Drifting By

Orion like a cool breeze wakes
Me from Scorpion sleep
Strikes summer mosquitoes
Away with my blood.

The big and little dogs bark
The pond sings back
In minor key
What is done is done.

Fine stranded dispersal
Of time
Seeding the future
Drifting by.

Me on my planet drifting by
Watching Orion in the sky.

Visas for Allies

Two syllables on the radio
Honor
The word heard
In two contexts
Theirs and ours.

Our captain asks,
". . . what good is our word?"

In a country made of words
We the people
Need allies.

In one nation under God,
Theirs and ours,
We should not have to fight
To keep our pledges to our allies
And our ally in our pledge.

It is a dishonorable discharge to us all.

Face in the Wood

Gnarled face in knot of wood
Stares back through wall of time
The lines of which unravel
Revealing strength of face
I would follow into the polished wood
And imprisoned world of spirits there
Where gods once walked in natural forms
As white horse emerging from morning mist
Or wolf plucking dewberries with gentle fangs
But the wild wood hewn
Can only compel my gaze
And whisper to me now.

Reality Squared

Reality squared

       Impoverished beings that we are

Equals the square root of our hope

       That we are something more.

The truth we know rewrites itself

Disordered anew to resonate

With chaotic drift to landing place

The harbor of our souls to compensate

With golden coins of history

Stamped with human face of deity.

Reality squared

       To dust and ash our bodies revert

Equals the square root of our hope

       That we are . . .

That we are more than the cuneiform, 

papyrus, vellum, cloud drive of our words.

Posted at Poets United Poetry Pantry #155.

Happy Seahorse Day

I wrote letters to my father
He never wrote me back

I said my prayers to God
He gave me but a book

The voice I sought to guide me
Paternalistic hidden

I now wish for a seahorse
To carry me through the flood

A pony express through time
To the man who heard my voice

And under jealous eye of goddess
His naiad I would be

Dancing on the moonlit lake
From which the horse does drink

Waiting to carry off two lovers
In memoriam 

Crypto Cat

Suspicion frowns upon the black panther

Whose myth resurfaces four times a year

Like a season of fear when the woods won't breathe

And its creatures won't stir to brave stalking death.

When somewhere in the backwoods

Two hunters meet, eye to eye, breath to breath,

The two-legged speaks, "Your black coat is mine."

The four-legged smiles a Cheshire smile, "You won't want to go there."

And each released from sudden blindness, brothers part,
Contenders for a greater truth
As elsewhere the debate goes on:
Puma jaguarundi or melanistic cougar crypto cat.

And renewed the mistrust and spewed the disrespect

Between the experts of the ivory towers

And woodsmen of the virgin bowers

Contending the range of the elusive beast.

Posted at Poets United Poetry Pantry #153.

The Weather Channel

God oh my God oh my God oh my God oh

my God oh my God oh my God oh my God

oh my God oh my God oh my God

oh my God oh my God oh my

God oh my God oh my God

oh my God oh my God oh

my God oh my God

oh my God

oh my God

oh my

God

oh

my

Believe

Lose religion

Find faith

Add your god

To the pantheon

Fill your cup

With philosophy

Crucify another

The god gene pounces

Cat and mouse

Hold this rock

This unhewn stone

This burden

Fuels your flight

Futilitarian Joy

Road submerged in drought too long, rain too late,

The work that must be done will have to wait.

Futilitarian joy it is to me

That I must love this flooded day.

This is Sunset

When the solar arms embrace your aura

And fill your well of hope that all is well

With a world on the edge of darkness,

This is sunset.
When the sun is set
And the moon yet lingers in that embrace,
Soothing balm of light
Heals earthly eyes from glaring truth.

Rosemary, Sage, and Thyme

Garden guardian,

Stand over the silver sage.

Thyme, nullify time.

Chocolate, Beer, and Bookstalls

TV on I hear of chocolates and go about my business.

Then a question:

Which of the 300 Belgium beers will you try?

I answer the travel documentarian -

Framboisen.

And reeling me in from my lack of attention,

I am caught on the line:

Every other shop a book stall.

My wanderlust unleashed,

I want, want, want, want, want

Chocolate, beer, and book stalls.

