Haiku: The End of A Good Thing

All it took was one
misspoken word for her world
to come crashing down.

BITCH WASN’T THE PROBLEM (a true story)
BY: Nikki Markle

Sarah/Autumn,
Two people continuously
Together therefore
Regarded as one girl,
Screeches as I squeeze into
The cramped space beside her.
“Get off my arm fat, bitch!”
“Who you callin’ fat, bitch? “
“No, get off my arm-fat,
Pause,
Bitch.”
“Oh, sorry.”

The Twenty-Something Missed WiFi

mother, the wireless connection,
always on, sometimes connecting
in the huge harbor of interference
with an amazing bandwidth
where dropped words, forced
sentences, wrong #’s skittle
through air faster than a bore
minus tide, deeper than an Antarctic
crevasse, lonelier than a room full
of strangers, and, like WiFi, they’re
always on unless they are not.

thanks for the morning laugh, Nikki!

You're Going into Delirium

"You're Going into Delirium"
I told the handsome gent
Who so politely asked me
How time could best be spent-
How dare I be presumptuous
To accuse him of hysteria
When he just wanted some pleasant times
In the land of giant Wistaria
But in Sierra Madre, reader, please lend me an ear
Lucky Baldwin's Delirium Cafe
Is where you get the finest beer!

in the forest

she was shoeless
and rubbing one black-stockinged foot
when I found her
among the brambles

mascara ran down
her cheeks, black streaks
of unhappiness

I tried to stay hidden
watching this vision
of something outside my knowledge

she looked up, saw me and smiled
'well hi, little one,' she said
and I cringed

I am small but fierce

I bared my fangs
and bit down
hard
on her ankle

I wouldn't let go
though she screeched and jumped up and ran round in circles
no
I wouldn't let go

Robert, you made me think of a famous miscommunication. Sorry, but I'm stealing your Shakespeare thing today...


Dead or Alive

She heard the news
of her dying lover,
He of her and her of him,
a knife, a gun, a vile of death,
he shoved the knife
up to the hilt,
romantic hari kari
with dramatic twists
to speed the loss
of escaping life.
And what now?
What is this, a girl
not dead, but dying heart,
a scream of lost love
and lullabies wasted
in a dying ear.
A vile of poison
to sip divine,
slurp her way
to Azrael's side,
that twisted angel
of death and lovers.
Dead or alive,
alive or dead,
they lay together
blood and lies
and flowers sagging,
the lovely couple,
fortune's fools.

(Also a true story, and yes, about my husband and me.)


Minor Details

She said he proposed on Thanksgiving,
one romantic evening while she was
visiting him at his mother’s in
Cheyenne, Wyoming. He said it was
New Year’s Eve while he was visiting
her in Lincoln, Nebraska, while driving
down the highway, and a friend was in
the truck with them. She received her
engagement ring along with her
wedding ring. They have been married
thirty years, and still can’t agree on
when he proposed, or if he ever really did.

He makes her feel dumb.
She explained "I think the pass is good for at least seven days"
She read the description once more.
"Oh look it last 14 days"
"No it expires 14 days after first use" he said.
"Right so you can use it 14 days then"
He sighed as exasperatedly and says each word slowly as if explaining it to a child.
"No it expires after 14 day"
She highlights the phrase" Unlimited admissions",
then leaves the room in tears as he rereads the descriptions
and says, "Oh" but doesn't apologize for crushing her spirit.

Truth or Lies
By Judy Kneprath
4/26/09

Ten years later he admitted it
But still never said he was sorry
She was just supposed to take it
Forgive
Roll onward
Let him get it off his shoulders
And onto hers

And she did
Swallowed it all
The grief
The pain
The humiliation
In the deepest part of her

And because she was a “good Christian”
She did the hard work of forgiving him
But then she covered it for him
Never made him face up to any of it
Clean up his messes
Or rebuild trust with her
She never confronted him
For his lack of remorse or repentance
She thought she communicated love

But what he received was license
He learned he could treat her that way
Over and over
And get by with it
And keep his goody-goody image to those
In their world
And even manipulate her into believing that
Somehow
It was all her fault

So now he is upping the ante
He’s deserting her in the fading years of her life
Still making it all her fault
Still not ever owning his own sins
In any shape or form

And how will she respond
Will she be true to her own deep heart
Will she confront him in truth
Or continue to let him masquerade as holy
Continue to let him win all
In the court of public opinion
Continue to let him make the supreme
Miscommunication
To those she loves
And continue to falsify who he is
And who she is

What will she stand up for
Truth
Or
His lies

“Selective Hearing"

I heard him say, “It’s a jungle out there”
and I’d smile and look for monkeys swinging in the trees
long arms reaching for the next grasp of hope to propel
them forward. But I didn’t know what he meant.

I heard her say, “Look before you leap”
but I must admit I closed my eyes before
I jumped off the swing momentarily flying like a kite
before realizing I was a rock. And I didn’t know what she meant.

I heard him say, “I love you”
and I flat-lined right there, suddenly speechless
and appalled that I’d never known life before that moment
and I breathed. But I didn’t know what he meant.

I heard them say, “Your life goes by quickly”
but it felt like I was a seed that had just been planted
and I was watching myself grow with stunted petals
that wouldn’t respond to the sun. And I didn’t know what they meant.

I heard myself say, “For better or for worse”
and I visualized poverty and tears from both of us
and laughing nights and dancing days and even
the silence that penetrated our lives. But I didn’t know what I meant.

I heard him say, “I hate you”
but knew it couldn’t be the case for we’d never
met before that day when anger appeared before my
eyes, blue tongue lapping. And I didn’t know what he meant.

I heard her say, “I’m glad he died”
and my heart just disappeared encased in silent
throaty tears that slid across the notion I had that she
was really kind. But I didn’t know what she meant.

I heard them say, “Time heals wounds”
but I’d spent some time with time and he healed nothing;
no respecter of my grief, he only wrapped my loneliness with
a bow and delivered it unannounced. And I didn’t know what they meant.

I heard myself say, “It’s time to move on”
and I gathered up the memories, like books in a library,
categorized and numbered, some worn, some sparkling but I couldn’t
leave them there alone and trembling, orphaned. “They are a part of me”
the words spoke aloud hesitantly. But I knew what they meant.

ACCESS
Like fickle wallflowers at a dance
ignoring our signals
denying us our chances
cell phone towers denied access
remained unswayed
by the impetus of the moment.
With their heads up in the clouds
those modern Towers of Babel
made our efforts unintelligible.
So we didn’t talk
until placards announced
that Massachusetts welcomed you
and then we got to wonder
whether or not close proximity
would grant us fluency.

Help Line

“Thank you for calling employee services
how may I help you today?”
“My paycheck, it came through blank
I have no pay, it’s Friday,
I need to buy food…”
“Oh, I see, and let me say,
I am very sorry for the incovenience
and I wish to assure you
that I will do everything in my power
to correct this problem.”
“OK, well, that’s the problem,
and it’s 3 pm on Friday here, so…”
“I understand completely,
however, let me just access
your account to confirm a few things
would you mind holding
just for a few moments?”
“OK, I am back, and here is the problem;
there has been an issue within your
account and you have not been paid.”
“AH, YES, that’s right, that’s what I told you.”
“Yes, indeed you did and you are
most correct in this regard.”
“Well… Can you fix that?”
“Oh well, I am regretful to say that from where I am
I cannot make a new check for you, no.”
“Is there somebody there who can?”
“No, I am afraid not, you see, here
it is Saturday morning and no one
who could do such a thing is here.
In fact, Sir, even if it were Monday,
there would be no one here
who could do this thing for you,
I am so very sorry...”
“OK, well, is there somebody…
Is there somebody somewhere else who could?”
“Oh yes sir! Undoubtedly the accounting
department within the company’s main office
is capable of correcting this,
most certainly!”
“Whew, OK, well I was worried there
for a minute;
can you connect me to them?”
“Sir, most unfortunately,
I cannot, because you see
they are on your east coast, and
it is already six in the evening…”

Eli and Ely and Me

Eli can read now,
says his name is wrong,
he’s an Elijah.
He’s also nearly six,
becoming who he’ll be.
Should I argue he is Eli,
Ely the Eel just a fiction?
Should he rule, or
ought I let him lose?
Can we find perfection?
Not that this is really
about communication.
This is Eli becoming Eli.
This is me loving Eli.
This is me loving Ely.
This is me becoming me,
still.

Disconnect

A misheard word,
Fall directly on a sword,
Amid rapiers drawn.

“Turkey”

Our first fair date together
All fried dough, and first impressions
Strolling along amid the smells, the kids, and the carnival rides
“You have Giant Turkey Legs.”
“Did you just insult me?”
“Oh My God, no! Why?”
“Did you just say I have GIANT TURKEY LEGS????!!”
“NO!” He laughs, “I said THEY have Giant Turkey Legs…For sale”
“Oh, sorry.”



True Story

Foul Pythonic Spammer
Wrapping my words in trash and sending them back warped.
Stuff it.
I do not want
Your pornographic picture penile
power point enlargement
flower power oriental
teenage girls and boys
clubs spades
I heart infinitum.

It was a poem I posted,
you mindless
anti-mantra
generator.
A poem.

And your scurvy links
will not direct me to
the orchard, my dream.

Where lines and rows and files and rows
of spun sugar trees
to bud bloom blow
burst with swelling pink shell crosses
apple rose rose of peach and rose of pear.

I want to know if my imagining is true:
Does the wind drive petal blizzards?
Does it pile the blossom fragments
into shoals and banks of pearl and pink?
Can I make a man of flowers?
Or pack them into missiles of mock war?
And stuffed down collars,
Do they then dissolve into apple-scented love?

You're sure

I'm leaving because I can
because I really want to
because maybe I don't care

it's clear evidence
even after all these years

You say everything's harder
when I'm away

and still I go

I'll be back soon
because I belong here
because I love you more

in spite of any evidence to the contrary

4/25/2009 6:54:38 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
Note to the esteemed poet Richard-Merlin Atwater .....
Although it is a delight to read your work -
I don't believe that April 2009 Poetry Challenge
is the correct venue. I feel a bit uncomfortable
saying anything but I suppose it is an occupational and
idiosyncratic habit of mine - this need to speak up
when I think something is awry and others are silent.
It is my understanding that the challenge is limited to
work written during this month of April 2009 and is intended
to be fresh, almost off the cuff - reveries. Perhaps
given your obvious talent -there is some sort of an understanding among the community. If so, please accept my apologies. I sincerely hope in my speaking to this issue, that I haven't offended either you or a community of poets whom I have greatly enjoyed "meeting" during the past weeks. It also does occur to me that there is some irony in "challenging" your
submissions in a Poetry Challenge.
Sincerely,
Dr Pearl Ketover Prilik
Pearl Ketover Prilik |DrPKPAT NOSPAMaol dot com
=================================================================
Marie Elena |keithgoodAT NOSPAMsbcglobal dot net
4/26/2009 12:55:31 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
Event of April 25

Today, a fellow writer admonished another (albeit respectfully) for posting work not created in the month of April 2009 (If I correctly understand the challenge put forth in the admonishment). I believe it is acceptable (Robert may correct here) to post older writing, as well as “shout outs” in this forum.

Some of us (including myself and the gentleman being admonished) have posted poems we had written at another time, being careful to point that out, so as not to post under the pretense of having that piece “count” toward the poem-a-day challenge.

Some of us have also engaged in considerable communication on this venue. While enjoyable, perhaps this is also not the correct use of this forum. Being my first time attempting to participate in a challenge such as this, possibly I don’t understand the proper etiquette and/or guidelines. However, it seems to me that if one takes exception to something that has been posted; one may simply choose to “turn the channel,” particularly in a forum in which we are free to express ourselves.

Since the poet in question has been forthright in explaining precisely when his pieces were written, I myself find no reason for concern. Having said that, if Robert wishes to put restraints on such postings,I’m confident we will all abide.

Wishing you all continued enjoyment in our last days of April PAD,
Marie Elena
Marie Elena |keithgoodAT NOSPAMsbcglobal dot net
=======================================================
4/25/2009 3:11:02 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
Mr. R.M. Atwater, SIR! YOU ABSOLUTELY ROCK THE HOUSE!!!!!!
Marie Elena |keithgoodAT NOSPAMsbcglobal dot net
===============================================================

Today’s prompt word “miscommunication” April 26, 2009
Dedicated to my good friend “Pearl”, and in humble response to her enlightening ‘posted comments’ for my reflection and perusal in meeting “the daily prompts” in circumspect order without any peripheral and extraneous additions from yesteryear. I agree that any poem to be considered within “the challenge” requires that it be written “off the cuff” on the very day of that prompt word challenge. And if anyone will look through each day of the April 2009 Challenge ‘prompt word’ they will find that on each day I have written a new poem that was written “on that day” based on “that given prompt word”, with about 200 original poems written all in April 2009. Several of the “extras” were added for “enjoyment” since they related to the prompt of the day—but have no bearing on “qualification” for any prize or acceptance. I seek no prize at all, only happiness of others and enjoyment of life in poetic expression. But thanks for the “comment” for my enlightenment; and “Thanks” to Marie Elena for your response in relation to “the challenge”---YOU are a “darling”. May we all end up “Happy” at the end of the road, for the purpose of life is “to Be Happy”. With love, Richard-Merlin Atwater (in humility)
================================================================
Miss Communication (written specifically on April 26, 2009)
© Richard-Merlin Atwater 2009

Thank you for the comments, corrections, and annotations;
The “challenges”, reprovals, and salutations.
The rules were laid down at the very outset, true,
I’ve abided each day with an original “off the cuff” cue.
Yes, each on the day they were meant to be written,
Thus all of my “extras” may now be smitten,
Smitten from the record, released from the strife
Of Poetic extensions beyond “this April’s life”.
My notes are “extended” and take up much time,
For Poetic ASIDES they challenge the rhyme
Of that which is “silent” when things go “awry”,
So now I’ll remove the mote in my eye,
And stick to the “one poem” allowed every day,
Original, on time, and not out of the fray!
So please do not read anymore of my “old one’s”,
It’s “April’s Challenge”, the only “correct venue” for fun.
But I seek not a prize, or to win any fame,
To me, writing poetry is only “a game”,
For life is “a game” that we play every day,
Whether in April, in June, or even in May!
But to LOVE it is to DO it, to share it also,
But the “irony of challenges” is to just “let it go”.
My life has been “challenged” by the comments of “Pearl”,
My favorite name, my favorite girl,
For deep in my heart is abiding LOVE, true,
For poetry, for people, and even for YOU.

Opportunity Lost

The children were playing
Contentedly preoccupied
In the backyard
Guaranteeing an undisturbed
Twenty minutes for them.

With a twinkle in her eye
And a stirring in her heart
As butterflies fluttered
Within, she looked at him,
Husband of twenty years,
The man who knew how
To pull the right strings.

She announced, “I’m taking a shower,”
With a come-hither grin.

Washed, moisturized,
Scented with his favorite perfume,
She slips on something sexy
Low-cut and lacy
And slides into bed.

Cool sheets caressing heated skin
Anticipation building
And flowering within
As she waits
Patiently for him.

Time ticked by and still no he
But kids were heard stomping
Up and down the stairs.

Frustrated
In more ways than one,
She grabs her robe
Whips it on
And ties it tightly closed.
Stomping down the stairs
She finds him sleeping there.

Sensing rage, his eyes flutter open
And sees her standing there,
Hands on hips and eyes afire
“You look nice,” he soothes.
Then he asks with a sweet smile,
“How was your shower, hon‘?”

“Wonderful,” she spat
As she opens her robe
Revealing,
His opportunity lost.

You’d think after twenty years
The man might have a clue!

Ode to the Unsaid Said


Screaming, dashing, crashing, bashing down I go
Thumping, pumping, rumbling down I go
And it matters not no I think this is so and thus it is no?
Yea, I do believe this to be the way it shall be
From this past moment justly risen and so it will
Catering forth from my lips espoused with what I know not
Nor care I will from the why of this passing flame
Between my fingers like sand across the ocean floor forgotten yet never so
For why should my mind leave it behind discarded and unused?
Lest it truly desire to forget and abstain from whence this feeling born be
And yes I say and cringe when I do, that I do not, nor shall not do as I was to do
When I said in the day and cried in the night that I would do as I was bade to do
From your lips expressed a promise pleased and yearned to hear fall from mine do
Did not and cannot truly give lest I bound be to what and why I cannot say
For I am not of myself nor am I of my own counselling freely yet alone be
No, nor will this do for me in this day and night come forth unbidden yet anyway
Still I plainly ask you in the knowing there be an answer for me shall never be
Not from your lips crested with strawberries unbitten, no so I shall remain veiled so
Because of one transgression against fate unforgiven still I be and will stay
When never more have I wanted of and for but one lingering pass of petals fallen
Across my own silent breath like the whispered songs of those silly forlorn birds
Never touched with such knowledge and yet sail between heaven and earth as so
No, this will not do to pass this way before you and me my heartfelt friend in loss
Instead the petals fell and the dirt packed itself down across the burial of we
Long ago it feels to breeding in my mind and soul, like tears unheard of yet fallen still
And so I say to you once more before the sun falls again with a lost looking inside
“
”
Therein you know me, do you not truly and you do so did, do see I that you do indeed
Yet still herein you lie what yawns you see to know not and hold you alone it does
Do not, no I pray and shout hold onto that no more for it is false like the piper be
Stead know you this and this alone to be truest and boldly so for this day and next
In one pouch I placed a breath, a tear, a stone, a pinch, a braid and feather thoughts all
Wear it long into the summer of life will you do and I feel it to so I do, I did, will do
For knowing under the moon in the winter between you and me of the birth emoted to
Unhappy be one and one till the moment falls again when one smiles to do and do
I do, will do again as when last I saw with these my eyes shaded behind the sunny
Shied out and eye filled smile of parting with . . .

