We shuffle the days
like cards across the table,
hoping to draw Spring.
But the deck grows ever thinner
with every hand we choose to play.
Entropy walks on,
spilling sugar, cooling tea,
loosening tight knots.
dealing cards from beneath the pack
while Time pretends not to notice.
There's much kerfuffle
when stars bend the road between
one heartbeat and the next.
Cards arrive out of sequence
Distance becomes duration
Time is stretched and distended,
paths are bent and distorted
and you arrive before you left.
Memory itself reshuffles
dealing tomorrow before yesterday.
A mother's laugh, a child's distressed cry—
both hiding in the same hand
waiting for the shuffle
to reveal a trump card between them.
We trace every moment
on clock faces and calendars,
yet we cannot tell
which breath came first
or which came last.
The instant we watch too closely,
the dealer stops dealing,
skips a card,
moves on—
then quietly slips
an extra card into our pile
while we're looking
the other way.
For, the kerfuffle of entropy's shuffling
keeps ruffling the deck
we mistake for
of our Time.
...comes the force of awakening
like tenderness and fire
an intimacy that stands at the edge of new
time works differently
reshuffles life
in heart hammering excitement
invested with hope
to push aside the boundaries of impossible
two people shaped by each other's needs
drawn together in physical ease
when words shake down reserve
when touch morphs into love
sometimes tangled and knotty
like heartbreak in country music
if we just climb high enough
if we have the courage to carry on
if forgiveness transforms silence
disputes fall by the wayside
we change through loving eyes
vows that summon us forward
that never numb with age
Does the world know what it ought to cherish?
to woo a full humanity
to mend the battle scars of war
when we know a visionary change
that lives on
in the love we leave behind
Katrin
the cat that laughs
I mean mews all the day
and reshuffles his plan ten times
of his marriage with Mrs. Katrina Gray
but the crux of the argument
that nobody marries
'ere yearend but
Katrin
A Red-Letter Day Rictameter Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: William Kekaula
21 DEC, 2019
The ballerina with her coquetry
and prince with yawning tights his legs stump me.
Her twirl a-spin with graceful poise so long.
The twaddle of his movements poor ping-pong.
Unhandsome chin and rabbit ears so dull
But Alice charms before the queen of bull.
Her ruffles white, she curtsies with a kiss
the redness of a playing card’s abyss.
A timed waste for the prince - he scorns his watch.
His buffoonish pants made of trips and starch.
The queen, she’s not amused — “Off with their heads!”
“I shall have rabbit stew and corset seeds”
The ballerina begs with lashes long
The queen so flatly states her wish “S’long!”
Just then a storm reshuffles deck - a win.
The queen’s been tossed - the duo rides their Schwinn.
To find a finer ballet stage just in
The precise time for girls and rabbit-spin.
10/22/2018
Try Something New Poetry Contest
Sponsor - Nina Parmenter
With dodgy rhymes
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