Best Lifestyles Poems
Today someone praised a poem I wrote
It is about considering the disenfranchised
at this supposedly jolly time of year
Why, she said, just think about all in need,
why not spend Christmas with them, she asked
Amazingly enough, that is just what I do,
For you see I am one of the poor and disabled
whose SSD checks just do not stretch to month's end
All who live in my building experience much the same,
depending on food boxes and the generosity of others
We come in all types and sorts, full of warts and woes
Mental illness has felled a number of us terribly
They closed the hospitals and mental facilities
Just can't afford them, government says, so out
they were tossed roam the streets, incapable and lost
Poor choices plagued many tender, women who loved,
or thought they did, men who beat and burned them,
took their money and left them ill and unable to fight
Years of abuse, wisdom awakened, years more to heal
to even a bare minimum of capability to survive
So, dear tender lady, with heart of gold, trust when I say
I live with the broken and poor and lonely each day
Pretty pink plumage, Roseate Spoonbills delightfully spooning.
Majestic Osprey…hatchlings chirping in the nest,
Fishes flip in parents’ talons, fast food, flying free.
Homestead refurbishment, the parents never rest.
Incubation has become a pleasant memory,
Perched on a pinnacle, proud parents, near the sea.
The Great White Egrets,
Leisurely walking, talking.
Reminiscing. No regrets.
Wading warm waters.
Fear for future hatchlings’ cry.
Diminishing, wetlands die.
Purple Gallinule’s graceful gliding.
Survives gators; quickly hiding!
© May 9, 2011
Dane Smith-Johnsen
Written for Poetry Soup Member Contest: For (Four) Beautiful Birds
Sponsored by: ~ Constance La France ~ ~ A Rambling Poet ~ ~
It’s hard to quantify experiences, but to coin someone else's
original phrase, ‘you know it when you feel it.’
Now that I’m living in Paris, at my Grandmère’s 76-room ‘hôtel particulier,’ I find myself on the itchy edge of wealth, influence and power and while I don’t consider myself necessarily of that class, I’m certainly exposed to attempts to drag me into it.
Many afternoons, as I come home wearied by classes and braced for hours of study, there are these silver trays with little white, gold embossed envelopes (invitations), casually placed where they’re unavoidable, and it’s not unusual to find that one of the CMs has laid out a dress for me and a suit for Peter - though we seldom attend these events.
I find myself vociferously defending my schedule (for the thousandth time) - and I’ve only been in school three weeks: “Grandmère, I’m in med-school, I have homework.”
Let’s wax freeversely of the upper-class (as if I belonged)..
In elegant but confined houses
where lives unfold in drawing rooms
and the inhabitants are sharp and snobbish.
They struggle against social and erotic constraints -
frustrations essential to the drama and pathos of wealth.
Let the rabble be messily heterogeneous
and agenda-set “inclusivity.” It’s nothing to us.
It hardly foregrounds harmony or authenticity.
Civilized people are more reticent and buttoned-up.
it’s sexier and more romantic, to drive toward marriage,
where lovers work to deserve each other,
and individuals integrate into couples.
Failing this urbane integration, love degenerates
into solipsist libertinism and eventually, these
sad outcasts catch their deaths - apart and alone.
.
.
Songs for this:
Am I the Same Girl? by Swing Out Sister
It Hasn't Happened Yet by William Shatner
.
.
hôtel particulier = a grand urban townhouse (mansion) in Paris or other city.
76-rooms - 37 of those are bathrooms - do those count as rooms?
CM = chambermaid (I think Grandmère employs 12 domestic servants).
When traveling, the lives I see
Are different from my own,
The choices made unlike the ones
That I have ever known.
It's really not a question of
What's better or what's worse,
Though if you questioned others,
They might answer the reverse.
To me, I think our journeys,
Whether minuscule or long,
Encourage us to gravitate
To where we best belong.
So when I'm someplace else I note
The lovely things I see,
But know the lifestyle that I chose
Works perfectly for me.
I saw a groundhog waddle out
From underneath the shed.
I guess that is the place he’s chosen
Where to lay his head.
I’m not too thrilled that he is there,
Though he won’t bother me.
When we are in the country,
That’s the way that things might be.
One year we had a mama fox
With kits who romped and played.
As entertaining as they were,
Of them I was afraid.
Still, these are things I do not see
When in my New York space.
I’m glad there are two lifestyles
That I’m able to embrace.