The dream starred me and adult kids, away
by bus to train to plane to spend a week
specifically in Paris. But the day
we left I left aboard a bag I’d seek,
unable to retrieve without delay.
I’d travel with a task undone and pique,
and have to shop a lot. It was a drag.
I needed to remember that red bag.
(Ottava Rima)
I thought I understood the ancient lock
I have to twist to make the shed secure.
Examining its guts, I tried to block
a stranger from invasion, to ensure
the safety of my stuff. So I took stock
and keyed it closed, with satisfaction more
than merited, my claim too early spoken –
for now it’s openless, and clearly broken.
(Ottava Rima)
It’s time to winterize my little home –
I should have hired expertise, but failed.
Today I’ll list the projects, in this poem,
that need to be within near future nailed.
Before the western windows are assailed
by driving rain, I’ll putty and reseal
their outside frames, and then with varnish deal
shellacking to the threshold of a door.
Withal I will address the fret I feel
about the wet beyond the brick and floor.
Among the things I try to have around
me every day, are writing pads and ink
(and toilet paper, avocado, ground
dark coffee and home seltzer for my drink).
Although I’ve reams to write on, I have found
I scribble on used paper. What to think?
It’s not from thriftiness, so much, perhaps,
as modesty, that I begin on scraps.
(Ottava Rima)
Each morning as I pose on feet or knees
of late, I do routines for calming stress,
reducing nervousness, creating ease,
preventing panic, finding steadiness.
I aim to smooth my verges with caress
to edges of the facets of a gem.
I’ll be okay – I’m really not a mess –
as soon as I discharge this clot of phlegm.
(Huitain)
At times I get a run of easy days
with little on my list of work to do,
and nothing urgent nagging that defrays
ability to mellow, when the queue
of items or concern no pain conveys –
it pales to nothing for a day or few.
Attempting to appreciate a brow
unruffled, I observe that isn’t now.
(Ottava Rima)
“Have you had food this morning?” “Nothing yet,
unless the 8-cup pot of coffee counts.”
When you say “I can tell,” I am upset
a bit – “I must be hyper,” I announce.
But that is really query – did I pounce
on you or overcome your piece of mind?
“Not really,” you admit. Frustration mounts –
you know I left that heat and haste behind.
(Huitain)
Prepared to disagree with me again,
it still annoys but doesn’t cause me grief.
I gather facts and cogitate, and when
I speak you say that isn’t your belief,
as if it’s faith that has to form your chief
position. But I’ve seen you comprehend
near 50 years of knowledge. What’s your beef?
Why are you ever-ready to contend?
(Huitain)
I won’t resent the recent clumsy act
of some unthinking new co-resident,
who hauled the bins that weren’t emptied back.
I won’t resent.
And though I’m told that my four neighbors meant
to reimburse me promptly and exact
for common bills I paid, for all I spent,
I’m trying not to feel it’s honor lacked.
I want to think them all intelligent
but victims of life’s power to distract.
I won’t resent.
(Roundel)
We had some heavy storms last winter here.
I took on water under one deck door,
and western window trim has softened where
the rain hit sideways. Underneath my floor
I think some puddling water pooled, and more –
my eastern wall of brick was kissing mud.
I failed to fix it all. This fall, for sure,
I’ll spot-protect against the chance of flood.
(Huitain)
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