Category: Poetry

“A Dog’s Life”, an exercise in similes

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A dog’s life, oh I wish.
If I could spend my day
Lounging and lying in the sun,
Gnawing on shoes, bones, and wood,
Carrying stones as if they are puppies
That need the barking of a mother
Oh, dinner prepared for me
Filet Mignon, Strip Steak
And licking the plate clean
Sitting up at night, dedicated,
Watching at the window
For people, wind, and snow.
Waiting at the door for love,
For you to come home when you can.
Summersaulting with joy year round.
Always loved and needed, hugged,
I wish I had a dog’s life,
Its calm and lovely life.

“As One Mad with Wine” a study of similes in poetry

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“As one mad with wine”
The bottle swirls and twists
One after the other
My thoughts disappear
Until my humanity is gone
And I feel nothing, nothing,
Voices come and go,
Loudly they demand attention
Finally I stand and fist raised
I twist and swirl until the view
Goes black.

Following Rules

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Regarding rules Of capital letters
At the beginnIng of each line,
I got yOur message,
about hOw the meaning
of the pOem
is the impOrtant thing.
TraditiOn placed
the largE letters at the
BegInnIng.
My use Of the lovelies
never wAs about the
meaning, bUt was the act
of clinging wIth despair
so that I dOn’t get pulled
off my wall Of security.
See what hAppens when
I
become rAttled?
The cApitals
on the lEft are my nod
to sanity, pUrpose,
Anything else
is just my clUtching the
margins sO I don’t get
pulled intO the insanity
of all thAt follows.

The First Cooking Lesson’s Results

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Slimy, it turned around
my mouth and mocked
my lips as I held them close.
Slimy, salty, spit out and flee,
But I couldn’t. No.
I couldn’t.
The burst of charcoal
as I discovered the portion
of the stew at the bottom of the pot,
The Hell for all who burn on a burner.
The chewing gags and brings my
Napkin up to my face.
No, I can’t open my mouth.
I taste a teaspoon of ginger,
A clove of garlic, beans now liquid
And eggplant liquified and
attempting to rule my taste buds,
but I can not spit it out,
Not this time, liquid slush that
Has been served to me
By the first lesson of cooking
My daughter took.
No, I smiled as the liquid raced past the
tonsils and into the stomach where they
held themselves prisoners
of faulty taste buds.
My stomach doesn’t taste.
Thank goodness.
So the bite is followed by another,
gagging slimy, garlic and beans
meat so overcooked
you could not find the
salt to disguise the mess.
The first lesson on the table,
I feared the next to come.

Saturday’s Bread

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Saturday morning smells woke me,
bread, oh bread with your power to awaken the mind,
to settle the soul that Mother still loved us.
The stairs where untrodden
as my nose gathered me to slip through the air,
to round the corners of a life suddenly at ease.
I floated like a cartoon character
following the scent, the smell, and yearning.

Mother would smile and motion to the crusts
and the world became taste.
Yellow butter melted, fresh bread with pockets of air that were
proof one should never argue with your mother
for the kneading was fine and consistent.
Strawberry jam or was it chokeberry jelly,
sweet and sour, warmed by the bread
as it escaped its jar.

Smooth and gentle, easy on the eyes,
but a feast of smells and memories.
Then the oven opened once more,
cinnamon, brown sugar, sweet bread,
the rolls had arrived and heaven was complete.

(For mum, mutti, mom, oh mother, mama and a courageous woman who could make something from naught.)

Candyfloss Wisdom

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Twirling in a candyfloss stained finger curl,
my three year old daughter
oohed and ahed at the blue sugar mountain
created from a thread.

Holding the bag gently, as if a child,
she took the taste from her finger
with soft child lips,
smiled, closed her dark eyelashes against her cheeks.

Her father indulged her with a second bag,
pink, like her parasol,
but she left it unopened
placing both in her backpack.

Heaven should not be eaten in one day.
That’s what she said,
and the tears ran down my face
for my daughter was wiser than years.

I am Ann

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I am Ann, small daughter of a common man
named for a small Ann of a former fiancee,
While my noble mother looked on at the small bundle
My father had delivered. She smiled and then napped.
My father whispered magic words for my ears,
I was a musician like he was
I was a dreamer and star gazer.
I was his magic, his daughter who loved
Who followed squirrels, flowers, people.

I am also Hiss, I am his mother, his wife, his sister
His niece, his daughter, his granddaughter,
I was the one who filled in for the unnamed
Who had friends but lost them when the sky became blue
When the sun glowed red.
I am Hiss when you look for the world that is hidden
In games and on chess boards.