I had to overhear the arguments –
there wasn’t any room to get away.
Disparity in their intelligence
was always large, but now the field of gray
has shrunk to black-&-white. Denied dismay
in one promotes false attitude and naps.
The other runs to growth and turns to play.
A path two decades shared erodes in scraps.
(Huitain)
I try to early-leave for every flight
(less nervous if there should be a delay),
and usually the train conveys me right
on time, but there were rough events today.
Police have something wrong to clear away,
or so each PA syllable explains.
I reached the airport, but I write to say
I had to board no fewer than four trains.
(Huitain)
I realized Tuesday as I walked to work,
and planned to see police who had secured
some missing items, circumstances jerk
me back and forth of late. I’ll grow inured
in time to what occurred, but I’m not cured
as yet – the stimulation doesn’t stop.
I yearn for bored, and long to be assured
there is no other shoe about to drop.
(Huitain)
I never felt my name was right for me,
my parents’ choice too girly, and the last,
acquired through a marriage that would be
dissolved deservedly and somewhat fast,
yet after naming kids and company.
I bore it, but until events just passed,
attempts to steal this old identity,
I didn’t know how dear these tags became –
I’m driven to protect and keep my name.
(Ottava Rima)
I froze my credit. I secured each door.
I spoke to fraud departments and – oh wait!
Although I see no evidence of more
intrusion, looking at the redwood gate,
I note it isn’t latched the way I’m sure
I left it last. I’m strengthening its state.
I can’t prevent a climb but I can block
at bit, retard. I gild it with a lock.
(Ottava Rima)
Eight days before today, I wrote these words,
expecting when it publishes I’ll be
at table watching feeders ringed with birds,
and interacting with a family
I fly to now with loving frequency –
four days, five hundred miles in the air.
I write expecting equanimity –
may irks be minor and my manner fair.
(Huitain)
I learned about a rabies incident –
the victim of a mad dog didn’t get
the painful gut injections that prevent
the hydrophobia that will beset
and, odds are, take the life of who was bit.
The doctors had to battle, one-by-one,
each dire symptom as in time it hit,
until the course of illness had been run.
The victim lived. I recollect that tale
as fresh attacks are made on my I.D.
It seems through vigilance they’re bound to fail,
because of acts by banks and even me.
I didn’t buy a lawyer, tech vaccine
or Ring, but it appears my credit’s clean.
Ungracious me, I’m sure I didn’t thank
my friend enough for giving me a purse
I’d rather pick myself, if I am frank.
For truth be told, my losses were no curse.
It wasn’t hard to notify the bank.
To find replacements I am not averse.
Good gracious me, it would have been preferred,
if she had bought instead my careful word.
(Ottava Rima)
My family in Oregon have fried
this summer, as the Northwest veers to warm.
And East Coast relatives have all supplied
complaints of smoke and ash from firestorm.
But here this year we’re comfortable outside.
The weather has been mimicking our norm.
The atmosphere is sick. We’re still impaired,
but this notes we in ‘23 were spared.
(Ottava Rima)
The symptoms – evening time a clot of phlegm,
and midnight dryness in my throat or nose.
Then every day at nearly 8 a.m.
I count 10 sneezes till the mucus flows.
I wonder if I’m ill or should suppose
I’m aging into local allergies.
But as I suffer the 11th sneeze,
I feel a cough roll upward like a plow.
And then bronchitis prompts a modest wheeze.
Apparently I host a cold for now.
(Dizain)
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