We are really into the final days of this challenge now. I can’t believe how fast November has swept in and is trying to sweep out already. I hope everyone survived the holiday weekend!
Today’s prompt comes from a former winner of the challenge: Shann Palmer.
Here’s Shann’s prompt: Write a poem about something you collect (or would collect if you could).
Robert’s attempt at a Collection Poem:
“Rocks”
They’re everywhere,
and they don’t cost nothing,
and the world is made of them.
I don’t understand
why more people don’t collect them,
and adore them,
and write poems about them.
*****
Thank you, Shann, for adding your prompt to our November collection! Click here to learn more about Shann.
Click here if you prefer poeming on the WD Forum.
*****
Follow me on Twitter @robertleebrewer
*****
Create an amazing author website using WordPress!
Memories
Pastures, creek, and hayloft were our playground.
During the summers my sister and I shared our domain.
Cousins would take turns staying a week at a time.
We fed the hogs, gathered eggs, and worked in garden
in mornings, but then we explored the farm.
My favorite was the two story barn with its huge hayloft.
We would move the bales to make hay igloos and play cowboys and Indians
until we were called for lunch or supper.
A race was on to the windmill to wash our hands and face under the pump,
then hurry to sit at table where Mother always led us in prayer.
Memories
It’s more of a hobby,
I s’pose,
than a habit or an
adolescent booklet with tiny little stamps
licked and posted on the inside.
I guess I found out what it was I wanted to keep
when I was really young.
I was always curious about my own.
I would sit for hours and play with it,
trying to find it before it slipped away.
It is a slippery mother f-er,
silvery and sublime,
slick and perfect.
Then, one day, I touched the damned thing.
I became obsessed.
I tried to find the ones others had.
It was a little more than a month later,
Algebra class.
I was speaking with a girl, Abigail,
sweet little thing with crystal clear eyes
and auburn hair.
I figured out that all I had to do was ask.
She let me touch it.
She let me hold it.
She let me keep it.
Now, it’s the first of my collections.
It’s the first of many.
And whenever I wish,
I can call them all.
I am the devourer and
they owe their souls to me.
Day 26
Prompt: Collection poem
Collected, Hopefully Kept?
Boxes of uncatalogued photographs
Albums of other photos
Stacks on a closet shelf of greeting cards
Boxes of newspapers bearing historic headlines:
Challenger Explodes, 911, UGA Wins National Championship.
Brochures from Disney World, Ringling Brothers, Phoenix,
not to mention Broadway Playbills and programs from
a hundred local shows, a few including my name
in cast or crew, and many with our son’s name,
often as a lead.
Framed photos and quotes hung on the wall
or scattered across the furniture
of family groups and our daughter’s sports and our son as a Ninja Turtle
Bulldogs, cats, and dachshunds
Georgia and Tennessee football memorabilia
Books and books and more books.
So many objects which could be swept away
in a tornado or a fire,
yet the ultimate collection cannot be destroyed,
unless my mind leaves earth ahead of my body:
memories.
Can you collect the wind in the desert
Blowing free form dragons out
Of the sand furnace below
Collections
Collections change
Over time
Long ago I collected unicorns,
Lately unicorns are only
Echoes. Today I
Collect memories,
Time fragments.
I search under beds seeking
Older thoughts.
Next I
Sift photos to see you clearly.
I collect metro seats and stories.
Each morning that I can snag a seat,
I watch the stories sift in for the morning commute.
I wonder what I will pen today as I watch the quiet
Of a guide dog, still as a morning pond with no wind
As commuters ripple around.
A Collection Poem
First we collected wedding gifts
which gave way to gathering children.
Then came their toys,
school mementoes and awards.
Not to mention roller skates,
soccer equipment, and bikes.
When they left home their junk stayed.
Next we received a generous sprinkling
of inherited antiques,
family treasures, and non-disposable plunder
from parents, now gone.