Feed the Awe

The hunger of a wolf cub is fed

Through the pads of her paws

And satiated mile on mile

Ley line on line of butterflies

And other curiosities.

The wonder of a child is awed

By a clear night of stars

And the howling in the wilderness

Stirring up restless fears

At a safe distance.

Coevolution

We build shelter

Alike in industry.

Hindered,

We strike defensively.

We tend the garden

For the greater good.

We share our stripes

Misunderstood.

We understand

It is their reaction

That makes them swell indignantly.

Transformer

Bird of paradise -

High-voltage territory

If you're an insect.

Wildflowers

To blooming daughter

I have passed the torch of spring

Fire in flower.

My Hero

My hero is not the sort 

I've read of in the books,

But a frail man in a wheelchair

Who's giving me the looks.

Knees shot up,

Bayonet in the arm,

Shrapnel in the head.

He says,

"I've got a bronze star,

a silver star,

for letting people shoot at me."

I also know he has three purple hearts

and 173 are dead.

My hero is the sort

I've read of in the books,

But now he's old and forgotten

His courage never waning.

Poetic Dementia

The Lord's sitting on a haystack laughing.

The bees look up, tilt their heads.

A farmer's afraid to put his hand near.

The Lord pets the bees.

The Lord is going to pick you up

And use you in a way you don't expect.

I know you love the Lord.

I know you love bees.

You can't swear around the bees, it upsets them.

Do you know what happens to your communication

When you say God damn it, God damn it?

It gets broken.

As a nurse I receive a lot of jumbled words from minds crazed by pain, drugs, or dementia.  Some of the words make vague sense, like a poem.  If there is already a poetic form which is a transcription of such altered mind states, then this is my attempt at one.  If not then here it begins.

Posted at Poets United Poetry Pantry #148.

Woods Not So Heavy

Down a road where spiderwort

Weaves a web around the woods

That swallow up the way

An abandoned turtle shell

Points in circles

And the weight of the world

Falls on the intruder who is lost

Until deep-rooted wonder

Displaces fear

And warnings given branch to branch

Transform to comforting chatter,

The woods not so heavy anymore.

Read All About It

Nine earthquakes shake state since early Tuesday morning
Severe weather possible Wednesday
Please join us for a renovation celebration

Cigarette makers send billions in payments to states
Honor what is sacred, quit commercial tobacco
How do you define 'best interest of a child?'

Norman man arrested in child's death
Man accused of running around naked in front of children
Dr. King is now accepting new pediatric patients

Alleged coon-dog killer collared
What government found in meat
Take our 90-day food challenge

Boston bombs said to be made from pressure cookers
Stress management, night guard help relieve bruxism
Photo of young victim Martin Richard now a symbol


A Found Poem taken from headlines and advertisements in the Talihina American, poteaudailynews.com, tulsaworld.com, and bostonglobe.com.

Abstruse

Abstractions of Civilization

grow a Tree

but fell the black oak

the white oak and

the red oak

to make Floors,

first floor Deep and

penthouse Towering Transcendent,

and as Words less particular

expand in number and meaning

Man climbs out of his Cradle

and ages Wise and Philosophical 

but there is a Grave that lies in wait,

for what Civilization has been able

to stand its Ground without

the Black Oak

the White Oak and

the Red Oak.

     This poem grows out of my epiphanic confusion brought on by reading the following from The Story of Civilization:  Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant.  ". . . Choctaw Indians had names for the black oak, the white oak and the red oak, but no name for oak, much less for tree . . . abstract terms seem to grow in a reciprocal relation of cause and effect with the development of thought; they become the tools of subtlety and the symbols of civilization."  But it seems to me that as civilization matures itself in abstractions, the ability to know the difference between an oak and a maple, much less between a black oak, a white oak, and a red oak, is civilization's dementia and ultimate demise.

Posted at Poets United Poetry Pantry #146.

Crataegus

Crataegus

A word

Impaled on my brain.

Crataegus

A name

For the family tree.

Crataegus

A rose

That drought could not quench.

