Our fridge is quite the crazy scene
in hopes my girl will eat.
Miss Judy brings juiced tangerines;
a glass is such a treat!
My girl is not a fan, it seems,
of watermelon-lime,
but as for me, I’ve high esteem:
so nuanced and sublime!
Our freezer’s stocked with sorbets now,
hope it’s not untoward,
but secretly, there’s one or two
I hope my girl abhors.
**The Country Kind of Love**
In the beginning, there was a love that blossomed in the heart of the countryside. We would lie in an old hammock, sheltered by the sycamore trees, feeling the cool breeze brush against our skin. Those moments were a glimpse of the joys of country living: a large pitcher of lemonade cold in the icebox and Nana’s freshly washed laundry dancing in the wind. Everything felt so pure and carefree back then. My friend and I were soaring on a natural high, our laughter echoing through the air, shifting from giggles to hearty guffaws. Our joy mingled with the barking dogs and the chaotic clucking of chickens all around us. We held each other close, lost in our world until the stars emerged, twinkling overhead. Suddenly, Granddad called out, “Small Point! It’s time to come inside.”
I still remember you hiding under the shed, trying to prolong those magical moments. In the beginning, there was love, and now, twenty years later, we celebrate the beautiful gift of five children.
Late January
and the sky is an icebox.
The rind of a once fat possum
litters a park path,
It is not a place to linger.
Ice pools gather,
the water inside them
grows grinding teeth.
The jelled imprints
of long dead leaves
lace concrete,
smear the soil.
Outside the city park,
hospitals and churches
fume in snowy flurries.
Walkers thread their way through
trod-down streets.
Still too early to tell
if the land can be born again,
yet we trust the slow march
of these climatic moments,
wait, for we must,
for loitering shadows
to throw the dice.
January digs deeper into snow drifts.
Chill fingers cripple backbones,
make us walk like matchstick men.
February is just a name we give to tomorrow,
as if we could open that icebox
to see if the sun still rises over un-seeable horizons.
Time drags, then of a sudden, pushes us into snowfields
sprinkled with concrete daffodils.
The child was getting tired of being teased
Words flowed from her brother's mouth unfiltered
Had he more vocabulary he'd spew.
She didn't care on that morning if she pleased
She went to the icebox unbewildered
milk threw
We all stood in shock, except her brother
Drenched to the degree of being drowned, whew!
But equal to his cruel out of kilter
words. He's thinking there's ways other to
stir stew
Here in the south sometimes we say of a person that they are stirrer of trouble and we used some different terminology(vocabulary) sometimes.
I used icebox instead because refrigerator would not fit, so going back to my youth when some people still had an icebox.
My understanding of this form is 11 lines. Ten syllables per line except for the 6th line and the 11th line which are suppose to be two one syllable words or a one two syllable word which both syllables are pronounced equally. Really don't understand stressed and unstressed. LOL
Rhyme scheme is : a,b,c,a,b,c d,c,b,d,c
Icebox Disaster
Only living son
Home from steamy jungles of New Guinea
Wearing strips of a Master Sergeant
Tales recounted from Australia – Sydney R & R –
In spear points and javelins;
Malaria still traced upon
A war tanned face;
No more holding breath -
Four years of halting steps -
Reaching for the mail –
Cringing at the doorbell’s
Unexpected
Shrill screams,
No blue star hangs upon a window,
Relief sighs
So grateful for hugs held
Extra seconds
In reunion
Though shocked eyes hide
To see a frame so thin -
Hoping darkness covers memories
Reappearing uninvited;
House filled with booming debates
And scents of apple pie,
An icebox crammed with every good thing,
Not seen for years,
From harvest and from garden,
Visited so often
One morning screams of pain resound
As the icebox door crashes to the floor
Breaking a mother’s foot -
With no regrets
Only gratitude for family
Together again.
When my mother's oldest brother returned from war, he went to the refrigerator so often he weakened the door. One morning the door fell off right onto his mother's foot!