Many items found their way into the basement
to share space with large patio plants
abiding the winter under grow lights.
I think it’s time to share
many of these collectables
with the world.
Perhaps we could fill a dumpster
and let the landfill be the blessed receiver
of large piles of our gifting.
Poetic Asides November Challenge – Day 26
Write a poem about something you collect
(or would if you could).
House of Giraffes
Standing on carpets,
sitting on shelves,
grinning from paintings,
reclining on chairs,
my giraffes are everywhere.
Gentle, graceful, tall swaying
trees, dressed in designer
best, knobby-kneed. Some
are furry, some carved
from teak, and one family
intertwined in marble. Open
my cabinet, select a giraffe-
handled mug to grasp
while sipping hot cocoa
by firelight.
Collection
Sometimes I wonder:
what am I accomplishing,
really? If time is money,
I’ve spent a trillion dollars
or as many years, give or
take, and what am I given
in return? Ulcers, insomnia,
a complex, a piece of paper
that will only collect dust
as years pass. Normal people
collect rocks, stamps, letters,
shot glasses—I collect college
degrees, for what they’re worth.
snowflakes
If only I could,
I would snatch
(one and all)
to suspend from the ceiling,
festoon on the wall,
or I’d catch
(on my tongue)
their enchanting free-fall.
When Life Hands You Lemons…
I collect rejection slips
because they inspire me.
I can paper my walls with them
and write an instructional poem
or brag about my beautiful décor,
or I can line the bottom
of my canary’s cage with them
as I write a nature poem
on the beauty of birds.
Perhaps an environmental poem
on what we can do to preserve our world
as I shred rejection slips
and dump them in my recycling bin.
Then, at the end of the day,
a romantic poem, as my sweetie
and I cuddle before the fire,
kindled by you-know-what.
PINNING THEM DOWN
You can’t do this without taking a hike
out in fields of wild flowers, where tall grasses wave
and butterfly flit about, as they save
the liqueur of the flora inside them. Then they strike
into a forest, to spin new life, new wings
back to the habitat from whence they came.
You arrive, your net raised as your heart aflame
the woop and the warf of the threads flow, it rings
in the air, caught in a glass bottle, not the first
nor the last, back to place it upon the page
with an enlightening entry in your journal, to engage
your colleagues in a discussion of the best and the worst
countryside hostels they’ve encountered in their search
of life so small yet captivates the mind,
of beauty at the middle its life, the color of a kind
not even the wildest-eyed artist, sitting on a porch
of a sunset, gathering his intuitions onto the brush.
It happens in the moment the cocoon unfurls,
how much more original can it ever get—
Who painted that, how many more, the lush
hues defy imagination. So you cross
oceans, trek steamy forests, mountain climes,
where almost no one lives, to trap the times
when Creation stands still, and you’re the boss.
Zev Davis
COLLECTING
China cups
in the cupboard
Grandma’s china
in the hutch
Things that pour,
way too many
Memories?
Even more.
Also:
http://whimsygizmo.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/waxing-gibbous/
The Collector
I’ll keep this moment for myself tonight
I’ll watch from cozy fireside, and so
the wind, his partner, makes a handsome sight
as swirl and waltz, and pirouettes the snow!
Pale moon above; he’s idle, full, entranced.
We watch the dancers; frenzied in their cause
as snowflake sparkles, stepping up romance.
The game is on and so they do not pause.
The wheeling wind now makes repeated sigh,
and I will capture; mime this scene awhile,
but out of step, his partner says goodbye;
their dance will end in whispered, quiet style.
I’ve held this picture in my mind before;
collected many; always wanting more.