Natural Selection

Where pondside edges dissipate

Into molecules of calm and space

And restful alertness supercedes 

The weariness of modern dramas

Natural selection

Ebbs and flows in every breath

And this is living.

Where edges are defined

Building towers to the skies

Sidewalks crack the bottom line

And from this ecological niche

A dandelion thrives

Reminding passersby

That nature's not a fragile mother.

Posted at Poets United Poetry Pantry #145.

Stages of Humor

Trying to catch a sunbeam
My little guy
Reaching for the shaft of light
Shining through a closed door
Chubby fingers grasping on emptiness
And giggling like only babies do.

My little genius
Philosopher to be
Giggling like only a teen can do
When left unattended for one minute
In a Hobby Lobby
Rearranging wooden letters
Painted in sparkling pastels
To spell the word "poop."

Proud I am he showed restraint
Having imagined some other word
But saying to himself,
"Well, that's too vulgar
For there are little kids here,
And they will think 'poop' is funny."

Map Turtle

Map turtle
Show me the way
To stretch out my neck
For a good cause
Bearing the weight
Of my own small world
Yet knowing there is time
To set aside
That never-ending task
For time to bask.

Henbit and Chickweed

If henbit could cluck

And chickweed could chirp

Then green-combed roosters

In fine flowered finery

Would be to spring

What their avian counterparts are today:

Sound settings to wake people up

The good old fashioned way.

For few avian patriarchs

See enough light of day

To remember their job to greet it,

Subsisting as they do in free-range factories

To feed cloned appetites.

If henbit could cluck

And chickweed could chirp

Would they spread gloom and doom gossip

Of a weed killer come to judge the earth?

Fool

Damned if I am
Damned if I ain't
The fool for the day.

Not wanting to draw down
The attention of the gods
I didn't say my prayers.


But there's freedom in knowing I am
Damned if I do
Damned if I don't.

A Tranquility of Eternity

No need to worry.

When clover sparkles with rain,

Tranquility reigns.

No need to hurry.

When flowers reach for the sun,

Eternity waits.

Of Doves and Buzzards

                                                     Of doves and buzzards

                                                      There are pairs

But the lone coyote

Does not have the cares

That paired ones share

And keeps more distance

Not having wings to fly away

To begin with.

But of doves and buzzards

With voice of night

The lone coyote sings

                                                     Broadcasting plaintive plight

                                                       Unanswered.

Salty Eternity

From the winged elm efflorescence

A cardinal's song is born

And flies to heart grown numb with noise

And makes it feel again.

And much of trouble, more of pain

Pulses through its core

Like bitter water sweetened

Through deep artesian well.

And one tear overflowing

Is all the elm will need

To remember a timeworn taste

Of a salty eternity.

Epitaph to a Tree

Lay down arms

And sleep the good fight

Long live the tree.

Out On a Limb

We don't mind when you go out on a limb

To make us laugh.

We don't mind when you go out on a limb

To help us.

We don't even mind when you go way out

To annoy us,

Because you are the Annoyasaurus.

But no more going out on a limb!

Angst Revisited

Teen angst penciled

by my son . . .

I am impressed,

but wonder where it comes from . . .

Then I remember

those dangerous formative days . . .

And know not all my angst

has left me.

Eyes of March

The eye of Spica

Star of Virgo

The eye of Josiah

Hiding, his bath to forgo

The eye of Acorn

Soprano of burro concerto

The eye of my daughter

Hears souls crescendo

The eye of her camera

Finds mementos. 

Rain AND Roof

L ike
A ll
U biquitous
G ivens
H omeless
T ears
E viscerate
R ationality




                                                                                    U ntil 
N o
D elusions
E vade
R eality

R ain
A nswers
F ace,
T ickles
E vening
R aftered
S ky




L aughter
U nder
R afters
E ntertains
D eliverance

L aughter
U nder
R afters
E ntices
S olemnity



Posted at Poets United Poetry Pantry #141

Hades' Flower

Like meat cured
Packaged and preserved
Labeled 100%
Of what it is not
You are cured
Only there is no cure
Only preservation
Postponing the ultimate
Reservation made by worms
As recorded in Job
One wholly at ease and quiet
And one in the bitterness of his soul
Alike in the dust these lie
And the worms taste both
These states of mind.

