three inhalers
two bottles with one pill each
six receipts from dollar stores
one bedraggled checkbook
straw wrapper
three pairs of glasses, all smudged
I-phone
sunglasses missing one lens
twenty-three pennies
two nickels
twenty-seven dollars in a small coin purse
Kleenex
three credit cards
Medicare card
reminder to pay a bill from three months ago
I get rid of the pennies
hoping my purse will be lighter
Having counted wooly sheep
was woken from a deep delta sleep
in the middle of the night
thought I'd heard a pig snort
but no that can't be right
tho' kicked out of bed
and landing on my head
knew where I stood
for delegated to the floor
then relegated to the room next door
when in no uncertain terms she said,
'You're sawing wood, you snore!'
Not as such a silk purse,
but a sow's ear would be worse.
Not so much a pig in a poke
(jiggery-pokery),
more a poke at a pig in a joke
(piggery-jokery).
All in all,
Sy-hokery!
Inhaler
Dimes
Brown napkin
Three pairs of eye glasses
Two pencils, an eraser and a pen
Wallet with seventeen dollars and eighty-two cents
Comb, cracker, stale muffin, five receipts, toothpicks
Tiny piece of pink ribbon, twenty-two allergy pills
Empty pill bottle
Sometimes finding a forgotten purse feels like Christmas
I search my purse for money or credit cards.
Discovering four brochures from September
Receipts from the veterinarian clinic with dog tags
Twelve poem ideas jotted on a red napkin
A used toothpick with gum at the end of it
Four pens that do not write
One pen that writes which I can usually never find in this purse
A blue dog collar
Battered melted peanut butter cup
Sticky roll that has escaped a baggie
House key I do not remember having
Grandchild’s pink and yellow headband
Shot glass, but why? I do not drink.
Two outdated postage stamps
The popped pieces of an orange balloon
Should I clean this fiasco?
No.
I just found my credit cards.
I love how he is always manhandling my precious purse,
It's better than how he was handling my actual purse.
I love how he is always fondling me until I aloud curse.
VERSE PURSE
Yearly tradition
Poetry competition
All had ambition
Just wait for the call
Announced in the Poet Hall
Said the know it all
Poems submitted
Against each other pitted
Even dim-witted
The results were in
The winner identified
And brought to the front
It was a lottery
Not based on experience
Most there were displeased
When not selected
He said to the guy behind
Not chosen, are you
Stylish purse stands tall and proud
Showing her colors, sparkling and loud.
The rest of the purses are a bit intimidated.
Many of them already recycled or eliminated.
A purse with no coins
a sink with no drain
Pants with no pockets
flowers without rain
Oceans without water
winding roads with no end
A world custom-designed
to cultivate friends
I know a lady who had an overflowing very small grey purse,
there was so much "stuff" inside that it was threatening to burst;
anyways some time goes by until we meet again,
and she proudly shows me her new purchase;
a larger purse . . . that is ready to burst !
____________________
September 17, 2022
For my friend Norine
Poetry/Light Verse/The Purse
Copyright Protected, ID 09-1488-811-17
All Rights Reserved, 2022, Constance La France
My twin sister Carolyn is wildly creative.
She has made me a Lucille Ball purse.
It is fabulous; I love it!
There is a cartoon montage of Lucy all over it.
Many recognizable faces on various episodes of I Love Lucy.
I carried it around to several stores today.
Strangers begged to know where I got it.
I could have set up shop and sold these.
It’s a computer bag, not a purse my sister told me when I called her.
I smiled at the predictability of my twin.
He swivels his hips and the felines come running
I am not one of them, I am balcony sunning.
I watch them howl at his gyrations and grinds.
He is such a tease; and he attracts all kinds.
Since he started to dress up like his hero Elvis
He has more action than a street walker’s pelvis.
I roll my eyes, glad I threw him away when I did.
He is my ex-husband, who doesn’t even support our kid.
You open the flood gates if you say
You come from the bush and are in power,
So beside your regular pay
Some misappropriation won't matter.
Billions may pass on your belt each day
And your heart, dangling in greed,
May say to you: "Rustic fellow, make hay
While you can. Only bounds don't exceed."
Your move needs multiple endorsers
En route for the cash to come through.
Further, you lay yourself open to those bribers!
Truly, the day you did it you may rue!
"Where in the world has anyone
Been squeaky clean holding money like this?
As there's none under the sun
Taking some won't be that amiss!
"Seeing you insist on doing this,...
Even though you'll mislead your subordinates,
And are actually providing a basis
For graft,...Open the flood gates!
Money taken from the public purse
Will be in the tens of trillions!
You'll be engendering a captured burse
And bewildered citizens!
Money not in one’s purse for long
Does not make a welcome song;
Attract it does notions of a curse
Not all of them hurled at the purse.
But it is a challenge to self reimburse
And try to become one’s financial Nurse,
So that things don’t heat up to a worse
And bombs you never wanted at first
Fatally going ahead to burst.
Money for long not in a purse
Makes one’s tips tightly purse,
Ceaselessly fetching one languid remorse
And me keeps a rolling stone, no moss.
Shouldn’t I assert A Maverick of a Woman?
From behind surrendering a man,
With a pistol purse prodding his back
And a warning not to look back.
Soon her determined fingers in his right pocket
From same fishing out a locket…
Jeez! The Guy is in dreamy love
And she about to tamper with A Dove!
“No, it has to be his trousers left pocket”.
But from ransacked same extracts a socket
“God! The Guy is an electrician
And I this couldn’t discern; A Non Magician…
Alright vamoose, looking not back
Unless you safe wisdom lack!”
He tightly sermonized on Harmony,
Neatly anchoring it in More Money:
How none of it unleashes Acrimony
And could crush A Holy Matrimony.
Soon, he alighted on Ceremony
But still built it on More Money:
The Humorless it clothes with The Funny,
A fiesta sweetening like Honey…
A public preacher, then, on More Money,
Now, his listeners fooling with Harmony
Next The Thing titling Ceremony.
More Money Man’s Doubly Assured Harmony,
Even the seeds from Strangled Matrimony,
Keeps tending with Authorized Alimony.
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