Fruit Crate Labels, Seattle
It’s coming up on ten years since I was thirty, standing on
the side of a hill with my husband in downtown Seattle,
the city where I was born—or I was born near it, anyway,
which is what you say when you’re as suburban as I am,
or was. I am urban now, so I know how it is to stand and
smile politely, interject a word or two, as a stranger jabbers
at you—in this case, about virtual reality helmets. That was
just the thing to listen to in 2003, how everything was right
on the verge of changing. And it was; he was right about that,
the antique store employee who followed us to keep talking
after I had paid $75 for a stack of fruit crate labels, brightly
inked and printed, and then piled in a warehouse, unused
for decades, preserved—as was explained on a small square
of paper stuck to the back of each plastic sleeve. I thought
these would be my new things—collecting fruit crate labels,
visiting Seattle. But now, I could no more drop $75 on labels
than I could go back there to see if the city still slants as it
once did, whether the hill is still there, the store, the man,
if he ever made his fortune in the virtual world, or whether
he found, as we did, just how real actual reality can be.
When he was young,
tin man collected
broken hearts
with wild wantonness -
a little boy’s first bike ride,
falling and scraping
his knees,
a father’s half-step
to help
cut short,
every son
needing to learn
to be a
man,
a mother’s quick rush
to cradle her child,
the hard stare
between them
as the husband
walks slowly
away
Now that he is old,
tin man collects
broken hearts
like an old man collects
baseball cards -
a connoisseur stealing
the smell
of stale bubblegum
once a year,
the corner of his treasured Wagner
folded from fighting
and tearing it away
from his brother
when they were children,
every year,
on his brother’s birthday,
asking for bids on the internet
though he knows
he could never bring himself
to sell it
Shadowboxing
She collects worries
like jagged stones, groans
with hope’s each tear and shred,
dreads the fog they will bring
in the dark. Shines them by the
light of day, smoothes them
loose, and lets them stay.
.
“The library”
John and I ordered two slices
and a raspberry soda each.
Sat, ate and took turns reciting
snips and strophes within easy reach,
chuckling, focusing or sighing
as fit the words until our speech
joined together on Innisfree.
We chanted the secluded beach
into being. W. B.
then coaxed in the cat, Minnaloushe,
who puzzled the moon, far and wee—
and so we came upon Cummings
hiccupping his typography
over our paper plates and crumbs.
We stood up. It was time to teach
of what had passed and what would come
and how poems make a honeycomb.
How lovely!
Saving Time
Each morning I am greeted
By the sweet absence of yesterday,
Having taken with it the
Seconds, minutes, and hours,
That pass before it
All fallen as the next one appears
And piled here, into weeks,
Months, and years,
One atop the other,
Never higher than the one before
Never more than one at a time;
I cannot keep them or release them
Only count them as they arrive
And remember that for a moment
They were mine
Since 2001, this has been my addiction…
Love is…
If for words you’re at a loss,
or want to say Hi just because…
Love is… to the rescue!
When you want to keep in touch
because you care so very much…
Love is… to the rescue!
If somebody broke your heart
and your world’s falling apart…
Love is… to the rescue!
Be it a sad or happy occasion.
For Good-Bye or Congratulations!!!
Love is… to the rescue!
Good for families, friends and lovers.
When it’s needed the world over…
Love is… to the rescue!
==========================
Love is… is a comic panel printed from Monday to Saturday on The Record (Hudson/Bergen Counties, NJ). It was created by Kim Casali and is currently drawn by Bill Asprey. For more on Love is…, visit their website: http://www.gocomics.com/loveis
Something impossible to collect!
http://wordrustling.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/day-twenty-six-the-fever/
Thanks a bunch for the prompt to inspire.
Warning: Your Collection May Be Hazardous To Your Health
When does your collection turn on you
and become hoarding? We have eleven
bookcases overflowing with books. Piles
of books on and around furniture. Hidden
in cabinets, staked on the fireplace, and piles
cleverly disguised as furniture. Some have
even migrated into the bathroom. Our motto
could be: books for every room. We can’t
have pets because we might lose them or
worse find them under a fallen pile of books.
