What are these symbols? Letters? Ink?
Holding the meaning of what we think?
If I had been born in a different time,
Lines of writing would not fill my time.
I may have grunted with purpose that led
To all the words that have been said.
I may have hummed with feeling that drew
From sentiments I knew as true.
I may have hummed with a sing-songy tune,
Spoke to my children by light of the moon.
Now there is language, helpful and tricky.
Some of the things that we hear become sticky.
Is much of it useful? Much of it nice?
To receive in the morn when we haven’t thought twice?
Cleverly used and in most complex ways,
What is it actually trying to say?
Maybe the grunt and the hum as of yore,
Would help us remember what we knew before.
When we picked up our grandson
From sleepaway camp,
A few new expressions
Had managed to stamp
Themselves on his psyche –
6-7 was one,
Its sing-songy rhythm
A part of the fun.
He tried to explain it –
I couldn’t quite get it.
It stuck in my head, though;
I couldn’t forget it.
It’s an internet meme,
Maybe based on a song.
If you Google it, you’ll be
Confused before long.
For my grandson’s 12th birthday
I stitched up a gift
Of 6-7 in felt;
His reaction was swift.
He laughed and I knew
My idea was a smash,
But he pointed out, “Nana,
You don’t need the dash.”
I guess I’m not hip to
The trends of today.
Still, my grandson will teach me
And that is okay.
saw the old lady’s china pattern drawn on the floor
a line of crazy if you asked me, but what do I know?
Did he mean he would commit suicide
or is it something to say?
Where is his grandma anyway?
I hear a weird mumbling
Sing-songy, and strange
She climbs out of a Vodka bottle
I watch her run to the bathroom
He is her charge, she is the one who wanted him
What am I doing here?
Who will save me later?
Oh, you did not know Mrs. Klondike said.
Haughty, uppity, not nice in the least.
The festival has been moved and renamed.
The Aprillstica has been re-named?
No way!
I was horrified, shocked.
As my Aunt Bee was one of the original Villageonians,
I felt she should be bothered immediately.
“I know,” she sang gaily, in an unknown way into the phone.
“It was my idea.”
Her idea!
Now I was truly confused.
Had she gotten her pills mixed up again?
My Aunt Bee has not sounded this happy since 1971
When she married the newest “love” of her life who
Was her eighth husband, and a shyster like the others.
I quickly drove to Springton Nursing Home to see what was up.
“This is Harold,” she said in a voice I barely remembered.
A sing-songy, happy, uplifting voice.
Harry had initially had the idea to change Aprillstica Festival
To Marchatillion Festival.
Well, then, okay by me.
She is ninety-six after all, and running out
of charm.
I am a wedding planner, and
frankly, although I too am a Villageonian,
business has been slow….
She’s coming! Mom said this in a sing-songy way.
She knew that my twin and I were fascinated with Florence,
she was like our new toy. We had been afraid of her for years
due to her wizen face and her propensity to look like an older
version of the witch from The Wizard of Oz.
We ran out there like salivating puppies,
waiting for Florence to regale us with stories of hangings
or killing snakes, stories that gave us nightmares.
We were ten, ten-year-old girls live for nightmares, right?
She was leading Charming, one of her favorite goats,
as she laboriously walked toward us, head down, black hat,
nearly touching her shoulders. Her white gray hair was flying
out on one side. She stopped right before she reached us,
not looking up.
“Hey, Florence!” my twin and I both said at the
exact same time. I could tell she was smiling.
“Came to see Charming, huh?” she asked.
Then she giggled, but it was more like a cackle.
A cackle that used to terrorize us, but now it delighted us.
She was our new toy, she and Charming.
Tweets, chirps, pops, whistles
Pure sing-songy prettiness
Bird Sanctuary
Ticky Bicky Boo
Licky Mickey Moo
I'm in love with you
Little Tsuki Tsu.
Chicky Dicky Doo
Ricky Nicky Nu
Close your lips with glue
Kiss a kangaroo.
Tricky Picky Poo
Quicky Hicky Hoo
I'll practice Wu Shu
By a shady yew.
Wicky Kicky Ku
Yucky Sticky Stew
Visiting the zoo
Painting chickens blue.
The depths of my soul are too shallow.
The fruits of my labor grew fallow.
A sing songy rhyme in three quarter time.
Is all that this poem has to show.
But what can a free thinking fellow.
Do when his mind has turned to jello.
As he sits and requires to express.
What he knows, he know's won't impress.
So he jump's in with nothing to lose.
With his iambic poetic shoes.
If you pay close attention.
You'll notice him mention.
But quite secretly, only with clues.
The afternoon's weaving and waving.
As he still sit's here just misbehaving.
Doing nothing worth while, now somewhat of a style.
He finds that it's all that he's craving.
An emptiness filled to the brim.
Is all that is left inside him.
A repose to the past that surely can't last.
OMG, are you kidding, how dim.
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