the remote to our TV disappeared last night
my husband and I checked both sides of our chairs
the table, a shelf, the floor, a shoe, the garbage can
My husband asked “do you think Beau has it?”
“Not a chance,” I told him “we would hear him chewing it”.
We turned on the lights and tore the living room apart.
Moved the couch and both recliners.
Put our hands down the recliners three or four more times.
“Your mom’s birthday is tomorrow,” I said “do you think it is her saying hello?”
His mother has been gone twenty years, but this felt like spirit playing tricks.
We already lost one remote to this machine and it was never found.
I will not be surprised if it is sitting here next to our chairs tomorrow.
I was wrong.
It was sitting on the chair in the morning.
Rats probably live in Joe’s man cave
I never clean it; I am not a slave
I bet they have parties after midnight
Scooping up all his debris, which is out of sight.
Under his recliners are crackers and cheese.
Peanut butter, potato chips, and dust that would make me sneeze.
I imagine the rodents love being down there all cozy and tight.
Luckily, his mancave is super dark when we turn off the light.
Reading some homework
The day seems like artwork
Has the sky ever been so blue
Three guys toss a frisbee
perilously near me
shirtless boys silhouetted in turquoise
We’ve got our shades on
We pretend not to watch em’
But we know they’re putting on a show.
We’ve got fold up recliners
and we set a timer
to move to the shade in a minute or two
But the sun seems distracted
cooler and less radioactive
dozens of students are out on the quad
The trees aren’t just standing
the breeze has them dancing
to ‘Blood in the Cut’, a song by ‘K.Flay’
On this cool, near-fall holiday
We’ll while our day away
each of us claiming a chance to relax
Now that we’re juniors, we know the facts
We get that there’s still a lot of reading to do
but we know, we can have a little fun too.
What else would you expect us to do?
My neighbors have been celebrating 4th of July for a week.
It has finally arrived today. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
I think these patriots take time to nap between 11 and 2 every day.
They have tossed cherry bombs into our dumpster.
They have blown up our mailbox.
What marvelous festivities for them!
It gave us a chance to see how worthless our grayscale video is.
We saw one flag decorated guy get out of his car to do these deeds.
But we could not identify the car or the guy.
Unless he wore the same t-shirt
And no one else had one.
Bam Bam Bam Bam Bam
Our dogs and cat are hiding behind us in our recliners.
Their ears hurt.
I can only imagine how men and women servicemen are doing.
Especially if they have PTSD.
Does anyone ever consider them during these 4th of July celebrations?
Apparently not.
I cannot trust my husband to dump the trash, so I insist on taking it up.
He has squirreled so much crap back into this house
I make him put it into his office.
His office has six recliners, two beds,
and a stack of three couches. It is crazy full.
There are books, sweatshirts, and eight
not-quite-all-there sewing machines in his man cave.
It is a hoarder’s den of mice-only-know what.
I watch him cart in a box of cat litter.
He does not yet realize it is where I put the used cat litter.
It shouldn’t take him long….
My parent’s TV people manipulate them like puppets
Amazon’s hidden camera watches their strings
As they are popped up and down,
Believing what Channel Z tells them to believe
It is strange to live in a world with people
Who have given over all rights to their own thoughts
The only brain connection now is the one that holds the remote
They run to their recliners and press the Channel Z button
Soon Channel Z will be the only one they can push
They will not realize this, because they never try for another
channel, another idea, another thought
Here they go – dancing around the room on Channel Z’s strings.
I never thought I would live in a world like this,
and yet here I am, watching it from my dry corner.
Eating my cereal, slowly and methodically
Wishing I had arrived before Chanel Z was invented.
Children dashing and laughing throughout the mess.
Moms and dads trying not to throw away toys
As they gather up scads of shredded Christmas wrapping
Grandmas begging them to keep the bows.
Blinking twinkling Christmas tree looking less magical,
Appears shabbier in the morning than it did last night
Boys with swords having a dual, chasing each other.
One nervous grandma mentioning the danger.
Granddads sleeping in their recliners, not hearing any of it
Someone yelling “That is your last Christmas cookie!”
Her sisters chiding her, making fun, hugging her.
Everyone grown up is a kid for a day, with their grown siblings.
Christmas at Grandma’s house, nothing like it.
Only once a year, making memories for a life time
Beef and noodles, scalloped corn, mashed potatoes
Five kinds of pies, mints, cookies. Wow!
Children watching their parents becoming kids again
As their mothers tell them what to do.
Not all children, some are sneaking mints and nuts.
Homemade Christmas stockings thrown into clumps.
