Not a snowflake’s chance in mid-August
of Goldwater ever changing his stripes
Nope. Ever since he could palm a frankfurter weenie
he's been somewhere to the right of Mussolini
A proud match for William Buckley, that Barry
horn-rimmed glasses, living free on the Arizona prairie
Uh, what? He’s gone? OK. Who can I substitute? Reagan? Gone too?
How ‘bout Trump? I don’t think so. Too fickle, you see
Friday in the big apple
It is 17.53 in New York
those who work at night are stirring
drink coffee, shower and dress
to look their best
This as the multitude drive home
for the week end
The police are busy, a rich person
was shot by what appears to be
by a charming man with a winning
smile, but was he a man?
We live in a time when many women
strive to look like men, because
they think men have more power
when they realize it is not, so blame
the capitalist system
Two professions are busy tonight
the police who have murder to catch
and the women how try to look
as feminine as possible, to entice men's
libido, they are more busy now
than ever before when so many women
strive to look like dowdy executives
with horn rimmed specks
more interested in status than love
The police will find their man, commentators
will blame Trump and the man with
an odd name, Elon Musk (is he real) for
the violence caused by unrestricted
freedom of expression.
What happens in New York to night
pales into insignificance, compared
with a world, at the brink of of a war
that will destroy us all
Perhaps with Exception of Musk who
will settle on Mars
A man with horn-rimmed glasses
knelt in the sand
thinking: "my office just got a whole lot bigger."
He had just flown from sea to shining sea
to survey the sea lions.
He walked barefoot to a rocky outcrop
to count the creatures (for he was an accountant),
the counting took many days -
he was engaged upon a sea lion census.
The sea lions would dive into the tossing waves
and so deplete the sea lion company or rookery,
other's would arrive with unaccounted-fore friends,
The rest yelled all day long or grunted huffily.
it was a rowdy crowd.
The accountant took off his glasses and wiped his brow.
The sea lions continued to bark at him
while scratching their ears with distaining flippers.
Reluctantly he turned to fly back to New York,
where sea lions are parked carefully
in a funky concrete compound.
Each one of those aquatic New Yorkers
could be counted upon
and they were
as they swam moodily in the small oily pool
generously provided for them.
If asked to define the word “dorky”
I guess I'd describe it like this
Wearing stripes and checks together
A sight you surely can't miss
I'm not the ultimate style leader
But at least I do have some taste
Aside from an occasional style faux pas
At times when I dress in haste
Never be seen in horn rimmed glasses
An extreme example of dorkyness
White Adidas with black knee high socks
Now that's really hard to digest
When mom gets really behind in her chores
Hasn't washed my coordinate attire
Forced to wear stuff a little bit dorky
Not something to which I aspire
If asked to define the word “dorky”
Usually try to describe it like this
Stripes, checks and horn rimmed glasses
An example of ignorant bliss
God needs your faith
otherwise he disappears behind your eyes
and you both go blind.
There are ancient inspectors looking into
your kidneys and liver.
Their horn-rimmed glasses
peer from under tortoise shells,
they search for any useful ingredients.
The science of looking is very old.
God awakes in a dream of you;
immediately begins
to stuff your hollowness
with blood and guts.
The soil x-rays you,
the sky photoshops your mind
erasing the smudged indecency
of any brain-damaged parts.
Some say this and some say that;
warm breath and cold air
blows through your burning straw.
Both the wise and the simple
allow themselves to be rocked gently
upon their own cupped hands.
Plain as she can be
She who sat next to me
Freckled with horn rimmed glasses
And late to all her school classes
An outcast, she thought by her peers
Dwelling on her chronic fears
Not wanting to be noticed
As like the beauty and grace of the lotus
Flying under the radar screen
Hoping she would not be seen
Blending into the background
One day she blossomed and was found
Like Cinderella and her glass slipper
Not even a prince could resist her
Suddenly she became a swan
One that others lavishly fawn
The 1960's were pretty freaky
The British invasion pretty sneaky
Old Guard politics pretty creaky
(America's favorite dessert a Twinkie)
Folk singers and protest songs pretty cheeky
~ Bob Dylan's voice gravelly and pretty squeaky
Barry Goldwater's horn-rimmed specs plenty geeky
Boston Celtics' championship run plenty streaky
(Kids 'of all ages' favorite toy a Slinky)
Woodstock Music Festival's skies plenty leaky
Jimmy Hendrix' Star-Spangled Banner provocatively neat-key
~ Not to mention the paleoanthropological excavations and monkeyshines
of Louis and Mary Leakey!
Deja what?
here with no view
into the underground
back to the zoo.
got a feeling that the glass
in this ceiling is cracked
and I'd rather break through it
than have to look at it.
Revisiting to solicit the facts
about tracks and tracts I once
pored over, but
now I'm under
ground.
In front of me
something that looks like a yeti
sat next to a bald headed gent
and I wonder if he ever meant to
go bald.
The postman
well he's always sat there
a comb over style in his
thinning hair
and the girl in the leathers
don't know whether she's a spy
but
she could be.
Mr horn-rimmed
skims through the news
more of the déjà what
who's
counting anyway,
it's still Monday and that's
all that matters.
Hark! That rustling of the leaves
makes me wobbly at the knees,
or did I dream of Thatcher’s ghost
chasing "wets" from post to post?
·
When Tony Blair bashed up Hussein,
no Robin Hood at home bought gain.
Who then yet may save the day?
Who remains to show the way?
Bill Dozer is this man, I say!
Trouser? Loser? Boozer? Hey!
Who the heck's Bill Dozer?
