Casual witch was covered with newts, polliwogs and frogs
She was determined to find a barnyard and incorporate some hogs
Thinking she was buggers, I turned and walked toward the bogs
Be careful! She yelled after me, those alligators pretend they are logs.
This gave me pause, and I slowed down my steps somewhat.
I walked past a garbage dumpster, a forest, and a gray hut.
Wondering if casual witch knew anything more than me.
Ouch! An alligator bit off my leg at the knee.
Listen closely and hear spring’s beautiful sonata.
It comes to sweep the winter’s gloom away.
It is the cheerful singing of the robin
and the birds from the south returning
to greet the splendid season of rebirth.
Hear it in the flitting of the butterflies
and in Zephyr’s whispers falling on your skin.
Hear it in the drone of the honeybees,
in the rush of rills, and in
the pattering of rain from April’s showers.
Sight, sound, taste and smell combine in spring’s sonata.
Clouds swirl pink and meadow flowers bloom
in breezes of enchantment.
Hearts melt and sing along with it.
Thoughts ripple to its tune with new-found hope.
Oh, to smell fruit trees’ blossoms swaying in the wind;
leaves turned green and grasses swaying too.
Souls wish to dance to the many sights and sounds.
Bluebells seem to ring, and tulips bend in many hues.
Even polliwogs undulate in ponds to spring’s sonata.
Buttercups lie brightly underneath
a plenitude of honeyed rays dripping from the sun.
Inhale the fragrance of spring’s sonata.
Taste its rain and view its iridescent bow
that stretches as a promise across God’s azure skies.
Thumbelina was the daintiest dancer at the meadow pond.
She had a pact with the polliwogs and frogs, a heavenly bond.
She danced in their weeds, and they warned her of danger.
She then helped their deer bed down in their grassy manger.
Thumbelina was always safe in the grasses, even with a snake.
For the polliwogs and frogs coughed a warning to her at the lake.
She recognized the cough and hid behind a rock or under a twig.
She was never snatched up by a ground hog or pot belly pig.
Prancing purple polliwogs playing prissily
Querying querulous quail quite quietly
Reviving romantic roosters respectfully
Sassy swooning swans sighted saucily
Tempting tenuous trickster trout tastefully
Animals
Animals love us,
and we love them,
So take action
to save the same.
Big cats from the African savanna
or Orangutans from the Borneo forests,
the world if full of creature
found only in places rarest.
Birds also are important,
Some are found in American woods,
But I found many, right in my neighborhood.
Amphibians and reptiles,
all lay eggs,
many of them
may dare to eat cleggs!
Ostriches, beavers and caribous,
drakes, eels and kangaroos,
quails, seals and camels,
arboreal animals and mammals.
Moles, sharks and rhinoceros,
fawns, parrots and hippopotamus,
Polliwogs, does and baboons,
Salamanders, budgies and racoons.
Animals of every kind and more,
so go out there and explore!
Dogs eat cats, cats eat rats
Rats eat things that fall from bats
Bats eat bugs, bugs eat trees
Trees that fall on birds and bees
Birds and bees and bugs on logs
Logs and trees and polliwogs
Hungry fleas that feed on dogs
Venus fly traps feed in bogs
Napping gnats and flapping bats
Rats and rabbits pulled from hats
Cats with habits chasing rats
Bats make rabid habitats
Copycats and acrobats
Swinging with the alley cats
Wigs on pigs and hats on hogs
Should’ve quit with cats and dogs.
Submitted to the "If Only, Maybe, Sometimes" Poetry Contest
On August 4, 2020
Cutting squares out the verse
Pulling stanzas from stars
dreaming of cloud waterfalls
Polliwogs running upright with a slarp.slap slap
Connecting with the space inside
If it all works out in the end
who would know
trying to convince the truth its wrong
dont bury your sand in my head
born before i was conceived
before i take my leave
wear me on you sleeve
Running upright
with space inside
out in the end
Elaborate your ember cooked words
add two whole numbers
but never get a third
Stay where you are
do not move
meet the unparalleled groove
Beautiful wildflowers on the hillside gleam.
Children pluck the flowers there, and nearby is a stream.
Its waters with little polliwogs now teem!
Kids are splashing after them. How glad they seem!
Yes, school has ended and their summer I deem
will be a happy one filled with frolic and ice cream!
May each child know the joy of sleeping neath a moon beam
with the great outdoors their own back yard as peacefully they dream.
May 25, 2018
two sijo
Take note of the resemblance between maple seeds and tadpoles?
Ideas spin round like maple seeds seeking a spot to sprout;
our minds are small ponds where agile tadpoles (like thoughts) mature.
Takes about fourteen weeks, but polliwogs will become frogs;
"Helicopters" become trees after many, many years
but ideas become poems, sometimes within minutes.
written 8 May 2016
Poet: Ken Jordan
Poem: Sebastopol
Edited by: Sparkle Jordan
written: April/2016
Where
lighthouse
rays
shine
on
seagull wings -
Where
the
misty
morning
dew -
beckon
foghorns
to
sing -
where sky's
are
green;
Oceans too -
Where
fishermen
stretch
tall
stories
the whole
day
through -
Where
clouds adrift
with
snow white
hue -
Where
baby's breath....
Breathe,
like
winter frost,
On roses
in
bloom -
Where
Pond Lily's
are
turquoise,
and
Polliwogs
are
blue -
Where
old men
still plow
the
land
behind
working mules -
This
Is
Sebastopol
A
Barefoot
Town
Yellow
as
Sunflowers
Sweet
as
grapes
on
the vine -
(c). Copyright, 2016 Ken Jordan
Wide the mirrored water stretched,
licking green upon the pointed pines, limbs sweeping low and cool.
The creek meandered, soft giggles escaping mossy rocks
where polliwogs swam, nearly, but not quite frogs, still sporting pubescent tails;
the adults pontificating against the shallow bank,
throats swollen with amphibious wisdom.
Soft brown mud squished, a buttered cream,
between summer toasted toes wading into wonder.
Fragrant evening campfires heightened hungers,
supper roasting over charred coals flavored
the stirrings of a tempting crush on a boy much older;
this girl just barely navigating puberty's powerful push,
his smile extracting heightened pulse, blush brushed.
Life's long summer slipped slowly away
and autumn found his wife and child laying him down,
the plot unknown, unmarked by me;
yet, painful, still, the memory of broken trust,
of love-crust pitched to a not quite woman
deep in the rusting woods of Timberland.
Copyright, February 14, 2016
I came upon a shimmering pond
And cast my line in deep
Set me down on the dock nearby
And dangled my aching feet
My mind goes back to earlier days
When in smaller ponds this boy did play
Where polliwogs were there to be caught
Before herbicides and pesticides wiped them all away
Now frogs no longer hop about for a determined boy to chase
Times when we strolled down quiet tree lined country lanes
Before streets with traffic lights came and took their place
A time when neighbors helped neighbors and folks had time to chat
Sunday dinner was a family affair with aunts, uncles and cousins there
A time when a gentleman met a lady he always tipped his hat
But that was then and times do change and I guess that’s alright
But one thing has not changed nary a bit
I still have not gotten a single bite.
I am the baby who cried
"more peaches" and waited
the young girl with dirty feet
catching polliwogs beneath bated
sun
I am the shy teenager stealing a first kiss
shattered by disappointment
and reality
the young woman dancing
at my Junior prom
Harbor Lights twinkling into
forever
I am the too-young bride who says
I do for fifty-plus years, and
I am all of this and more
I am the me writing this poem
remembering . . .
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