Butter Fly
the butter
~* *~
* *
* *
fly
that flied away
that broke
the heart
that put to skids
the board on skates
the kid o
\ /
p q
\o o/
~ ~ ~ ~
his head in the clouds
~ ~ ~ \ * / * \ * /~ ~ ~
he
skates
away
…
he
forgets
…
for his grandmother
this butter fly’s under lock and key
Poor Mrs. Newton had two kids.
One found gravity. He was bright -
while little Fig hit the skids
and was eaten in one bite -
different as black and white.
The poetry of the COVID era
I spend my time within four walls
My time runs, my time crawls
It ebbs and flows, but cannot stay
It talks to wise, it flies away
Time envelops, leaves marks on thee
And when imprisoned, sets us free
In trying times, time stands still
It rarely bows to human will
We’re made of time. What a rave
It’s our master, we're slaves
Life’s just a view through times' glass
You don’t get a second pass
The greatest gift to give is time
Think otherwise is simply crime
Mourn time lost, as seconds die
We don’t have the time to cry
It’s ours when we are alone
And shared with those on the phone
The mirrors, pictures, also kids
Reflect how fast the time skids
Exchanged for money in our youth
“I want more time” is elders’ truth
In memories, both sweet and not
It lives. Now, what a timely thought
The sculptor’s putty in our hands
We shape the time with our plans
Invest in kids or write the code
It gifts us wings and tells the road
It gives us hope when we’re stuck
Lets grow together when in luck
And when it ends, defying death
Say “t’was great time” with final breath
April 5, 2020
New York, USA
© 2020
In this woke world I’d soon be hung
If I had had your spiteful tongue
How ironic that its wagging
Only stopped when you were gagging
And as I tried to grab the shard
Of chicken bone that was stuck hard
I grappled with what I could grip
And when you flinched… I heard a rip
You spasmed like you’d just been stung
And left me with your severed tongue
My sense of humour must be black:
Your tongue is mounted on a plaque
I’ve kept it from my wife and kids
To keep my marriage off the skids
So they don’t know that though you’re dead
A bit of of you is in my shed
So there I sat; my hide of choice
And thought about your nagging voice
And when your tongue began to jiggle
I won’t pretend it made me giggle
It made a move like licking lips
And flicked a few saliva drips
It looked ’round with its probing tip
Then sensed me… and it gave me gyp
An Ice Fishing House, Abandoned, in Need of Repair
That same shed waits
by the trees.
Waits on its skids
for the lake to freeze,
and the for the creaking
joints of bickering
stoop-shouldered men
as they push it out to the center
of a pool of glass.
It houses the stories of fishing
in winter, pulling sustenance,
wriggling, through chiseled
portals into another realm.
Old men would wait
like death, slow,
their breath
turning to steam
until they could abduct
their prey from the world below.
Trout would flop
with the thickness of a muscled fist,
striking ice like distillery rage unhinged.
They would twist and corkscrew,
mottled black and silver slapping
the frozen pane of the lake,
waiting for suffocation to take them,
as the old men drifted up in
the steam of twice-warmed coffee,
and the willow-the-wisp exhalations
of ribald stories, retold, and finally forgotten.
On the skids with no brakes,
thankfully, a memory;
that began with falling,
falling over and over again,
with bruises that healed;
such is childhood.
I tried to attack the slippery slope,
challenged by youtube videos
that I could wisely imbibe;
teenager at heart was I…
to fall flat, flatter than a pancake.
As this was a few years back,
still a Big-Mac Grandmother;
a smucker-grape hugger.
Bigger than life;
life was bigger than me.
Who was I to inspire?
I lit my bum on fire.
Who am I to think
that each one was like the other?
Those grand-girls flew past me, in blurs.
The youngest boy, now ten,
screamed until I relinquished,
took off those skates
then circled the rink
as I chased him down.
His elder brother, held on for dear life,
just wouldn’t let go
of the skate mate;
but I am old,
or so I am told.
I grew up when no helmet
was required, where
seat belts were optional;
free to choose, “I will survive.”
So, do I think today’s kids
are wimps? I’ve joined
the ranks of wimpiness;
it is the key to living longer.
By the way, the kid
won’t climb a tree.
He sees each and every bug.
Were they there when I was young?
My eyeballs move as though witnessing scenes within eyelids.
Face, just like obeying commands of some far-off spirits, skids
Heaven, with the triune god and the angels illumine
I cross the boundaries and reach all realms beyond human
Truth and untruth are tenderly mixed like milk and water.
Where's my skill gone that culls out shapes from mud as a potter?
There's a sensation. It's like the touch on a touch-me-not.
Between what's seen and unseen, known and unknown, there's a knot.
As a small drama that is enacted within a long play
Does the unsaid truth sparkle, piercing the veils of each ray?
Do the deeds of good overpower the deeds of evil?
Between brain, bones, blood, nerves, and muscles, there's an upheaval.
Sitting aside my flowing stream of thoughts and thoughtlessness
Do I, the dreamer, discover my own dream's plotlessness?
Cuffed with cautions, causations, cognitions, and cogitations
Aren’t each dream and the dreamer bound by vague limitations?
Aunt Marge’s Christmas letter sat unopened again.
Most of us walked by it, and said “not by the hair
of our chinny chin chin”
We knew what it would hold
Accomplishments of her six awful kids
We had nothing to do with them
Thanks to their behaviors
our family reunions had been on the skids.
This one is perfect.