 

This forgotten ground

The shape of this mound

Where Hades' flower blooms

A feast for the eyes

A cure for winter's gloom and doom

Despite knowing another banquet

Here was held

Sweet dirt the crumbs

That nourish life

And cynicism.

Prompted by Verse First ~ The Cure at Poets United.

Releasing Daffodils

Photo by Falls From Tree

Geometry in the moment

In my child's mind grasped

Enlightens both of us

She finds meaning

In the measure of the earth

And I behold knowledge bloom

Upon her face 

Made even more beautiful

Like a winter landscape

Releasing daffodils and catching suns

Upon my face

Dried grasses that could start a fire

Enough to keep us warm

Through any winter.

Posted at Poets United Poetry Pantry #140

Lamb on the Lam

Twenty minutes on the clock
The face of my free spirit
Against the window pain
Of my working soul
Looking out to the forest
Through subjected eyes
Would jump through the pane
And frolic like a spring lamb
But the wolves of hunger
Snarl at dreams on the lam
And keep me punching in
And punching out
Penned inside a body
Enslaved by brick walls.

Stay the Night

56 degrees is a thaw of heart
To tree frogs getting an early start
Sighing over shiny water
Waiting for a moonlit lover.

Fog hovers near the river
Slowly dancing with her giver
Long hair curling with the music
Flowing through the undercurrent.

The sun unwilling to lose this sight
Holds on to both the edges of tonight
Onto the east the moon shines over
Onto the west the pink spreads under.

Into this glory I am cast
Would this mud could hold me fast
But on I trudge about my business
Far removed from the art of living.

Scamps and Jesus

From thoroughbred racehorses to donkeys!

Go figure.

From enhanced excitement and frantic frustration

To funny fiascoes and eclectic emotions.

Is this indicative of a downhill slide on the ladder of life?

I think not.

Here I might find tranquility,

Find joy,

Find Jesus.

By Trudy Jo Watkins

Old Lady of the Woods

Bright and Empty Space

The white page is the light

When I have nothing left to say

The black letters

Little birds that fly away

The two together bound

Of gentler thoughts made

A cage of unruliness

Where fears are played

Until submitted to paper

Perched in sleep

Silenced prayers

My soul to keep

My fingers turn another page

The light is bright

And empty space

Sunflower

one

sun

a world

united

living cohesion

an expansion of creation

wave of wonder to concretion from a word spoken

patterned paternity in maternal matrix of hanging gardens hinged by spacetime

seen in single spiraling galaxy of sunflower seeded Fibonacci sequence pollinating one honey drone's ancestral tree

Prompted by Verse First ~ Fibonacci Poems at Poets United and for love of numbers.

Inside the Hourglass

Time heals all wounds

But mortal ones.

Immortal ones

transcend time

Repeating the beating

Until karmic pawn released.

For Love of Place

For love of place
Where a baby garter snake consumes an earthworm
Where the newt and desert toad wrestle and roll
Where the Triops is awakened by rain
Where the sunflower and globemallow grow
Where the maligned thistle hosts hummingbirds
And ladybugs and twenty other species
Where mated ravens swoon from the sky
Where the coyotes raise pups in the gulch
Where packrats construct prickly pear barricades
Where the chickens held their own free range
Where the bobcat pads
Where potatoes and carrots grew sweet in mountain dirt
Where a house of freedom was built
Where thunder rocked the roof
Where the stars tell stories
Where silence speaks
Where memories sleep and time forgets us
Where was our home
For love of place.

Anaphora

The American Nightmare

The American nightmare
Begins with a dream
And ends with foreclosure

Is a beautiful mind
Sent to school
For a dumbing down

Is a horn of plenty
Made of nothing
But corn

Is purchased
With the wages
Of two or three jobs

But that is okay
We have always been
Hard workers

From the time
We were captured
Or indentured

And not much has changed
We still have it made
In our first world

Though most everything
Is now made
In China

Where I would venture
To compare blades they use
With the ones they sold me

In American markets
Of mediocrity
And planned obsolescence

Where the trash piles up
And overflows landfills
Where nothing can grow

Polluted plots
Not fit to build
A home on.

