|
Details |
Mary Rotman Poem
Randomling 1: Matthew Macfadyen
I believe I'm in love with Matthew Macfadyen
He inspires in me a terribly bad yen
But as poetry goes
His name 'spires woes
Cause nothing rhymes with "Macfadyen”.
Randomling 2: Birthday Wishes
For my birthday, I would like a man.
I wonder---can you get one from a can?
Or maybe from a catalog?
Maybe I'll just get a dog.
Randomling 3: Yet Another Cat Poem
Cats:
toddlers in fur
senior citizens with retractable claws
lions in their own minds
lunch in the minds of dogs.
Randomling 4: Desert Woes
A sage river in a field of sand:
so flows hope in a barren land;
the crippled heart in prosthetic steel,
hacked and scarred, a vulture’s meal.
Randomling 5: Dark Poetry
Follow poetry to its source;
There find heartbreak and remorse.
Follow poetry to the bitter end,
And there find death, its bosom friend.
Randomling 6: Ode to Bananas
Bananas
an unappreciated fruit
sentenced to banananality
because yellow is their long suit
Randomling 7: Untitled
Sorry,
this heart is closed to deposits.
There's no more room for pain.
Randomling 8: Untitled
My heart is sealed in a cold steel vault,
and I’ve lost the combination.
Randomling 9: Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see
A man as useful as a tree.
One has uses by the score;
The other one is apt to snore.
Randomling 10: Bedtime Prayers
Now I lay me down to sleep,
A leaden heart is mine to keep.
If I should die before I wake--
Now there’s an offer I’d gladly take.
Randomling 11: The Devil Wind
Tornadoes
Fury with a smoky tail
Eddies of destruction
Deceitful beauty, enchanting danger
Death sporting a makeover
____________________________________________________________________________________
DON'T READ #12 IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR ME TALK TO MY SON ABOUT CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE BIRDS AND BEES_________________________
Randomling 12: A Boy's Best Friend
"Your —it is not a toy,"
I told my little son.
" O yes it is," he parried me.
"It's quite my favorite one."
Randomling 13: Fault Lines
I have a bathroom mirror
that's grown faulty over time.
My reflection is no longer true;
it's developed little lines!
Randomling 14: Shakespeare 101
“To be or not to be. That is the question.”
--What question?
THE question!
--Whaddya mean, THE question?
Never mind.
Randomling 15: Christmas?
Peace on earth to men of good credit
Who give the gift of corporate profit
in the holy name of commercialism.
Randomling 16: Musical Believer
Though my conscience sleeps,
wrapped in the Valium of
agnosticism, it awakens to
the music of Mozart--
once more knowing God
by the sound of His voice.
Randomling 17: Vacuum
I didn't write a poem when you died.
The words would not come.
Perhaps I felt too deeply,
perhaps not enough;
or
maybe I died too. 10/06/01
Randomling 18: Insanity
Insanity is underrated
Its drawbacks,much overstated.
How else to do what you darn well please
And accomplish it with so much ease?
Randomling 19: Dog Day Afternoon
WATER! BALL! CHASE!
salt, waves, undertow?
I don't know what's going
on here, but I'm HAPPY!
Randomling 20: Opposites Attract
i am matter---love, antimatter
never to meet save to explode
i am space, love is time
parallel dimensions never to meet
Randomling 21: Puppy Love
I ride a leaky newspaper raft
Adrift on the linoleum
Anxiously awaiting an
An attack of smelly
squirming happiness
covered in fuzz:
Puppy love.
Randomling 22: Newton's Poultice
Apple falls from tree
Newton (ouch!) takes notice
Comes up with law of gravity
while wearing a poultice
on the solstice
Randomling 23: Ticking
And the clock on the wall kept on ticking
while my life fell apart all around me.
Sweet memories faded to shadow
as my heart fell to pieces inside me.
And the clock on the wall kept on ticking
Relentlessly ticking, ticking
While my life fell apart all around me.
