Books
Books line the shelves
in the living room,
the bookcase in the hall,
the cubbyholes in my desk.
They lie on the coffee table,
stacked on end tables,
and on bedside tables.
At least it used to be like that
before I had to move.
I miss my books, only a few left.
I had read all of them,
some more than once,
and some were a bit ragged.
But I got pleasure from
there just being there
where I could see them.
I don’t buy books much now.
I get them from the library.
Somehow it isn’t the same
reading somebody else’s books.
There’s no ownership involved,
no sense of coming back to it
and savoring it all over again.
Categories:
cubbyholes, appreciation, books, introspection, memory,
Form: Free verse
The Atemporal Wall
Hidden away from the light of day
In cubbyholes and basement flats;
Are they who play computer games,
And stuff their faces with chocolates.
Here is where they snicker and connive
(While rambunctious fingers press the buttons)
On terrestrial earth, this side of the universe,
Of mice, keyboards, and controllers.
But when they crash into the wall of forever,
And dispersed matter becomes reality;
The power of the sun from which they run
Traps them into the quagmire of sobriety.
There is no tomorrow, they discover.
The atemperol wall blocks the future.
***
Note:
Atemperol (Merriam-Webster dictionary-adjective): independent of or unaffected by time; timeless.
Categories:
cubbyholes, computer, games, internet, technology,
Form: Verse
Frankly, the house was crooked
and glum to the bone.
The usual dead bugs and dust,
some flaking rust.
The weight of all this closed-in time
hung heavily on the realters shoulders.
for a while, it made us all
spasmodically mute.
The kitchen was a small grotto
for long deceased gnomes.
The agent led us through other rooms,
where dead spaces roamed like foraging hogs.
Glazed windows let in only shadows
which then retired to expire
into monkish cubbyholes.
Upstairs a gothic renaissance had faltered
after its chained dragon had died of ennui.
Being young and broke, we moved in,
and until we could afford cable,
we learned to love Spam sandwiches,
while studying by candlelight
all the lesser known
Gregorian chants.
Categories:
cubbyholes, poetry,
Form: Free verse
She has a tumbledown deck, a creaky rocker.
Dandelion seeds carry memories
from one neglected garden patch to another.
She’s not old, but her wine has mulled,
the sun has scoured her face into a tracery
of twilit paths.
There were children once. They play
now upon her mind as fairies would
each one lightly sprinkled with a moonshine
made in a tin shelter deep in the rickety scrub
of backwoods memories.
The law took them, and the grinding years
brewed more lonely coffee, while cans
filled with cigarette butts.
No-good lovers still practice
their shoddy dance steps in her housecoat pockets
while lost children braid her greying hair.
Few things were fair in her life,
few choice well made, most withered,
yet in the soft evenings, she still waters
unkempt floral corners
where hope hangs on, she still pulls together
enough threads of herself
to brave the shadows
that creep into the spooked cubbyholes
of her ramshackle nights.
Categories:
cubbyholes, poetry,
Form: Free verse
My brother, too big for his britches,
Said he wasn't scared of witches;
Of ghosts and goblins had no fear
And dared a demon to come near.
The morning after Halloween,
He was just nowhere to be seen.
We looked for him in woods and ditches,
In cubbyholes and hidden niches.
My mama couldn't find her broom.
We looked for it in every room.
I shouldn't laugh 'til I'm in stitches
At Brother carried off by witches.
Categories:
cubbyholes, adventure
Form: Light Verse