Contents Under Pressure

They are but balloons

Inflated with anger

Afloat with bloated indignation.

Would they could pop and spew

Foul contents on he who holds their strings,

Except that I am caught in the middle

Juggling the bedpans and emesis basins.

Black Wing Conspiracy

Why ravens are not here I do not know.
The crows reside in Oklahoma
Aloof avian shadows
Curious but pretending not to notice,
Not like the bumptious ravens
Who introduce themselves
Dropping snowballs on your head.

Reserved and studiously shy
Crows are harder to get to know
But I will try like a raven.
For it is my code to crack
This interspecies lack
Of communication.

My Rosetta Stone
A shiny polished rock
Thus far deciphered
Reveals, I am certain,
That a family of ravens
Is not an unkindness;
A clan of crows
Is not a murder.

At least not of me,
For a raven saved my life one day
Or marked me for another world.
What a crow one day
Will say or do . . .
My soul awaits.

A Racehorse, A Barn Owl, and I

Fog descended on the track

In early morning deviation from the delta

Sudden coming with galloping hooves

Enveloping eardrums with equine pounding 

As all other sounds were muffled by gray mist

And my own quickened heart beat

As vision obscured without warning

And ground underneath disappeared in cloud

And a racehorse and rider took flight

At the exact moment a barn owl did alight

On the rail

Our only tie to earth that for a moment

A racehorse, a barn owl, and I left behind.

Bruneulogy

My dog is dead

By senility led

To wait for me in the road.

My lightened load

Not having to put him down

Does not relieve soul's frown 

Or cause hope to bloom

In this morning gloom

That in deafness he didn't see

That he soon would not be

Waiting longer for me there,

But in another place somewhere.

And if my best friend ain't there,

I don't need to go.

           

The Crone Knows

The maiden does not know
What she does not remember,
But when she recognizes in a man
His power to move the earth
Out from under her feet
It begins to come back to her.
Maiden, mother, crone.

The mother known
Does not have time to remember
For she is consumed with
The procreation of children,
An artistic madness to produce
Works of art in her own image.
Maiden, mother, crone.

Children grown with children of their own
With children of their own
The crone knows
And babbles incomprehensible mysteries
Into the void of understanding
Between her and her caretakers
Who mistake her malady
For the dementia of old age.
Maiden, mother, crone.

Now

It comes
One last breath
And does not remember
Birth, the first breath taken,
Or all the breaths in between.
It takes us from breath to breath
Whether we notice or not and teaches us
From cradle to grave there is nothing to learn,
For knowing is neither created nor made it just is
The weft and warp of worlds woven or unwound around bodies.


Prompted by Verse First ~ One Word At A Time at Poets United.

Submission

Waiting for a god to speak in still small voice,
A booming dirge of angelic warning!
To a soul of indecision left to choice,
Waiting for a god to speak in still small voice,
Any direction given is a cause to rejoice.
Freedom of will begins with mourning
Waiting for a god to speak in still small voice
A booming dirge of angelic warning.


Submission, a triolet.
Shared in the Poetry Pantry.

Duir Way

This door to the west

Might leave me refreshed

Or dead in my tracks

If wisdom attacks

In form of the serpent

Before I repent

But to just walk this ley line

I would lay my all on the line

And believe it all for the best

To seek this sweet rest

And be reborn not in the future

But in the past

Having come the full circle

At last.

Rumex acetosella, Where the People Are

I searched for you

Half the morning

And in frustration asked

The question in my mind

"Where are you?"

And you replied

"Where the people are"

And sure enough

Sheep sorrel

Your tendency to domestication

Like your namesake

Shined through this wilderness

And by a campfire ring of rocks

I found you

Clinging to disturbed soil

Of where your people trod.

Oxalis stricta and I

Potted with peace lily

You

Yellow wood sorrel

Wild weed sowed

Sunny in windowsill

Reaching skyward 

Erect with pickle pods

I

From chaos

Escaped to cafeteria

And iceberg lettuce

Flavorless 

Imagining how 

We two souls

Without the confines

Of your pot

And my sterilized halls

Would have room to grow

You

Enough to share your flavor

With my salad and

I

To resonate your gift

Of freedom to the sky

But like a good little shamrock

You will stay on your sill

And when the sun sets

Fold your heart felt leaves in sleep

And I will clock out

And go home without you.

