Shut My Mouth

Within every meeting are sown seeds of parting.
Hi echoes goodbye.
Rot follows ivy as  
hobbled humanity (yes, us) flees time
although accidents happen with every eccentric tick
of a clock have hope,
you’ll cry,
but eventually you’ll be happy.

 

Spamagram: Below lurks the bizarre spam message that I anagrammed into the poem above.

“Even though you’re any of the lucky enough choices, it comes evidently, although capture the fancy with the certain coveted by ly folks other valuable you you meet may possibly possibly well have hard times this specific problem. pre owned awnings”

#104

Gas Prices Spike Again…

Ever since I was a child I’ve loved to travel
I love to see new places from the window of a car
or truck, or through the clouds from an airplane.
I even like the view from a crowded Greyhound bus.

So last year my man and I bought a trailer
and then we paid the price and bought a truck
to tour around and maybe to retire in
My timing was my typical bad luck.

Gas prices spiked again, how far can we go?
If we save our pennies we’ll get ten miles down the road.
Gas prices spiked again, how far can we drive?
If we start driving now, in ten minutes we’ll arrive.

#102

Endangered List Update

(imagine the ‘Hinterland Who’s Who’ theme music in the background – Canadian reference, sorry)

I    Independence
Once a common attribute, Independence has suffered from loss of natural habitat due to the encroachment of Convenience. Although a weaker attribute, Convenience has increased its numbers by interbreeding with Independence resulting in a subspecies of Convenience with an insatiable appetite for novelty. Sightings of Independence are rare and population estimates are low and restricted to rural and northern areas. It is generally accepted that unless Independence develops a thicker skin and a more aggressive attitude this attribute may soon move to the extinction list.

II    Privacy
Although every year several sightings of privacy are reported, none have yet been substantiated by the teams of trained observers who converge upon them for verification. Only these sporadic sightings keep Privacy from the extinction list and it is entirely possible that Privacy never really existed at all and should be relegated to the realm of mythology.

III    Initiative
A tenacious characteristic, capable of thriving in the harshest of environments, Initiative has suffered great losses due to pollution. Every day many are snared in loops and coils of red tape. The pathetic sight of dying initiative, red tape tightening around its neck, has sadly become commonplace and although the losses would seem to be preventable, creating regulations to deal with this problem only generate more red tape.

This Endangered List Update has been brought to you by the Frustration Program of the Jaded Expectations Society.

#100

Yes, I know, it’s more prose than poem, but that’s what I wrote this morning so oh well… 🙂

My Mistake

I don’t dwell on my mistakes but they do live quite close by
and we get together often though we don’t see eye to eye.
And I tell them how they should be and they laugh at me and claim
I should go look in the mirror if I want someone to blame.

And they always come to visit at an inconvenient time
my pennance and my poison and my sentence for my crime
of trying something different and stumbling and falling
of trying to discover my vocation, my true calling.

And I’ve tried to move away but they follow me. I guess
they have a built in radar for a forwarding address.
I suppose I’ll have to learn to get along with them some day
They’re my oldest, closest friends and they just won’t go away.

 

#98

Nickel for Your Thoughts?

Budget day has come and gone, the news has turned to olds
but for one staunch Canadian it knelled a cruel death toll.

For many years he suffered from a deficiency of copper.
He alternately was the friend and bane of every shopper,

who, after lugging pounds (or kilos) of them in their pants
empty them on dressers or into piggy banks,

then find that when the register rings something fifty nine
their purse and pockets are bereft, no pennies can they find.

Devout friend to small children living close to railroad tracks,
we passed him off a million times but he always came right back.

Today we bid a fond farewell to our pseudo-copper friend.
The brave Canadian penny has met a cents-less end.

#97

The Single Original Thought

They say “pride goes before a fall”
I say “I don’t agree.
Pride is what makes us excel,
our downfall’s vanity.”

They say “the truth will set you free”
I say “I must demure.
Whose truth are you speaking of?
I assume it must be yours.”

Clouds have silver linings and
it’s darkest before dawn
and early birds all get their worms
and ugly ducks are swans.

We’ve thrown up clichéd fences
of homily and adage
with lies for all occasions
to carry ‘round like baggage.

There are many memorable mottos
that would better be forgot.
For there are no glib pronouncements
worth a single original thought.

 

#96

Spring Ambush

Faint goose honk at edge of hearing,
soft chinook arch crowns the sky.
Wobbly fawn at edge of clearing,
baby coyotes croon and cry.

Redwing blackbird’s liquid chuckle,
rushing water’s roiling ring.
Crow returns with cocky ruckle,
peeper frogs begin to sing.

Pussywillows, silver glowing,
green haze limns the poplar trees.
Hush, child, listen, grass is growing,
Spring is ambushing the Peace.

#93

note: (I live in northern British Columbia, in an area called the Peace. Spring is a trickster here, sometimes you’re not sure if it’s really here until summer!)

Awakening

Some days I think I understand what it must be like
to wake up from a coma,
groping for the past, staring into the mirror
only to see a stranger staring back.

Some days I think I understand what it must be like
to live in a foreign country,
everyone waving hands and talking gibberish
until I speak, and they stare at me, puzzled.

Some days I think I understand what it must be like
to be a sleepwalker,
restless pacer, blind seeker,
doomed to endlessly retrace a pointless journey.

Then your laughter rushes in to fill the gaps,
you smile in a language we both understand, and
the beating of your heart sings me to sleep.

#92

One Bird’s Trash

I found a feather,
bright blue resting lightly on the grass,
a swatch of the sky drifted to earth.
I gathered it up for wonder.

I found a feather,
yellow gold, glowing on the dirt road,
a shard of the sun, a celestial hitchhiker.
This too I gathered.

I found a feather,
iridescent black, lodged in the pansies,
a nail paring of night sky, hiding from the day.
I gathered again.

I wove the feathers into my nest of memory
and never again wondered
why some birds steal tinfoil.

 

#91