The cottage where I live is in a yard
behind a big brown-shingled Berkeley box
containing four apartments. It’s not hard
to relish quiet, rarely needing locks,
for I’m unseen, unheard, just on my guard
enough. It’s seldom anybody knocks.
But lately maintenance work in front employs
a friendly crew who can’t help making noise.
(Ottava Rima)
My bedtime habits were unchanged last night.
The hour was the usual, the bed
as comfortable as ever, and the light
no brighter than the customary glow.
Yet sleep was slow to come to me. No fright
or worry filled my mind, but drowsy dreams
successively sustained my inner sight.
Too old to “level up,” today my head
is solving every puzzle, quick and right.
(Magic 9)
A side sleeper since I was 17,
I used the port side of the marriage bed
and didn’t know how much that choice would mean
(no matter where we moved we kept our edge).
When we divorced I switched, and then was seen
by kids to occupy the other half.
For 30 years, my place has been (between
the sheets) on left-side shoulder, hip and head.
Of late I ache. I’ll try to change routine.
(Magic 9)
There isn’t any need to hurry.
Fortune is deferring worry.
Favors I don’t have to curry.
Though my vision’s often blurry
that’s from floaters, quite benign.
I can now afford a soft decline.
The disconnect between my mirror face
and how it feels within has grown so vast,
I’m nearly into dodging any place
reflecting my own visage back to me.
But first I’ll try to cultivate some grace
(imagining the worse the future holds).
I’ll practice balance and reduce my pace
(there’s rarely now a reason to move fast).
I’ll try to notice well before erase.
(Magic 9)
My buddy started big-kid school last week.
He trotted off without a backward glance.
But he was up before his clock could speak,
and after school his bowels marked his pants
(who’s not since birth endured that circumstance).
He’s brave, and teeming with intelligence,
but probably as nervous as his aunts,
as passionate as we, and as intense.
(Huitain)
Historically, our summer’s always dry.
The sprinklers rise and spray three times a week
at 7 in the morning. That’s when I
stay close to them – their sound is not unique,
but mimics rain on garden plants. The sky
denies us irrigation, fires wreak
us devastating, yet this August twice
we’ve had a little patter, and it’s nice.
(Ottava Rima)
He left her years ago, his final breath
exhaled in mid-October of aught-six.
She’s been an active widow since his death,
who tries to exercise and shop and fix
most any soul she meets. A thing she picks
to focus on, outside her maladies,
the subject bumping books and politics,
is wind each afternoon, and evening breeze.
(Huitain)
You need to tell your mother what you feel.
I see your face and recollect how well
your uncle spoke when he made his appeal.
You need to tell.
I used to rage. You should have heard me yell
when I was middle-aged. My wrath was real,
my love was strong; I felt and couldn’t quell.
But then my darling told me that my spiel
of words hurt more than father-fisted hell.
I had to alter then. I had to heal.
You need to tell.
(Roundel)
A lot of love but too much weariness
I witness while abiding here 4 days.
A dour attitude that would suppress
a little mania. A tiny craze
that may enlarge, in unremitting stress.
The teary eyes, lugubrious displays,
vague fantasies that consequence disrupts,
and not much more before the mom erupts.
(Ottava Rima)
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