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 a pretty sight.
Ushered to our table, we sat with others there
Such a lovely evening, a truly posh affair.
Delicious food, friends were made, laughter filled the air,
A real nice Christmas party, memories to share.
Then came all the speeches, boring us all to death,
The best part was the here here’s, sniffing wines sweet breath.
Finally was time to dance, music filled the night,
Dancing in my ball gown which now was fitting tight.
Time and time we danced that night, in each other’s arms,
Him with me and me with him, showing off our charms.
Suddenly I laughed so hard, teeth went flying out,
Slide across the dance floor, feet pushing them about.
In a flash down on my knees, scurrying about,
Found the little suckers, and popped them in my mouth.
At the time I hoped and prayed nobody had seen,
When I popped them in my mouth, and where they had been.
Looking back, now I laugh, thinking it was funny,
I’m happy now my mouth can say “C’est la vie.
Written by Brenda Meier-Hans
10.26.2014
For Judy Konos Contest:
C’est la vie
1st
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, my heart wouldn't listen—
And rightly so.
I turned and faced
a solitary window,
which framed a cold and gray
November day
that froze as well
the unrecorded moment.
Though soft upon my parted lips
came unbidden words:
“I love you, dearest child”—
knowing all that was yet to be,
for here lay an open book
in which life would write about
a young girl’s timeless, playful mirth,
but also test her brazen dreams
and tireless hopes alike.
On life’s other end,
my mother wearies
of her endless days
and puzzles
over life prolonged well past
these ninety-seven years—
asking with familiar eyes,
undimmed by age,
the reason why,
which none can answer,
and which none tries,
and silence reigns.
Then, soon enough
both memories and questions fade,
their cycles now complete.
Mark B. Peterson, Any Poem/Any Form, December 26, 2013
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 and filled with strife.
Outliving your family and many friends, too
Yet, your beautiful spirit is still shining through.
You are one of my heroes, should I be so bold,
A prime example of Life though your body is old.
In a home confined, you exude dignity and grace,
By the touch of your hand I see God's face.
And in the end when you hear His call,
The angels will meet you with joy, one and all;
With hearts of rejoicing and open arms.
For you are a testament to God's love and charm.
Jscervenka,2002
(This is one of my earliest writes that I had forgotten about and found at my abandon site, but did not want to abandon the feeling that went into it or the person who inspired it.)
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 the picnic tables close, my core training begins.
Usually I'll push fifty, get up and keep jogging.
Today I did one hundred, jumped up, and started sprinting.
After an hour
now I'm l
i
m
p
i
n
g
my right knee trembling in pain.
An old football wound,
sustained,
in the ninety seven campaign.
I throw my knee brace on,
now I can maintain.
After about an hour of flowing perspiration.
My push-ups, sit-ups, and crunches,
an explosive core combination.
focused integration, isolation,
my abdomen begins to form..
Thankfully I'm done because I think it's about to storm....
Jared Pickett
6/3/2010
Asavvy1
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 breaking, more of a whimper now it seems
‘You’re telling me my baby’s dead, the end of all our dreams?’
The death count was rising higher on the television screen
But to me one more was added, my child as yet unseen
The curtains pulled around the bed just opposite to mine
Perhaps it was supposed to be private, but I heard them fine
‘Come now it’s time to say if you want us to abort
Your weeks are running out now, and time is getting short.’
I looked at the screen no-other eyes seemed to see
I saw two more lives added, no-one had heard my plea
The count already ninety-seven and yet here was another one
An unwanted baby, a mother unwilling to pay for her fun.
Ninety-eight souls were lost on an that April day
Only ninety-six are mourned, for ninety- six they pray
But as I lay in my hospital bed, two more souls did die
I wonder if she remembers on this April day I still cry.
I stand and watch the, telly my two sons’ towering over me
They kiss and say ‘See you later mum we’ll be back for tea’
I watch them tall and strong and give thanks to heaven above
We tried against all odds and now have our sons we so love.
© Mandy Tams 15/4/2014
A true tale and I use the word ‘unwilling’ in the correct sense, I was there and heard the conversation.
