Paula persnickety poppycock provided proof
Questioning quarrelsome quick-witted quail
Responsible radicals reacted, reminding raised roof
Shopworn shortbread shakes shifty ships and shale
I remember the day
you borrowed my pain
“Take it,” I told you
no need to explain
It’s shopworn and battered
each scar duly earned
Its weight a true burden
of prophecy spurned
Then when you’ve finished
the torture complete
Find a new soul
to will it discrete
But no matter what happens
or how much you cry
This loan is forever
—forever goodbye
(Haverford College: January, 2024)
Shameless shady shepherd Sherlock shushed shoeless Sherman
so surely shabby sharp-eyes Sheila shellacked sheep-headed Sherlock
Shaken shallow Sharon shadowed shapely shipwrecked Sheila
Shadow-man shilly-shallied, shifting shopworn Sharon’s sheep
Showy Sharon sharpened a shortened sheath, shaving Sherlock
Sherlock shuttled shell shocked Sherman, showing his Shenanigans
Shoddy Sheila shocked Shelly, shaking sheep into Shangri-La.
A Simple Story
Little child finds upon a heap of rubbish
Favored threadbare rabbit of tawny velveteen
One eye missing
Cloth rubbed to shiny by little hands.
Beloved bunny,
Shopworn keepsake from babyhood,
Languishing in forgotten jungles of junk,
Broken teacups and outgrown sweaters.
Heartbroken child, with faithful love,
Cradles one last time this life companion
To kiss goodbye this forever friend
In a eulogy of tears and turns to leave.
Love works miracles
From the rubbish arises a living bunny
Bulging stuffing and missing eye repaired
Now hugged again in arms of delight.
Golden bunny of dappled coat
Lives in colorful clusters of carrots
Straight radish rows and leafy greens
Planted by the small child’s hands that
Remember…
3-21-23
Contest: A Simple Poetry Contest
Sponsor: John Lawless
Based on the children’s book – The Velveteen Rabbit
Spring Beauty and the Beast
Tenderly Spring sends harbingers of beauty,
Knights errant of crocus and snowdrops,
To warm winter’s shopworn heart
And soothe his brittle bones of barren boughs
With balms of long jonquil sunbeams
Melting the grumpy curmudgeon’s stronghold,
As pussy willows decorate his solstice doldrums
She watches snowflakes skate across thawing ponds.
Spring sends a redwing blackbird song
To lift Winter’s decrepit heart
In shy rhapsodies of new butterflies and lady bugs
Engaging Winter’s gloomy frown
Into transcendent blue-eyed welkins like Forget-Me-Nots
Then chants déjà vu in veils of daffodils
As spritely Sweet Peas adorn
Winter’s faded doorstep.
Beauty soothes the beast
Touching the ice-blue armor of his heart
With Hyacinth whispers
And sighs of zephyrs like a fluffy Snowball;
In the Lilac scent of a new equinox
Winter dozes wrapped in Spring’s enchantment
As she sings lullabies of reminiscent hibernation
Until he strides past halcyon autumn shadows again.
2-24-23
Contest: In Bloom
Sponsor: Joseph May
Hope forewarned
Such was Jeremiah's call:
Go, tell my people what I'm going to do;
Know that they will not listen to you.
Hope forlorn
determining the odds on a bet:
You choose this or that, using your brain;
you lose sometimes, money down the drain.
Hope shopworn
accompanies buying a car:
Fishing, sales huckster puts on airs;
dishing out money later for repairs.
Hope unborn
Such are some relationships:
the beauty of lovers, errant;
the duty of becoming a parent.
Hope well-born
An Italian fishing boat
saves a victim amnesia-bound,
Jason Bourne - identity found.
Hope with a thorn
Hope deferred makes the heart sick:
You bait your prayers with a promise;
You wait on God, doubting like Thomas.
April 26, 2021
Forty years shopworn yet still taut,
the past a seamstress rare
Her words reknitted, stitched and purled
—to dress a future bare
(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2020)
Lined face and hands of leather
Her body punished by blazing-hot weather
She'd worked the fields for 50-plus years
Her energy drained, along with the swamps
~For the kibbutz whose ideals she held so dear...
Shopworn and spent in her shapeless frock
Offered a menial job in a kitchen smock
She volunteered to teach immigrants Hebrew instead
The time had come to depend on her mind, she said...
Her classroom had no board, just tables and chairs
Nor was there a breath of fresh air in there
The temperature outside nearly one-hundred ten
Inside just two fans --Can you imagine?
Yet she taught us to converse from the very first
In just a month, we could handle most situations
We could shop for clothes and order food too
Buy tickets for a ride on the bus or in the train station
She taught most of us to speak Hebrew fluently
Her lessons with our objectives meshed congruently
Her name was Tsiporah; it means 'a sweet bird'
Her language teaching the sweetest music we'd ever heard
October 06, 2019
Favorite Teacher or Professor Contest
Sponsor: Chantelle Anne Cooke
So let me know that you are a shopworn
Me thee rises like the sun galore but sometimes
Deflated, downplayed and torn
The surrealism of us bestowed much mold.
So let me know if your truly a writer?
I maybe fall in love and twas never died
Your the man I see from Achilles and I am the bride I see from Helen
In summer night at some moments of our time
So let me know if you exists in this world?
Were the tandem of great imperfections
There up in the sky..
I am the star of the second magnitude
And your Platus of every playwright
whose mindful of his works
So let me know hence thee we're about to told
Our benign thoughts must trace a word
It's the centerfold of Humanism is what I called
So let me know
In your lover's eyes thou'st dwells me inside..
A precious penny for your thoughts,
for five a good cigar.
Prevailing wisdom up in smoke
to regale the nearest star.
Keep abreast of Smith and friends,
but true friends we disdain.
As eager birds beat frantic wings
in sunrise search for gain.
A moron's gold soon disappears,
no noontime meal is free
Roll every penny and they're yours,
on that we all agree.
Shopworn phrases from the past
still speak to here and now.
It's amazing still how money talks-
that final, sacred cow.
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