Then come what dreams shall we see to breathe across the day breaking anew

The Passion

Was it the absence of God
that left Joan of Arc
in the fetal position at the stake,
her body thrice-burned
then scattered upon the waters?

She had given all,
life, name, peace
of inconsequence only to be called
madwoman, zealot, witch,
martyr, heretic, bitch.

Cross in her bosom, another
before her, she called to what
causes she could name,
Michael, Catherine, Margaret,
then breathed Jesus at last.

What rightful cause could stand
idly by and watch
youth reduced to ashes,
consumed by a fire that started
long before taking up arms?

She worked up
all of a week-end
the courage to tell him
How his eyebrows spoke poetry
his body moved her mind he
was so beautiful she
worked up words
in the back stairs or
on the porch
when
She told him,
all at once, the words
rushing out
before she could stop them
he smiled and said,
"What?"

__

For Uschi…wherever you are….

Sweet Hot Milk

We met as strangers often do
A night train rushing through Germany
Holland, on to the ferry port in Belgium
She was young and scared
Being harassed by deported football hooligans
I was young and full of mustard
(when it came to maidens in distress)
But my diminutive physique
Let alone the odds against me
Spoke more about my naivety
Than my courage
But stand up to them I did
And called the conductor
They were put off at the next station
Uschi and I soon became fast friends
After all I was her knight in shining Levis
Hours later we were to part at Victoria station
After a romantic breakfast, she went to meet her friends
I caught the train home
We wrote for a few months
But lost touch...
… she went to work with Mother Theresa
I went on with my life
I have often wondered where my ship in the night went to…
But the memory I keep and treasure
Occurred on the ferry across the channel
We’d found somewhere to sit
She said she’d go and buy us coffee
As she walked away I thought to tell her how I take it
I yelled across the crowded deck “No milk and two sugars!”
Of course when she returned her Germanic mind had inserted a comma
Into what should have been straight forward
So we laughed and I drank the hot sweet milk
Because it would have been rude not to and after all
In just a few hours we’d fallen in love
Like strangers in the night sometimes do.


Iain

Married Talk

It borders on mystical, she said
as if passion ever bordered anything else.

It borders on sinful, he said
as if poetry and coffee were same as a romp.

It borders on religion, she said
how he makes me want.

It borders on sacrilege, he said
how he fiddles with words.

It borders on holy, she said
how I demonstrate restraint.

It borders on infidelity, he said
how you want to hump him like a dog.

It borders on ludicrous, she said
Imagine me on a leash.

Subject: Miscommunication

"Polar Freeze"

You hear and see what you want;
clouded thinking, like dismal rain
covered by fog

I hear and see reality for what is truly is;
you paint a canvas to cover truth

We hear and see things differently,
like North and South Pole, we walk
in opposing directions.

DARK SHADOW

What if you are the journalist who wrote
that Karen Carpenter has chubby thighs,
who put in motion the train that crashed
into a brick wall decades later?

What if you take your little brother
to the park and find him floating
face down in the wading pool?

What if your husband tells you
he will kill himself if you leave?
Then you do. Then he does.

What if you give your only child
a car for his sixteenth birthday
and he crashes and dies?

Where do you go from there?

The Mumbling Poet

It is the sancity of porpus
anksity mutualer than not,
a kernel purpose, rather
than a pile of sam.
The assallant’s anominidy
some noise music,
rougher than jar.
I sit, ineverated, flip,
no trace of Crishianidy,
needly skitso-frantic.
Even Elizabeth Bisop
is unable to
quirrel me down.


Lori Desrosiers

Lori _ Thats hilarious!!! well done!

Iain

Azuélos

Blue as the ocean, the sky,
white as a sail, a cloud,
a wash of blues, dark and pale,
night and day sky and sea,
blue as the earth seen from the moon.

Alberto, Ricardo and Alvaro
go into a café, Alberto, of course
chooses the table. Bernardo
spies on them from the corner.
A fado singer wails Portuguese,
with African and Arabic accents.

At Sagrés, the birds wheel above
the Atlantic, far below the whitewashed
School of Henry the Navigator where
all the discovers of the West went
looking for the Westward Passage,
around the Cape of Good Hope to
the vast treasures of the East.

Everything is what it appears to be
and yet is not. The sky is not blue,
that is merely what the eye sees air as.
West is not East, but the North Pole
is sailed across and the South one
melts and floats away, acres at a time.
Pessoa talks to himself in a café and
imagines other authors, critics, friends,
a new, azure continent of characters.

Closed or Open

The door swings both ways
Into a room and out
It welcomes and bids adieu
It shields and hides

The door works for us
And sometimes against
It keeps secrets but
Left open it shares them

Locked it protects us
Open it leaves us vulnerable
Don’t close the door on love
For it may never walk through again

Why It’s Called a Crush
By R. Chazz Chute

It’s NYC.
It’s huge, of course, but still,
there are only so many of us
and only so many places to be.
If you stand in one place long enough
everyone you ever knew,
or desperately wanted to know,
will stroll by.
Pick a spot by the Statue of Liberty
if your crowd are a bunch of rubes
gawking and necks severely craning,
always looking up.
Stand at Fifth and 89th Street if you hope to
happen across a better class of old friends
headed for Guggenheim enlightenment.
Paths cross. Coincidences happen all the time.
That’s why it seemed so reasonable to see
Susie from my senior year of high school,
waving at me from across a busy Manhattan street.
Dressed in red, shoulders capped with snow,
blonde and leggy Susie whose family
took her away from me when her
dad got that damned job in Michigan.
Susie, who left in the middle of the school year,
taking my dreams with her,
my first lust in her back pocket.
We’d only gone out once and then they moved.
That was that, until we spotted each other
at the same moment.
Her arms full of shopping bags,
she dropped them all,
and raised her arms in a frantic
semaphore.
“Rob! Rob! Rob!”
A hope I didn’t know I was carrying anymore
leapt in my heart, and yes, that’s exactly
what it felt like.
In a movie we’d meet in the middle
of the street at Fate’s crossroads,
oblivious to the stopped traffic around us
and honking horns.
We’d embrace as violins from nowhere would swell.
Trumpets would announce the crescendo
of this eternal moment,
the moment our
children and their children would tell and
retell, keeping the idea of real romance alive
like torches, one lighting another,
through our generations.
They would tell how we instantly
recognized each other,
how we went straight to our magic kiss
without even speaking.
As if no time at all had passed.
I’d say, “I lost you. I won’t let it happen again.”
And she’d say, “Never.”
But…but but but
we don’t live in movies
and Susie wasn’t Susie.
She was waving at some guy behind me
also named Rob.
(There are millions of us,
everywhere and pretty much the same.)
There was only one Susie.
Now a woman, she must call herself
Susan or Sue these days
and I am a forgotten footnote in her story.
I lost her in a moment,
crushed all over again.
“Never.”
It can ambush you in a moment.
It’s the curse you carry,
the love who left,
the loss you were so sure you finally got over.
Never is the life you didn’t.
Never is the life you won’t.

I blame this one on my daughter and reading too much of Jack Prelutsky's, It's Raining Pigs and Noodles.
----------------------

There is a scaredy-cat monster,
who lives beneath my bed.
I don't know what he looks like,
except his hands are red.

I try to coax him out,
with jellybeans and pie.
But every time I offer,
I hear a muffled cry.

I know sometimes I'm loud
and stomp and dance about.
But really those aren't reasons
why the monster won't come out.

Finally I heard him whisper,
the reason did unfurl.
He thought I said a ghoul,
when I said I was a girl.

Misinterpretation

Her

Meet me at eight
And don’t be late
In front of the book store
I’ll be there for sure.

I stand here at eight
Without a date
In front of the place
Where I pace and pace.

Where, oh where, can he be?
It’s now half past, you see.
At least he could give me a call!
Guess I’ll just go to the mall.

Him

Yes, I’ll meet you at eight
And I won’t be late
In front of the book store
To the left of the door.

I stand here at eight
Without a date
In front of the place
Where I pace and pace.

Where in the world can she be?
If I stand here much more, they’ll charge a fee.
At least she could have phoned ahead!
Wait, no she couldn’t – my battery’s dead.

They

“There you are!” “ Where were you?”
“In front of the book store on the avenue.”
“I thought you meant here in the mall.”
“I meant the one at 5th and Wall.”

Split Causes

There were many, mismatched, reasons we spilt;
First, because his mother didn’t like me;
Second, I wasn’t all that fond of his mother;
Third, his favorite class with math;
Fourth, I’d much rather read and write;
Fifth, he found comfort in his cubicle;
Sixth, I preferred living “outside the box”;
Seventh, he needed structured fun,
Eighth, I got bored the moment there were rules;
Ninth, he felt I was out of my mind;
Ten, I thought he was too much in his.
We were mismatched and we loved it…
Until we hated it.

------

Huh?

"Huh?"
I don’t
Get what was
Said to me…again.

--

Author's Note: I did two, just felt like it, haha!

Chev ...Excellent!!!

Iain

Mixed Messages

The art of parenting
is always evolving,
creative, dynamic and
issue resolving.
Being direct may
find the right spark,
but challenging poets
is no walk in the park.
Asking hard questions
seems honest and true,
if the confident voice
you seek mirrors you.
To optimize life,
make committed choices,
a poet must listen
to his inner voices.
No peace is obtained,
not outer nor inner,
by seeking approval,
to be called the winner.

Miscommunication

You want credit for doing what’s normal,
decorating our house with reminders to help
you try. You tell me students used to make fun
of your "rather," which you rhymed with bother.
"Oh, let’s have a spot of tea," they’d say,
"then sashay over to the polo grounds."
So you began to pause before saying the word,
making sure it would come out how they wanted it,
the flat "rather" of the undistinguished.
You half-expected they’d notice and pat you
on the back for your effort to blend, in the same way
you hope I’ll notice your success in leaving
the toilet seat down—the black Sharpee dot
on the underside an effective reminder—
and your effort to turn off the entryway light—
the orange sticker on the switch panel a sometimes
effective reminder. My whole life has been one big
adaptation—multi-ethnic, female—I’ve become
expert in reading a room and responding in kind.
"How could a poem about being aware of others’
communication styles and adapting to them
be interesting?" I say. And you say,
"I’m a white male over 40. This is new to me."

All words and lines in quotation marks should be italicized.

My Body is a Heretic
(A variation of Eavan Boland’s “Anorexic”)
Burn-I thought of my flesh
Pressing too heavy on my bones
Wretch-I thought of my stomach
Never silent, always rolling
I wanted to yank the hair from my head
Nest it in my throat
Clogging the drain
So no more food
Could rinse down

I didn’t know
It is good to be soft
It is okay to indulge

It is comforting to feel whole

Birds

You never see a missed cue
When birds swim the sea of the skies
They dip and swerve in a black clot
As if linked to one mind

In one breath they light on the barley field
The next they take flight as one entity
In a tiny thunder of wings

Their larger cousins; the wild geese
Draw their pattern of V’s across the sunset sky
On cue the leader drops back
Another taking his place

How do they figure who should take the lead
How does the leader signal his readiness
To relinquish his wind breaking place

Does one bird decide which reflecting pool of water
They should spend the night at
Or do they move with a collective purpose
Each knowing the others’ intentions

Humans can’t even get on the subway
Without banging into each other
They say “I never said that!”
“Yes, you did, just now!”
“Well, that’s not what I meant!”
“It’s what you said.”
“Yes, but I didn’t mean it in that way.”
“But, it’s what you said.”

We talk but we don’t listen
We look but we never see
How can there be anything else
But missed communication

In the dawn light the wild geese
Take off as one in a thunder of wings

Nancy Bell, Balzac, Alberta

Day 26 Miscommunication

Sandy's definition of menopause:
"When your brain cells detach
and reattach at random."

I know that what I meant to say
is not what you have heard.
My mind is running on two tracks
and my messages are absurd.

Right now it is not possible
for my tongue to understand
how to follow unclear orders
from a strange and foreign land.

So have patience, teenage daughter,
for all of this shall pass
and my brain will turn the corner
and I hope that I remember
what I was trying to say...
What were we talking about anyway?
I thought we were discussing your volleyball game!

NOTE: Still thinking about your poem Susie B. you've taken something haunting and transformed pain into poetry - which is often definitive of poetry as an art form. Brenna must agree that you have a powerful talent - thanks to Kendall (I believe) for alerting me to go back and find your poem. Marie Elena thank you for all your postings - I'm not sure that this is the 'venue' but there is obviously a need for response that I know you are meeting for me! I wonder if there could be or is (this too is my first time participating) where we might reach out to one another. This has been a wonderful experience. I look forward to each day's prompt and will miss them when at month's end - along with this lovely sense of community through collective language.

So There We Were

So there I was, standing out on the curb in the wind and rain with my heavy book bag and my backpack full of gym clothes and my overstuffed purse and wondering if he had a good reason to be late and pissed that he wasn’t answering his cell phone

So there he was, at home and just realizing what time it was and trying to remember if I said that I wanted a ride home and wondering if I said that I was going to stay late to work on a project or go to a meeting or whatever

So there I was, walking home, struggling against the cold March wind and the sleet and feeling that I was all alone and

there he was, relaxing in the knowledge that I didn’t call and so was not asking for a ride home and so he was off the hook

So there was his cell phone, with a dead battery and neither one of us knowing it

So there was the distance between us, and as I got closer to the house, the pressure increased and a gray storm cloud appeared that would only release its fury once I opened the door.

-

Hello?

Hi, what's up?

i'm on my way.

Okay, see you when you get here

bye

bye
...
35 minuets later

Hello?

Hi... Where are you

Oh, i'm just leaving.

...

No Miscommunication


I keep trying to tell you
Words don’t really mean much
If you don’t back them up
With the things you do
The things I see
The actions you take
You need to walk your talk
That sort of thing
Here’s what I hear
From you
I love you
I want to fix things
I won’t give up
Now
What I see
It must have been weeks ago
When you found out
You had the tickets
Coming
It didn’t come up in
Any conversation
Because it’s just not your thing
Then this Wednesday
You decide to
Bite the bullet
And test me
See if I will jump
You ask me to go
With you
If I want to go
To spend time together
With you
But you don’t reply to my email on Friday
You don’t take any of my calls
When you do get around to calling me
That same night
After an hour or so
You already have another guy
Slated to go with you
To something you have always said
You have no interest in
Am I missing something
Or do your actions
Scream
What your words belie
I am so not
Your fall-back guy
Anymore
And you are the real reason
Why

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
*********************************************************

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus,
Or so they say,
Be truthful to each other in relationship with boldness,
Avoid all cliche.

Sometimes men thinks differently from women,
Since women are more emotional,
Don't talk to a man like in a sermon,
With women, men need to be more personal.

Missing It

I thought that if you drank too much
You were an alcoholic
And if you took drugs
You were a drug addict.
I did not know
At that time
That you could be both,
That a person who had a problem
With alcohol
Could also
Have a problem with pills
Or smack.
So I thought he was safe
When he drank to excess,
Safe from being a drug addict.
Until, because I told him I was leaving,
He showed me the lines on his arms,
The marks, which he had always said
Were from accidents at work.
I had believed him—
Why wouldn’t I? --
And bought him long-sleeved shirts
To cover
What he now told me were tracks.

He was cross-addicted
To alcohol
And heroin
And somehow he thought that by telling me this
I would stay and help him.
But really,
I did not know
Until I knew.

Squirrel! Nut!

Who you calling a Squirrel
Who you calling a Nut!
I may be odd but
I'm not a Squirrel or Nut!


No No can't you see
The squirrel behind you
Eating a nut covered with mornin dew
Turn around look behind you!


Squirrel?! Nut?!
Wow he looks nothing like me
But with that nut anyone can see
That little squirrel is almost as cute as me

"Lost in Translation (*bark!)

The furry bundle of energy
has stolen another sock
"drop it" I say in
my sternest I- mean- it tone
she affects an impish bow
laughingly growls
as if to say
let the game begin
takes off running
feints left
dodges to the right
obviously thinking what I am really saying is
"let's play"
I really need new socks
anyway

(c) m.u. Poetry Challenge day 26 prompt a miscommunication or misinterpretion

You know what I mean

Like, so ahh, uhh and stuff,
like chill you know, like,
whatever,
like everyday,
like dude pay attention
Like, it’s like, and like
I lost my brain,
like I’m opposite
like, you know what I’m saying?
Hey, like it’s almost 10 PM!,
I don’t get it!
like, you get in trouble
like I’m as big as your Mom,
like it’s part of life.
My point is like kind-a
the wrong approach
to gender you know what I’m saying?
It’s like you know what I mean?
Like, you know it’s like that.