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 naughty
It could tell of the granda who sheltered inside
When bombs landed on Spion Kop
Crouched inside, hands over his ears
So that he couldn’t hear the bombs drop
Does the cupboard remember the numerous times
When gran hid boxes of chocolates in there
She would go in and eat them on the sly
Because she was too greedy to share
We used to have a gas man
I think his name was Peter
He came about four times a year
To read our old gas meter
He’d open up the cupboard door
And illuminate the meter with his torch
He laughed when we told him that Grandma
Used a match to light a bulb in the porch
I remember when I was five
Playing hide and seek in the house
I was quietly sat in the cupboard
And came face to face with a mouse
He left a long trail of foil
He'd had Grandma’s chocolate for a meal
I got the blame and not the mouse
Imagine how that made me feel
During the war, it was sometimes the fashion
To use the cupboard under the stairs
For food that was on ration
People appreciated what was theirs
It was used as a pantry for Bacon,
Butter, sugar and powdered egg
Some people had extra coupons
While others had to beg
In nineteen ninety seven,
As I’m sure you are aware
Harry Potter, young wizard, at four Privet Drive
Lived in a cupboard under the stairs
Our cupboard is no longer there
And neither is the house
My grandma has passed away
And the chocolate-loving mouse
If you still have a cupboard
And it’s underneath the stairs
Just sit down and think awhile
What could have happened in there
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 Richard something-or-other
Although they referred to him colloquially as Little Dick.
Maybe he was a friend-with-problems of their mother:
They spoke of age, alcohol, hormones, and bad technique.
Literary comparisons about throwing a raw sausage into a train tunnel backhand;
Jokes about stifling a yawn, making it look like open-mouth osculation;
Counting ceiling tiles in rhythm: ninety seven, ninety eight, ninety nine, change hands;
Oxymoron, bathos and pathos were all used in their discussion.
Diversions (like trying to recall the cost in the grocery store of small shrimp,
Or wondering if your contact lens has slipped or are you just sleepy-tired )
Didn’t help. They said Dick’s performance was badly timed and as well as rather limp
(Must remember to have the car’s weak battery charged before it’s retired.)
His sport may have been with aircraft in flight
But his free-fall diving ended when he pulled his string too soon,
She said, like a New Year’s rocket launched before midnight ,
He opened his champagne bottle at 8 am, before the speech at noon.
Perhaps a racehorse was involved, but as far as I could gather ,
A very small racehorse which burst away from the start line too early
And arrived at the first fence in a lather
And, she said, that’s not designed to make my toes curly.
They obviously found his performance confusing
And indeed, by all accounts rather supine.
However, his efforts seem to have been amusing
And at least it gave the girls literary opportunities to shine
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 on the wing
Ere the ink is hardly dry El Ninos swing
How many wars will be wrought now in between
The Eagle or the Cock gets to down bird with sling
Will the Good Lord re-freeze melting ice crackling
From mouths of Seine Thames or Hudson here eighteen
Cuck-uk ruck-cuckoo Paloma on the wing
Nuclear tests in Pacific still in ears ring
How many more lush love green isles sunk in sin
The Eagle or the Cock gets to down bird with sling
Cheer one hundred ninety-seven hands signing
On waters lapping on heels under heat-lid bin
Cuck-uk ruck-cuckoo Paloma on the wing
The Eagle or the Cock gets to down bird with sling
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2015
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 next room is a battle
The mind remembers Pearl Harbor
But not the spirit
Hospitals will not take me in
My mortgage like me collapsed in payment
This is the land of the free
According to memory
And
There is no glamor in these old bones
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 fifty three.
I could not know how many more
family graves I’d live to see.
The next one’s for my young husband.
It was dug in sixty two.
In seventy five my darling mother
died and her grave was brand-new.
Tears for a granddaughter in seventy nine
and for a nephew that year too.
In the year of nineteen eighty
my brother followed those two.
Then we had a short hiatus.
It was not ‘til ninety-four
that another brother was laid there.
Then we counted one grave more.