The light shines but it's. Dark
The tree has skin its bark
I walk into the kitchen and it's closed
There's no food in the icebox or the cupboards
Still let's have lunch
The darkness glares
Is a pound of asparagus a bunch
I have a hunch
it's not
Darkness Starks open chords launch stairs
Macadamia eclairs
Shines in the dark
Skin of chocolate
Marshmallow teddy bears
Marching to the kitchen and it's still closed
Someone turn off the kitchen light
There be no dinner or desserts served here tonight
5/7/20
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr 2020
By the grave I saw blacken snow flakes
Lightning flashed as I witness
Drawn down from blacken purple skies
Burst of brilliants, winter blast snow blind
Upon a midnight electrics static,
you came gently clanging
Deep into that darkness changing, snow blind
To warn me about the steady
That incremental isocheim - that incremental isocheim
Death shall bring trends
Eagerly I looked for tragedy, wintertime
The festivals alteration adjusting
The dynamics brought such sorrow, snow blind
I have dreams of flows misting snow men and women kissing
I crave the coolish, changeable climate
The cyclic cold snap contouring
Take thy gruel hot coal from out my heart
Come stand wit me twit the freezing blizzard
Come dear heart
Much I marveled the integrated icebox
The snow-covered snowplow steadying shoveling
So inviting is the thought…
To be frozen with me come not see will be so kind
If together we be 2 frozen lovers just snow blind
1/29/20
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2020©
~
Winter breathes in sepia tones along a lonely two lane street
divided amongst the sweeping frozen dunes
now forced into shouldered amnesty
Street lights shiver in snowcapped bonnets
while sidewalks sleep ‘neath blankets of flittering flakes
The air, frigidly crisp…moves of tiny chiffon sparkles dancing
Rooftops, plump and soft, show off their frosted padding
as evergreens find alabaster fingers tickling their branches
in chilled teasings and frozen dustings
Footprints, once there are gone, covered and recovered again
all evidence of life is erased beneath pearl clouded skies
and faint outlines of distant thoughts
White on black stripes drape in glacial wanderings
spanning the slush of asphalt weavings
in straight line piercings across the wintry landscape
January reigns brutal, subzero ponderings swirl
from high above the icebox wasteland, once brimming with color
now opaque in its arctic seasoned disguise…
~
Written from memory…no winter here. : )
"STRANGE GRIEF."
the cigarettes
are gone,
the meats are
rotting
in the icebox,
the city lights
hear me
but know this
isn't
asking
for
anything.
you're more
than what
you've been
forced to
believe:
I'm just the
man in
between.
I'm just the
knowledge
you'll soon use
for
your
purple
devils.
the death of
love isn't
its death but
it's
dissipation
while
eyes look for
love
in
others.
by: Chicano Eddie
7.11.19
she doesn’t know I left my urge up in
the icebox under the roof on the floor
of the consulate’s attic it’s pretended
anymore like a terrifying war between
two bitter friends in love with guns
but not the bullet this pretense endured
for vanity’s sake
home in the hamptons
a cobweb inflects on a cranny cornered
by our calico kitten we’re not kids
anymore with worthy wars to abhor
clinics to bomb new partners to kiss
so it’s her and I so it’s houston I miss
bright bright blasts
bind the cradle blind SIDS
Look ... but don’t touch
Touch ... but don’t taste
Taste ... but don’t enjoy
Enjoy ... but don’t ever show it
A dispassionate display,
cold dish served on an ice tray
Heart beat is sub-zero,
Arctic thoughts are so cadaver cold
Bosom heat is distant Pluto,
Permafrost eyes are frigid windows
Cold fish caught in the Aleutian Sea,
Icebox lungs became frozen gill memories
Popsicle toes icicle fingers
Polar bear nose
Penguin echoes seem to glacial linger
Tropical grace melt ice-cold, igloo cubicles
Rainforest place warmly blow tear heart-shaped miracles
Show the passion ... but don’t ever let go of it
Let go of it ... but don’t ever forget how to find it again
And again and again and again ... and
keep looking for that loving touch
Searching beyond earth’s end
The cloying sangria
of freesias
invades the screen.
Amber bees whine
in wastrel air
like breezeless fans.
My shirt
is porcelain skin.
I dangle one metronome leg
off the arm
of a wicker chair
on the porch
as icebox rivulets
trickle down my sides.
In a far corner
dead flowers
curl
in a glass vase.
THE WINTER CEMETERY
Awaken my nightmare!
Cold, wrinkled skin, eye circles beyond care.
Tears of beautiful snow.
O depths to which they go!
A horse and carriage show.
The gate — a cliff of iron bars, mine heir.
The creak of springs, the box —
ornate, carries my frozen heart, on blocks
of ice — my pretty niece.
Oh shroud of snow, I cease
to live - i have no peace!
O that cancerous gong of Winter clocks!
Wrapped in woolen fetters,
I boldly stare at these money-getters.
The doc misdiagnosed,
and the nurse overdosed.
In an icebox — her ghost.
This cemetery shivers with debtors.
She’ll be buried next to
you, beloved son, youth taken by flu.
I lean on the hard chest.
Winter blooms on my breast.
Dear son, I’ll never rest!
Cold stones, for bounty, as my flames accrue.
12/20/2017
Rhyme Me A Poem Contest
Broken Wings - Sponsor
I left the corner where I’d stood for a long time
waiting for her.
She never showed so I went into a late night
greasy spoon.
There was a table by the front window
that was not occupied.
I ordered a cup of coffee and sinker to
kill time and think.
The wind was blowing hard against the
glass pane
Leaves from trees were rushing down
the gutter under street lights.
Cars and busses past going somewhere
taking people home.
I wasn’t going home tonight because I
had no home.
I rented an apartment with a bed and
an old icebox.
The pan that caught the ice dripping
always needed emptying.
It would run over tonight because I wasn’t
going to that room.
My clothes were there and that was all
I had left.
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