I guess I misunderstood
I thought you wanted to be friends
But your actions have proven otherwise
So, I guess I was wrong.

Friendship works both ways
It is a give and take
but take is all you do
I guess I am through giving

Goodbye.

I had just accidentally smashed
my boyfriend Howard in the forehead
with a horseshoe. The blood surged
through his eight year old fingers,
dripping down his face. I screamed,
dropped the horseshoe and spun
to race towards the house,
'No, don't tell anyone! '
He tried to block me from reaching
grown-ups and help.

I remember looking into his eyes,
and seeing blind love, and fear.
He could forgive me any pain I would
ever cause him, and deny it as well.
But if they found out he thought,
all was lost.

Miscommunication

Crossing signals going off at all the wrong times.
The lights are flashing in my mind.
Stop or go, yield or continue on.
Train crossing and no left turn.
What is left for us?
Our signals are crossed and there is no turning back.

Written Day 25- Tried to submit then but server not working.

PAD- April 2009
Prompt: Event
Neil Young at 64

“Hey hey my my
rock and roll
will never die.”

At 64 the guy paces
the stage like a tiger,
never gives in,
never a break,
not after his sorry nostrils drip cocaine,
not after his daughter’s epilepsy and his own,
not after his son’s cerebral palsy,
not after a brain aneurysm,
not after the Iraq War,
not a false note.

He twangs the life
out of each string-
hurls each song from
the subway of hell
to slide a wave.

His fans never sit, but
jump out of
their skin,
sing at the top
of their lungs.

The wizard waves
his guitar and
there is no doubt.

No doubt
rock and roll
can change the world.

When the tanks
rolled into Hungary,
an official said
no democratic ideal
charged the rebels,
but a refusal to
smash their Strats.

Yet the echo persists,
“Helpless, helpless, helpless.”

No rest between notes,
the minstrel claws the walls,
combusts in the night.
Harness this and
fuel revolution.

“Keep on rockin
in the free world.”

© Gretchen Gersh Whitman April 2009

 Misguided Anger


The angry child walks into the room
When the teacher starts to give a compliment
His face turns to one of anger and gloom
Though certainly this was not the teachers intent. . .

©Ralph J. Fitcher, April 26, 2009, Mis-communication Poem

Who Says?

You did…
Did not!
Why put me on the spot?

You said…
No way!
Just for that, you will pay.

Want half…
You’re done!
Just wanted to have fun.

Spoil-sport!
Spoiled brat!
I’m gone. And that is that!

The Scenery of Language

It became worse, all your words misplaced,
lost in some strange landscape of a sentence.
They had a passing resemblance to the terrain
but they never quite blended, a lone spruce
on the edge of a beach instead of a palm.
Look at the condescension on the windows.
Her daughter is having virility treatment.
The Canada geese are gyrating now.
That last year it was as if the words found
a whole new country to inhabit where sense
did not disturb the lie of the land in your head.
I really want a lawnmower on my toast today.
At the end you were silent, but I could mishear
you in each gesture, eye roll, the pat on my hand.

back in the days when there
were daily newspapers covering all
sorts of topics from the general
to the mundanely obscure we called
it managing the news or planning
coverage of a story or event
for a certain day
it wasn't necessarily about stopping
the presses rushing into print
unless it was a major story or disaster
with inaccurate reporting and speculation
(what blogs are for today)
it was about filling the vast
number of white spaces
looming darkly ahead each day
that was a form of mis-communication
or delayed communication but what
was learned then is even truer than
ever: an array of facts don't automatically
lead to a day's truth facts always
are expertly manipulated
lies too easily become true
and what is real gets filtered
into a parallax view

she mentioned 6
had dinner ready
at 5:30
in case he was early
he called at 9:30
wondered why he hadn't heard from her
hadn't realized the invitation
extended
hadn't agreed on a specific time
had never said he'd be there
only mentioned it would be nice
to have a home cooked meal
that wasn't frozen pizza
apologized for what
he had not said
she smelled the whiskey
on his breathe
before the silence
where a dial tone once existed
poured herself a glass of wine
tupperwared cold food
blew out candles in puddles of wax
then left the dishes in the sink

Tea Time with Aunt May

"Kiss my what?"

"No, I said he was a history nut.
You know, one of those guys
who's always citing dates
when great things happened?"

"Like his first date with you?"

"Oh, God, no! Like the signing of the Magna Carta."

"Magnum farter? You must mean Magnum P.I.
He was no farter."

Oh, Aunt May, this conversation's
giving me a headache.
Just pass me the remote."

"You always treat me like I'm dumb
or I don't care. I'm not remote.
I really want to know about
this new man in your life."

"Then please turn on your hearing aid
and turn off the TV. He's a nice guy. Okay?

"Okay."

MISCOMMUNICATING LOVE

he didn’t know she meant “forever”
the only love he ever had
began at point A and ended at point X
or maybe Y or stopped dead at C
all depending on how much
either side willingly doled out

he didn’t know she meant “forever”
the only love he ever had
seemed to be on a kind of loan
where both he and she knew about endings
and thought it wise to live the moment
not dream of fairy-tale un-endings

he didn’t know she meant “forever”
the only love he ever had
were hugs and kisses, gifts of
gold hearts, chocolates, red roses,
words that signified nothing,
Hansel-Gretel crumbs back to sorrow

he didn’t know she meant “forever”
the only love he ever had
spoke a tinny voice riddled with irony
eyes sparkling tiny finite stars
photos of themselves holding hands
fake itineraries to imaginary places

he didn’t know she meant “forever”
the only love he ever wanted,
dreamed of, prayed for, wondered if
there truly was true love
so when she told him “this love
of ours won’t end,” he all at once grew wise.

#

“Get Me Right”

“I like you so much that I go crazy,” she says.
“I wonder, what is her problem?” - he thinks.
She always wants to look attractive. It makes
her suspicious for him. His desire to know
her thoughts is prevailing. She tries to hide
her inside since her bare body is not already
a secret. “Why is she cold?” he wonders.
She answers, “Why do you think I don’t care
About my energy – get me right, will you?”

Oh Nikki I loved it ...I sure understand the miscommunication on that FAT! LOL

As far as the posting poems from months other than April.
As noted they have been clearly marked and as this is my first attempt at this venue...I guess I can't say a whole bunch.

It just seemed to occur to me that it is each person's choice to read or not to read.

Have a poetic day!

(i'm going to take the low road on this one...)

No, slice. Slice!




Honey,
Can you cut the salami
and the cheese?

MISUNDERSTANDING, MY LOVER

You were Indian. I was white. But I
didn’t know it. I never thought of my
self that way. It took you, looking at me,
to make me see that being the granddaughter
of a Cherokee didn’t matter if I
looked like my Irish mother. So when you
wanted me to go out in the sunlight
just to darken the color of my skin,
I was angry. I could never look like
your mother or any other woman
from India. You made me feel like I
could never be beautiful in your eyes.
But in my eyes, you were more beautiful
than any man made in God’s own image.

Jane Beal
sanctuarypoet.net

DO THESE PANTS MAKE MY BUTT LOOK BIG?

Don't ask for answers if you don't want the truth,
a loaded question my dear, yes it's a beaut,
you just want to hear what you think would be right,
while making one feel like they're not very bright,
To avoid all confusion I've taken the stance
of no commentary concerning your pants,
It's don't ask, don't tell as far as slacks go
since the ensuing silence is no way to know.
So if I must tell you, I'll answer the call,
in my eye your ass makes those pants look too small.

The Written Word


In a world without words written
on brass, paper, and stone—
how would we explain ourselves?

While we desperately scanned
the sky for symbols and signs,
traced lines on palms
and tracked our passage
in the broken trails
of forests;

or we puzzled over smoke signals
rising from far mountain ranges
and expressions on faces we loved
and tried to divine the thoughts of their minds--
all without knowing
what our eyes
were begging for?

Would we still call it reading
if there was no writing?
And when, without the merciful clarification
of the written word, we got it all wrong,
would we still call it misreading?

Miscommunication

We set up the time for dinner
My brother arrived a little early
Then dinner was ready but
Where were my in-laws
Oh, I've set the table and we're waiting
For you to bring the food, they said
By the time they got to our place
The food was overcooked from trying
To keep it warm
Next time we'll have dinner
At their house

The mental block
puts up a wall

It has it’s own agenda
It translates falsely

It twists and turns
my intentions

It gives
the impression

I mean to harm

When all I want
is relationship.

Now, I don’t mean
to say
you’re mental,

That’s not what I mean at all.

By Lynn Potter 4/26/09

Fast Food

at sixteen she slowly walks
with a saunter and a slink
her head to the side
a curl
coquettishly covering an eye
almost further concealed by
the smokiest
of smoky-eye make-up
she smiles
a welcoming
eat me grin
that is supposed to resemble
the almost anorexic model
on page 67
of the Comso
her mother read
and tossed aside
her lashes flatteringly flutter
in the direction
of the group of soccer players
standing around after class
wearing Fighting Tigers colors
in the halls of their high school
and the boys did not fail to notice
her opening
just one more button
revealing
the full budding of her breasts
slipping ever so beyond
the requirements of the code
when a teacher goes by
and with mother eyes
in the back of her head
she passes the group
knowing full well
the meaning behind
the glances
the giggles
the grunting
and then with the silence
that only teachers speak
she sighs
and tips her head
with that look in her eye
the girl's arms pressing quickly
her books to her chest
and her smoky-eyes now
offering an innocent question
the message is read and tossed aside
as the teacher moves on
to correct algebra quizzes
leaving the girl giggling
and the boys gut laughing
as they gather their backpacks
and head to their minimum jobs
definitely no labor of love
they learn to put on
the fakest of smiles
and with a curl of charbroiled
smoke stinging their eyes,
they sigh,
"Do you want fries with that?"

she loved him so much
he used to say
that he loves her more
they were happy

and his mother
told them
that she was so happy for them

then they decided to get married

they told that his mother

a few days later his mother called her
and said
that he doesn’t want to see her ever again
he is going back to live with his mother

she almost fainted
and didn’t call him for 2 years

after 2 years she called him finally
and he told her
that he didn’t know what to do
because his mother told him
that she has spoken to her and she didn’t want be with him
and didn’t even want to speak to him
he was in pain
he went to live with his mom

it was nice for a few months
but it didn’t work
so he moved out again

he was hoping
that she would call him one day
but she didn’t
and yesterday
he has met this girl at a party
and he fell in love with this girl

she didn’t tell him
about his mother’s action
she didn't tell him
that she still loves him
she simply hung up


Bozena Intrator

09-0426

I’m done being mad now,
so do you want to talk?

Fine. Whatever.

Do you even know why I was mad?

Yes, because I criticized your son.

No. Not because you—
I swear, you thought—
I criticized him too, but
you didn’t hear that, did you?

Then why were you mad?

Your family was here all weekend
and I cooked and cleaned,
I was nice to them, NICE.
You know how hard it was
and all you can think to say to me
ALL you can think to say
is to tell me my son messed up his room?
No “Thank you honey, you did a great job?”
No “What would I have done without you?”

Oh.

Yeah.

Well, but—
Thank you.

You’re welcome.

Scott Owens, I really enjoyed "The Passion" of Joan of Arc. Cheryl Lynn Moyer, I love the story of the boyfriend and the horseshoe!

Jane Beal
sanctuarypoet.net

April PAD Challenge
Linda Robertson
© April 26, 2009

WHO RAISED THIS CHILD?

He knew I always had migraines.

He knew I was a writer.

He was seven.

“Jordan,
will you please bring me a tablet?”

He walked in
with a bottle of Tylenol.

“The Last Time We Talked”

I don’t quite remember
exactly what the argument
was about this time. They
always seemed to start
somewhere, and meander
to a place entirely different,
not unlike a Simpsons episode.

I think we were in the car,
and you did that thing
(you always do)
where you bring the car to
a complete stop, at a green
light. Green means go, how
many times does that have to
be repeated?

You always respond in the
same stilted manner, “My
head’s just not clear right now,
you’ve got me so frustrated.”
Each and every time, the
blame is placed upon me,
when you are the one physically
commandeering your Prius.

You look towards me, and
the car always wanders, bobbing
between lanes, at a frightening
rate. “Why don’t you just
concentrate on the road?” But
the stereo begins to drown
out anything slipping from
my vocal chords.

Esthero blasting loudly,
she’s your “empowerment” artist –
feeling free and in charge
you tell me to get out while
the car is still moving, and
I sulk staring out the window.

This happens every time
you say that we need to seek
couples therapy. You feel justified
in your anger by confining me
in your steel barrier of destruction.
You even put the child lock on
the window, so I feel helpless.

Just because I asked you
if the purse you had with you
today was new, you felt that I was
attacking you. I was minimalizing
you into some form of prehistoric
woman. You won’t hear “Luuuucy,
where dichu get dat hat?” I’m not
Ricky Ricardo, exuding my male
authority over my bride.

I only brought it up because you
always point your words in that
not-so-subtle way when you
say I never notice anything.

Ares and Aphrodite:
Men are from Mars, they say.
That planet named after the Roman god of war.
In Greece, it would have been Ares.
It suits them,
Their arrogance, need for dominance and aggression.

Women, we’re from Venus.
The goddess of love and beauty,
Also named Aphrodite, such a name
Flows off the tongue.
We’re enchanting, romantic, and caring,
So why do we need men?
Men are from entirely different planets,
And never understand us.

We tell them something,
And it goes right through their head.
It takes several attempts to get a word to stick.
The next moment, they’ve forgotten again.
They misinterpret our subtle phrases,
Take everything literally,
And don’t ever seem to get the point we try to make.

Huh?

Come in come in, please close the door.
Why do you want me on the floor?
What did you say? Please do sit.
It's very rude! I will not spit!

Huh, what was that? here have a drink.
How dare you say I do not think.
You look confused, are you alright?
Oh! So now you want to fight!

Ok, so things weren't really that bad,
but when hearing goes it can be sad.
Confusion seems to run amuck,
talk slow and be heard with some luck..

Stir


Her face is polished marble as she
glares into the speaker, waiting
to hear her order repeated back
wrong, as always, a Caesar when
she clearly said an Asian salad
or extra mayo when she pleaded
none. She’s heard they’ve even
farmed the answering work to
India, so she’s barking DIET
to some kid sitting in Mumbai
who thinks she’s telling him
to die. But what is she to do?
Only so much time to eat and
everywhere to get to in an
hour. She has to rely on these
morons with their polyester
aprons and threadbare education
to keep her running, so when
she hears One Tall Caramel
Dolce Latte with Sugar-Free Syrup
and a Reduced-Fat Cinnamon
Swirl Coffee Cake she’s struck
dumb by its precision, but
undaunted she screeches around
to the window and tears off
the lid to inspect the coffee,
ransacks the small bag and in
triumph shouts STIR STICK?

Missed

It was the 4th day of the 5th
month, not the 5th of the 4th,
and in Venice, Italy, not Venice
Beach, CA, 1:00a.m., not the other,
and she said a basket of 1 egg,
not a tasket of (broken) jokes
we've heard before, and boots,
not sandals, though sandals
were suggested, not heels, no
names, just same old senses,
and not next year but this
week to plot and to bake,
and a respite for the ener-
getic, not a weariness
for the rested, and it was LOL,
not SOB and so on, she explained,
though by sunset (not sunrise!)
the only words left, left
also(rightly, then nightly)
left her alone, friend---a-
lone with the laptop,
the 1 pacified dog snoring,
and not a ring to the baffling
old-fashioned (not fangled,
though newly fanged) tele-
phone.

FINE!

"Hey, you were quiet this evening is everything alright?
"It's not like you to be quiet all night".
"And why the long puss, were the vegetables sour?"
"You just haven't spoken in nearly three hours."
"I don't understand it, you're usually perky,
but you ask for my comment, then you got jerky."
"Your sister looked hot, did she lose some weight?"
"Ask her the secret, she really looked great"
"And your girlfriend Janice, seems so aloof."
"I think she's a bitch, and tonight was the proof."
"Seriously Babe, is everything square?"

"FINE!"

"Oh good, I was worried for a second there."

“Faith” By: Melinda Elmore


The creator created
The earth
The star
The sky

His smile shines down
Upon us now

So, many religions
So much hate

Why must we all
Feel this way

The creator is one and the same
No matter what faith
Rings your way

So, when life is spinning
Out of control
Remember, the creator
Made us all

By: Melinda Elmore

Love Supreme

It’s always the fall when I see Ashley,
last time at a memorial in Marin County,
this time finally making it to her home
in Burlingame where she’s lived with her
family for years. It is the Saturday
after the big election and even though
we’re all elated about Obama, she can
barely get out of bed. Proposition 8
in California opposing gay marriage
was triumphant in the midst of all this
radical change in our country and how bitter
is that for a woman who has loved the same
woman for more than twenty years, together
raising two glorious children to near adulthood.
Last summer after the Supreme Court ruled
it was legal, they were married on the beach,
both wearing white. The photo she’ll send
at Christmas will tell it all, this was something
they had wanted forever. But still, in November,
when we’re having breakfast in her neighborhood,
talking about how painful this defeat had been,
I glibly ask: So civil union doesn’t do it for you?
Her face showed so much disappointment with me,
with everyone, but she answered me anyway:
That’s like separate but equal, and what’s the big deal?
What’s wrong with more love? I want to tell her that
I’ve never held much stock in marriage, or the constructs
of churches and mostly I just don’t get politics,
that I am just waking up to what she has known
for a lifetime, that this is not about marriage,
it’s about freedom and equality, that love is supreme,
that it would only be a matter of time now,
but it is too late, the truth had already marched in
wiping out all my excuses.