Randomling 24: Untitled
eternity
a mosaic assembled from
shimmering, glimmering
tiles of delight and
black-glazed stones of despair
interlocking snowflakes
in seamless beauty
Randomling 25: Seasonal Lament
Daylight shrinks
end at both end
as summer falls into the
arm of winter. arm
Randomling 26: Untitled
I didn't want
to love you.
Randomling 27: Pills
Depression is days and nights curled fetal-like
in a dark room, no interest in the world outside,
idly wondering if there are enough
pills in the bottle to kill you,
then thinking it's not worth the effort
to find out because you're dead inside already.
Randomling 28: Guilt By Association
Fresh morning light frames
the cat, surrounded by piles of
dirt and deceased plants,
looking innocent.
Randomling 29: Bell the Cat
How do you give a cat a bath?
Maybe you can do the math.
All I know is she stinks to heaven,
And of us, there are only seven.
How many humans to bathe a cat?
Definitely more than where we're at!
Randomling 30: Muse
I want to write a poem
using the word gossamer.
“Gossamer.”
Randomling 31: Ripples
Canoes rock gently
under the waxing moon.
Black water ripples,
painting a beautiful scene
under the scented pines.
Randomling 32: Sunshine Waterfall
I cleanse my face in a sunshine waterfall,
luxuriate in a sunshine shower.
Waterfall flow and warm me;
sprinkle lemon drops through my hair.
Randomling 33: Salon Treatment
Hurricanes scour everything
they touch, then rinse and blow
dry.
Randomling 34: My Window
Blue sky pokes its face
through the canopy of trees.
Heat wave is over!
Randomling 35: Coeur d'Alene
Coeur d'Alene, Heart of the Awl,
gem of the north,
you tamed my hatred of this desert state
and gave me sunlight sparkling on
blue lakes under scented pines.
Copyright © Mary Rotman | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Mary Rotman Poem
Robin Hood, man in tights
Julius Caesar, might makes right
Alexander, called "the Great"
Sitting Bull, righteous hate
Robert the Bruce, Attila the Hun
Charlemagne, Napoleon
Hear the call of the alpha male!
Warriors leave a bloody trail.
George Washington, man on the spot
JFK and Camelot
Thomas Jefferson, renaissance man
Abe Lincoln took a stand
Ronald Reagan, Richard III
Henry VIII, Harry Byrd
Hear the call of the alpha male!
In politics it's all for sale.
Hemingway, Shakespeare, Kant, and Plato
Chaucer, Shelley, Cicero, Cato
Voltaire, Dickens, Rene Descartes
Byron, Lawrence, Jean-Paul Sartre
Hear the call of the alpha male!
Some prefer to write the tale.
Wolfgang Mozart, dead so young
Leonard Bernstein's song is sung
Picasso, art you love to hate
Ludwig Beethoven, voice of Fate
Bach, Lennon, and Shostakovich
Monet, Manet, Buddy Rich
Hear the call of the alpha male!
Art and music fill some sails.
Joe Montana, football star
Michael Jordan raised the bar
Wayne Gretzsky, Hall of Fame
Jesse Owens changed the game
Rockne, Ruth, Gehrig, Orr
Chamberlain, Beckham, Man O' War
Hear the call of the alpha male!
Athletic prowess up for sale.
Tyrone Power, Harrison Ford
John Glenn, Sir Thomas More
Edmund Hillary, John Donne
Albert Einstein, Brigham Young
James Dean, Alvin York
Margaret Thatcher, Robert Bork
Audie Murphy, Mohandas Gandhi
Chris Columbus, Walter Ralegh
Hear the call of the alpha male!
Now it's time to end this tale.
Woe to she who hears his cry,
Destined, like as not, to die;
For alpha males blaze bright and sweet,
But she-moths burn inside their heat.
Copyright © Mary Rotman | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Mary Rotman Poem
Scatter my ashes at Pemaquid Point,
Let the wind sail them home to the sea.
Cradle of life, be my cradle in death,
And set my spirit free.