Christmas feelings without names
More intense than other feelings
More personal, more exciting, more magical
Christmas. A day to celebrate our Christ Child.
Foxtrot for dances or horses?
Both I suppose.
Who does it better?
Comparing them would be
Like comparing onions to Lazy-boy-recliners,
Comparing lima beans to undertakers,
Comparing lavender to unicorns,
Comparing poetry to poetry.
It simply cannot be done.
Can I have this foxtrot, Mr. Horse?
Shopping for a comfortable chair
Hopes dwindling and reached despair
Then there it is a perfect fit
In it I comfortably sit
Then the price tag ruins our affair.
Was going to write more but never got around to it.....LOL..Sitting in the chair
That oddly shaped bedroom
To the left of the staircase
The greenish blue carpet
Against a bed skirt of lace
The worst hue of yellow
Snug tight on my mattress
Opposite the mirror
Where I became an actress
If I close my eyes tight
Give control to my perceptions
I’ll bring in to sight
My Shirley Temple collection
My play kitchen table
With two plastic chairs
My mom sits on one
As I style up her hair
If quiet enough
I’ll hear giggling girls
Rolling wet hair
To wake up in curls
Back down the stairs
The carpet turns brown
A dish of fake pears
The clock’s chiming sound
A typewriter is present
But not a computer
It’s simple and pleasant
Like my motor less scooter
In the den, I will find
Two, worn, mauve recliners
Yes, I’ve traveled time
A Delorean rider
One last thing to Check
Before heading back home
I race to the deck
With a box of milk bones
I close my eyes tight
And concentrate hard
Til the most wonderful sight
Appears in my yard
My childhood pal, Muffin
Chasing his tail
Kiss, kisses and loving
But then I must bail
I loosen my grip
And open my eyes
A quick, lovely trip
Has met its demise
I lost the remote in the living room.
On Saturday.
My husband and I ran around looking and looking.
At first it was just the couch pillows, we were looking through.
An hour into it we had made what looks like a bon fire,
Tipping over couches, recliners, and such.
We broke a couple of tables.
Hey, wait, my husband reminded me.
Merlin was here today.
I called Merlin’s mommy, our daughter.
She said, "Oh, darn. We just found it. We thought it
was the one we lost a couple of weeks ago."
Merlin is our two year old grandson
Whom we apparently did not watch
As well as we should have the
5 hours he was here.
He is going to have to
Leave his hoodie and
His diapers at home.
Anacreaontic
Do daffodils cry
Do snow drops shed tears
Do willows weep
Do blue bells bawl
April showers
Don't weep for winter
Miss the howling winds
Sob for snow white outs
Sad on cloudy days
April showers
Splash of yellow
A dash of blue
A drop of white
Edged with green
April showers
Birds sing for joy
Rabbits have a romp
Bee's buzz the flowers
Frogs lay their spawn
April showers
Barbecues cleaned
Gardens weeded
Recliners aired
Lawns cut and fed
April showers
Spring has sprung
And natures burst out
Life will renew
Year's cycle begun
May's flowers
As I sit on my chair and type
this poem, I think
about our past and the ways
we would communicate before.
Did we read an electronic novel or did we read a
written, bound book?
I believe that we had a different mindset in the past
and it’s turning into something different
as the future approaches us.
Instead of worrying about the memory on
our hard drive, we used to worry
about the amount of ink in our pen.
Instead of having a empty digital sheet open in
front of us, we used to have a blank thin layer of
papyrus presenting itself to us.
Instead of laying on our recliners and blindly reading what the
web shows, we used to use our feet to get
to a local library.
The computer is a great device, but
we must not cut all our traditional lines.
If we indulge in our comforts, we might
lose sight to what is valuable to us.
Solid, living books may be hard to pick up, but
if we look at a flashy screen all day, it won’t be just our eyes
that are going to go kapoosh.
It’s also our minds.
Remember the day that you brought me home to stay.
Every time you set in me, I heard you stop and say.
Chair you are so soft and I rest easy within you.
Lazily you reclined and I caressed, so gently too.
I know that you care for me as deeply as you show.
Neatly you kept me, shampooing me, head to toe.
I have no idea what ever happened to the love you had.
Now I set waiting, in the corner, did I do something bad?
Granted I have become an old chair maybe you became sad.
Carefully you replaced me with a bigger and brighter chair.
Hearing you say that he was on sale, a bargain so fair.
Again, you scrub him and me, so I know you still care.
I know my days are limited, because of the size of this room.
Recliners come and go. That is our dilemma and perilous doom.