You know you have a problem when you buy
back books you have donated to the library
book sale. I read that you can burn a book
for heat in an emergency. It will last fifteen
minutes. We’re good for a year.
I’ve often thought of the latter point…I have a hard time letting go of books…eleven bookcases!! Eleven is my number! Great poem.
Me too. I love my e-readers. I can have them without adding to the disaster.
I’ve done the last five prompts but posted them only on my blog. This is today’s offering.
Sun’s Children
From legend to lore,
From lore to dream,
From dream to hand,
Little or large,
Brightly colored
Or plainly made,
Dragons grip my
Imagination.
Whether waxes
Or good Thai woods,
Fire breathers move
On wings made light.
Two heads as good
To see far prey
And locate new
Horizons here.
Incense burners,
Pillar candle
Castle towers
Carry wyverns
To my dreamland,
Watching me sleep,
Never leaving
Me to lone nights.
They say little,
But listen well,
My charming beasts
Of legends gone.
A Collection of Moments in Time
“Time stands still best in moments that look suspiciously like ordinary life.” ~Brian Andreas
Within each album, on each page,
are captured moments from each age,
composed and carefully maintained.
The rear-view mirror life explained.
Time is caught and documented
so it’s not misrepresented.
Collections of what’s been attained:
The rear-view mirror life explained.
The commonplace becomes the spot
for memory’s forget-me-not.
It’s all at once quite unrestrained.
The rear-view mirror life explained.
A photo is a billet-doux,
a sentimental mind tattoo.
Collections then are preordained:
the rear-view mirror life explained.
###
MY COLLECTION
Two
old
fragile
Wellington
glasses standing there
forever in their glass cupboard.
Strange Collection
I keep collecting children,
friends of my children.
I like it when they call me mom
or even by my first name.
They used to come over
and hang out when my kids
were still at home,
and I would feed them
and try to keep out of the way
and chat when they wanted.
Sometimes I was the stage mom
who helped make costumes for plays.
Or the mom who would drive everyone home.
Or the mom who they could
ask difficult questions
and not be judged.
But now,
even though everyone
is all grown,
sometimes
they still come over
just to talk.
Thanks for the prompt, Shann. My mother used to say that my sister collected stray animals and I collected stray people, but that’s another poem and another habit.
Re-collection
I grew by collections as a child—
each addition mounted and
labeled with care, part of a learning
discipline for me: shells, insects,
butterflies, leaves pressed in wax
paper, wood samples, rocks,
pressed wildflowers, even spore
prints from wild mushrooms and
fungi—there my hand holding
sea life, sky life, woods and earth
life. I spent time with types and
textures of cloth, stamps, crystals,
all of them dead or previously living,
like the Latin names beneath them,
each eventually admired by its
new owner. I had no fidelity to
any of these collections after
I’d learned what it had to teach.
Recollecting now, I see that
my only real collection was
knowledge, bits and pieces of
ideas, answers and observations
to stem the tide of my curiosity
of the world, a way of bringing
order to a varied landscape of
being. Is my library a collection?
Those volumes are friends, pure
and simple, my notes in their
margins proving that a dialogue
has taken place, is on-going.
To this day, I enter meaningful
lines and passages from my reading
into a small book to think about
later. I scan the shelves of each
room, looking for give-aways,
throw-aways, places I won’t go
again, then tuck them back in
their places when I know I have
not finished that conversation.
For their part, quiet as they are,
they stare back, humoring me
as best friends do, reminding me
of what I used to know, of who
I used to be and value. Every
single collection of my life has
helped me to look with care at
universes within small existences—
birds’ feathers, flower petals,
the spidering veins in a leaf,
the mother-of-pearl splendor
in a conch shell—thankful they
have honed my imagination,
made me ready joyfully to
collect myself.
