Daydreams of summers’ past
are vivid in my mind’s eye…
…sandcastles with moats to build
beachballs to chase and throw
loud voices echoing along the beach.
Salt water, lifeguards and whistles…
…my toes curl through hot summer sand
large, loud waves glisten and crash
in an endless rhythm and flow.
We ran headlong into the waves
cheap styrofoam boards in hand
recklessly splashing, wet hair dripping
taking whatever waves we could
laughing, radiant with joy…
…I miss my sister.
Superman's demise is his kryptonite
With the ability to weaken and destroy
But a worse fate exists in this fight
With a greater ability to totally annoy
I'm referring to a whitish nightmare
Often used to package boxes in care
The noise is such a wonderful scare
Loud screeching please don't dare
The very thought puts me into fright
Though masses eat off it in delight
Terrifying noises with no end in sight
Brought too close it will cause a fight
Eliminate this plague I beg you please
It's no more than a screechy disease
Meant to totally annoy in many degrees
My noisy kryptonite for everyone to see
Styrofoam oh do I utterly loathe thee
I wish the entire world would also agree
Horrible noise bringing me to my knees
From you I really want to completely flee
No fancy toys just styrofoam cups and string
If the Rainman would concur, I would take all my days cloudy and
all my moments as this sodden one, but to my chagrin he does not.
Things come upon me near the moistened river. The water in the air
takes me back to a Styrofoam cup of juicy minnow bait on a drizzly day.
Countless coconuts swirl down this smelly tributary. They don’t
about each other or about why the tide takes them there it pleases.
You can’t tell me that they do not think like us, or maybe they don’t.
Either way they cannot know the sacredness of watching a ballet
of synchronized raindrops from beneath the water’s surface.
Submitted by Gary Baldwin (Jan 21, 2026)
for the Let it Rain Poetry Contest
The wind is just right
And teases the leaves just so
The warmth from the Styrofoam cup in your hand keeps the chill at bay
You sip the cocoa feeling the marshmallows touch your lips
Your boots click on the concrete and create a rhythm with the crunch of the leaves
The air feels thinner and it's six weeks until Christmas
You feel a twinkle of hope, of ending a year with as much anticipation as a kid waiting for Santa.
Your knit beanie keeps your ears warm and your grateful the weather is not bitter winter
You cozy by the fireplace unwrapping your scarf.
Settling in for conversation and laughter
This is Fall.
A complete thought
it conveys a complete thought
soothing harmonious phrases
a melody
perfecting a pitch
a sequence of notes
and a musical structure
that grooves and carries
from the Book
Cochliomyia hominivorax
By Cooter Skirts
----------------------------
a line from page 109 reads
We used the boxtruck for shelter in the rain.
while putting Styrofoam spray into number
tin cans, we were tryna make a floating device, anyway
I told ex wife the story of me becoming engaged.
"I knew my wife loved me the day
I came home early and no one
was there. She does crafts
and on the table was " I love You"
stringed together. She used the pigfeet bones from
the BBQ and some string
she tied dandiloins inbetween the bones
I asked her to marry me that evening"
She played fiddle with the band and I played accordain
Her ex husband was a cattle herder and he always had a need
to talk o her. I got tired of this
She said she'd marry me and I
told him that the latenight gossip
had to stop: I laughed at his lonelinees
and made no bones about what I meant!
My one heart as a part of humanity's great heart,
spiritually holds the indwelling God presence as sought.
A human hold shiftily slants and grows knots tied fraught
with false-held, gloomy feels that egos and fears impart.
Divine truths dawn in our souls thru imagination,
not from human workings but graces gifts in-working.
Imagination can stop fears from falsely out-working
and foil mankind's believed limits of false accreditation.
In still solitude, spiritual truths as held in our being
meet our consciousness, our divinity's hidden place
in which our indwelling Christ gives ALL with God's grace
and intellect joins intuition to seek a soul's true freeing.
Through spiritually held faith one is belief aligned
in God's power, greater than any fear episode
man may encounter or engineer to earth upload.
No one or thing can malign what our Father designed.
My faith would never crumble feeble as styrofoam
when the worst that could happen is I'd get to go home.
I am tired.
