A crimson tinted mouth smudges
comrade glasses beneath a buzz of
walking suits. They talk only amongst
themselves, never to her.
Glittering gown masks avian limbs, a
former gazelle turned silent sidekick.
She is hopeless in her new-found role
and recites alphabetic antiphons, reaping
no harvest beside such diseased plantings,
yet brightly standing still, she will.
Decay of the visible is difficult enough but the
assassination of the unseen is a far greater crime.
Amazing transformations are taking place every day and
already, we have lost precious and valuable slivers of
energy that could have been used in an
alternate life. The disintegration of our histories is a
puzzle that we may never be able to solve.
Symbolic objects pass through weathered hands, forever
edited for meaning by time’s ever-changing whims.
Advertisements plastered on your front door (again). An
animal—possibly a cat or a female child—howls from outside; your
bonus for residing in a drab and dilapidated district.
Conifer trees lined up in rows like luckless soldiers wait for collection. Which
gene programmed you for this existence? In the
inglenook a solitary Christmas card is taped to the wall…a
shot of humanity from an old high school friend.
Spaghetti for dinner (again).
Oh, never drink to garnish joy
for joy’s enough,
but sorrow’s glass may be employed
when seas get rough.
bare feet
bypass blood thread,
lest Priam’s posy meet
such bellicose blade that would spread
her head!
Zooming over armies of ants
with snacks on their backs,
touches of lunch lurch within
bursting bellies.
Freedoms found in the leisurely
revolutions of childhood’s first
and favorite escape are dreamt
of even after smooth cheeks have
turned with time.
Strawberry sugar stragglers fall
freely onto burnt bug bitten legs.
Chains of children with hamburger
hands grasp wildly for outstretched
French fry fingers, dripping limbs
without faces act as summertime
saviors.
Vivid veins flash fiercely against sooty
sky. Rich rumbles from above make
mothers mouths move impish Its and
Not Its on to protecting porches as
scents of soil rise from rose rings.
An august owl, silent as sycamore, perched
on lofty marble throne just might, if not napping,
catch creatures of carelessness with its divine
hatchlings. Protected by tripart shields, they
detect everything which moves under moonshine.
But, Maude saw nothing behind the light–bright
sun out of synch–on that secret sleeping
road. Whether man or monster came her way,
she could not say.
Between the wind and my skin lies
freedom, invisible to human eyes
but heavy on hearts.
Place me not in crow casket, shorn of flight
or of sight, for the wind is my sister and
tonight we MUST fight.
There once was a cowherd from Daegu,
who liked reams of red meat in his stew.
Said his wife one warm eve
as she darned his ripped sleeve,
“tonight’s feast ran off, mooing ‘screw you!’”
—————————–
This is an older poem of mine that I came across today. My husband and I lived in Daegu, South Korea from 2012 to 2015. Daegu is pronounced “tay-goo”. The original didn’t include the anapest that is desired for the limerick form, so I am slowly working on putting it in there. This version still needs some work.
Deep in our burning bowl,
colorless carp writhe along
river veins, concealed under
hydrangea tears. In the
coming days, good citizens,
carved from ivory and
emerald, will be driven beneath
browning branches and into cool
corners with strawberry-butterscotch
stars swimming in their eyes. Those
who endure shall frolic in
chrysanthemum’s shadow.
sundry folly 