COLLECTIONS
Leashes of webbing or leather, some with extra
D-rings and snaps at both ends; long-lines
braided, woven, frayed by dogs pulling me over rocks,
curbs, broken branches in the woods. Soft web
collars (purple for Piper, blue for Cowboy,
red for Loki; Cody’s was green, it’s with her
in the grave, as token we’re still together); collars
sized from puppy on up to great old patriarch,
passed down dog to dog. Equality of partners, each
one different but equal, still holding the scent
of fur. Sardy’s collar that she didn’t wear
those whole five days of searching earthquake
rubble, crawling through jags of rebar,
chunks of floor wall ceiling. Generations of collars.
And curry combs, flat combs, brushes imbued
with decades of dog. Also, binders full
of training logs and search reports I seldom read,
but still remember. The hiker Sardy would
have found if she’d had wings; Cody’s turn
on trail that clued a mystery; Roxy daring pipe-
walk over the abyss. And of course the photos,
never quite as true as memory, of dogs
that still come to me in dream; who won’t stay
still on a shelf.
Love’s Collection:
moods, like well-worn shoes, gaffes
like unfinished letters, morning face
and evening fatigue like used and new brushes.
Love gathers reflections like compact mirrors,
faith like buttons with slogans. It amasses
weaknesses, and strengths like costume
or fine jewelry. Love accumulates unwritten
poems like pearls from obstinate clams, finished
work like wooden crosses, orphaned phrases
huddled in white space like dolls with missing
appendages, heartbeats like cut-rate or designer
bags. Love draws in soft and hard lines like tubes
of lipstick, coups like bestsellers, failures like torn
paperbacks, appetites like recipes for humble
or gourmet meals, fears like trinkets, dreams
like tea-cups, purpose like fountain pens,
gumption like silver-spoons, lovers like
exotic birds, family like rare coins.
RACING TIME
Tick and tock,
every clock and chime.
Tall and lean, and
short and squat, wound
on key and weight.
Turned with gears and levers,
spin go hands and numbers.
Tick and tock
go all my clocks.
Snapshots
Memories mix
old with new
and as more are added
the old ones slowly fade
into the background
and knowing no memory is indelible
against time –
I take snapshots
to help me remember,
to help me pull those memories
from the background
and keep them
from fading
forever.
Threads
Thoughts hibernate within my mind
collecting dust
while words frolic in the snow
and when the sunrise is still blushing
and souls are slumbering,
I gently blow off the dust
and wake the thoughts
weaving them with
loose words
until I’m ready to cut the threads
and pull the finished piece
off the loom.
Collecting Collections
It seems I don’t have the attention span
to stick to one collection throughout my lifetime.
When I was a child I collected boxes—
little boxes. They made good spy radios.
It got me in trouble when I claimed
my oldest sister’s engagement ring box.
Next, I collected colorful glass bottles
not just any bottle, the daintier the better.
In my teens as I traveled more, pennants—
pennants from all along the east coast
from north to south, except Maine,
and western ones from a Wyoming trip.
Then there’s the walking sticks—
shiny gnarled ones, ones with places
inscribed such as Yellowstone National Park.
Now, I collect sample copies of magazines
my work appears in. I need to get a bigger drawer,
a good problem to have.
And I collect books. Used to be, I couldn’t
imagine owning a book and not reading it,
but now I own hundreds I haven’t read yet.
Many of the books I have now are authored
by my friends and partially by me. Plus,
I collect thousands of my poems.
My favorite collection is my Christmas tree ornaments.
At least one a year: the crab claw poinsettia from
Louisiana, the painted gourd from Sedona,
the bagpipe player from Scotland,
a mouse in a matchbox—baby’s first Christmas
among all the crudely made ones
by my kids when they were little.
What is the reasoning behind collections?
What makes a bunch of them better than one?
How many walking sticks does a person need?
Maybe I’m collection memories, hanging onto
a part of this life before it disappears, and
leaving something behind for my kids
to sort through reminding them of me.
Your Smiles
Every time you smile at me,
I tuck it carefully away
For some gloomy future day
When there is nothing good to see.