Usually in a “life has sapped itself out”
But that isn’t what this is about.
I. Am. Tired.
Of my stupid styrofoam smile
Squeaking under pressure all the while.
I am tired.
Of being walkedranmoppedraked overthroughon.
And of being treated as dumb spawn or clueless pawn.
I am calm, patient, quiet, KIND.
In the midst of grossness others spew against and on my mind.
However. My still hand does NOT mean
That I don’t find your way of existing obscene.
I may not lift my finger,
But damn does wavering will barely linger.
I am so tired of tulips and fields and eggshells.
I am ready for mortars, more ammo, some bombshells.
I am so tired of being the go-to-friend.
You know I’ll be there in the end.
I am so tired of “can I, may I, if it’s not too much”
After a while, doesn’t tired become the crutch?
Tired, exhausted, drained, and used.
Perhaps from the next I must recuse
Myself not because interests conflicted,
But rather because you don’t deserve a finger lifted.
I am so tired of being my warmth of fiery nice.
I’m so tempted to just let it all go.
Be discompassionate ice.
Cheap ale pools in a Styrofoam cup.
She’s barefoot in gravel,
anklet flashing beneath the floodlamps.
Pickup window ajar, radio blaring
“Friends in Low Places.”
Her jeans slung low,
hips marbled violet on the porch-swing,
ash winnowing across her thighs
from last night’s guttering fire.
I watch the buttes flatten at gloaming,
a silo blinking red—
a wound stitched into the earth.
She speaks of leaving at firstlight.
I say nothing,
fingers tracing the stubs of dead cigarettes
between her knuckles.
Coyotes keen beyond the barbed-wire.
The stars loom Pendulous
We do not lift our gaze.
Rainy Days
On rainy days celery sticks make
pillow forts, cookies eat
packs of
cards, test tubes learn
how to
draw, vases lip
sync Gloria Estefan songs, paper airplanes look at
old pictures of
their recycled relatives, Styrofoam cups break
down, ladders bend and
stretch, and
lunch boxes grow
long shiny
silky hair.
false teeth
prosthetic arms and legs
diapers
wigs
grenades
expired passports and licenses
human skull
ribbons
plastic bottles
papers by the ton
glass
Styrofoam that never disintegrates
food scraps
filling up landfills one item at a time
I like to play my Xylophone
Whenever I get the urge at home
I while away the hours on my own
It puts me in my happy zone
But then I bought a microphone
And that made the neighbours moan
Complaining to me on the phone
To insulate with Styrofoam
Since they don't enjoy my dulcet tone
I said I'd give it up in order to atone
But vengeance is sweet and mine alone...
So instead I bought a Vibraphone
27 April 2023
Writing challenge 'Words with 'X' ' poetry contest
Sponsored by Constance La France
I didn’t expect to be enlightened
on the 5
passing Dodger Stadium
north-bound, but-
A flatbed load of Styrofoam had spilled
and was dancing on the road
in small bits and huge chunks.
We drove through them
like they were nothing,
bouncing all around
off the windshields
and hoods and sides.
Wisdom flooded through us
radiating an immediate encompassing bond
as we passed this universe
of nothing.
We were, of course,
the spaces between particles,
the answer to physics.
The answer to everything!
The mystery was revealed,
The mirages understood.
There are no barriers.
Only those we put there ourselves.
The sun-glassed man in the flatbed
nodded at me and then
off he went-
the 2 North.
Rime, a crunchy, rough, as it glows prime snow
On the surface of all that snow, like a white cameo
Popcorn or Styrofoam plastered at zero below
Rippled from the nemesis cold wind, frozen curling overflow
Onto naked trees and all, when it comes, Rime it does grow
On windy mountaintops that tumble to and frow
As it goes on windward side that blows
Black and white collection of snow ghosts show
A nemesis on the premises when it’s zero below
2/21/2022
A Brian Strand Rime Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
I envy the stylish model
her styrofoam perfect breasts
those legs that never need shaving
the sweet smile that needs no rest
the hair that’s always behaving
the pose that teasingly arrests
she’s a icon of current fashion
a flower neatly pressed
but no love will ever find her
no one cares if she’s undressed
she’ll never accomplish anything
never mind - I’m not impressed
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