A better editor is hard to find.
That’s how she knows her poetry is good.
And as she grew to understand her mind,
she learned to disregard external should.
Attempting to comply with rules designed
to modulate was boring – sisterhood
policing put her off and spurred removal.
What pleases her instead is self-approval.
(Ottava Rima)
They always were too different to be friends,
at first and as they chose their separate ways.
Yet mostly they agreed or made amends,
repairing several schisms. Their forays
kept intersecting, for they shared some ends,
until diverging in these latter days.
For one’s increased their inequality,
by losing much of short-term memory.
(Ottava Rima)
Conversing with a friend the other day,
my middle finger only rose three times.
She didn’t see it (phone call), but the way
she spoke, indignant and unfairly harsh,
as if she were expert, as if her say
should be regarded as the only word
on courts where she’s too indolent to play,
that triggered me like powerful enzymes.
But I forbore. She’s not my protégé.
(Magic 9)
What can I say that I haven’t already?
How can I write that will trigger a thought?
Too much assortment is making me heady,
not in a manner I ever have sought.
Approaching 2020 from two years
beyond that now, reviewing verse from then,
I cringe because I know Covid appears
within a month, to shorten lives of men
and women, narrow presents, foment fears,
to make of every habitat a pen.
And though I’ve written daily since that time,
I’m dreading editing most every rhyme.
(Ottava Rima)
I always travel light. I like to be
as unencumbered as I can arrange.
I want my back relaxed, my fingers free,
and so for airplane comfort, I’ll exchange
some toiletries and extra shoes and gear
for compact case (I barely take enough).
I savor foot room. I don’t want to hear
“Reserve the overhead for larger stuff.”
It’s like the punishment conservers get
whose water use is ever at a low.
Then comes the drought, and regulations set
a lower level than accustomed flow.
So overusers needn’t much contract,
and careful are the penalized, in fact.
A day of heat last week beset this place.
The air was cooked to 25 degrees
above the usual. Like most, my space
has no AC. The new catastrophes
of climate change may prompt me to embrace
an installation that will chill a breeze.
But I for now will weather what I can,
sincerely thankful for my ceiling fan.
(Ottava Rima)
I travel nervously. I’m best alone,
and any quiet helps me get along.
I leave with time to spare – I check my phone
too often and I stress I’ve scheduled wrong.
So I appreciate the hidden zone
between two terminals, away from throng,
where there’s a bathroom no one often uses:
a pit stop on my way, without abuses.
(Ottava Rima)
Morose comes close to capturing the tone
I first encountered entering their place.
Initially the mood, in loading zone,
was almost joyful, and the greeting face
wore happy looks from mouth to curving eyes.
But when we left the car to eat our food
I sensed a crack, a slippage, a demise.
I sat among a group in testy mood.
The kids seemed teenage-normal. The adults
were teetering on bickering, I thought,
although there were no arguing results.
Conversing, shoulders eased and overwrought
appeared relieved. I think my presence made
an audience and buffer while I stayed.
I always thought the office overblown –
Executive just means to make it work,
and I when young or even fully grown
sized up each President as ego jerk.
Admittedly I was in fact impressed
with Congress as it processed Watergate,
but that was then. Reality confessed
its members venal, ignorant, or late.
I still retained some hope about the Court
supposed to settle issues honestly.
But now I’m left without a hope or doubt.
I didn’t need last week’s deplored report
to see the strikes have added up to three.
I’m mourning but admitting: we are out.
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