Mother on Notebook Paper

Who is this a picture of?

This hollow soul is me.

There's room for God

And room for love,

But grief has hallowed out the eyes

The ghosts to see,

And tea too strong, philosophy,

has sallowed me this way.

How can it be?  Who sees me thus?

On fallow field of notebook paper grew a mother,

Some secrets can't be kept.

He said, "I was just doodling,

And it ended up like you."

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.

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."

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.

Count Dooku's Haiku

Five syllables here.

Seven syllables are here.

What should I put here?

     We, a free-versed family, will learn rhyming form and meter and walk across our pages with lithe poetic feet.  Today we tackle the haiku, because it is short and fits the attention spans of my tween, teen, and aging mother.  My son quick in wit and to get it over with gives us all three lines, the third to match the first.  

     My mother says, "At least it has 5-7-5 syllables, so many I read don't, but maybe I was reading a dooku or iku or sinku or tanku."

     I laughing announce, "Very well, but we don't have a leap of thought."

     My son thinks it, but my daughter's tongue jumps the gap first.  She says, "What should I put here?"

     We're done.  It's raining.  We will now watch Star Wars, again.  But we still don't have a title, so I say, "Let's call it Count Dooku's Haiku."  And now finished we are and rather proud of our creation; it took four of us to do it.  

Endless Winter

      I'm running towards
      The edge of winter.
      I see my goal
      Oh, so close at hand.
      I spring to it
      The edge of summer.
      I slip and fall
      Back into winter.

 By Me I Am, And Me Alone

Haiku Oklahoma

Inspired by Poets United "I Wish I'd Written This" (about Kobayashi Issa) and by the holiday - a day off for all of us.  The holiday haiku assignment for us:  

On this holiday

Think seventeen syllables

Then go out and play.

The sooner to ride

My daugther did not delay

First gave seventeen:

"Take a walk in woods

Feel the breeze, see beauty, life,

Then see a dirt road."

My son not outdone

And to return to sketchbook

Gave the following:

"Haikus are poems.

They are very short and brief.

Haikus have meaning."

Five seconds to write,

But they did participate

And effort is praised.

And now four are mine

For Issa, Nature and her

Humans placed therewith:

1

 Honey locust lives;

Drought deals death to elm and oak.

Now more flat tires.

2
Osage oranges to
Gather, winter, mash, and grow
Living fence for us.

3
My hair freed from comb
Carried by wind to next spring
Woven in birds' nests.

4

Rosin, horsehair, wood

Vibrations flow through our hands.

Music in the woods.

                                               

Dead Knight on Notebook Paper

by Haliatuslupus

Son, you and I, we obsess.

Vacant eyes.

Last breath.

My cloak of time is torn.

Tattered.

Patched.

Stitched back together.

Game face on.

I take a pulse.

The second hand ticks backward in my hand.

Now what am I supposed to do with that?

Game face on.

I use the clock on the wall.

Did I ever tell you 

The Namesake

was a knight?

I walked a perennial parapet

Waiting for his return.

Your knight was slain

In Home Economics

on notebook paper

with a colored pencil,

cooking, and sewing.

Maybe your knight and my knight

Are the same

And he has sent me a message.

He has laid down his weapons

And waits for my hand.

But he will have to wait.

Son, you and I,

Must obsess
With
Life.

Boys Will Be Boys

PhotoChop by little sister.

Here is my poem for today.

Yes, I know, it is cliché,

But 

Boys Will Be Boys.