Dear Grandpa,
Are you aware that you can still get social security income if you act now?
Did you know that Capital One and Visa want to give you credit cards?
Magazines offering tractor and farm equipment deals, building up on my table.
There's an old farm hat in the barn on a pitchfork handle, waiting for its owner.
Orchards are overgrowing, the trees with their sprouts and limbs busting.
Fields in the hands of new owners, being cultivated, some by your sons.
Your "closest friends" all showing up at my door to ask if you're around.
Your "closest friends" showing up at my door, asking for hay, or to hunt.
The sheds and barns all in need of repair, the roofs are in need of replacing.
With fences to mend, equipment to fix, this farm never ceases its needing.
There are tools rusting in longing of use. Cupboards and shelves full of oil.
You've been gone for twenty long years, seems like no one else knows it.
But never let it be said that those who truly were close, forgot what we lost.
Your family still misses you dearly... I just thought that you should know it.
Your grandson,
Jesse.
Copyright © Jesse Zerlaut | Year Posted 2016
She was a beautiful woman…his friend…her heart…simple and pure
She totally believed in miracles…he…was not so sure.
As her end of life approached…as she stood upon deaths door
she spoke to him of miracles…as she never had before.
She said she couldn’t wait to see heaven…she wondered about the crowds
She wondered how easy it would be…to find her place among the clouds.
Knowing he was a skeptic…she took his hand one day
And said, when I get to heaven…I will find a way…
to help you believe in miracles…with angel wings I will take flight
I’ll get a message to you…I’ll show you everything’s all right.
He listened to her, held her hand and smiled while trying not to cry
as she spoke to him of miracles…until the day they said goodbye.
It was a few days later on a morning walk…still feeling bittersweet
when a feather floated from sky and landed at his feet.
A pure white feather which he picked up then turned his eyes up to the sky…
wondering if it had fallen off an egret flying by…
or could this be from an angel’s wing…as from heaven she took flight…
announcing to him she had made it…that everything IS all right….
And he smiled at her heavenly message…which was both sublime and sweet
that miracles can be as simple as a feather at his feet.
Copyright © Jim Yerman | Year Posted 2018
“Alf it’s dinner time!” cried mum as she finished off the cooking.
“Where is that naughty boy?” she moaned, “I’d better go a-looking”
She looked across the lawn and he was nowhere to be seen.
He was hiding, lying in the grass because he is bright green.
Alf chuckled to himself because he never would be found,
But up crept mum and tapped his bum as he lay upon the ground.
“You didn’t see me coming!” said Alf’s mummy with a grin.
“I’m green too, you silly boy! Now come on, let’s go in.”
Copyright © john wilmore | Year Posted 2019
The days go by, each hour and each minute,
Sometimes I neglect to say certain things, but you know that I mean it.
In light of this special occasion, I wanted to share a thought with you.
So often I pass you by with only a gentle tug or two.
Even without words, you know my feelings,
Today is one day that has special meaning.
I want to tell you that one thing you hardly ever hear,
With passion from me to you, my dear.
A whisper in the darkness and you look to see who.
I want to say "THANK YOU" for all that you do.
Copyright © Donald Williams | Year Posted 2013
Pray tell, to whom do I owe this life of mine?
Mother—always an Angel divine,
Wife—for four decades, a Saint,
Daughters—love unfeigned.
Life’s Good, so
Paint
with a glow
Foregoing restraint
Splash your years—without constraint
Be happy—make laughter a lifeline
Pray tell, to whom do I owe this life of mine?
November 22, 2018
Copyright © Michael Wegman | Year Posted 2018
grant is granted of love
grant is granted of science
love is downgraded to love
love is downgraded to science
grant is granted to a downgrade of love
grant is granted to a downgrade of science
science is science's downgrade of love
vision is vision's granted of love
vision is vision's granted of science
vision is a granted vision
vision is a granted science
science is science' s vision of love
science is science's vision of science
love is a vision of science
downgrade is downgraded to science
downgrade is downgraded to love
love is love's science of love
love is granted as love
science is a love of science
love is granted as science
love downgrade love to science
Copyright © lucifer very very very 1st | Year Posted 2017
Orchard Fantasy
Of the naked earth and sky,
Ripened nature's in our eyes.
Grown are we in pure bred soil,
Adding fertilizer and more toil.
Naturally you see we're free.
In us there are no chemicals,
Clinging to life’s miracle.
Frost and flood may be our fear,
Rain from acid atmosphere.
Underneath the ground we're roots.
In due time we show our shoots.
Tree lined rows in paths we run,
Silly fruits, just having fun.
8/15/16
ORCHARD FANTASY - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Julia Ward
Copyright © Janis Thompson | Year Posted 2016
DESERVE
Deserve- that in which we use to critique our life's ways
a way to hold back our existence
to project a negative
and cease the positive intake
Deserve - the breath we don't take
as life is critical and cruel
A risk we avoid
A praise we reject
A life unlived by definition of the term
Deserve - the animosity within that deprives us of beauty
a vast cavernous region of self loathing
unfathomable entities that we must surpass to succeed
striving for more - better
Deserve - enraptures a lustful desire to withdraw and hide
shades of veils, impenetrable walls of denial
vulnerabilities and nakedness
the exposure of truth - internalised
we hide - we die
Deserve - you deserve all that you have
you deserve the power from recognition
and you deserve forgiveness
forgiveness of self, of others; which cannot be attained
but self as best it can
Deserve - Deserve - Deserve
Angered by such a dismissal I am
so wondrous in 'sup-prose'
you ...
your inner musings,
your lexical landscape
your shy confidence
self depreciating
You DESERVE more
Deserve - embrace, reclaim, rejoice
recognise the wealth my versifying friend
the promise in the scroll of a pen
the battle within let it bleed across the page
and cleanse with deliberate introspection
stand tall...
for my friend - you DESERVE it all
Copyright © Lifes' Tapestry | Year Posted 2018
Exclusively dead,
Inclusively acculturated.