That one is fine.
Billy is the president of railroad nine.
Tommy is an outstanding citizen now.
Her children were all amazing, wonderful,
her family a wow.
Aunt Marge has been bragging about them
in Christmas letters for fifty three years.
In truth they are spoiled brats
have caused lots of us tears
Her braggadocio bragging is annoying to me.
That unopened letter finally finds its way to the trash bin
without being opened, as our family all did agree.
We were lonely,
Our children newly grown.
If only,
we could find someone for our own.
Apart from our kids,
our first marriages weren't great.
They hit the skids
more than ten years ago, plus eight.
We learned to survive
until the day we caught a leprechaun -
nabbed him alive,
and we had something to dream upon.
And so,
the two of us wished and thought
we caught a rainbow,
and our leprechaun was on the spot.
You were a beauty,
Your colors were to have and hold.
It was my duty
to be your pot of gold.
Naive like kids,
we'd caught a rainbow it had seemed,
but fate forbids,
and we hadn't caught what we had dreamed.
Survey the hands that do the tiresome deeds,
the feet that clear the weeds on paths of sin,
the ears that listen, writing down the needs
the loving hearts that pray for souls to win.
Disciples offer worthwhile help for free
with gentle words when fellows disagree.
No censure made for lives from guilt reborn
but pure encouragement in lieu of scorn.
From baskets filled with food for hungry kids
to welcome beds that homeless people crave.
From secret cash for one who’s hit the skids
to counsel giv’n a work-a-holic slave.
Observe these ones who bear their Savior’s name.
Envision corpus Christi without shame -
His body glorifying The Lord - forgiv’n -
the church at work and Holy-Spirit-driv’n.
It’s Howdy Doody Time!
It’s Howdy Doody Time!
If you know this rhyme so nifty,
Your childhood was probably in a fifty.
Remember the advertisers promoting color TV?
This was when we all had black and white, you and me.
Howdy had forty-eight freckles representing each state of the USA.
Watching him on the tube was what most of us did every day.
Remember Buffalo Bob, Howdy’s Sidekick?
He amused all of us children, he was honest, not slick.
We bought Wonder bread, because they spouted that it was good muster.
Most of us wanted the ballots they printed, to vote for Phineas T. Bluster.
Chief Thunderthud and Chief Featherman kept us honest, us kids.
J. Cornelius Cobb, the shopkeeper kept clowns on the skids.
If you remember anything, this one chant should be incredibly clear.
Let's give a rousing cheer, because Howdy Doody is here!
Written: November 28, 2023
______________________________________
Beneath the sweltering luminescent sky.
A thunderbolt flared over the silent firefly.
Oak-smoke tones and vanilla bean paste.
Swung idly, draped as moss from a baste.
Tintinnabulation caused by wind-borne sighs.
The gentle quiet of flora roughness is dry.
Evenfall cobalt-wrapped nascent starlight.
A crescent-shaped moon is gloaming in flight.
An avalanche of a billion Katydid wing beats
Cricket voices in a range of alto to bass feats
My gem-encrusted flame bursts and spits.
Beneath a benumbed bowl, boiling hiss.
My soul finds solace in the lichened death fall.
I was thrilled by the fire and the creepy owl call.
A soft mist falls across drooping eyelids.
amid the dancing stars and firefly skids.
GROWING UP
At the beginning, I was a baby
No mind to speak of, just need
Growing quickly into a toddler
Ancestral genes the modeller
Too young to follow a creed
Destined for greatness - maybe
A tall young boy, learning fast
Changes in both body and brain
Things one can do, stuff one can’t
Life suggesting a different slant
Examinations come round again
Until it’s leaving school at last
The world of work offers surety
Self-sufficient, now living alone
Many new challenging decisions
Interviews for better positions
Conducted on a mobile phone
Balancing interests with security
After decades of payslips and tax
Marriage, and even having kids
Retirement looms in a few years
More free time and no more tears
Hoping health is not on the skids
Faced with a different set of facts
Less about future, more of the past
One’s life was a million adventures
Now everything is at a slower pace
Often caught staring up into space
Getting used to wearing dentures
And accepting that the die is cast
I am a frozen bowl lady! A frozen bowl lady!
I will come at your call, to fritz your icies, Said Sadie.
We did not understand at all, not living in mom-at-home-times.
It’s like the Tupperware lady, said someone else, My Auntie Frimes.
You would have to live back then and see their rallies, she said.
We chanted our song up and down, at the back of each other’s head.
Went from house to house selling plastic keepers with lids.
Until women went to work and the company fell on the skids.
It descended hard and hot -
must have been a rookie,
flaps oscillating mightily
correcting overcorrections,
undercarriage lowered and high angled
wings up and wide
spread out for maximum deceleration.
If there had been a computer on-board
it would have been repeating:
"too low - too low,
terrain-pull-up, terrain pull-up!"
but
there was just a solo goose brain at the controls,
and landing on ice in low visibility is always tricky
even for professional flyers.
It came in fast,
no chance of aborting the landing now,
no time for last moment adjustments,
webs touching down, then lifting up
as the impact jolted it airwards again,
Touch-down, yawing badly,
wings now beating the air wildly,
somehow
the bird keeps a shaky balance
as it slews and skids to a rocking half.
The goose immediately
starts preening and shaking-out its tail feathers
as if to say:
"nothing to see here."
The other geese in that same flight
honking loudly,
hard to say if they were cheering
or jeering.
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