Then I recall it gently,
And it shines so small and bright
That it fills me with delight
And gives my own smile back to me.
National Geographic
Rumor has it the world
has begun to tilt
slightly on its axis,
leaning toward
the Western Hemisphere,
caught off balance
by the accumulated weight
of all those old copies
of National Geographic
stacked up in basements
across America, saved
for a school kid’s project
on Zambia or Timbuktu,
satisfying the curiosity
of young boys eager
for a glimpse of breasts,
even wrinkled and pendulous.
Never arranged by date,
they sit stacked, yellow cover
on yellow cover, ready
when we need them.
Loved this!
I too. I love this!
Words
I don’t even have
to collect them.
They collect themselves.
I have always thought like a story
teller, taking any small
whimsey, and spinning
it into a grand yarn.
Have always been that
way—spinning threads,
way before the
cyber-threads we all
swing from today.
I have no problem at all
collecting the kernels.
The trouble starts in
trying to separate out
the chaff.
When I write down those
words that squirt out of that
hole in my head,
I have to be careful to
balance the pressure
between inside and out.
Otherwise I get
word-logged, needing to let myself
dry out a bit before
I pick up where I left off.
Once the words have
begun to pool in a safe valley,
I can catch those chosen few
that grab me on their way by.
The difference between a
valuable collection and
just a pile of stuff
is to know each item’s worth,
and how it fits together
to form the perfect
whole.
Ellen Knight
JPEGs
They fill
the silvery
surfaces of
computer disks,
the hidden
resources
of external
drives, cloud-tops
from long flights,
footprints in snow,
drifting gold
leaves, glinting
sun on summer
lakes, blossoms
in spring orchards,
baby faces,
smiling friends,
all of them
held in virtual
memory, formatted
in universal jpeg.
Like Midas, I run
them through
my fingers,
longing to
hold on.
“The Fully Empty Jar” (Vilanelle Poem)
Fully empty, ready to hold
Dreams of tomorrow and perhaps
Something collectible as gold
The walls of glass to touch feel cold
A cloak of fear chilled to ice caps
Fully empty, ready to hold
Upon shaking palms, truth foretold
Like a plush blanket that enwraps
Something collectible as gold
A poker hand nearing its fold
A chance without paved roads or maps
Fully empty, ready to hold
To peek inside, polish so bold
Before hourglass sands elapse
Something collectible as gold
Stifled beliefs, story untold
Hidden potential gently taps
Fully empty, ready to hold
Something collectible as gold
Villanelle
Collect Your Thoughts
Collecting my thoughts
with fingers on keys
what should I write
with thoughts such as these
roll around my head
and down through my hands
and from my fingertips
I write of strange lands
and sailing on ships
on seas and on rivers
fighting some pirates
they give me the shivers
keep writing they tell me
it’s good stress relief
gotta work the brain muscle
that is my belief.
Feeders
Fifteen sparrows out of nowhere
Two blue jays, one grackle
One red-bellied woodpecker, male
Two brown squirrels on the ground
One black squirrel hanging upside down
From the pole above
One dog
No squirrels
No birds
One indignant voice on the roof,
Three minutes
One screen door
One red-bellied woodpecker, male
One grackle, two blue jays,
Eighteen sparrows out of nowhere.
RECOLLECTIONS
(a shadorma)
Shooting star
wishes, moonlight dreams…
collected,
cherished, held
in my heart; given new life
with each breath I breathe.
LIBRARY BOOKS
(Day 25)
To hold in my hand
feel the weight, turn the page,
sneak a quick look, no one
will notice.
To hold, keep, line
upon line of stacked shelves
waiting for my choice,
all new.
Silence, stillness, the hush
of tempered speech, a wonderland
to visit, all mine to have albeit,
short time.
Trivia
one
fact
after
another
various topics
disparate and random tidbits
filling my noggin, good for nothing, but Jeopardy!