Expanded populations,
Deafeningly silent
in
alcoholic hazes
and destructive rages.
Copyright © Kim Stone | Year Posted 2022
BREASTS
Growing
Attention holding
A mans kiss
I, the mans wishes
As I do the dishes
Copyright © Aurore Severo | Year Posted 2015
I climb a rainbow in my mind
Where colors spread so true
Happiness arrives as I find
Golden qualities in you
Shining across the sky
Shining upon everything below
I don’t have to ask why
I followed this rainbow
I learn new special things
With every color I see
Shared by a pair of wings
Flying, effortlessly
Through a fountain of misty rain
It is refreshing to see and feel
The colors, rain and sun
Blended together, so surreal
Heidi Sands
10/6/17
Copyright © Heidi Sands | Year Posted 2017
It started with the castanets.
The fiddler chimed right in.
He played the sweetest melody.
The fiddle by his chin.
Suddenly, her face appeared.
Through mist, between the trees.
The crowd stood silently because.
The dancer came to please.
Her long, dark hair was wild and free.
With eyes exquisite, green.
Her body was beyond compare.
So tanned and svelte and lean.
She leaped around the roaring fire.
Her graceful movements slow.
The firelight was in her eyes.
The green was all aglow.
The yellow flames licked at her feet.
She teased them with her dance.
And with the shimmer of her veils.
The group was in a trance.
The people swayed from side to side.
Hypnotically, they fell.
A hazy look was in their eyes.
Caught in the dancer’s spell.
They swooned together with the beat.
Their motion was as one.
And they would only be released.
The time the dance was done.
Soon the fiddler slowed his beat.
The dancer’s steps complied.
Each movement taken gingerly.
She let the fiddle guide.
Then she pranced into the woods.
The music led the way.
Until the time she would return.
To dance another day.
Copyright © Samia Ali Salama | Year Posted 2012
COOKING WITH JIM
actually, with him in spirit, in the kitchen
of his quaint brownstone on West 12th Street
in Manhattan, decades after his death.
And quite at home with him, I chop and slice;
bake, twice-baked potatoes — their skins crisping
to perfection; roast, the prime tenderloin of beef
he’d earlier instructed me to hand-rub with
coarsely ground black pepper and kosher salt.
(I used sea salt and that was ok with him.)
Right now, he’s reminding me to stir my roux,
then I should add the crisp bacon bits, made earlier,
to the finely chopped spinach I just finished sautéing.
He says I should wait till the last minute
to toss the mélange of local field greens with
the lemongrette he had me make in lieu of
vinaigrette, because, it seems that vinegar
often spoils the taste of wine. As for the wines
with dinner: for the salad, I’m chilling
a 2011 Seyval Blanc from New York State;
with the beef dish, a 10-year-old California
Zinfandel; this followed by a 2010 Pinot Noir
from Oregon, paired with artisanal cheeses
from Vermont and Connecticut, plus
crisp sourdough rolls and flatbread;
and, in the frig, chilling, a late-harvest, Long Island
Riesling to complement the secret confection hidden
away on a silver tray till dessert-time.
According to Jim, red wine should be served at
room temperature, and since older reds have a layer
of sediment in the bottle, he said the Zin will need
to be decanted, and that, right before serving;
he wants the Pinot to breathe 15 minutes, or so,
in the glass before being drunk.
(The aeration of younger reds will rid those wines of
their chalky tasting tannins.) All this for my guests
who’ll soon be sitting round my dining table akin to
Jim’s 60 inch round green marble slab of a tabletop,
where, before the first bite of the Jim-inspired,
5-star meal, I’ll raise my glass to the big bald guy —
James Beard, “The Father of American Cuisine.”
Copyright © Ruth Sabath Rosenthal | Year Posted 2014
Beautiful red rose
Enticing the eyes to hold
Long stem, full of thorns
By eve roper 10/26/2014
Contest: ROSES ROSES ROSES
Sponsor: Mystic Rose
Copyright © Eve Roper | Year Posted 2014
quiet silence
the continuation
of smothered thoughts
gaging howling winds
beyond an understanding
spoken in braille
ignoring order
colors forming to the right
Dorian Gray
a corrupted mind
kills with passionate pleasure
what virtue remains
quiet silence
the continuation
death resides below
await the reaper
dark—black chilling specter
ghoul in residence
awake—blood freezes
nightmares for the young and old
dawn draws the bright sun
tomorrow we will
paint another painting
less the color red
Copyright © Estanislao Rodriguez-Cuevas | Year Posted 2018
The first day of April 2020
and, I’m waiting for someone
anyone
to leap out and shout
“April fool!”
Somehow, though
I already know
that just isn’t going to be
it definitely is April fool’s day, but
for sure this viral pandemic is no joke.
Copyright © Judy Reeves | Year Posted 2022