Her purr softer than the shadowed cloud
Conceals a message both strong and loud
And should you be one unaware
‘Tis that purr can catch you there
Then the claws, sheathed in fur
Can come darting forth, to belay that purr
And what you thought so genteel
May seal your fate with an ordeal
Of words selected carefully
To bring you to reality:
Tis’ not YOUR world on which she lives
And she cares not for your missives
You may observe, perhaps caress,
But it’s doubtful that you’ll possess
The Cat who purrs so skillfully,
But not JUST for you: She’s here for - - - WE.
Respect her words; respect her skill
Or your Life’s Journey may be all … uphill.
the crow was shaking, his feet could barely land
He had recently come from graves near the sand
What has frightened you? I asked, watching him squirm.
Was it a devil, a Dracula, a ghoul, a snake or a worm?
Have you ever read Poe? He asked me with a quaking beak.
I had actually read a few of his missives just last week.
His words are frightening, they terrified me forevermore he said.
Don’t worry, I told him, ravens will handle it and Poe is dead.
I see value in every poem I read
often wishing I had thought to write that line myself
or that word or that stanza
I sometimes marvel at the rhyming prowess of the poet
so many marvelous missives to read
I concentrate on the short ones
skipping all of the long ones
figuring they have lots of extra words
my attention span is better used elsewhere
poetry crawls out of my dreams and shakes her head
she entices me with a line that wakes me up in a weird way
disoriented, all I know is that I need to grab a pen or a computer
she gives me no freewill; I am her captive, her prisoner.
My fingers are itching to either write or type
we do not care which anymore; but poems are making noises
shaking shimmering shabby chic missives exploding in our mind
I say our, so I can include Trixie, my muse, who is persnickety
She insists on getting paid credit. To not do this would be suicide.
I would die a slow death, under her warm tutelage.
no one has a muse any more persistent or insistent than Trixie.
She forces me to do her bidding; I am her minion.
Happy to do it, Trixie, truly, I am.
Snicker Snicker
I decided to stop writing poems in long hand
Trixie my muse kept running away with my pen
I knew it was her, because the thoughts were assertive
She is the only one here more determined than me
She laughed at my efforts and began interfering with my typing
I would think I had typed one thing, but had typed another
I knew it was her; she thinks she is the leader of the band
It’s not like she argues with me in a civilized manner
It is as if she grabs the ideas out of my brain and tosses them
Replacing them with her own missives, songs and poems
Some days I do not recognize anything I have written
Because they were not written by me. Trixie is snickering.
each of my fingers has a mind of her own
tapping a rhythm as she taps out a poem
I relax as the ten take over the task bossily
writing missives that are way beyond the real me
as my fingers dance on the computer keys
I wonder, do other poets have fingers like these?
stacks and stacks of books
filling up Aunt Edith’s home library
the nephews and nieces laugh at them
They are old-fashioned, antiquated, useless
Some of these missives were read over and over
Cherished like an old friend with each reading
Others never made it past page two
Boring and dull, deemed useless, put back on the shelf
Upon Aunt Edith’s death these books are stacked.
Ready for an enormous bonfire. The relatives sing while they burn.
Edith watched them enjoying her books from her seat in heaven.
Too bad they never looked through them where she hid her money.
I read poetry from forty poets last night
some of these missives were brilliant
others were stunningly fresh
I try to intentionally forget most of it
not wanting to be a word thief
or a plagiarists
I cannot fathom why any writer would use A.I.
What satisfaction could that give them?
I want my own words, my own way and no one else’s.
The Will to War.
We are living in a difficult time for European leaders
They are preparing us for a war that will go on forever
beneficial for the manufacturing industry
They don't want a real war, but need psychoses
of war and steal our democracy
people in the Nordic countries are asked to buy
food to reserve at home should a crisis occur
What are they talking about? Most of us live from
paycheck to paycheck
Furthermore, we are asked to zeal our homes
And stock up on ion tablets, do they think that
Everybody lives in a suburb, and most of us have
flats, often cramped, in big cities
Our right to speak our minds is undermined by
those who are social democrats in name
There was a time in the sixties and seventies
when democracy in the north was vibrant and
alive, although you could freely shout
without being censored, but we could open
a business or settle somewhere else without
Should you feel aggrieved, the X will listen
If you disagree with your missives
I reach for a book
A tiny arm comes out of the spine
The arm slaps my hand
Not that one, my muse suggests
The next novel laughs as I open her
Then she screams
But wait
Is that another laugh?
Have these missives always been alive?
Why has it taken me so long to notice?
You crawl under my skin
Again, uninvited this time
Drinking my sorrow
Your tail whips around my heart
Drawn in by the cold
Darkness you know so well
To look but not to touch
A sad spectacle to visit
But visit is all
Soak up vulnerability
Bathe in the grief
Wash off, walk home
Leave me with the well
Where undrinkable water lives
Crumbs to decorate it
Furtive missives of absolution
Dig and scrape to pry you
Draw you out from under skin
Let you down so slowly
To silently await your return
Some writers struggle
Coughing up words in a painful way
I feel a bit of their agony as I read their missives
A jumpy spotty difficult flow is painful to readers too
I love cock-eyed whangdoodle writing
When frogs are croaking and fish are biting
I adore silly missives with cartoon-like stuff
Of child-like fun I simply cannot get enough
Her preservative process
To utilize words no one knows or understands
Guarantees her failure in the contest realm
She does not do well with herself
Using these unnecessarily verbose vocabulary words
Most of us stopped reading her missives years ago
The last bus
This is a day for us losers, no this is not about the climate, from my window it looks like doing well, a dollop of sun there and a splash of rain there, it is no asking for anyone’s permission
With losers, I mean us who have managed to get old, but living wildly and not going for longevity
This makes us miserable because we have nothing to look back on and say, sure I did that
It is not that we didn’t try to make a mark, but
Booze and women got in the way, conquest
a whore in every port
Some of us tried to make a mark by scribbling
Our thoughts on paper, exposed our tiring vulnerability for all to see, only to discover that
No one wanted to know gave a , because
One needs a name to make it worthwhile to
Read your missives
So here we are getting pissed every night
Blaming fate for our misery when the bitter truth is we’re not talented enough to be
Recognized
For some reason, we continue to write for
We know what else to do; reflect on that we
Know God is punishing us for sins we were not aware of, as we whored our way through life
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