Sun will warm the daylight hours;
The lighthouse illume the night;
Waves provide rhythm and gulls give voice---
Music to ease my flight.
Eternal rocks will form my tomb,
Sand my quilt shall be,
Protecting from shipwreck and raging storms,
And I’ll become one with the sea.
Copyright © Mary Rotman | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Mary Rotman Poem
Slate sky
streaked with a painter's acid dream
caresses the mountains, bleeding on their peaks.
Cloud curtains
lower, then rise, on an ever-changing
psychedelic happening,
but
fracturing fingers
of darkness pierce the canvas,
draining the colors,
drawing the curtains closed.
07/2015
Copyright © Mary Rotman | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Mary Rotman Poem
You should know that I've
reinforced the bunker
I built around my heart
until it can withstand a
direct hit
ground zero
head-on collision
from a YOU-bomb.
I've shielded it to withstand
the worst Emotional Mutilation Potential
you can generate
and to protect me from
the flash burns of passion,
Not to mention that I've lined it with lead
to save me from the fallout
of your so-called love.
So-
hit me with your worst.
My bunker--and I-- are ready.
Copyright © Mary Rotman | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Mary Rotman Poem
Lessons Well Learned
(from The John Poems)
You taught me what love is
then took it away.
You became my sunlight
then banished the day.
You awakened my body
to love of a man
Then condemned me to live
without the touch of your hand.
You brought life to my heart
and opened my soul;
You nourished my mind
and made me feel whole.
But now thanks to you,
I've also learned pain.
I know now that loneliness
Can drive you insane.
I've learned of betrayal,
loneliness, mistrust---
And I know understand
the myth that was us.
Copyright © Mary Rotman | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Mary Rotman Poem
The bed offers cold
where you used to lie
a chill that lingers
when dawn paints the sky.
Your abandoned chair
across from mine
is a constant reproach
and an unwelcome sign
of a love that died.
On outings with friends
I feel their pity
though I wear my best mask
and try to be witty.
The places I visit
are different and yet
something always reminds me
won’t let me forget
the love that died.
Time has its way with all wounds
I've discovered
granting healing to some
letting Death cure the others.
And with every new wound
the scar tissue spreads,
fibrous and nerveless,
‘til sensation is dead.
And it’s hard to say
if I fear this or not
maybe this ether
is what I have sought
all along.
Copyright © Mary Rotman | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Mary Rotman Poem
A fledgling crow huddled in
the grass beneath the drooling
gazes of my curious dogs.
Its eyes were blue.
And in the tree, its mother screamed
In my hands it lay, gently confused.
Too young to fear me,
it opened its thirsty beak and greedily
swallowed water from a syringe.
And outside the window, its mother screamed.
I scratched its head,
stroked its breast,
and boxed it for its journey
to a haven for homeless birds.
And, as I carried it to the car,
its mother circled overhead.
And screamed.
Copyright © Mary Rotman | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Mary Rotman Poem
(Part 2 of Trilogy for My Father)
We stand on cemetery Astroturf
strategically placed to spare us the dread hole,
snow scaling the tops of our shoes
to compete with the ice in our hearts.
The old priest’s boots peek from beneath
a cassock that dangles below his parka.
He jokes gamely about the weather,
reading prayers for my father, a man he never met,
with shaking hands and chattering teeth.
He is a stranger recruited by the others lest someone
discover the shame of self-inflicted death.
Numb in every way it’s possible to be numb,
we await the blows of a grief that suicide denied us
and summon memories that refuse to respond
while, in their place, we have
Astroturf
and snow.
Copyright © Mary Rotman | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Mary Rotman Poem
prairie lighthouse
desert ship
arid ocean
soothing whip
ugly sunset
healing pain
somber puppy
fiery rain
gentle windstorm
happy wail
righteous sinner
see-through veil
eternal love
random fate
marriage vows
fleeting hate
Copyright © Mary Rotman | Year Posted 2015
|
|