Collection
Little porcelain hands, rosy cheeks, lace neckline
pastel pink, green, blue squares on a neatly tucked quilt
sitting up as if she is ready to get up and toddle over
to the porcelain boy pastel blue shorts and his
pastel brown dog where they will play in the mud,
sparkling white.
POEMS
Don’t we all?
We write them,
amassing a mess of words
left unheard until the spirit moves
and behooves us to assemble them
in some semblance that makes sense.
What recompense does a poet need except
for some willing audience to read what we’ve penned?
To that end, collections of poems is what I have, glad
to share with the world. A chapbook or better to open; hoping for better.
Read all you want, I’ll write more, (Like you had doubts!)
For once, I am not posting in the wee hours!
Seed Saving
Other people would raise them
for food, but these plants exist for
their various and spiraling genes.
To be selfed and sibbed, to be
carefully hand-pollinated, coddled,
until it is time to catch the beautiful fruits -
silicles and siliques, drupes, pomes,
achenes, dry or fleshy, with all their
ways of traveling, shattering, their burrs
and wings. They live to be sung to
until threshing time, until they give
up those precious packets of spring,
cotyledons, dormant radicles
and plumules all wrapped in seed
coats and sealed at the hilum. Then
we can cover our counters with trays
and trays of the tiny jewels, the little
drying gems.
In reality, I am collecting snowflakes today. Which is actually quite inspirational……for now.
Buried in Flakes….also, children
as I look out my window
the morning sun glistens
upon the first snowfall
the first sleepy child rises
and comes to stand
with nose pressed upon
the frosted window pane and
with happy cries exclaims:
“it’s snowing! It’s snowing!”
awakening another child who comes
to gaze upon this new wonderland
my mothers’ sense is tingling…
one more to wake….and then
from their brother’s room
the sound of deep coughs -
the verdict is in:
No school for him today.
Turn on the news and
see how much of this white stuff
will be collecting upon my drive
“here are the bus cancellations….”
and another one remains home.
As my message alert chimes
Can you babysit today?
Sure…what’s one more to the mix.
So now I sit before warm fire
with warm mug
a mother hen watching
her expanding brood
sipping hot cocoa
and I hope and pray;
that along with the fuffly flakes,
and the excited children
today I might also
collect some patience.
The Collector
Books inhabit the tiny house
like rabbits a hutch!
Most are shelved, but some
climb the side of the bed,
linger in baskets or
lounge beside the couch.
“Nice book collection,”
someone once said.
“I don’t collect books,”
she replied most adamantly,
“Can’t you see?”
“I collect words – need someplace
to store them!”
Post Cards
As a child, I collected post cards, but Rushmore and General Custer,
Stopped holding my interest and after a time my post card collecting lost luster,
But after three decades went under, my niece pulled them from mother’s attic,
And started to plunder my 4×6 wonders so now she’s the post card addict.
I get up early, check the challenge, and every day you guys have already posted. How do you do that?
I agree…I think I’m up early, but…what’s more amazing is that our brains can function enough to write poetry!!
Those aren’t poems, they’re residual dreams. You can do those half asleep!
I wonder the same thing! You guys amaze me…
And
Somehow
I realized that
After seven years,
Of “making it happen”
At Hollywood and Highland,
I had seventy dollars in change,
Cause even when I didn’t charge it,
You don’t end up with a lot of coinage,
On a diet of ninety-nine cent Top Ramon.
But would I trade the grand adventure,
For a peaceful life gathering wool,
In less daunting circumstances?
Actually, I do believe I would,
But sometimes the young,
Need to get schooled—
A little blood sport,
Is a good way
To learn
Shit.
NOW PLAYING
Bookshelf re-purposed.
Rows of video tapes and DVDs.
Up to my knees in sports flicks,
and space movies. Gangster films
and war stories. I’d be in my glory
if could collect enough time
to watch these things!
If only…enough time eludes us all, I think!