Reflecting on a Moment

Riding shotgun again with my brother,
Wind blows hair on my face to smother.

The hot rod's candy-apple-red paint
Makes me shiver and feel faint.

The rumble of the powerful motor
Makes me thankful it's not yet over.

But he's 66 and I'm 69 years
The nostalgic beauty is all in the tears.


By Old Lady of the Woods
Trudy Jo Watkins

Merry Mint and Savory

Between January gloom
And March bloom
Is February
A time to jump the gun
Get a head start on spring
And outrun all that is sedentary
For no false start here
In any freezing year
Can diminish my merry
Mint and savory
Ice palace of thawing hope.

Memories

some are cold and blue
the proteins formed
crystallized points
never forgotten
slept upon over time
an acupressure bed
of stored energy
released recuperatively




Prompted by Verse First ~ Icy at Poets United.

"They will kill me . . . "

The dissonance of a political dissident
Sounded cliche
To my United States of American
Ears accustomed to hearing,
"My dad will kill me if he finds out"
And other idioms of death
Thrown about meaninglessly.

In my defense I did not know he was
Dissident; he was just a groom.
He was not just another Mexican.
But all those countries south,
To the average United States of American,
Are the same.
Even Guatemala in the 1980s.

When Immigration went on raids,
Carlos was afraid.
He always said,
"They will kill me if I go back."
How cliche.
When Carlos was deported,
We never heard from him again.

     **     **     **     **

History is the current event
Of yesterday
Within your comfort zone.
It is easier to take sides with the dead.
They don't require your helping hand
To pull them from a grave.
Your hands remain clean, not bloodied.

Your mental assent to their cause
Does not demand your personal descent
Into terror.
You can bury your head in the
Sands of history
And leave it there,
Safe from the sandstorm around you.

Know your history;
Escape the condemnation of
Repeating it.
Know that no one sits on the sidelines
Of its making.
Active or passive,
We all have blood on our hands.

Colors Learned in Preschool

The pigs,
That's what we called them,
Walked right in to wake me up
From my preschool nap.

The teacher,
She liked orange
Because it is a friendly color,
Chewed them up like a BLT.

Despite her indigestion
The pigs took me out
To the sidewalk by the green grass
For questioning.

They squatted in front of me.
It didn't stop my terror.
I'm pretty sure it tied my tongue.
Really, what could I have said?

Little white girl in a black neighborhood
Did not understand
Then
What the problem was.  Is?

But I knew it had something to do with
The Twinkies.

My mom's friend was black,
You see, another color.
He looked suspicious
Picking up a brat like me.

He was pretty cool,
In retrospect,
Offered me a shiny red apple
Like First Lady Obama would.

But there were other colors
On the shelves
At my eye level
Like bright spongy yellow.

And I do remember throwing a fit.
And I do remember getting snatched
Up into his arms
With neither the red nor yellow.

I'm glad I wasn't there
When the black and white,
How ironic,
Cars surrounded him.

But I was taking a nap,
Because after the parade
He took me to school
And I fell asleep after Sesame Street.

Today I read Blue Ribbon owners
Will bid on Twinkies
And Ding Dongs
And other artificial colors.

Maybe I will drink their cheap beer
And remember an old friend.
I could do that.
But I won't eat a Twinkie.

In Whose Image Build We Fences?

If I were homeless,
I would find a big box.

If I had an old car,
I would roll up the window.

If I were a subdivider,
I would fence my yard in privacy.

If I were a rancher,
I would use barbed wire.

If I were an emperor,
I would build of blood and bone a wall.

If I were a god,
I would warp time and space to keep me in and you out.

But if I were One,
I would not want any fences.


Prompted by Verse First at Poets United.

Shut Up

It doesn't matter.

I don't care.

I haven't the heart.

Just leave it there :]

That's enough.

It will pass.

It's not enough.

It never lasts :]

Just walk away.

There's nothing there.

I don't matter.

It doesn't care.