Drawn conclusions

Term in
all
Velo cities

Semi
or to Ma
ticks

The rite
two bear arms

amend meant
unmended

a piece does not make
peace nor make a man
out of a punk

it

does not give you
the right to kill

just the responsibility
to not

©DP April 09

Strangers

Both have empty souls
Impatient wait for brown line
Mumble sarcasm
Sometimes words don't come out right
Argument leads to huge fight

09-0426

I understand now
what I didn’t before
I loved you with all that I had
I trusted your vow
That you would adore
That you would ne’er make me sad, me sad
that you would ne’er make me sad.

But how could I know
what I didn’t before
That love could be such a chore?
All you could bestow
was this and no more
You gave only thus and no more, no more
You gave only thus and no more.

I thought only that
you loved as I did
But you had no reference to see
Your love fell flat
your boredom you hid
you were naught but what you could be, could be
you were naught but what you could be.

My Dear Mr. A.

My dear Mr A.
Ah so much to say
I began my response
in a more humble way
I intended to offer
a chagrined apology
A sorry for appearing
to be mean and lip tight
A sorry for turning
away from the light
From the light of
all things that are
fresh and are new
From the light of all
things that create
and renew
And then I read
your post directed
to me
and your passive
agression drained
the the sorry to be...
The well written
jibe about prizes
sought
have nothing to do
with the cautions
I 'wraught'
Never read before
writing
never do I
do that
But today curiousity
rubbed like the
proverbial cat
I suppose it was also
that I felt soul dim cast
At yesterday's surrender to a strong
need to take you to task
And if not for your
post of today which you've written
Your bait would've
strongly been tasted and bitten
Your humility packaged in
withdrawn "treats"
to the crowd tossed
Yet the sharpness of spirit
upon me not at all lost
In your stated disassociation
of prizes and such
You my dear sir
revealed perhaps quite too much
Your talents are heralded
your word swordsmanship
clear
Yet in the name of
humility and lack
of all prize you
sought to draw blood
sought to gently demonize
To diminish and
humiliate one who
questioned a talented might
and even
my dear sir if
you were the sole keeper of
Light
you have aimed
your sword at
a sparkle
in flight
I bear you no grudge
I meant you no harm
Nor do I even now seek to disarm
True humility and seeking of
The Way and The Light
requires an open hand
and a touch that is slight
Yet you sir decided to
smote with your might
Do as you wish it is not
mine to say
And no prize do I claim
though neither you nor I
(I suspect) would turn any away
It is not the reason for
writing essential and
true
And the road to happiness
is still open for both
me and for you
In this spirit
I hope our discourse
personal though it assuredly
be
has delighted not discomforted
the prompt, poet and readers
Role-players are we
and miscommunication leaders
My note, your response, and my reply
be they as they be
now lie open, living, fresh and vital
for all those to see.........

Signed Dear DrP

False Accusation

You went snooping in my email,
hoping to catch me cheating.
You found a message of mine,
but you didn't read it to the end.
You thought you had caught me,
but I quickly proved you wrong.
I made you read the whole message,
which was about someone else.
The two lovers having the affair,
were not my pen pal and myself.
Now don't you feel very foolish,
saying that I had cheated on you?

Parlor of Babel

End of day and we sit, two oldsters
who look more and more alike
with each revolution of the sun,
commenting from the peanut gallery
while the newscaster reads the news
and smiles and frowns in all the right places.

We can finish each other's sentences
but still cannot communicate.
Our inmost thoughts transmitted brain to brain,
but what we mean by words is lost in translation.
Tempers flare, extinguished by love and forgiveness,
until the next time.

The Name Game

It started when I was young
First going off to class
My name was called
But it wasn’t Michelle
But Michael
I was slightly embarrassed
And slightly mad
With pig tails and frilly
Dress, I couldn’t possibly
Be a boy, but too shy
To do much more than smile
And whisper the correction

Then when I was older
My initials were quite fun
I could simply sign
My name with MR Krause
And wonder if they
Would notice and wonder
If I was a Mister or a Misses
I don’t believe anyone
Ever noticed but my mind
Enjoyed the pun

Now as a married mother
My name still gives me
A kick, with a name
As short as mine
You would think no
Problems could stick
Depending on your age
The problems are quite clear
If over the age of thirty
Everyone adds an ‘a’
And those under thirty
Often give me a grin
And sinful little lear
And I smile and say
I’ve heard them all
And have a good day

So what is a name?
What does it mean?
Doesn’t really matter
If you get it wrong
Because I know who
I am and I’ve known
All along

A Communist Explains Taoism

"Religion not so big now in China. There are more Buddhists
than Taoists. That's because Taoists believe people
can become immoral if they practice their religion
really, really hard. And no one has ever died and come back
to prove that they are immoral. So it's hard to believe in that.
So that's why there are not so many Taoists in China
as Buddhists."

c 2009 by Madeline Strong Diehl

[NOTE: this is a found poem, and not in any way meant
to make fun of people with Chinese accents. Indeed, I am
absolutely sure I have said 100,000 stupid things while
speaking a foreign language with an American accent,
or simply out of pure ignorance.]

Usage

Her mother is at the kitchen sink, rinsing tomatoes in the colander.
The little girl is sitting at the kitchen table, working on her first grade homework.
Her mother chops some onions and peppers.
The little girl scratches her head with the eraser of her number two pencil.
Her mother asks, “How was school today?”
The little girl says, “Fine.”
Her mother continues chopping vegetables for the salad.
The little girl writes something in her homework book.
Her mother asks, “So, what did you learn in school today?’
The little girl puts down her pencil and says, “Mommy – I know how babies are made!”
Her mother nearly slices off a finger.
The little girl adds, “You take off the ‘Y’ and add ‘I-E-S.”

WOW what great creative postings.
Many have me laughing.
And Walt W. Its that I'm NOT tall that makes my pants look too small! If I were 6 foot 8...they would look great..hmmm but then they'd be shorts LOL

RJ - you're the third person to make me laugh today!! Well done!

Iain

MISS COMMUNICATION

"Can I get a new phone my old one is lame,
yes, it still makes calls but it isn't the same."
"It's like so last year, I NEED something new,
I wouldn't be caught dead with this, would you?"
"Lay off of my music, I like it that loud,
and dressing this way, I stand out in a crowd!"
"How can you say that I show no respect,
and my bedroom's just "lived in", that isn't neglect."
"Can I have a few bucks to go to the Mall?"
"If I had a better phone, I'd remember to call!"
"You're just so old-fashioned, Mom would say yes,
she must love me more, that'd be my guess"
So finally I speak, "Just when did 'We'll see"
turn into a promise between you and me?"
"I'm trying my hardest to keep things on track,
so give me a break and cut me some slack."
"And why must you always turn things around,
I'm just making sure that your feet keep their ground."
"You're just so unfair, my mother was right!"
"Can you give me a ride? I Love you Daddy. Good Night"


**Based on an actual conversation with Andrea my 15 year old daughter.

Nice one Walt!

Iain

the riddler

you were only fooling
bombarding my bat brain
with made-up opinions
that mirrored my beliefs
allowing me to think
i’d found clear connection
with someone just like me
someone I could count on
to read between the lines
to always get the joke

i must have missed a joke
perhaps in riddle form
i don’t like riddles much
deathtraps for perception

Party Invitation

I said, “The Party starts at 8,
Could you come early and help me prepare.”
She said, “Sure,” like she always does
And like she always does, she arrives at 8:45
I smile and welcome her with a kiss
She is not frazzled by the hour
She seems content to make the dramatic
Entrance now that everyone else has arrived
Other friends welcome her and smile
Some look over at me and wink
They all know that it’s a tradition,
A routine, to always enter as the queen
“Sorry to start without you, Mother,”
I say, “but the party started at 8.”
“Oh my,” she says with a twinkle in her eye
“I could have sworn you said 9.”

(Yeah, I know it's the third one for the day, but I think this is the one I really meant to post...)

09-0426

Seige of Dak To

The 173rd Airborne is told
to take Dak To at any cost.
It is essential to the war effort.

Or that’s what they said,
So many dead.

On Thanksgiving day in 1967
Hill 875 is finally taken.

The lives, bravery
gallantry
sacrifice
of the men taking that hill
(340 died of the 570 troops)
will never be for naught.

Or that’s what they said.
So many dead.

They took Hill 875
with many losses,
and finally succeeded
where so many had failed.

Then, once victory was achieved,
the hill was given back.

But the victory,
it wasn’t for naught.

That’s what they said.
So many dead.
So many dead.

Are we not able to post poems (for all prompts)all month long? Is there a way to get back before the 12th to post? (tomorrow, that will surely be changing to "before the 13th.)

Answered Prayer

They told her in church that God answers your prayers
So she asked him to give her a sister.
Her Mom and her Dad had said no but she told him
She knew he could bring them around.
So she walked in the fields of green grass by the sound
Of still waters and prayed till she came
To the whispering trees where she heard the Lord’s answer
“In three years, in three years you’ll never
Pray this prayer again.”

For three years she prayed
Until three became two
Until two became one
And God listened she knew
In the whispering trees
In his whispering touch
In the sister that grew in her mother.

Though Mom wasn’t showing, she said “That’s okay.
God does miracles.” He’d find a way.

They told her in church that God answers your prayers
And she’d prayed it so hard and so long
But there wasn’t much point now the three years were gone
So she stopped but the miracle is
That she prays other things to this day and she knows
That God listens and whispers the answers
The problem is just
That she sometimes can't hear them
Or hears them all wrong.

Diana,
It's National Poetry Month and we are celebrating with this challenge. In the process, we are propagating poetry in all it's finery and beauty. I'm sure even if it means more work for Robert, he is enthralled that the response this year is as phenomenal as it is. We are about poetry, so don't be shy to post your multiple works. If they are poetry, and they fit the prompt, we love reading it. Don't be shy. If you've noticed, I'm not!

“Make Sure to Give Your Digits to a Dude Directly”

Sweet C was never one to give her number to strangers,
Because she knew the dangers
Outweighed the future love.

But at the late-night party, she was feelin’ hazy-crazy,
She was making eyes at the plaid-clad bartender
So she slapped her number down.

And she waited,
For the third-world lookin’ boy
To get textual/sexual.

And after some time
She heard the chime of a digital message
Spelled not in heart’s blood, but pulsing LED.

“Thanks.”

A few messages later,
Her heart’s a percolator—
She inquires about his tartan top.

“I hate plaid.”

What noncommittal spittle was this?
C ruminated over rum,
Her fingers a-thrum, wondering how to reply.

Maybe he was just shy?
Or maybe he was the wrong guy.

Don’t Get Yourself Lost
April 26


Epcot 1989, third day at Walt Disney World
and I’ve asked our six kids and wife Sandra
a hundred times to stay together hold hands
and don’t get lost here among strangers.
We’ve had a ball and the laser light show
comes next. They’re lowering the lights
around the mirror-faced lake and I’m thirsty.
The nearby kiosks are turning off lights
to not interfere in any way with the show
and I ask the kids who wants a drink.
Orders taken, I memorize the scene
ask everyone to stay put and set out
forced to walk a considerable distance
before finding a vendor who is open.
I buy three large icy tubs of cola
and jog quickly back to watch the show.
When I spot the kiosk I remembered
I stopped, looked around for my family
and saw not a single one of them. Where
could they have gone? I muttered aloud.
I told them to stay put. I waited and fretted
about how they had ignored everything
we agreed upon, while the show got underway
and ecstatic cheers arose from the large crowd
of strangers nearby while the rattling ice melted
in my hot hands. After an eternity of dark worry,
the show ended and I glumly sipped on Cola
as the people dispersed and happily headed home.
After a long time I saw my children approach
surrounding a weary, concerned-looking mother.
Where were you? I asked, impatient. I’ve been waiting
right here and you never came back for me.
“We never moved. It was you who didn’t come back.
And I was so worried about you,” said my wife.
“At the place up there that’s just like this one,”
said our youngest. “Can I have my drink now?”
“Where were you?” she asked again.
“I was right here,” I said. “I thought ….
And every time I recall that laser light show
I think of how dark I felt in my own confusion
and the constant light my loved ones bring.


Hugh

Cretinous Communiqués
by
Ihar Kazak

The Internet is a marvel
with its opportunities
to communicate and to
bring information and disinformation
and shove chauvinists into their proper caves,
but…there are absurd and incredible
internetional events that leave one astonished.
Take the case of your otherwise normal and even intelligent
(not to be confused with the few intellectual) friends.
Take it and leave it!
The type of email messages they send are
competing with statements of psychiatric institutions patients.
Mostly involving sex, scatology, religion, politics and
the myriad of controversial subjects seen through a
presumably humoristic prism:
the incessant emailed jokes.

One cannot stop laughing about such infantile attempts at humor.
Humor must be indeed quite relative in the minds of many.
Thanks to the Internet one is now deluged with
spam
obscenities
politics
commercialism
obscurantism
and
one’s dear friends email-forwarding
their cretinous communiqués.

“Spare me, Lord, the emailed ‘jokes’!”
September 1, 2008

Almost true

Who can blame us if we believe
In happy-ever-after endings?
When the boy who sits across from
Us in ancient history is the one
Who asks us to the junior prom,
Is it so unusual for a girl to spin
Out a story in which they fall in
Love, have a beautiful wedding in
June with her girl friends dressed
In pretty pastels but not as beautiful
As she, the bride, when he lifts her
Veil and kisses her in front of the
Gathered multitudes and later they
Have a nice house in the suburbs and
Two perfect children and celebrate their
Golden anniversary with great-grandchildren
Begging them to tell the story of how they
Fell in love?

If she spends most of her time at the prom
Talking with her girl friends while he is
Laughing with his buddies and on the way
Home he tries to rape her and she sneaks
Very carefully into the house because she
Doesn’t want her mother to see her crying
And she explains to anyone who asks that
They are “just friends,” and really don’t have
Very much in common, can we understand why
She keeps the story in the back of her mind and
Is not as thrilled as her daughter had hoped she
Would be when she told her mother about this
Really special boy who finally asked her out?

I always thought
that if we could just talk it through
we'd understand each other- even,
possibly-
agree.

Now I know
that although we use the same words
our understanding of those words-
well-
It's sort of like my British friend
who thinks biscuits are cookies and wonders why
anyone would serve them with chicken and gravy.

We can't get past it.
Our inner language is just too different-
our very thoughts are foreign to each other
and you cannot hear the intentions
of my heart.

He heard that she wanted him
But he didn't hear the rest
So it surprised her greatly
When he came to meet the visitor...undressed

Whys

I
see
eager
young faces
around the fire
long ago and hear the childish
whys. Why must lions
eat gazelles
why do
cows
have
two horns
why must we
children behave and
why did our old grandmother die?
I hear echos of
answers spun
by grown-
ups
in
books and
bloody wars.
And me? I only
believe in
the whys.

The first-time grandmother
sashayed into the lounge
with a grin wider than her face
and a glow that put the sun to shame.
Holding up a blue giraffe toy, she said,
“Guess what my daughter’s having?”

The weary teacher blinked through
the steam of her coffee.
“A giraffe?”

Talledega Blues
----------------

Only lap 8,
But things ain't so great,
Kenseth goes low,
Gordon in tow,
Signals were crossed,
Now all is lost!

In copying over my poem, I missed the title - IT'S A BOY.

It's one of those days.

MISINTERPRETED

Dear Berlitz People:

I am returning the Cd's
I had recently purchased.
They were the cause
of great embarrassment
to me and my traveling party.
Although the gentleman was flattered
that I would try to learn his language
for my visit to his country,
he was most disturbed that I wanted
to force feed a shoe
to his grandmother's goat
next Tuesday.

Disappointingly yours,
Walt

Circe

The silence in the house is audible:
the closing of the door,
the small rattle of a throat cleared,
pages of a book turned.
Only the shuffle of slippers tells me
someone is in the kitchen
making the coffee I hoped
would be served in the sun room.
It is not difficult to maintain
a silence in a house of three floors.

Unplug your ears, untie yourself
from the mast and listen.
I am a siren calling you with
the promise of something other
than turning you into swine.

Perhaps I could try those tin can
telephones we used as children,
Campbell’s tomato soup with
the labels soaked off, but
the knotted string is stretched so far,
so tight to the breaking point,
that should I put my ear to it
I will only hear the echo of
my own words back at me.

Monkey Trick

They watched him do his monkey trick
His talent on display.
He waved his arms and gnashed his teeth
His ‘thanks’ urged them to stay.

“Transposition”

My Brain:
Daisies
Spider webs
Solar systems
Ripples made by a pebble on a pond.