The next year we gathered once again,
when my second husband died.
He missed the sorrow of ninety-seven,
when it was for his son we cried.
Two more years in nineteen ninety nine
my own son was laid to rest..
“If God is trying me”, I thought,
“I fear I’ll fail this test.”
Then He had pity on us
and it was a full decade
before another grave and in it
my great grandson was laid.
Two brothers lie in other grave-yards,
and their stones I do not see.
I’ve been going to this cemetery
each Memorial week since fifty-three.
There are many friends and in-laws
that I must also remember.
I go the rounds with flowers in May
and with wreaths in cold December.
This poem covers five generations
of at least one family member
who has gone on ahead of us
and we bring flowers to remember.
By: Joyce 5/28/ 11
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
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 leave, Dad stayed, the martyr.
Goodbye, Daddy, he remained in Kowloon.
1942, his life was taken, way too soon
In Santo Tomas, were the rest of his clan
1942, in prison, my youngest sister’s life began.
Goodbye, to friends who were starved to death;
so close we came to our own last breath.
1945, wrought our liberation
then we found out that Daddy was gone.
Goodbye, Philippines, Goodbye China.
Eight refugees headed to Canada,
where mom’s folks met their new kin.
Seven children just about did them in.
Goodbye, Grams, shouting Hosanna,
praise God, he sent us to Indiana.
Mom got a job at a children’s home;
no longer would we have to roam.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Goodbye, Mother. She was ninety-seven,
2002, when God called her to heaven.
All seven children alive, with grandkids galore,
we know her new home will offer much more.
February 23, 2023
contest: Writing Challenge G Words
sponsor: Constance La France
*Santo Tomas was a university in Manila used a Japanese prison camp
during WW II housing 3,785 prisoners. This poem is a sequel to my earlier piece, Funeral, just posted February 17, 2023.
...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 book to
read , I was meant to read it. Period.
But right now, I had this nun I didn’t know how to deal
with and anyway I had not finished the last book he had given me so I thanked him and
declined.
I left and as I went out and started my rig, the vision began to fade. As I drove down the hill
away from the rectory, the last I saw of her was her face with her lower lip protruding in a
make believe pout. I stopped, turned around and went back to the rectory.I rang the bell and
when my good friend the pastor answered, I told him that I thought that nun wanted me to
read the book he attempted to give me. He reached over on the table, gave it to me and we
bade each other good night. It was too dark to read the title so when I got home into the
light, I saw the title…. “ The Story of a Soul” by Sister Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower of
Jesus. She was a Carmalite nun who died in eighteen ninety seven at age twenty four who
was since canonized by the Catholic church.
I no longer can see her but know beyond a doubt she is with me and anyone else who
wants her to help bring them closer to Jesus.
This, as Holy God is my witness, is a true story, told the best way I know how. Thank you
Lord. And thank you our friend Therese,... the little flower of Jesus.
A Caddo heart stopped beating,
On October nineteen ninety-seven.
The Social Dancing head singer,
Has transitioned into Heaven.
With a great ear for music,
The Turkey Dance rang aloud.
And the beating of the drum's,
Rhythm moved the crowd.
With a well of traditional stories,
He’d begin and others sang along.
The seasonal dances forever yearn;
The keeper of the songs.
______________________________
This is a tribute to Wimpy Edmonds.
The last member of the Caddo tribe,
who new all the traditional songs.
The lead singer and head drummer,
for Native American music at Pow-Wows.
www.texasbeyondhistory.net/tejas/voices/today.html
amidst my indelible impressions
comes an era of remembrence
that shall go down in history
I recall the flight of an airship
traveling abroad from Europe
to the United States
with ninety seven aboard
passangers crews and news media
were all awaiting for its safe arrival
as newsreel coverage was filming
the attempt docking of this flight it
turned into a blazing yellow and red fireball
within one minute
thirthy five lives had
parished
In Memory Of
Those Lost On The
Hindenburg
{Deutsche Luftschiff Zeppelin #129}
Also Entry For
Brian Strands
Indelible Impressions Contest