If moving two steps forward/one step back
describes a lack of progress in complaint,
discouraging as you renew attack,
suggesting where your efforts were too faint,
perhaps you should engage in self-restraint
and give your chosen strategy a chance.
Your progress isn’t obvious or quaint,
and now your movement looks like modern dance.
(Huitain)
Remember when a 4 year-old could ail
and nobody would run an antigen
evaluation? Parents didn’t flail.
Remember when?
No talk included PCR back then.
We caught a cold and griped, but wouldn’t rail.
We didn’t fret at viral origin.
We never cared what you or you exhale.
We interacted over and again.
We even trusted governmental mail.
Remember when?
(Roundel)
In over 30 days away from those
I’m used to hanging with, two days a week,
although I exercised after I rose
most days, exhaling with good breath technique,
I had occasion for surprise to speak
to me – percussively, about my spine.
In hoists and hugs to kiss a perfect cheek,
my lower back recalled what age is mine.
(Huitain)
I write these lines on two two twenty-two.
Admiring the number of the date,
and knowing 20 days ahead I’ll view
an even longer set, I’ll set a goal
(or 2!) for head and heart. Each day I’ll do
a little thinking in a foreign tongue,
improve the metrics downward by a few,
and check again when I commemorate
the festival of 2’s that will ensue.
(Magic 9)
Ricotta lemon muffins were my try
when I was home alone last week and bored.
I wandered to the market but, oh my,
I couldn’t find the extract. Walking toward
my kitchen I thought juice could substitute –
the Internet confirmed that with advice.
Without the wheat or sugar but with fruit,
the texture and the taste were rather nice.
But I was left with more ricotta cheese.
And egg and allulose and salt as well.
I searched the web for useful recipes,
and found one I could halve. In springform shell
I baked ricotta cake of simple stuff,
that served to satisfy myself enough.
The bubble didn’t burst, but it increased
in volume, now that Omicron has dipped –
it made a little room for me at least.
They took a test and masks and, so equipped,
they drove to my address and then released
the hugs our recent isolation stripped
from us. We got together, face to face.
I have my buddies back in my embrace.
(Ottava Rima)
There lives an old woman near here,
her cottage secluded and dear.
But the overhead tree
pelts her deck with debris –
she has to keep sweeping it clear.
I heard awhile ago that when we dream,
it’s black-and-white our mind’s eye will depict.
But I remember colors, so I deem
that notion incorrect and nothing strict.
It’s not like one can test and then predict –
the truth is in the dreamer’s sleep affairs.
But what of tunes? Are dreams with sound equipped?
I swear I’ve heard a few with lovely airs.
(Huitain)
I penetrated morning fog, and saw
a nexus clear as dream and sharp as steam –
distinctive link emerged from natural law,
delineating to and fro from seem.
I peered. I liked. I stepped from theme to scheme.
Behind was stale, beyond a beckoning
to patience, an elision of extreme:
a going-forth to future’s offering.
(Huitain)
My little place has urban privacy.
For nearly 15 years it’s been my home.
It’s hidden in a garden few will see,
behind a big brown-shingled boxy house
that one-time housed a single family,
but now comprises 4 one-bedroom flats.
Of late the residents in front of me
are home-improving, triggering this poem –
Their power tools corrupt serenity.
(Magic 9)
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