Telephone numbers & E-mail addresses:
One, two, three, four, five
Far left, left, center, right, far right
A, b, c, d, e

I usually reach people
On the second or third
Try.

Marie.
Very prophetic of you to write that small blurb about COMMUNICATION the other night. Pencil in "Mis" and you have today's challenge covered. Just a thought, I am rather twisted this afternoon.

Poem

I.

I’ll tie some words to make a line
and do it all over again and again
not to wrack you with confusion
but to extract marrow off the bone.

This is what you do not discover
though I remind you over and over
and yet again: a frame of a picture
is as lovely as the art in the center.


II.

Sylvia Plath’s necklace
was worth as much notice
as where she found solace
in “Cut” and “Lady Lazarus.”

April 26 miscommunication


The Teacher


words of wisdom float
unheeded.They think he's mean.
He fears they're stupid.

We have a failure to communicate
By Othello Gooden Jr.

It is a problem that follows me everywhere I go
Since birth, it's the same old thing
My mind won't comprehend the right words or thoughts sometimes
As a heated argument erupts between me, friends, family, and employers

It’s a problem that forces me to job hop
Although It's my first
All I can do is run or stay and fight
But the latter doesn’t make the two wrongs here a right

You say I'm not a good worker
That I don’t know how to follow instructions
But don't you know that involves good communication?
You look at my permanent record and stare at garbage!
I'm sorry, but me no speak'a your language!

Go ahead and fire me just because of my incompetence
You're so full of yourself, you don't see my innocence
The old addict says violence is not the answer
Not communicating well with me doesn't make you any better

- hex change -

we're listening but not hearing
semaphore smoke signal shifting
of thoughts around in different skulls
trying to make it commensurate
but we travel in a babel echo
there's a doppler effect crossing topics
crossing tropics, crossing datelines
and the maps seem to delineate the problem
blood lost in the hot sand

we thought we understood the rotation
that samsara dial on the radio
that tunes us into yogic frequencies
but we are spinning into whitenoise
disappearing beneath the waves
each of us an aniseed atlantis
the restirred taste, memories seeds
no one can share your epiphany
you are merely trading inaccuracies

Oral

The language of love was not universal,
its syllables unfamiliar clunks on our tongues.
Your discourse came from a visitor’s phrase book:
short verbs, practical gestures of offering bread,
serving me the egg with the yolk round, intact as sun.
I was a native, rough terrain mapped in my palms,
dialect thick with proverbs, anecdotes, jokes
that depended on intonation, subtle rolls
of a tongue indecipherable to your ear.

Even our smiles had different twang,
poles apart in their stress and unstressed;
somehow we got through days. I slowed everything down,
so you may hear, didn’t utter all I didn’t really mean.
I listened to all you did not say and took each word
as what it is, bestowed ease and value by your face.
On your tongue I found my name as it never sounded,
curled in the dark of your mouth and rising, strange.

I repeated it as you had said it like it was newly given,
and voiced something you may not quite understand,
then spoke it again with fluent hands.

Life is for Living...


Life is for living...
Fine words butter no parsnips
That’s what I have learned.

Life is such duress;
You think you’ll beat the pressure –
Then a gasket blows!

Life is a masked face;
Truth, embarrassed, blushes hard
Both of them are frauds.

Life is a circle
No beginning and no end -
Embracing a void.

Life is a gamble
Dice are cast and lots are drawn;
Winner loses too.

Life is friend and foe;
When the buddy system fails,
You can blame yourself.

Life is a journey
Riddled with many pit stops –
And mechanic’s bills.

Life is a playground
Winning on the roundabout…
Just makes you dizzy.

Life is a fable;
And one day you'll wake up
To the bleakest truth.

Life is delusion;
On the surface all’s perfect –
But below’s rotten.

MISUNDERSTANDING

***WARNING THIS SUBMISSION IS NC-17***

The doctor's admonition to
his dyslexic young nurse:

"Your misunderstanding has cause some turmoil,
what I asked you to do was to prick that man's boil!"

Does he hear my words when I speak?
I ask him, what kind of books are they,
and he tells me what they cost.
I ask him, what did the picture look like,
and he tells me it came from Aunt Suzie.
I ask him, which kind of file attachment was it,
and he tells me who sent it to him.
Does he hear my words when I speak?
Is my meaning lost in the space between us,
or does he deliberately misunderstand?
Every day, I question: is this
perversity or senility?
And still, I wonder.

He Blamed Me

“You told me I couldn’t have any of my friends over!”
Puzzled, I responded calmly,
“I did not.”
“You said,
‘The next time you invite your friends over—you’re cooking!’”
I understood.
“Did it occur to you
that I meant the next time you
invited your friends over
I wanted you to do the cooking?”
He turned his back.
Apparently not.

Penny L Kjelgaard copyright 2009

question

if i act like nothing occurred
if i choose to remain good-natured...
if i treat you the same way
if i continue being sweet everyday...

not revealing the real pains
that you always cause me...
not showing how you make me feel
ignored, insulted, abused...
because of the things you do and do not do...

will you think highly of me,
perhaps thank me for loving you unconditionally?
will you realize i deserve something better,
and finally make me feel like i also matter?

or...

will you get more irritated
and confirm my biggest fears ---
that you see me as a thick-skinned prick,
an annoying thorn that won't leave you in peace?

Misunderstood Prompt


Miss Communication 2009 hails from Anywhere, USA
with no accent discernible to the shallow ear,
no drawled vowels, rolled or flattened Rs.
During the interview portion of the pageant
she always speaks in straightforward prose,
never poetry with its nuance,
its branching logic and endless interpretations.
Her talent: making herself crystal clear
with all necessary details included
and all extraneous information omitted.
In the swimsuit category,
she is always on-message.

But I see now that you don't want to know
about Miss Communication 2009.
She is not the point.
She is not the prompt.
I'm sorry, I misunderstood.

Rondeau to the misunderstood body

I just don’t understand how I feel
One moment happy, the next senses reel.
This sleepless dawn balance is my aim
Knowing by noon it was a fleeting ideal.
I don’t understand

Resist the temptation so crisp and real
to ignore my kid’s call to enter their game
cover my head and avoid their appeal
I don’t understand

A miracle cure, cream or pills heal!
My hormones were wacky! This ferris wheel
of emotion and anger and sleepless shame
caused by a little hormone. Chemistry to blame.
Such power these tiny molecules concealed
I didn’t understand

Miss Communication

When I ask her how her day was
She barely blinks an eye
“Fine,” is all she answers
I barely hide a sigh.

Again I try to engage her
In conversation deep
“Anything new?” I query
She answers not a peep.

I rove from topic to topic
Seeking her attention to engage
But finally have to cede
We’re not on the same page.

But when I turn to ask her
What she wants for her birthday
Her response it is so rapid
It takes my breath away.

After the fight

From bruised to numb,
my head the morning after
we've "had words"--
a hangover that takes so damn long
to get over.

We brush by one another in the hallway,
eyes averted;
Our toes do not touch in the bed;
Conversation is relegated to
"Yes," "no," "maybe,"
"I don't know," and the worst--
"I don't care."

Until, eventually one of us makes the other laugh,
Or one of us takes the other's hand;
We slip up, unable to hang on to the anger,
and the bruises fade to yellow.

" Oh, that text..."

I got your text the other

day, sorry it's taken so

long for me to respond.

I couldn't believe

that you wanted me

to be there when

you "do it."

I am a little leary,

doing "it" is so

private, you know,

so intimate. Why do

I need to be there?

The other participant

needs to be there, help...

are you getting this?

Message back...Intimate?

Private? Where did you get

that from? I was asking about

going with me to get my ears

pierced. What I texted was,

"I am a little scared about

getting my ears pierced, can you

be there when I do it."

Didn't you get the whole message?

I sent it twice.

"GROUNDS FOR SCULPTURE", a sign seen yesterday in Hamilton, NJ

It is a sharp green square,
two feet to a side,
unashamed and accusatory in
the sidelines of my view.

We have reviewed the situation
(it suggests) and in our own defense,
we were unloved from the start.
This scrap of forsaken highway,
industrial and introspective,
needed something to liven it up,

show you that even our lonely corner
of this sprawling suburban jungle
deserves a little bit of
Culture.

We regret to inform you that we
(it smirks) have found this bare acre,
shoulder pads for the shuddering spine
of the old Railroad,
lacking;
it will now be decorated with teeth,
with knights, with rings of stone,
pyres and pyramids and shapes
in several extra dimensions.

Please sign here,
and you may keep half that barren land
for your parking garages and chemical plants,
you may have visitations on
Saturdays;

though we understand
(it postscribes) that you may read this notice
as a signpost with some left field destination in mind,
this sharp green square is not merely
geographical,
and though the ways and means
to our mud and gravel garden
strung with blooming paths and creeping geometry
are indeed important,

more important than these beatified grounds
are the grounds of our century's detritus,
the grounds that led to
our amicable split
in the first place.

...
(Apparently they have a website! www.groundsforsculpture.org)

OLD CAR, NEW DING

She told him,“I'm glad that
I drove the old car to my new job.
Somebody dinged the door today.”
He looked up with eyes full of fury.
“WHAT!? The door is DINGED ON OUR NEW CAR!?”
“No!” she replied quickly to extinguish
the threat of a flare up.
“I said our old car has
a new ding on the door."
He retorted, "The NEW CAR?!"
"No! The OLD car.
I said I drove
the old car to work.
The OLD car has
a NEW ding on the door.”
“Oh. I thought you said
the new car was dinged.”
She sighed in frustration,
feeling ignored yet again.
If only he lavished
on her half of
the attention that
he gave to his laptop.

MISSED COMMUNICATION

Warden Frye,

Due to the loss of power
on Tuesday morning at 12:01,
after that horrendous electrical surge,
I am writing to commute the execution
of Jasper Jesper, in light
of the new evidence in this case.
Since the telephones line were also cut
I am sending this communication by letter.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Have a nice day!

Governor Smarmy

P.S. - When you get this,
can you call me with the correct time?
I seem to be running ten minutes slow.

26

In the 26th year after the last century's turn, she was born.
Rock and center of my life, she was the base from which I flew,
Returning too seldom. A few short months before the millennium,
She left for the land from which none return. We still mourn.

There is no call
to scream and shout –
young Alice married
a loathsome lout.
You can’t renounce
your only daughter
because she’s wed
a football supporter.

Mars and Venus

There’s a lot of thunder in her hips.
I wish I wasn’t so fat.

Why she’s let herself go
But, he doesn’t care about me anymore.

Since the kids, I don’t know.
Since the kids were born.

She’s twice the size.
I’ve gained so much weight.

I keep telling her
He keeps telling me

she don’t look like Keira Knightley.
I don’t look like Keira Knightley.

But she stuffs her face anyway
So I eat to comfort myself.

with Edy’s every night.
Mint Chocolate Chip is my favorite.

Entente Cordiale.

When my French father first came to Britain
He was scared to laugh at a joke.
For although he knew the British
were a very dignified folk,
he had expected to fit in
& live happily ever after,
Until he read the headline
'Jailed 10 years for mans laughter.'

Hearing Aid


I called my grandma
to see if she needed anything
at the store.

She said
"You're bored? Read
a book."

Thanks grandma.
Talk to you later.

Miscommunication Poem #2: god is a disco ball



I am fond of metaphor.
I don't do well at bald description
and fact
and abstraction.

(It is a fact, though not exactly so, that I limped through philosophy
and only managed logic
because of the metaphoric nature
of Venn Diagrams.)

So:

Some time ago
(it was probably the seventies, considering)
I concluded that a metaphor for god
could be
an enormously
enormous
mirrored disco ball.
Because, or so it seemed to me,
god is everything--but mostly what we see is ourselves
reflected.

I see now that my metaphor is flawed.
God is actually a mirrored disco ball
inside a mirrored sphere.
inside god.

GROUND HOG DAY

I’m not sure
But, I think its time to go
Forward into spring
Setting time, or something.

I see gathering anticipation
Enlightens a festive air
Unearthing new beginnings
I’ll leave it right there.

No longer knee deep,
Drink in warm cider elation
That when the arrival is near
No longer the wait
Could spring be here?

Ripping the tags off a worn out season
What could be more captivating
Than playing to the day
Engulfed in pushing and pulling
Of a few lingering clouds,
That stands in our way?

Who made an annual event out of me?
Just to tell you something, you already know?
Leave me alone to sleep, people….
Leave me to my existence of just being tired
To hold on to winter, a while longer
Let the time be dragged out and gray
Without just reason.


Why are you waiting for the day
To be less than dark and dreary?
In time, it will come….time finds a way.

But, if you must drive at finding hope here,
Behold all spring, and soon I will appear
For in the myth we vow to keep
That maybe then, I have something to do
With seeing shadows of my past are true.
So time, does wait for me, to take you from the cold!
As if I know the way to go…Bold, into another spring…..

Or, just back to my sleep.

To Joseph Harker - what a terrific poem about an unusual, magical place. The Grounds for Sculpture are indeed a strange world - especially when one realizes or considers that there is such beauty and art and creativity (and dashes of humor, too!) amidst the industrial wastelands there.

Tragedy in West Virginia Mine Kills Eleven

you thought you heard they were found alive,
when you only heard they were found,

deafened by hope, you didn’t hear the stop,
but completed the sentence yourself,

the mind hears what it wants to hear, yours
no different, the crime was in passing the news

to the families, telling them it was safe to drop
their defenses, to rise in jubilation, praise God

for delivering their brothers, fathers, husbands,
sons, then whisking the miracle away

The Email

The email said you couldn’t
see me until you
finished studying and
passed your certification
test. I was disappointed,
but pleased that you
would see me the
following Saturday –
to celebrate!
When Saturday
came, I waited and
waited and waited.
You never came.

Just This

Whenever I hear morning creep
into my bedroom, I open my eyes
to see how far light has spread
across my walls, angled like stairs
walking up to my book shelves.


And This

Two or three moments more is all
I need. All I could ever ask.

* * *

Process Overload

Now I understand
Why it takes so long to answer.
Now I understand
Why he screams and says “Just stop!”

Now I understand
That his brain is overloaded.
Now I understand
That his process begins to glop

When I give him more
Directions
Than he can process
At one time,

His brain gets stuck on
Overload
And it doesn’t matter
If I rhyme

Or if I yell or cry.

He doesn’t understand
Why I’m asking too too much.
He doesn’t understand
Why I keep repeating stuff.

He doesn’t understand
That I didn’t for so long.
He doesn’t understand
I’m better now, and strong

Enough to give more
Time to think
Than I think that
He needs.

My brain must stick in
Neutral gear
And it doesn’t matter
If I rhyme

If I still yell and cry.

How Interesting, I think

I've often read your fine, blank verse
and found it's everything but terse.
Your form and thoughts and words are grand;
if only I could understand.

Mixed messages

She says “No”
Her dress speaks a different message
He listens to her dress

At the Lotus House


"He took her out for dinner,
bought the special duck for two."


Friends ordered Chinese whispers
dished up on the side,
fried in five spice seasoning
and crispy seaweed dry.


"He took her out in a
boat. The Seashell's deck was blue."


They tried the 15 Wonton
and 32 Char Siu Chow Mein.
But didn't spot the 84 special
– Szechuan Chicken Rumours.


"He shook her about and
beat her. See, Shelley's black and blue!"


Sarah James, UK.

Day 26: Miscommunication

We stop, parents, sister and I, at the old pier.
The lake is calm, the sun going down.
Were the fish biting? My dad wants to know.
He asks the young dad at the rail - son with cane pole
Standing proud and only a little bored beside.
My mom catches the eye of an old black woman, smiles.
The woman squints and hooks the bait.
“Are the fish biting?” My mom asks, brightly.
“Mmm hmm.” The woman replies in a voice anyone else
Would take as dismissal. Persisting, she asks,
“What are you using for bait?”
“Shwim” the woman replies.
“Worms?” my mother says louder, as though volume could increase
Apprehension. The woman creases her brow.
“Shwim” she says, more emphatically. “Oh yes!” my mom
Replies. “Worms are great for catching fish!”
The woman’s creases spread and deepen. She tries once again,
“SHWIM!” goaded into volume by my mother’s obtuseness.
My sister turns away, and I hiss to my mother. “Shrimp!”
“What?” she says. “Shrimp! She’s using shrimp for bait!”
My mother, chagrined, waves her hands in an attempt to turn back time.
The woman turns back to her rod and reel – foolish tourists forgotten.
To this day, in family misunderstandings, someone will say “Shwim!”
And we all stop and start over again.

Misdirected

Your eyes see something that
I cannot imagine is what I see
in my reflection each day.
You see flowers and beaches
and mistake them for happiness.
You see this material gain as contentment.
I hide in plain view,
but the truth
is that I am a better actress
than you would believe me to be.
The truth is,
your medication keeps you shaded
from what is still buried within you.
I see boundaries we can never overcome.
You see me as your fountain of youth.
We live each day - misdirected.

Lost?

I can't find it anywhere
my hearing aid -- it's just not here
"it has to have been your dog
she ate it"
"why would you say that? she's a good dog"
"she probably liked the wax on it. all I know is
it's gone from this house."
"sorry you feel that way, I believe you misplaced it.
she's a good dog, and wouldn't eat your hearing aid."
she leaves with her dog.
I feel resentment.
there is no other possibility.
it is simply not here.

three months later
cleaning out my big chest freezer
I remember now . . .
digging out some chops for dinner that night
and I feel shame now
as I spy my hearing aid
at the bottom of the freezer.

