I use a tv set as if it were a radio
listening while I do other things
my childhood through the sixties trained me well
while I listen to my dramas, I play word games
write poetry, draw pictures and cartoons and paint
when I do look up, the drone of the tv coaxes me into a nap
I love listening to a tv
it is almost as great as listening to a radio
I never drove a stick shift
Although once, I tried to learn.
I think they’re mostly gone now
And I don’t see their return.
A manual transmission
In some sports cars can be found,
Yet there aren’t many models
For the purists still around.
It’s kinda like a TV set
With knobs you have to turn
Instead of a remote or
An Alexa you can spurn.
Improvements make life easier,
But some wish they’d revive
The older methods that were used
To watch TV or drive.
fly lands on my face
once is not enough twice now
annoys me greatly
she swiftly flies off
landing on the tv set
where is my swatter
Marshall Dillon in Gunsmoke
Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates in Rawhide
Paladin Have Gun will Travel
John Wayne in bunches of westerns
the pattern was easy....
The cowboys always win
Hero wears a light hat
Villain is stuck with black hat
Indians never win
TV in the 60’s gave me new terms
Dance hall girl, sage brush, wagon train
I reminisce about the wild west I know
I used to be able to outrun my puppy, not anymore, not anymore
Moving with arthritis in both ankles is a drag; I am kind of a bore
I am seventy-two, but some days I feel ninety-four, and I’m not kidding
The devil will probably come by to see if I will do his bidding
I am closer to death than life these days, but I remember the past
When I was limber, cute, sexy, sassy, some might say a bit fast
Those memories keep me going, I like to dream, so I am great at naps
I am not playing racquetball or pickle ball, and I no longer run laps
Many things I used to do daily I have given up on completely
My house used to be tidy, nowadays it is barely a tiny bit neatly
I would love to get back to the good life, when I had the energy of six
But here I sit, in a recliner, out in the country, in a yard full of sticks
My teeth are cracking, for I grind them and I don’t mean a little bit.
At the drop of a Kleenex, I might scream or throw a tantrum fit
My frustration is high, for I remember when life was gloriously grand.
Now I sit here, pining for my old life, eyes traveling from TV set to land.
In my room with its broken latch
There's postcards of hens and foxes
and a disused TV set
There's a collection of analogue cameras
Some I use
Some of my lightbulbs are out
There's a book of Trakl and his Blue Melancholy
and Sylva Plath with her German Mannequins
There's albums out of time
Susan Pilsbury and Jimmy Campbell
You see the past comforts me
There's poetry of my own
some bonded others nestling on my cupboard
I hope to get published soon
there are no more shoulds or musts
because I am retired now,
every minute of every day is a choice
I choose to play,
to paint, to cartoon, to enjoy my dogs
I turn into a vegetable in front of a TV set
I stay up all night
sleeping during the day
getting cranky when someone turns on a lawnmower
I am so nonproductive it borders ridiculous
remember the cleaning I was going to do?
I have done no cleaning
when I die the children can burn this house down
I do not care
I am a slug
I have earned the right.
Our mother was perky in the morning.
It’s the only time of day we ever heard her sing.
She would come into our room and sing “good morning” stuff.
My twin and I would grumble and rumble about it.
How she could be this perky every single morning is a puzzle.
But she was.
Was it the coffee?
Was it her natural tendencies? Who knew?
The cheerier she was, the more grumbly we got.
On school days.
On Saturday mornings we were the perky ones.
Waiting for Underdog on the TV set.
Christmas Rush
I was in a busy street and walked into a bookshop to buy a book for my sister as a gift
Back then when a TV set was expensive and only a few
had a set, books as present was popular
There were many bookshops, but now there is only one
I saw a girl I thought I knew, the one who had broken up with me for a reason that had made me unhappy
I touched her shoulder, but when she turned it was not her but another lovey girl and she smiled
I had nearly bought the book: “Women Must Love” When the sales lady asked for whom the book was intended told her, but she, didn't think it was a good choice instead, I bought a Barbara Cartland one.
I apologized to the smiling girl, but I was still in love with the girl who had given me deep sorrow
the girl looked mythical with her, one I could not fly to the stars on wings of love.
Going home with my Christmas gift, I stopped and thought what a fool I had been and walked back to the busy street, up and down, and looked, but I could not find the smiling girl
God had offered me a Christmas present, and I was too dense to understand
out electricity went off
no TV
no internet
no lights
no computer
no TV
We live in an underground house
it is blood black here
I flip flashlights on along the way
use my fingers to make puppets on the ceiling
my husband rallies for a second
thinking the lights have returned
he is an optimist, but without a TV set now
our hundred and fifteen pound puppy is whimpering
She has never been inside the house without a TV talking
we travel to the porch in a pack, my husband, two dogs and I
It is a monsoon out here, a monsoon in Kansas
I want to warm up a piece of pie
but the microwave won’t work
or the oven
thunder rumbles in from the west
the rain sounds like hail now
we have been without TVs or computers for eighteen minutes
How much more can we stand?
There's a place that poets go
when they must their wild oats sow
They camp out in front of the TV set
Are the Three Stooges on the air yet
the internet is down
This is an opportunity to clean
to bake
to cook
to sort and wash clothes
I glance at my debris, and wander off, depressed
how soon before the internet is back on?
My husband has no answers.
I click on the tv set
there is no picture.
How can I function with the internet down?
I feel moldy, dank, stagnant.
Like the pile of clothes in my bedroom I do not want to sort.
Confused, I sit in my chair, half alive.
Unsure what to do.
I feel down like the internet.
Clout on target
Eye you can't forget
A dot like a tv set
No winking eye you let
Aiming high or low
Stretched or loose you throw
Arrows you release or blow
Prize you do not show.
Archer you know in you
With bow and arrow of you
Archery is your life in a game
Name in flame you lit without shame.
most ordinary people
news on TV set
seems to be pointless nonsense
masses do not care
Suddenly a baby to out push,
Its not warned mother in a wild bush;
By training a keeper of record,
The least she would attention accord:
Her baby's first cries in good cassette
Her own wet tears in a TV set...
Now, things are bound to be different,
The cause for it all - too transparent;
A leafy theatre not labor room's,
Shrubs and weeds when brought camera zooms
A company for safe delivery
Should the cold shoulder give Iivery
A still birth her husband's archery
Her husband Bad Slave to lechery.
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