Best Ninety Seven Poems

Twas winter ninety-seven, all around the town
Houses lit up magically, parties all around.
Boyfriend says, come with me, to works Christmas dinner,
Dress up chic and sexy, looking like a winner.

Hair all done up, makeup on, gown that fits just right
We’ll impress his colleagues, I was such...

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Denial is a can of peas
whose contents
should never be indulged
beyond the expiration date.
Yet there I stood, 
evidence screaming reality
at my eyes, their gaze steadfast
upon the wailing baby girl 
before me in her bassinet.
My mind then confidently knew
that what lay there
could have never come
from briefest self-indulgence.
Still,...

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You aren't my grandmother, only a friend, 
But I'll be so sad when you time here ends. 
Luminous blue eyes; hair like pearls in sunlight 
Your smile always greets me with avid delight. 

For ninety seven years you've lived your life, 
Many of them sad...

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Today,
I wake energetic, 
lungs clearing of lingering tobacco fog.
Kinetic energy, thoughts of poetry
inhabit my mind during my morning jog.
First at slow speed to warm up my thighs.
Long strides, deep breaths, my afro bounces in my eye.

I stop at this pavilion about a hundred yards in,
pull...

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I lay in bed watching as over ninety-souls passed away
There was nothing I could do except cry upon that day
I lay in my bed my sheets crisp and white
As the doctor walked in and said ‘We take the foetus away tonight.’

I asked in a voice...

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I am feeling the shock of fast change. How to cope with it is of course the question. Listen to Beethoven through the neighbor's window? Look up from the page? Appreciate doves even though they are so numerous? I seem to have limitless choices although...

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TEN MINUTES THAT DIDN’T SHAKE THE WORLD

They seemed to talk only in metaphor  or simile
And in what they call   stream-of-consciousness - 
These two young women in the café overheard yesterday -
About something boring to the point of unconsciousness;

And a small athlete called...

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If the cupboard under the stairs could talk
I wonder what it would say
Would it tell me of those who hid in it
When there was rent to pay

What about the poor frightened child
Back in nineteen forty 
Locked inside it for hours at a time
Just for being...

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Villanelle: The Dilemma of the Non-Violent – 43

Cuck-uk ruck-cuckoo Paloma on the wing
Who gets to curry pot with 100Bn
The Eagle or the Cock gets to down bird with sling

Are the waters receding while we loud sing
Who brought us to high point at 2015
Cuck-uk ruck-cuckoo Paloma...

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These old bones are compromised
Surviving the bolden wars of yesteryear
First, enduring stones, then arrows, then bullets 
Fear came near when in the third encounter
Nuclear in nature
At ninety seven I feel the bones rattle
Moving with feeble clarity
There is so much left to do
Simply moving to the...

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Another rainy Memorial weekend,
there’s no promise of the sun.
I’m sorry for the folks who’d planned
a little camping fun.

But my task will go forward
with umbrella and raincoat.
I’ll get those graves all covered,
if I have to use a boat.

The first one was for my daddy,
back in nineteen...

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There is this guy of 'Poetry Soup' Fame
Ran a contest with 'I just can't win' Name
Because he will not count past three
Ninety seven losers there will be
Guess i will just have to be 'Fair Game'!

© Harry J Horsman  2012...

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Goodbye Mom, my two older brothers cried.
1930 – I was born, our mother died.
1932 - Daddy remarried, careworn
yet in time three more daughters were born.

Goodbye, peace and home, So long, 
1941, Japan attacked British Hong Kong,
the day after they attacked Pearl Harbor.
We all had to...

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...such joyful company. I put my coat on and 
was about to leave while still seeing my nun friend there with me when my pastor handed 
me a book to read. I declined even though I knew by now that if he gave me a...

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A psalm to solemnize pure tin forefathers/mothers...

Who didst unknowingly, unquestionably, 
and unwittingly script vitality
and the prologue to Thanksgiving,
(which theme poem initially written)
about three hundred and ninety seven years, 
and nine months after February third 1621,
yet genesis of American November tradition 
pronouncing Meleagris gallopavo domestico
sacrificial bird...

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