I can only hope she will forgive me.

You Say Babel I Say Babble

Three-hundred and twenty stories down
people look like a Petri dish of bacteria
out to get one another.

I hear nothing but the voices in my head
telling me how incredibly high and
incredibly dangerous this high is.

I don’t even hear the sound of stone
construction while working on
this high rise to who knows where with you.

Then there is a rumbling, and angry
tumbling beneath and above us all
three hundred plus floors fracture

like a brutalized boxer or motor
cross crisscrossed jumble
of one loud crash of cyclists.

Thank god I made it out alive.
But on the way down shouting over
collapsing pillars and crumbling pews

I said one thing and you heard another.
And your tongue seemed simply to
vanish. No tongue, no need

for the mouth to open. By the time
I was making my escape our tongues
couldn’t comprehend each other;

a surgeon operating in Arabic with a mime
for an assistant, giving me only gestures, glances
sad slow sambas with eyes and hands.

My calls never caught you so when I stopped
descending at street level you kept collapsing
closer to the core churning

like chum in a bucket. At this stage rebuilding
what we had would be pointless, the rubble
is ruinous like Persepolis.

But I can’t go on without you, this work is
aimless, futile, and unforgiving
heaven is too far away now

so I’ll settle for anything, something, an insult
spoken in our mother tongue to remind me
of what can be between you and me.

"Pen-Elaine"

Once upon a time during the British Invasion
A little girl bought a record album
Inside the square cardboard cover
There was a black, vinyl disc which contained
The very lilting, English-accented song she wanted to hear
They were such swell, good-looking guys, those fab 4
She was really under their spell
After all, her friends said they were singing about her!

Have two for today. I like the haiku better, myself. Both are rough as hell from eyes and nose hellbent on suffering the utmost from allergies...

fell off into our day
on opposite sides of the bed
never recovered



Helpmeet

When you said you'd
need help from me
once we moved and you
bought the business,
I didn't think you
asked a math challegened
lit major to do your books
or expect “Pig-pen”
to keep house.

I missed our conversation
covering my new duties,
my head stuck in a poem.

My defense: the words
clouded my ears,
stoppered my eyes.

Our Wires Got Crossed

It started with a phone call.
“How about lunch today?” she inquired.
“Sure,” he replied fixing his tie.
“12:00 ok?” she questioned.
“Just fine,” he answered looking at his watch.
“Where should we meet?” she asked.
“How about that Greek place we have eaten at
that we love so much? Why don’t we
meet there?” he continued.
“Sounds great!” she agreed, “See you there.”
Thirty minutes after arriving at the Greek
restaurant on Peachtree Street he checked
his watch again before making the call.
“Hey,” she answered a bit annoyed.
“Where are you? I’ve been waiting here
at the Greek restaurant. You know the one
with the great gyros on Clairmont Road.
Why has it taken you so long to get here?”
she wondered.

(Day26)

Miscommunication

"Where are you going" I asked my friend.
"To watch T.v with Don," she replied.
In her young inocent way
She asked if I wanted to come.

"Oh, no," I exclaimed, not wanting to intrude.
"Two's company three's a crowd," I said in mock fright.
She looked at me in a surprise kind of way.
"We watched that one last night."

we agreed to meet

at Starbucks

she waited
at the one downtown
I went
to the new one at the mall

if we can’t even get
a little thing like this
right
how can we save the world?

She glances at her daughter with an adoring smile.

“You need to eat, so your body can grow.”
“Okay, Mummy. I eat as much as I can.”
“Good girl!”
“Mummy, can I have the measuring tape? I like to see how much I have grown.”
“Oh, you have not yet grown…”
“But you said I would.”
“You need to be patient.”
“Daddy ate lots. He must have grown a lot. Perhaps I can measure that?”
“When you are grown up, you don’t grow in tallness, you just grow wider.”

She glances at her husband with a mischievous smile.

North by Southwest

I was almost to Spokane, Washington
when the cop pulled me over

“you were going 40 in a 30 mile an hour zone…
let me see your license and registration”
he was bristling with
authority

I handed him my
Colorado driver’s license and registration
we moved to Idaho two months ago
and I just got a job in Spokane
and was driving my 30 mile commute

“How long have you lived here”
he said

“Two months”

“you need to get your new license within 30 days”
he snapped

I had been studying the Driver’s Manual
and knew I had 90 days to comply

“I’m sorry, sir, but I have 90 days
to get my new license”

“No…you have 30 days”
he growled

I sat silent
confused
afraid to argue

he stood like a sentry beside me then
leaned down closer to my window
“Where do you live?”

“Post Falls”

“You said you lived HERE”
he snapped angrily

“Well, yes, here…
in the northwest…
not there…
in the southwest…”
I stammered

Washington…
Idaho…
it was all the same to me

what should
we have
for lunch
she asked

how about
tomato soup
and
grilled cheese
and tuna sandwiches

a cool
October
afternoon
in the
camp kitchen

she looked
puzzled
for a moment
then nodded

you get
more firewood
I'll do
lunch

I slid my
arms into
my plaid jacket
and started
down the
path toward
the woodpile
my mouth
fairly watering
at the
thought of
my favorite
lunch

back up
the trail
sledge loaded
with wood
for the
afternoon we
would spend
doing nothing
much of
anything

just finished
she told me

hands and face
washed I seated
myself

she
set before
me a
bowl of
soup and
two golden
crusted
sandwiches

One
grilled
cheese
one
tuna

This was a doozy Robert.

House of Cards

With subtle suggested hint, you snook up and blindfolded me now,
As you've led me somewhere unknown to a dark place all alone,
An overshadowing fear chilled my body and darkened my heart,
When you've mentioned this to me earlier, when we spoke by phone.

A light secret whispered, blown out of proportion, gone too far,
For I knew my instincts have activated my senses deep down inside,
Silence echoed the night, led by your hand, guided by a sole star,
When I've told you, I just can't handle any more of surprising stress.

This tortured my heart, tormented my own soul, weakened my resolve too,
Like a house of cards, I fall to pieces by my façade, until I've stopped,
Fear gave me goosebumps for my diminished spirit to turn me a dark blue,
My dreadful mind awakened, as you've lifted the blindfold for romance.

Be still my beating heart, you stood before me with a box on bended knee,
Overshadowed by candlelight, promised me things will be all right,
A smile formed on my pale lips, when your touch warmed all over me,
A surprise for the better, enveloped and surrounded in good, honest truth.

Somehow I missed the posting on April 12. I thought it had uploaded by I can't find it on the date..so I'm posting here.

SO WE DECIDED TO….. By Jane Eamon 2009

So we decided to make today
Our own day
No phones, no computer
No bad TV, no visitors
No movies, no rushing about
No laundry, no cleaning house
No getting dressed in street clothes
No exercise, no nothing
Just our own day
But the phone rang
It was a friend in trouble
His girlfriend was gone
Could he come over?
The cell phone beeped
It was a text message
“What are you doing?”
“Can you email me?”
Project Runway’s finale was on
Roger’s here – he needs a beer
Yikes, it’s 6 o’clock
And we have to work in the morning
Where’s my gym clothes?
In the laundry
Can I stay the night?
I’m really bummed about my girlfriend
God, the sheets on the guest bed
Smell like a boys’ locker room
Can I take you out for lunch?
Can’t go in pyjamas…or can I?
Let’s walk to the Bo
It’s not far
Where did the day go?
Who makes these decisions?
When will time stop running?

The Score

I think my dog is like
children with selective
deafness, you know the kind,
miraculously can't hear when
it's something he doesn't want
to do, like get a bath or get
his nails clipped or go
to the vets or get off the
couch or get his head out
of the garbage can. But he can
hear the faintest rustle of the
cabinet door where his cookies
are kept or the jingle of his leash
from the other side of the house
or my footsteps as I try to sneak
out the front door while he's asleep.
He has me beat with those senses
of his. I know he must hear blah blah
Bad Dog yadda yadda Good Boy and
wonder why I jump up and down in
frustration like a demented marionette
sometimes. He remains calm and cocks
his head sideways while I get an "F" in
inter-species communication.
Then he comes and lays his chin
on my knee and looks up with those
soulful brown eyes, leaving me wondering,
"Who's really in charge here?"

Dog 1, human 0.

"What?"
"How was the cake?"
She asked.
I don't like
TV.

"What about the cake?"
She looked at him.
I don't like
politics.

"What about the cake?"
She was getting angery.
I don't like
carbs.

"Next time you make it."
She left the room.
I do like
you.

GUILT WORKS

You pointed at the new sign on the store-front,
downtown Main Street. Quilt Works. “Whatever
kind of work,” you asked, “does Guilt do?”

“You know, those old hand-made comforters
of torn-up scraps – what grandmothers and
mothers used to always keep around.”

“I know about scraps and rags you’d best be rid of.
Things you wish you hadn’t done. Guilt.
But do they sell it? Who would buy?”

“Not Guilt – the sign says Quilt.” “Same thing,”
you said. “Layers of old mistakes stitched
one on top of another. Just try to sleep under it.”

Walt - I am CACKLING at "DO THESE PANTS MAKE MY BUTT LOOK BIG?" =D

Chev Shire - funny and cute!

Laura Hershey - "Misunderstood Prompt" - great take on it. :-)

Quibble Trouble

Save time. Forward that e-mail.
Make a mini-meltdown. Way down
in the dragged-along depths
a friend’s old words can kindle
a forgotten firecracker. Not a
big one, less damage than blast,
it still rattled the peace. Pounding
one’s skull changes nothing.
Avoid pitfalls, people. A forward
could open a minor minefield.

Today, in the June issue for Yankee Magazine, saw the title:
"Head Over Heels for Wickenden Street" and so I decided to write a poem about a street. Miscommunication is in here somewhere...


-----------------------------------------------



Head Over Heels for North Craig Street

Your street— it could be its own town.
It goes on forever and there is always something

going on:
a fight between lovers,
a car broken
into,

a show, teenagers
with all their youth and technology
and coffee.

Bookshops and bakeries, restaurants and theaters—
so much to get into; you don't miss me when I go. When I leave

your place and step onto
your street, I appear

a resident. I know which bus
to take and what time it runs.

People passing by speak to me
as if I am the one renting
the apartment you live in.

Even if you didn't live here, I'd want
to stay on this street, so it has nothing
to do with you if I decide to move
here and make North Craig Street my street.

“And truth be told I miss you
And truth be told I’m lying
When you see my face
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell”
The All American Rejects


The beautiful house perfectly
Decorated with blues, yellows,
Adobe, hand painted Talavera tiles.
The bricks on the walls
Sturdy, sound and strong.
But the words echoing inside
Tell a distorted story.
Words like:
I love you
I hate you
You’re beautiful
You’re such a stupid bitch
I would be nothing without you
Please never leave
We’re over
God – I’m so lucky.

The walls hear it all
Absorbing the twisted
Words they hold deep inside.
She cries, he rants,
The doors slam -
Only to open again later.

For a while a calm hopeful
Peacefulness washes over the place
Then after a bit, a lovely
Dinner followed by conversation.
“Did you enjoy your meal?”
“I wasn’t even really hungry.”
“I don’t think we’re on the same page
I think we need to have another talk.”

The walls try not to hear anymore
Because none of the crazymaking
Makes any sense to them at all
And never will.

:Disengaging:

When she’d said she’d love him forever
she’d meant any time but now. Now her
eyes wandered to the bright purple orchids
adorning the table beside her own, shifting
colors in afternoon light that danced and made her
wonder to herself, who could love anything
more?

Verbal Tender

Not wanting to talk,
Ron pretends he's asleep,
hoping that Dan
will read him as "exhausted"
rather than "mad"

but when Dan drops onto
his side of the bed
without even a sigh
to suggest a considering
look, it is all Ron can do
not to demand right then
that they un-fold all their cards
and agree to new stakes --
to something able to light
the same fire under their tails.

Day 26: A miscommunication

- Still cannot fathom those dreams –

I worried he was too nice, did too much for me;
I was afraid he thought I lonely,
(and I was but)
I’m starchy and didn’t want pity.

I didn’t see he was too lonely,
Nurtured dreams of me which he hid,
Was afraid for himself and his wife I might love him,
Then would hate us all when I did.

My Story
I drove sedately down Fourth Street,
The snow was coming down.
There had been oppressive August heat,
The last time we'd been together in this town.
I said, "I've written lots of times,
To ask you to marry me. Remove my fear,
And tell me you will." I heard golden chimes,
When she said, "Of course I will, my dear."

Her Story:
We were careering down Fourth Street,
The Snow was thick and fast,
Headed toward the bridge in ice and sleet,
He gunned the old suburban through the icy blast.
He asked again for us to wed,
The bridge railing approached like a knife!
"If he couldn't have me he'd rather be dead,"
He said. I said yes, to save my life!

My kids still believe her.

*false friends*


once upon a time i told you
(in my language):
"everyone must know"

so, you thought
i wanted you to go tell
(in your language)

everyone
what i didn't want
them to know,

and you did




************

Long Distance Charges

Without the benefit of body language, conundrums
become things entirely too insurmountable.
Phone calls are rife with "How'd you mean that,
exactly?" and "Why the fuck would you say that
to me?" Followed by "I'm just saying…" and "If
the shoe fits…" All sorts of stone throwing, glass
houses falling down all over. Unnecessarily, might
I add? If only he could see the pinchy place between
her brows, because he knows that early wrinkle
means she's only fishing, and not really trying
to pick a fight, not really.

Miscommunication – By Jane Eamon 2009


Hi we’re from the Friends
of Canadian Broadcasting
We’re calling you
because you signed a petition
We are raising money
to bail out the CBC
because they’re cutting
30% of the jobs

I don’t want to bail out
the CBC
It’s a giant rat’s nest
of convoluted thinking
with no awareness
of what really matters
to the Canadian people

We feel that the auto industry
is getting a bail-out
Why not the government
institution of the CBC?
Why can’t we raise funds
to protect the 30%
who are losing their jobs?

I don’t want to bail out
the CBC
They have no concept
of what I want to listen to
They don’t support the little guy
anymore
They listen to focus groups
and marketing gurus
and make their decisions
based on what the majority
wants

We want to tell you
that it’s the little guys
who will lose their jobs
Here let us pull on your
heartstrings a little bit
So you will feel sorry
that these people
are losing their livelihoods

I don’t want to bail out
the CBC
Can’t you hear me?
I think it should be
dismantled
Let them start over
Let them build it back up
to what it was when it
really was the voice
of the Canadian people

Click…..

Thomas, Our German Son



Our German exchange student, our Deutsche Freund, had arrived.
We met Thomas at the airport.
He was decidedly European-looking,
and spoke English with a well-annunciated accent.
He was an exotic new member of our family.

We set another place at the dinner table.
We put fresh sheets on his bed, packed another lunch in the mornings and
saw the boys off to school.
His German shampoo took up space in our shower.
Isabelle told her teachers that she had a new brother,
and they smiled.

We traveled to D.C. and Chicago, including Thomas in our lives.
We watched TV with him, took him shopping,
made him a birthday cake, and dropped the boys off at parties,
Hosted by my son, he lived the life of a typical American teen-ager.

Then his time drew to a close,
and we were all sad,
except for our six-year-old Isabelle,
who didn’t understand it when we said that Thomas
would be going home the next day.
She cried; wasn’t he her new brother?
We’d said he was going to live with us,
but we never told her that it wasn’t forever.

Walt, yes I've noticed and appreciated your multiple postings! In fact, I read your post today about the pants to my husband, who does not enjoy poetry. He laughed just as hard as I did. ^_^ And thank you. ^_^

I will surely miss the daily poetry.

Stoned on Stein

Did you bring your Stein?
I brought mine.

Uh, I'm not drinking,
and German beer? What are you thinking?

No, no, a thousand noes,
I mean a rose is a rose is a rose.

Just what do you have in that stein of yours?
We don't want to walk in like a couple of boors.

Who do you think your are, Alice B.
Toklas? I'm talking of literature; can't you see?

Literature and liquor; Is it Hemingway
we're discussing at the book club today?

There used to be a bakery
That was named La Boulangerie
Often seen in suburban malls
Pictures of France found on its walls.
My husband’s brother once worked there
Excited to work, this news he shared
With everyone both far and near
And all his kin were glad to hear.
‘Cept Gramma Lu who called us then
Wanting to know just how and when
A teenage boy had much to say
About fine ladies lingerie.

True story.

April 26, 2009
Miscommunication

Tyranny, violence, racism, hatred
Could these and other acts all
be forms of missed-communication?

Racquel Charlemagne

She Says

That she understands the language of birds,
That she hears blue jays call out for higher branches,
mockingbirds for an unmolested nest-
that she understand the song the wind
sings as it stirs the limbs of trees,
that the world is full of disappointed deer.

I say take your medicine,
This is best for you, that cures
are often pulled from plants
that sacrifice themselves for you
and besides the birds prefer their privacy
the geese resent your eavesdropping.

