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Best Poems Written by Maureen Cary

Below are the all-time best Maureen Cary poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Summer Haikus

Wild sweet raspberries
The itch of poison ivy
Lightning bugs at dusk





Chlorine streaks my hair
Nose burns and peels, burns some more
Hated the swim team

Copyright © Maureen Staley Cary | Year Posted 2019



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Fourteen

Fourteen



At fourteen,
Lost in the woods
Squatting to pee, it
Runs down my leg
    hot and itchy

No one knows where I 
   am, or was
My face splotched
   and pimply
Always embarrassed

No kissing for me
The boys want perfect skin
  pretty smiles
I hide in those pine trees
Near the pond and farm

There’s no watch or clock
I can’t read the sun
Just my hunger
When it’s time to go I walk

Past the corn, 
  over the stones
Rotting apples on the lawn
The door unlocked, my room
Hot and bare

Copyright © Maureen Staley Cary | Year Posted 2020

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Working Out

Working Out


Decades ago
presidential elections were
every four years

Rest between sets
quiet days ward off
carabolic states

Now, the madness starts
on the first 
Wednesday of November

Taper before the race
hydrate and carbo load
stretch and relax

Newscasters make predictions
hours after inauguration
“who is the fittest?”

Copyright © Maureen Staley Cary | Year Posted 2019

Details | Maureen Cary Poem

Boston To Austin

It’s all good, it will be
The printer will print
Will that settle the soul?
For now anyway?

It’s not about the TV
Or the lack of furniture
Or worry about money
Or who likes you or not

It’s about perspective 
How to understand what happens 
In the wide open space
That is life, the future

It’s what we can control 
the wisdom of age 
And how that feels condescending
But it’s not; it’s experience 

It’s speaking through time
So annoying to the young
“You don’t get it” echoes
Through generations and family lines

It’s the blankness in spaces
Between one life 
And the successive beings
who push and pull 
Until they split off, a separate orbit

Copyright © Maureen Staley Cary | Year Posted 2021

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Window Gazing

Window Gazing

Maureen Staley Cary


Might her mood be blue

like the curtain or the shade of sea
 
stripes on her dress

staring portside, about to take a step

through the open frame

lured by the soft lapping water, 

a distant seagull,  flapping sailcloth

a fleeting moment

rendered constant

on Dali’s canvas

Copyright © Maureen Staley Cary | Year Posted 2020



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Summer Storm

by Maureen Staley Cary

When I hear that faint rumble, deep in the clouds,
The summer sky will darken, lead-gray
The rain will come in slanting sheets,
Forming mist as it hits hot, hard earth
The birds will retreat, like the ants,
But the earthworms will emerge from the softened soil,
Content in the break from August heat.

Copyright © Maureen Staley Cary | Year Posted 2022


Book: Shattered Sighs