One Hundredth Monkey

It is written that poetry and mathematics

Are incompatible areas of study.

On what planet?

The universe and all that is in it

Is written in the letters of numbers,

From laws of motion and gravity 

Holding earth together

To the golden mean of the human body.

This language in the hands of a poet

Would create an awesome poem

And it might sound like a composition

By Bach or MozArt 

Read by the voice of Aslan

Singing worlds together.

Borodin the chemist composer

Of symphonic poem

Was not an oxymoron

More renaissance man

Like Leonardo

Our planet needs more of.

A think tank of them

Might achieve

World peace and unobtainium.

On what planet?

There will always be a Roman soldier

To effect the death of Archimedes,

He who wrote only one poem.

There will always be a fanatic mob

To scrape off the skin and

Beat down the likes of Hypatia.

There will always be a library

Set on fire burning answers

To our numerological fate.

But one day there will be

The One-Hundredth Monkey of our race.

Aelfbee

I never knew my ears were odd

Because they came to points like no one else's

Until I went to school for public teasings

As if I were human, but of some other species.

So when I was eleven

I escaped in books of fantasy

And there met creatures elven

And others even more fantastical.

Still I could not shake the stigma

Of being different

And wished my pointed ears away.

Half granted, an ear ripped off one day.

And now I look a bit Van Gogh-ish

With a wish that one ear left

Is enough to grant me passage

Aboard a ship that's sailing west.

Though no longer in a hurry to board her

To lands far, far away

For I've been given offspring here

Who are just as weird as me.

For Nigh a Millennium

Another sestina . . . 

. . . for Eleanor of Aquitaine . . .

. . . my 25th great grandmother according to Mormon mythology and numerical probability.  This is my first attempt at writing a sestina, but not the first sestina written of one beloved by troubadours.

I

Latin and literature entrained her mind;

Music and poetry bound the book of her heart.

Fearless on the hunt, with horse become one,

With imprinted hawk aloft her screeching soul.

A girl growing like a rose a beautiful body;

Blossoming, in a world of men, with thorns and spirit.

II

This granddaughter of a Dangerose spirit

And a warring troubadour's mind

Tempted princes with her lustrous body,

Captured from crusading knights their collective heart,

And released the doves from a singing serf's soul.

And the songs sung of her were more than one.

III

Of kings she married more than one:

Wearied of the first for his weak spirit,

Poor leadership, and ill-prepared monk's soul;

Recognized in the second an ambitious mind

To secure her land and royal heart.

Gave to both the garden of her body.

IV

She bore and birthed ten babies from her body

And proved to be a privileged fecund one,

Yet still learned to bear a mother's broken heart,

Though it never broke her queenly spirit.

And when her king made sport with ones of lesser mind,

She became the keeper of her own soul.

V

And thus her king could not condemn her soul,

Though for sixteen years he imprisoned her body.

Nor could he prevent memories of music refreshing her mind

And, because her keep was not a windowless one,

Her soaring with falcons from the aerie of her spirit.

And as queen mother she never questioned the choices of her heart.

VI

She outlived the choices of her heart

And retreated as an old soul

To an abbey to purify her spirit

And free it from her aging body

And teach it to fly to the one

Who gave it and all along enlightened her mind.

VII

For nigh a millennium her soul has flown her body.

For nigh a millennium her heart not that of an entombed one.

For nigh a millennium her spirit inspiring the poetic mind.

Mother Goose OULIPO

I have wanted to live
Under a hill
Earth sheltered
Bermed and of
Constant temperature.
So it is logical for me
To play OULIPO
With Mother Goose's old
WOMAN under a HILL.
So I tried N + 7.
It gave:

There was an old WORD
Lived under a HIPPOPOTAMUS;
And if she's not gone,
She lives there still.

Hmm.  So I tried N + 7
On Edward Lear's nonsense.
Lear's nonsense made more sense.

So I went back to the HILL
In my paperback dictionary
Figuring it is more a game
Of literary potential
Than structured chaos
So I tweaked N + 7
And got:

There was an old WORD
Lived under a HINT;
And if she's not gone,
She lives there still.

And that to me
Is more satisfying.