She says the world won’t listen
and the pills make her fat,
that she’d rather spend the day
gossiping with the grass,
than telling her secrets to doctor
and his notepad, that last time
she could hear the ghost of the tree whimpering
with every word he spread across the page.

I say you aren’t fat,
The doctor wants to help,
stretch out my hand, three pills
nesting in my palm,
say imagine feeling normal,
she says I do,
and swats my hand away.

I HAVE LOST MY LIST AGAIN

I have lost my to-do list again, so I missed my appointment with
Jerry (my dentist), and look: My sangria-stained white linen suit
remains, gathering dust, in the dry-cleaning basket, beside a
disgrace of an Irish-wool jacket, since I've not kept faith with my
duty, which is to protect the environment from irreversible
doom, which is not just recycling but also decrying dry-
cleaning, although one could hand-wash and iron the suit, but
perhaps one ought no longer press wrinkled garments, because
of the amps or the ohms or whatever they are that a heat-
hungry small home appliance consumes.

These are the musings that bounce, or that seem to, like
racquetballs in my cerebrum, the things that distract me from
being productive or noticing people out walking their ducklings
or carrying parrots or being accosted — beheaded, perhaps — in
my presence. I'm often reflexively vigilant, so I attempt not to
tread on the dead. Some time later a twinge will impinge on the
fringe of my memory. "Heavens to Betsy!" I'll mutely exclaim. "I
am surely the most self-absorbed person living, just stepping
around the deceased and the maimed without an 'Excuse me' or
'I beg your pardon.' I was mentally planting a vegetable garden,
but, really, I must get a grip on the present."

Consequently I meditate, lost in space.... I luxuriate in the
warm sea that washes away all the flotsam and jetsam, and
leaves but today and this moment, this place. And afterward,
that's when I let people in. I remember them then, just a
handful of friends, four or five, who would notice if I weren't
alive, and my family, impatiently waiting for me to return to
the here and the now. Absent-mindedness isn't a metaphor, not
when you're living in Florida and somehow you've mislaid a part
of your mind in L.A. or Peoria. But if you are fortunate (I would
say "blessed"), among billions of humans a few notice you, and
you them, and a synapse is ever so slightly edged south, and you
don't spend a decade or two on the couch, isolated in books,
lists, and stale indoor air, or cooking your kitchen-sink soup
with wild rice and black beans and leftover chicken and
vegetables grown in your garden, with no one to gossip with or
feed it to. In a hard, hostile world there's this need to connect
and you can't think quite why but you know it's uncommon and
endless and genuine.

There's no competing, no having to be good enough, as the fawn
doesn't merit the shade of the wood for her camouflage, and
you can call the phenomenon whatever you like; you can call it
Darwinian if that satisfies you, but the race doesn't go to the
swift every time, which is why, I suppose, I consider it grace.

April 26, 2009

"I was wrong!" I proclaim as I stand in the rain
Wanting and waiting to see her again...
Words spoke in anger but nothing to final
pushed in to another, our backs to the vinyl
Lost in the moment, words shared by two...
whispers of romance, of "I love you, too"
Words that were heard in the passion of shame
hurting the others, the ones that remain
faithful and willing to forgive every time
or so we assumed in the back of our minds
Misunderstanding the word marked forgive
but knowing forever "they know what we did."
One time of leaving when staying would do
one time of acting to much, too soon
Believing it was over through talking and tears
Furious for wasting time, days, and years
Only to find the chance was still there
only to learn that she wanted and cared
to work on our bond, frustrations what spoke
and I took it literal, acted on impulse
and now she's gone, no way of commanding
the love that we had, lost to misunderstanding.

Misinterpretation

You call yourself a Christian,
yet I don’t feel the love.
You call yourself a Christian,
and you hold yourself above.
You call yourself a Christian,
yet you judge who’s good and bad.
You call yourself a Christian,
yet your dislikes are myriad.
You call yourself a Christian,
yet you want to decide who can wed.
You call yourself a Christian,
but it’s hatred that you spread.
You call yourself a Christian,
who decides when life begins.
You call yourself a Christian,
willing to kill to meet your ends.
You call yourself a Christian,
yet it’s not compassion that I see.
You call yourself a Christian,
Oh please, just let me be.

RJ Clarken, I LOVED that poem!

I have to post again - I seem to have missed a word.

- Still cannot fathom those dreams –

I worried he was too nice, did too much for me;
I was afraid he thought I was lonely,
(and I was but)
I’m starchy and didn’t want pity.

I didn’t see he was too lonely,
Nurtured dreams of me which he hid,
Was afraid for himself and his wife I might love him,
Then would hate us all when I did.

Turned Around

In the past, you had no need for maps— opened
and spread out in front of you. It seemed, then, as if
you had been born knowing the road, the highway, the right
exit. People used to and still say that we, your daughters,
got our sense of direction from you. Only in a pinch
would you pull over to ask which way, where is. It’s only
as of late that you’ve been getting turned around—
regularly. Now, well before you travel, you study
more than one map, print out three or four different ways
of getting to a place. Now, easily frustrated, you are quick
to pull into a gas station and learn from another man
how to get to where you are going— quick to blame that man,
too, when you end up lost.

“I mean you no harm.”
Every red and brown feather says
you don’t believe me.

Brooklyn Sakura Matsuri

wind doesn't know
white cherry blooms don't want
to be thrust to ground
pink protest against

it's no one's fault
I didn't understand you
didn't wish to be deceived

now we night
same blue streets

sleep same city days

on different woods
the same gray air

mattress from Kmart
where you bought a comforter
thicker than all my bundle

of accumulated blankets
like those you left
when you flew
down to me

Telecommunications

After the waters receded in New Orleans
came the flyers in the Red Cross shelters, the
clean up crews dressed in bright red T-shirts
with 1(800) numbers on them, the ads placed
on CNN’s website. This was the clarion call
to all those misplaced souls who no one knew how
to track. But it wasn’t Mamma or Uncle Robert, not your
Brother who lived two-doors down looking for you.
You were being beckoned by that big corporation that
Can talk to suppliers in East Timor or Shenzhen,
But never had a plan to talk to their own workers
In the wake of disaster. Once the cell phone towers
tumbled and the land lines were torn down,
You were free just for a little while.

Miscommunication

It probably would have been better
If he had heard wrong.
If instead of “beer and pizza”
he had heard “tears and wheezing.”
Perhaps he would have grown worried, called for an ambulance,
drove a little faster.
Instead he heard her correctly despite the poor signal,
and stopped to pick up the dinner she requested
while wishing he hadn’t gone into the office on a Saturday.
Yes, the dinner order was perfectly clear to him,
as was the danger and excitement in her voice,
although the voice in the background
whom he mistook for Jeffrey, the man who remodeled their bathroom,
was really the guy on a car repair show on television
and instead of “come back to bed,”
the guy on t.v. had said, “compact head”
(Something having to do with pistons and chambers,
But that part too, he didn’t hear).
Perhaps if she hadn’t liked cars so much, knew so much already,
which had made him always feel a bit inadequate,
he would not have made another stop on the way home.
He would not have had to explain this all later, when the
ambulance arrived.
But by then too late for him to say
“I just misunderstood.”

We Wear it Down

Lost my watch
(I don’t wear one)
Twisting and turning my wrist
As though it were hiding
On the other side

Thought the dream
To be lost in the late morning.
Pushed itself to the front of the class
Wanting to be examined

Hello watch, missing from my wrist
Where did you go
Did I wear you out—?

Translation

In the night I hear tulip poplars
whisper molecules of fear and desire,
a chemical wind from their branches
that chafes and caresses my skin.

The moon converses with the sun,
a banter of pulling and stretching,
swirling planet dust mouthing the seasons.

Sound waves signal –
time to shed your leaves,
time to shave your head and sit in silence,
time to let your air spool into boundless ether.

At night when leaves sing their same brutal song,
I fold their lyrics into my chest,
and hope for a clear interpretation.

Miscommunication? Perhaps


Not a frequenter of newspapers,
I attempt to wrest vocal cliff notes
from my husband who reads
three papers every day–a fountain
of cutting edge reports, however
stingy with droplets of wisdom.
He asks, “How can you not know
about blah, blah, blah?”
Eye-rolling and head-shaking
complete the depiction of disbelief.
I am defensive; I am angry.
I answer, “Do not pull world knowledge
rank on me, indicating that I am stupid.”
He: “I never said you were stupid;
I’m merely disappointed in you.”
Me: “What gives you the temerity
to be disappointed in me?”

A MAJOR MISUNDERSTANDING

Once when I was young
I was taking my lady-friend
for a ride in my car
and the engine began to sputter
and I said "Oh, Oh, we're out of gas."
and she slapped me and said
"That old line isn't going
to work on me." and she got
out of the car and walked
back into town but the
joke was on her because
the car really was out of gas.

the bridge


we are from different
worlds, you say.
we are
standing in the middle of
the bridge;
eavesdroppers passing,
eyes rolling over first me,
then you.

I am the Mexican, you
declare with firm authority as if
this is something I
have not realized
until now.

me.
I am the
norteña
you explain, as if
this
needs an explanation.

the brown water as the river rushes
beneath us, same color as the
bare feet you gaze down at, your head
sways to and fro
denying, apologizing, writhing inside.

my sympathy reaches out to you.
will we never recognize
signals we send out relentlessly?

my bag
grows heavy on my shoulder. the odor
of coriander, fresh from the market
comes
between
us.

I Heard It Wrong

She stood up when her
Name was called
Grasping the microphone
Firmly between her fingers
"I don't even need the screen"
She called out as she moved
To the front of the stage
We held our breath, knowing
Her as we do, and hoping she
Really knew the song
As she began to sing the chuckles
Started, snickers at first and
Then full out guffaws that made
Us hang our heads in embarrassment
But she sang out loud and proud
Confident in every word and ignoring
The sounds of laughter surrounding her
When the song ended she walked to us
Looking quizzical and quickly
Sat with a frown on her face
Her voice quivered as she asked why
Everyone was laughing at her
We all grabbed her hands and
Told her how she had gotten the
Lyrics completely wrong
She shrugged her shoulders
Said, "I suppose I heard it wrong"
Laughter spilled from her lips while
Repeating over and over, "I heard it wrong."

Waiting

You said to meet at the corner
of 42nd and 5th
waiting two hours
wind blowing my hair
chilled to the bone I was
waiting.

one more hour dragged on

Walking home, I found you
waiting for hours at the corner
of 47th and 5th
chilled to the bone we were
laughing.

APHASIA

She looked gray as the damp clouds outside
the hospital window, her colorless hair
spread thinly upon the crisp pillowcase.
Mom?
She blinked.
I leaned in. She opened her mouth.
Bubbles, what ells, oh, no!
She closed her lips tightly.
Then, again.
My, my, mama not here, good.
She shook her head.
I leaned closer.
It’s okay, Mom.
I spoke louder than necessary.
She was not deaf.
She closed her eyes into a Badlands
of a squint, shook her head again,
pointed to the lunch tray she’d ignored
this past half hour. I slid the tray closer.
She opened her eyes, brightened and sang.
Happy birthday to you!
She laughed then, threw up her hands,
picked up a spoon, ate pudding.
I sipped my coffee.
What else could we have done?

Robert perfect ending! Very nice.

My Prince

My sister called
From Spain
"I'm bringing home
My prince,"
I was so excited
At last a prince
For my lovelorn
Sister
"What does he look like?"
She responded
"What are you talking about?"
"Your prince!"
Static and long distance giggles
Echoed in my ear
"Monet,you moron. . .
Prints!"


Embraceable You

Cubans embrace you
With their hearts
And with their arms
But the gringa wife
Needs to know
Not everyone gets hugs
And women get full body contact
Men, shoulder to chest, and
Lightly, not bearish
I am a black belt hugger
Big warm squeeze
Regardless of gender
Tempering my style
At a funeral
Of someone I didn’t know—
Saw a familiar face
And hugged
Then my husband
Pulled me aside
And asked
“Why are you hugging
The plumber?!”

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary ...

In-laws coming to dinner
first visit ever
brand new recipe
complex ingredients
want to make a really good
first impression
running late though
frantic phone call to spouse
on pickup duty
then waiting forever
or so it seemed.

Where in the world is he?

Finally he arrives
parents in tow.

Under his breath he whispers,
I hope we took long enough.

Confused,
I'm looking for
the supermarket bag
I do not see.

Where is it? I ask.

Where is what? He replies.
Now it's his turn
to look confused.

Didn't I ask you
to buy me some thyme??

Fuse

All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
-Alexander Pope, “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot”

Her howl of Niagara grapes
in rain, the diesel fragrance
of wine like pleasant knuckles
underneath the split lips of
a cave. There, she sips thuja
oil while taking a pen
to lines. Then she sweetly sings
"have some jeweled words," taunting
the camphor to breathe closer.
"It was a mistranslation,"

she adds, "My real name is Fuse."
The rocky ground is littered
with blackened crocuses, dry
letters, and the spoiled and rank
fingers of poets outstretched
with bottle flies. A buzzard
with fires in each cheek lingers
as pigeon-blood rubies
from the cave explode
in echoed epistrophes.

XOXO

When
He ended
His letter
XOXO
I thought
He meant it
I thought
We had
Something
Special
But
We didn’t
It was just
An empty
Gesture
Meaning
Nothing

How Rumors get Started

Willy heard Sarah talking to Hannah who saw Jacob walking in the mall with another girl – real close like – who wasn’t Hannah and Sarah told Willy that Hannah wanted to break up with Jacob if it weren’t for the fact that Sarah heard that Jacob’s sister Heather just got diagnosed with leukemia and she only had six months to live so she went away to Ohio and Hannah worried that her breaking up with Jacob would push him over the edge, but when Hannah confronted Jacob – because she had to know the truth even if she wasn’t going to break up with him – she learned that the girl with whom Jacob was walking in the mall was his cousin, Rachel, who was visiting from Ohio and that Heather went to Rachel’s house in Ohio, not to live out her last days, but to visit with her younger cousin, and that Hannah should not listen to Sarah again.

And Hannah agreed.

for now, a limerick. hoping for something a little deeper later...having some miscommunication with my muse today, apparently.





There once was a lobster named Scutter
Who was out swimming laps with her brother.
When her bro hollered “Duck!”
She thought bird. The net struck.
Now she’s swimming in lemon and butter.

Miscommunication


You told me after your brother came
to get the dryer and the sofa,
the spare VCR and the dishes from
your first marriage, that you'd made
a mistake, not with me, but with
the idea we could be open. I didn't
blame you--I'd run from my first
post-divorce affair the day
our separate children met
and got along. It was too soon.
Still this was different--your need
was to explore more bodies, faces,
but you wanted home as well,
more than a place to sleep.
I tried to give you that, but would
not deny myself the same.
We drowned ourselves, too far
away from what we really wanted,
from what we weren't ready for.
We've found it now, with others,
relationships deep enough to touch
our toes to bottom, but also float.

Sorry

How was she supposed to know
that when he said he would be there
for her, he only meant for as long
as she looked like a dream?

How as he supposed to know
that when she said she would stay by
his side, she only meant for as long
as they moved through the crowd?

How were we supposed to know
that when they said they would care
for us, they only meant for as long
as we didn’t interfere with their plans?

Farewell to Red

When we were young, you took me
into your bare bone apartment,
above the Communist bookstore

in a ragged rough downtown,
not yet on the rebound. In
your single bed, I found refuge

from the clattering voices, the
banging dishpans. I melted into
the safety of the crooked staircase,

the tattered volumes of Marx,
Hall, and Chairman Mao. Your
home was a castle to me, guarded

under high ceilings, ancient
chandelier, an antique bathtub.
And once, you drove all night

to rescue me from the grips
of my delusional mother, who
ripped up in knife sharp words,

the fabric of our heirloom couch.
Storming through the woods of Rhode
Island—I could always rely on you.

But your firm hand also pressed
too close against my itching heart,
gave it little room to flower. And

then your silence soon blossomed,
—became weight I put out on the curb,
next to my red leather book.

miscommunication

When I email people with questions, they
don't seem to understand.
These people are hard to get
a hold of and in demand.
I'd like to tell them off and say thanks
for no help.
But it does no good to yelp.

“Sticks and Stones”

I remember mama
Used to say,
“Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But words will never hurt me.”
I thought to myself,
That makes sense
‘cause how could a word
Make me bleed
Or inflict a bruise?
After all, words, once said are gone
Just like the breeze

Then one day, my best friend
Told me she didn’t want to play
“Just go away—
I have a brand-new friend now.”
Then I realized the truth
The truth that words could hurt
As much or more than sticks or stones


By Teresa Lasher
© April 26, 2009

Fading Romance

"Where are the candles?"
escape lips, welcoming romance.
"In the bag" returns his sweet
melody. One bag, search begins -
no candles. A piece of paper
surrenders to tiled floors.
Possible receipt - unfolded
disgrace. "What are you doing?"
beckons my glance - "Looking
for the candles." Red has always
been loves' color. "I thought
you said sandals!" flows
from a stuttering tongue.
Romance slowly fades as I
lay one fallen note on the counter -
"Who's Brenda?"

Road Rage

“Turn left at the second bridge
past the winding path.”

“Okay so I turn left, right?”

“Left, right.”

“Wait, right? or left?”

