lot next door.

It had to be cut.
A house was being built there and
aside from the trash it dropped,
It blocked the view.

Always the one to get his point across,
“I’ll tell you what,”
the contractor said,
“I’ll dig it up and plant it in your yard.”

But I didn’t want the mess of it, either.
I wanted the tree next door
where I could see it
without  dealing
with the fluff in my pool,
the pods falling off.

That tree was a resting place for  birds
which I said good by to
along with the tree.
Then, while I was at it,
I said good by to my cat
who had drowned in the pool
a week before.

Good by to my husband
who had hoped to see that tree
and the view around it
every day for the rest of his life.

Good by to my mother,
who passed onto me
her love of trees.

Good by
to all loved creatures
recently gone.

The tree was gone in a minute,
along with dry bushes, weeds.
The back hoe scraped the soil over
Coke cans, water bottles,
plastic flowerpots and chips wrappers—
the detritus from houses on each side,
as well as evidence of years of workers
who sat in the shade of the lot for lunch.

For a year or two
of privacy lost, calm shattered,
peace surrendered,
I would get new neighbors,
perhaps a friend.

Clouds of dust billowed
over my newly painted wall.
They’d repaint the wall
and plant new trees,
the builder promised,
as they bulldozed all.

 

For Stream of Conscousness Dec. 11: Tree

The Rising: dVerse Poets Open link, Dec 11, 2021

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The Rising

The clouds flow up the hills like the mist of falls
rising back up to the level they fell from.
I’m making my way down to the hammock in the gazebo.
It’s night, and I toe my way through the grass barefoot,
hoping for no surprises.

Far below, some hombre on a microphone pontificates lakeside.
He could be a circus barker or a kitchen pot salesman
speaking from a booth at a fiesta a mile below.
He seems to be selling something,
but perhaps instead extols the virtues of a bride and groom
or a fifteen-year-old butterfly
emerging from the cocoon of her quiencieñera.

I am deep in the groin of Mexico, swinging under the stars.
Up the hill in my house, the phone chrrrrs insistently
as I retreat from all public noises above and below.
My opening heart  floats  up as I sink deeper under blankets
to watch the clouds rise through moonlight.

I imagine my mother, my husband,
my father, my sister, my friend
and other loves both long and recently departed,
floating in mist above the busy world,
distracted, cushioned by their amazement
at finally rising above voices, gunshots, hospital beds,
screeching brakes, trees, mountains, universes, and their own shells.

How long are they aware of us, the hoi poloi below?
How soon fixed fully on their own rising?

 

For dVerse Poets Open Link

Winter Doldrums

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Winter Doldrums

Crimson is reserved for autumn, December is spartan and white.
Frosty and slippery and frigid. Paled by the icy air’s bite.
Folks could be certified crazy for taking a walk on a day
when thermometers hit below freezing. You can freeze off your butt in that way.

Give me a balmy June morning or a sweltering hot afternoon
with a sunshade to keep me from baking  and sinking away in a swoon.
It’s certainly better than winter with snowshoes and mufflers and chains.
If I’m going to have weather, I’d rather contend with spring rains.

Snow has the gross disadvantage of freezing off parts of your nose.
It means going out almost fully obscured with every part wrapped up in clothes.
I can put up with sneezing in springtime and all of the parching of summer.
Leaves falling in autumn don’t irk me, but winter is always a bummer!!!!

 

 

Prompts today are crimson, certify, frosty, spartan and reserve.

Christmas Mayhem

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Christmas Mayhem

No holly’s hung, no lights are lit.
The whole kingdom’s in a fit.
The castle’s dark without a tree.
No decorations there to see.
Warn the palace. Call a jury.
We’re indicting them of worry.
What’s the source of their reserve?
What has quenched their Christmas verve?

What has caused the royal court’s
spirit to be out of sorts?
Is it the Prince or Queen or King
that’s robbed them of their royal zing?
One parlor maid revealed the cause
of their neglect of Santa Claus.
Their tree’s not up or decorated
because they’re all addlepated.

Reticent of jingle-jangle,
for their lights are in a tangle.
The queen’s all thumbs, the king has gout
and cannot sort his tree lights out.
The Prince is spoiled so won’t help.
They should dethrone that royal whelp.
But it’s the truth, there is no doubt
that someone has to sort them out.

Send in a tailor, schooled in string,
to come untangle everything.
Get a lumberjack to see
if he can cut them down a tree.
Hang on candy canes and balls.
Toss on their tinsel, deck their halls,
for royalty undecorated
will for sure be under-rated.

Prompts today are worry, palace, jingle, reticent and reserve. All photos courtesy of Unsplash.

Empty Pockets at Fifty

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Empty Pockets at Fifty

My pockets are turned inside out.
No riches do I have to flout.
This state of my intimidation
is perhaps an apt reflection
of my early hesitation
to obtain an education.
Perhaps if I had done my math,
I’d have pursued a richer path!

Prompt words today are pocket, intimidate, hesitation, spoil and reflection.