Like Superman he flits about.
cosh in hand, with mighty clout.
He is a man of iron fist,
the last remaining socialist.
He hears each worker's woeful cry:
like Joe Hill he'll never die.
When Marx shall rise from Highgate's tomb,
capitalists will meet their doom.
Horn-rimmed his specs, his suit dull-brown,
he swoops like an eagle down.
He'll give each grabbing boss the boot
and share with us the ill-gotten loot.
Bill Dozer is this man, I say!
Trouzer? Loser? Boozer? Hey!
Who the heck's Bill Dozer?
But if still the point you missed:
He's the last remaining socialist.
Spaghetti Grandma
She scratches her pulpy ruby nose,
Heaves, and leans her heavy bosom
On the pitchfork, dangerously bending
The prongs over the swollen tomatoes.
Trying not to stare at the weary body
Enlarged like a blimp, obediently,
The child’s eyes avert the navy blue smock
Resting on her grey-green eye, the only
window she has left on the world.
She readjusts her horn-rimmed glass
On her nose,
Briskly slips a big copper coin
Into my pocket,
And in a spicy voice
Accented with the fragrance of another sun,
She speaks of another time and place
Magically spinning tale after tale
And my mind is agog and reeling with delight
Filling with the words she feeds me.
Anne-Marie Coreggia
03/15/2017 - 117 words
I entered this poem about my Italian grandmother
in the free verse contest.
"Don't know why I fear butterflies,
But I never wanted to kill them,
Maybe squash a fair wing and cripple
An odd strand of feet,
Never end..."
Said the horn-rimmed shadow to the sun,
And the horizon was bleeding
For Night's footsteps didn't feel mercy.
She was elsewhere,
Chained to the rugged corners of the unruly mind,
Silently slumbering in the darkness that never ended.
The wind was no good, but only stirring...
Stirring the sun, stirring the sky,
Stirring the leaves and the butterflies!
Naive fliers wandering like impure ecstasy,
Wrapped in velvet couture,
Off Nature,
But the shadow fumed!
At why they rippled in water?
And curled in disorderliness?
Stomped without pain
Glided without gain,
Always after...
The wind was glad,
The butterflies should have been too,
Since they were only grounded,
Only if shadows were stirred too!
Happily, I entered the class
I laughed with friends, but then alas
Joy was replaced with sudden fear
Knowing spelling bee time was here
Last time I had misspelled ADJOURNED
My tongue went dry, my stomach churned
Now one by one the others failed
ODYSEY... BROCOLI... UNVIELED...
Precisely feeling unprepared
Quizzes had always made me scared
Reading my word she called my name
She glared at me through horn-rimmed frames
Tracing her finger through the air
Under my breath I said a prayer
Vainly I pondered her request
Without a clue I blindly guessed
X-Y-L-O-T-O-M-Y
"Yes," she said. I had spelled it right!?
9/7/2016
My friend, do you know how bold you are?
I look beyond your invisible scar,
You flutter like butterflies in spring
When given the chance to bring
A rare smile across my face
Ever since I lost my grace,
Without you, the world would be
A colourless painting oh! So lonely
So I tell the mortals, look beyond her ways
Bet you cannot survive in her maze…
Look beyond the horn-rimmed glasses,
The frame hiding her eyes from masses
From seeing change in abundance
Or the tentacles of her loved ones
Follow the secret contours of greed,
Snatch her imagination and pay no heed
Look beyond the white shirt,
The buttons refrain from the exotic flirt
From breathing some fresh air,
Or smelling the rain-kissed bare
Bathe in the sunshine for many carefree days,
Or let go and set the veils ablaze!
My friend, do you know how bold you are?
I look beyond your invisible scar,
Your torrents underneath, one cannot bind
And the silly snobs will never find
The world we share in our golden blues
The most colourful, in black and white hues.
WHEN LETTERS DANCE ON THE PAGE
“Disappear,” I said.
They denied.
Didn’t the Casanova at the theatre
Return my ravishing smile last night?
The burgundy magic on greys!
Ironed with botoxed shots
The dry asparagus turns glossy;
Ready for the salad?
Midriffs declining, disappearing -
Decelerating; the passion of aping
A teenager for a climacteric but works.
The dried raisins, falling leaves
And the faded chrysanthemums-
Augmented, tucked in, liposuctioned.
The one who was being stared at,
Loses it all ; the pretence withers,
The efforts in vain.
I loved them the most
But they now scare me-
The letters diffusing, hyperopic.
Behind the lens, the zombies
Make me close my eyes- the mirror
Was never so unfriendly.
Progressive, focal, horn-rimmed,
Rimless – nothing works. They just
Simply refuse to go.
At the restaurant, travelator, bus
My glory shrouds as I struggle to
Settle the glass diptych on my nose.
“Disappear,” I say to them.
They deny.
I hear your voice;
standard American,
perfectly Midwestern,
nothing out of the ordinary.
Enchanted, I want more:
I press play, I press pause;
I rewind, and repeat.
My eyes rest on your horn-rimmed glasses,
on the lines around your smile,
on your salt and pepper hair.
you know me so well,
though you don't know me at all.
Tell me more about myself
and about everyone else like me.
Our thoughts are numbers on your scales,
our pain reduced to aggregates,
the cuts on our skin
are graphs projected on the walls
of a cold conference room
one brisk Saturday morning.
I could hate you.
You butchered my beautiful chaos
and packed the parts in sterile boxes.
You look down on me from your lectern
but, your eyes say something else.
Do you really want to know?
Ask me; I have no idea who I am.
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