“Left---Eyes on the road, not on me.”

“Sorry. Now did you say right past…?”

“Left!”

“Okay, okay! Left! Past the second path…”

“Past the winding path, at the second bridge!
Keep both hands on the wheel!”

“Is this the bridge here?”

“First bridge.”

“Here then.”

“No! at the SECOND bridge!”

“Oh give me the map!”

No. Give me the wheel!”

When I say I can't, it means I won't.
Because suntan lotion and lighter
fluid are the same to me, responsibility
sticks to me like algae on a stone.
The first step is beyond me. The risks
are too large. Because when I say
I won't, it's because I can't.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Asking a ten-year old boy
to visit his grandfather
in a nursing home
every Sunday
is a great deal to ask.

It's even harder
if the grandfather in question
doesn't recognize him any more.

Anyone who has lived through
Alzheimer's in a loved one
knows very well
that you have to take your humor
wherever you can find it.

Sunday after Sunday
our son came along.
Sometimes he helped to shave his Pop.
Sometimes he fed him pudding.
Sometimes he played pool
with other residents
who really enjoyed his company.

One Sunday, though,
he decided it was time
to inject some fun
into this sad, sad situation.

My husband began his usual attempts
to reach his Dad with words
knowing that as always
no response would come
except maybe an angry growl-like sound
or a repetitive series of syllables.

"How are you doing today, Dad?"

For one split second
we actually thought
that the happy response of "Fine!"
came from Dad
our Dad -- the Dad we knew and loved
the Dad who knew and loved us.

More questions
more enthusiastic responses
from our boy's hiding place
under his Pop's bed.

His giggles are still remembered
many years later.

When life becomes
too heartbreaking for words
we take our humor
wherever we can find it.

Dependence (by Jeanetta Chrystie)

You wake me up each morning,
Put me to sleep each night.
Your embrace calms me,
Your caress excites me.
Your aroma tells me you are near.
Ah - my Dear –
Please perk another pot of coffee.

In Lancaster County

When I was growing up,
people said,
"Throw the cow
over the fence
some hay," or
"Throw mama
from the train
her hat."

And the tourists
laughed and said,
"You eat "Shoe Fly" pie?"
or "Do people really
live in Intercourse and
Blue Ball and Mount Joy?"

We sent them, with
their bags of Amish dolls
and hex signs, to the
Twin Kiss on the edge
of town for a root beer
for the road

Because we knew the church ladies
were making chicken corn soup
off by the crik
past the tracks
in the park just
exactly the other way.

What a Snake

He slithered into my life
And scared it out of me
He reared back, dry mouthed
And hissing full of venom
He advanced a bit too close
And we had a misunderstanding
He met my poison head on
And the shovel in my hand

"Smart Exchange"

The soldiers shook hands, they held out theirs
Still the hummers and tanks sent goodwill home

The Private drank his sweet tea, his kids took candy
Yet a rifle got the swarthy man’s brother fleeing the night

Our boys never swore, the locals knew English after all
The cry for war and blood clotted their tongues

The fatigued pocket had the culture ‘smart card’ tucked in
The chest was shattered, from some unsaid lines unknown.


NOTE: The Marine Corps has been equipping troops with a sort of abbreviated Emily Post-style guide to etiquette in Iraq. The laminated "Iraq Culture Smart Card" consists of 16 panels and can fold down into something you can slip into your breast pocket. "It seems late in the day for such niceties," observed Steven Aftergood in Secrecy News, a Web log maintained by the Federation of American Scientists, which posted the Smart Card online. http://www.scribd.com/doc/3762214/US-Military-Iraq-Culture-Smart-Card

(I have used quotation marks below...but these lines SHOULD be italicized.)

Understanding
#############

What do you want?

"He is the father of the children."

That doesn't answer the question.
What do you want?

"I want us to be a family."

Is that what you want?

"I want him to see them.
I don't want him to see them.
He doesn't want to see them."

I'm confused.
I hear mixed messages.

"You don't understand."

10:00 p.m.

He was suppose
to pick me
up at 10:00 p.m.

10:00 p.m.
came and went
11:00 p.m.
came and went

He was suppose
to pick me
up at 10:00 p.m.

I went upstairs
and went to bed
no phone calls
no text messaging.

He was suppose to
pick me up
at 10:00 p.m.

He came be
Saturday
at 10:00 p.m.

He thought
it was Saturday
not Friday.

He was suppose
to pick me
up at 10:00 p.m.

But he picked
me up
at 10:00 p.m.

Saturday
not
Friday

Miscommunication

Miscommunication
Great frustration
Bad situation
No elation
or sensation
on this
poor vacation
due to our
miscommunication

Laurie K.

I’d like to buy a vow.



“I do,” he said
before God and 107 of their closest friends
and she assumed he meant
I do
…love
…honor
…cherish
you and only you
…as long as we both shall live.

Turned out
before the calendar turned 107 days
what he really meant was
I do
…plan to do any woman who will have me
…want to do drugs every chance I get
…anything I choose, while
you and only you do the working and worrying
…as long as I damn well please.

The lawyer called it irreconcilable differences.

When she left, he laughed.
“Do you really seriously
think you can make it on your own?”
“I do,” she said
…clear as day.
And she was right.

anointed parking and what it leads to

you mean validated?
no - he said. anointed.
see? john the baptist
waits with a bucket near the entrance
and after that you can collect
your free poetry from that man
over there.

you mean Peter with the rooster?
no I mean Judas with the coaster
he has mad skills as
a poet.

just a minute i said
you mean he's a mad killer?
a betrayer?

no he said, i mean he can
make up haikus on the pot.

spot? i said
no, he said on the can.

oh i said you mean spam
and he said
right
and i said
tight
and he said bite
and i did.

John's Lecture on Drinking T

Imitation Jabberwocky
Just isn't the same
As the original.

John has that gift:
Beeblebock Bullship.
Oops, no tea
In Boston tonight.
So profane--
Mixing chicken salad
With indigo.
Did you ever hear such a thing?
"But of course,"
the jeckerseb witch
doctor said.
"Tea time!"

When Tom replaces Pom,
Is it steaming? How fresh?
"GROSS!" some members of the class
said.
That poet Laureate sure
Knows his tea.

Last Dinner

Your message on the answering machine,
“Hey, I’m on my way to the restaurant.
See you in a few minutes”
should have been my cue
to leave my apartment
and go on to meet you.
Who knows where my mind was
when I simply sat there,
staring at the clock,
waiting for you to call again?
An hour later, I finally realized
what I should have done.
Already too late, I stumbled out the door.
I knew you wouldn’t be there,
yet I still went.
Why should I have expected you
to wait so long for me?
I can’t remember if I reached you
by phone that same evening.

When I finally saw you again,
the anger you felt
over my accidental inconsideration
had subsided. There was no reason
to hold on to it, because I was moving
out of town. Since hugging goodbye,
we have not seen or spoken to each other.
Dear friend, I still regret
we never had that last dinner,
all because of my mind’s wires
disconnection to reality.

I liked the idea of a limerick. Pardon the incorrect grammar. :-)



Uncanny

The thing about being a wife
Is not that I’m married for life
But that hubby and me
On all points disagree
But our love for each other is rife.

Forgive me if this showing up somewhere, but I still don't see it!


Date Language

A held hand
A simple kiss
To her, an evening’s end
For him, just the beginning.

(Not Listening), Not Hearing


Good morning.
How are you feeling today?

(A whippoorwill sang to me last night, and
I dreamed I was flying over Blacktop Mountain.)

And, how are you feeling today?

(The morning sun is glowing like a bonfire
behind those shaggy pines on the east ridge.)

And, how are you feeling today?

(I went out to draw a bucket of fresh cold
well water, just to make my morning coffee.)

And, how are you feeling today?

(There’s a Spring breeze whispering soft
old love songs though the willow garden.)

And, how are you feeling today?

(That red azalea by the old rock wall is
dancing her colors like a giant geisha girl.)

And, how are you feeling today?

(I want to run across the meadow barefoot,
and open the mouth of my soul
to drink in this beautiful world.)

And, how are you feeling today?

(I’m good. How are you?)

Prompt: miscommunication
April 26, 2009
Day 26
~~~~~~~~~~~~


a little insecure
by faye e. arcand

seeing me in
a bathing suit for
the first time…
you said I looked
elegant…I heard
something else…
didn’t talk to
you for the rest
of the day.

Post-Mortem

Ya think I’d muster up
thoughts of some importance:
my Sally flippin’ flap-jacks
for the boys as they
head on out to tend the place,

maybe Jesus waitin’ on a cloud,
smilin’ at me like a shepherd
scoopin’ up one of his lost lambs.

But all my brain is able
to carve is a question:

wonder if the blood
pullin’ down the head
of that broken wheat stalk
is mine or the moanin’
Yank that was stretched
out next to me.

You said you wanted a ring
with a big diamond on it
I went to the jewelers and
got down on my knees for you
you said I'm silly
you didn't mean you
wanted to get married
you just wanted a fancy ring
to put on your finger
I remain the fool

Miscommunication, Talking with Fran

Is it what we said
Or did not say?
What we closed
Or did not open?

I remember the gritty August afternoon,
Dog dayed, traffic jammed.
I had your old Plymouth, with Overdrive.
It died of heat on Outer Drive
And you were driving by, the other way, just then.
And you rescued
Me, your Plymouth.
We never needed words.

When you were so sick,
Dying of Aids,
I said, “remember when we played Cops and Robbers,
Running between the houses, hiding in the alley ways?”.
I said, “I love you”.
I said “goodbye”.
But I did not say
“Come with me”.

A door that closed,
A door that did not open.

4/09

Apples and Oranges

She tosses an apple just picked,
honest with its dirt and seeds,
not first inspected and injected
with manipulation.
He throws back oranges from a sack,
hurls them in a perfect fit of segments.
Both of them hurt and hungry;
rotting love pulling bees to the ground.

Misunderstanding

Overdrawn

Ordering from you was very easy
in the past, but not the last time.
Your newest addition was not listening
when I ordered the outdoor chime.

Easy pay was an option
I chose because of the cost.
Your new person goofed it up,
causing me to take a loss.

Taking out the entire amount
with checks I had already written,
caused my account to be overdrawn
which is deadly from where I’m sittin’

Much frustration and phone calls later
you finally conceded defeat--
contacted the bank and straightened
it out before my stroke was complete.

Shandorma "Smiley Face"


The advent
of the smiley face
has saved us
from ourselves;
no misinterpretation
of hasty typing.

Wish there was
a different face
I could wear
so you would
understand me, no matter
what my words.

Missed Communication

You say you didn’t know
He hurt me in that way
You say you didn’t think
Such things happened that day
You say you didn’t realize
What I said was true and real
You say you can’t believe how
I’m making such a big deal

I say you didn’t listen
When I told you it was true
I say you didn’t care to learn
Your daughter was black and blue
I say you didn’t want to know
Who hurt your little girl
I say you’d rather focus upon
How I’d inherited your lovely curls

We say children don’t tell lies
About abuse they have endured
We say children can overcome
Be healed and fully cured
We say children are never at fault
When hurt or touched down there
We say children should not be blamed
For feeling we did not care

We say we’ve learned from our mistakes
We’re innocent of what we didn’t know
We say it make take them awhile
To forgive, forget, and let go
We say we will believe them now
We’ll listen and trust each day
We say all of these promises
Not sure of what we say

She carves her way

through the crowded room
with the precision
of a heat-seeking missile.
His heat pulls her
through the silk and perfume,
past dark shoulders,
lips wanting to talk
only to find
when she reaches his side
his arm circles another.

“The Eyes of the Skies”

They work long and hard controlling the skies
They vector the planes and serve as pilot’s eyes.
They’re like birds caged in glass towers
They’re the ones with the controlling powers.

“One-Niner left, two-five right
“Not that one you idiot, have you lost your sight?”
“Landing gears not down, please go around”
I said, “It’s not down, have you lost the sound?”

“Say, Cessna, do you have the runway in sight?”
“Yes, that’s the one, it’s off to the right.”
“Use caution as there’s traffic ahead”
“You know I don’t think he heard a word I said.”

Wings level, nose up, landing gear down
“What’s that ‘squirrel’ doing, Go around!”
Answer that phone, it’s been ringing all day
Another noise complaint, what can I say?

A hijacking in progress just radioed in
Alert all systems, there’s no way he’ll win.
That Concorde’s jets have set off a roar
Now just watch the tempers, they’ll surely soar.

“Sir, a 747 has just taken a swim in the bay”
Couldn’t this have waited for another day?

I'd Rather Not

Let's catch a moth
I'd rather not.

Let's catch a grasshopper
I can skip and hop.

I can catch a cricket
A ball, let's kick it.

Look Ants! Ants!
Let's dance.

Let's catch a slug
Can I give you a hug?
Yes, grandmama
I'd like that tug.

Thanksgiving

I was supposed
to bring the wine,
but I thought
I was supposed
to bring the stuffing
now we have
three pans of stuffing
and no wine

Misinterpretation

Crossed signals
Hurt feelings
Apology
Hugs and hugs
Forgiven

Misreading

“Poetry was teeth,” I read instead
of “Poetry was truth.” All day
I pondered the use of the past
tense – isn’t poetry still teeth,
the gnash and grind of words
against what is? Never mind
truth, slippery as a tongue,
give me the hard white edge,
the almost boneness of teeth.

Misinterpretation

Crossed signals
Hurt feelings
Apology
Hugs and hugs
Forgiven

Senior Mumbles
4/26/09

Did you hear that, Martha.
The TV is goofy tonight.
First someone
Selling “Free months free,”
(Like one, two, free, four)
Then
The news guy saying
“…Then Petrov walked in
With bloody Rasputin,”
Then
They advertised
”Furry-fear grams,”
Then
The weather person
Said it would be
“Snowy and wimpy, tonight.”
Said it twice.
Oh, turn up the hearing aid?
Yes, Dear,
Thank you.
That is so much better.

Miscommunication

Many times, when thinking back,
there are things we wish we’d said.
Words to soothe another’s pain,
to help them somehow get ahead
when they were falling way behind.

Many times, when thinking back,
we regret the words we blurted
when anger made us thoughtless
and we left a friend there hurting
because we too had been unkind.

Many times, when thinking back,
instead of hurting a friend,
we should have hit rewind/erase
and found more loving words to send.
But now, too late, we see the signs.

Miss Communication

The Miss America contestant,
when asked about health care,
gave a repetitive speech about
integrity – no matter what your
political position, she said, all
that matters is that you maintain
your integrity on the issues. Not
one word uttered about the issue.
No mention of disease or obesity
as she posed in her size two dress.
Not one syllable about the lack
of basic dental as she displayed
her brilliant white teeth. But damn
it, she nailed the integrity thing,
something she was taught to say,
pretty parrot with bright feathers
and a brain just large enough to
hold a phrase or two, to squawk
and preen for company. Give
the bitch a cracker – at least
she pronounced it right.

Disconnection

Sometimes the thing she wants to say,
just can’t get across.
When times are hard,
communication is first to go.
Emotions jumble up meaning fast,
blurring lines, breaking connections.
Both parties confused, let down,
yearning to be understood.
Why do they fall away when they could grow closer?
They want the same things.
Will they ever learn?

© 2009 Molly Logan Anderson

Ex-Communication

Bless me Father, for I have sinned.
Silence. Nine-year-old palms begin to sweat.
Try again.

Bless me Father for I have sinned.
What’s next? Nine-year-old nervous giggles
reverberate in the darkness.

Are you laughing?
Are you laughing at God, in the confessional?
The priest’s voice is gruff, serious, accusing.

No, Father. No, Father. No, Father.
Not laughing at God. Lying to a priest,
about laughing in the confessional.

Miscommunication

Eh? he says
Eh? again.
You speak too softly
for me to hear.

Suspecting
hearing loss
his wife schedules an appointment
with an ear specialist.
Exam over
the specialist
turns to the couple
and says
if you only knew
how many wives I get
claiming their husbands can’t hear.

I’m no Freud

I woke to the birds’ band rehearsal
her soul

On my smile, there lingered wispy fingers
thin, hers

The high-rising flowers around me had disappeared
I feared

I smiled, though, a new song was being born
torn

A sonorous voice said this was a good sign
stood fine

Yet there was no cameo by the girl from my dreams
wry schemes

--starky morillo

Why He Moved South in the '50's

Usually its a good idea to bring up
the distant past, things that are planted
deep in his darkening brain,
usually
today I get it wrong though
"So the Range lost a lot of jobs
after World War II, no more ships
or tanks or jeeps to build?"
"I thought you went to college,
you talk like an idiot. I worked
there for fifteen years
I ought to know what happened,
I ought to know why the mines
shut down and so many people
moved South. Used to be just
a cosmopolitan as the Cities.
We had Italians, Chechs, Pols,
even Jews--there was a synagogue.
I ought to know what it was like
and you think you're so smart."
I was just asking,Dad, just trying
to save something before it all
slips away from you,before you won't
even know my name before you start
telling me how stupid I am. I hope
I can remember who you were before,
before everyone left the Iron Range
and the Welsh quit riding down into
the bowels of that good earth
because there was more money in it
and that was what our people did.

Sandra Evans April 26, 2009