MARRIAGE

Poets United has morphed into
Poets and Storytellers, thanks to
the efforts of Rosemary Nissen-Wade
and Megaly Guerrero.  Today, for
Writers Pantry #3, I offer a snippet
on marriage.
Submitted to Poets and Storytellers
January 10,  2020
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It had always been there, the moustache, from the day she first met him in the parking lot of the apartment building where she’d just moved.  So dapper, with the touch of gray at his temples and the pencil-thin, carefully trimmed moustache.  She was immediately enamored.  Soon they were dating, and in seven short months they were married.   Life proceeded at a rapid pace, and now they were in a new home with two children.

One day she suddenly wondered just what he’d look like without his moustache.  And so, she began her campaign to encourage him to shave it off.  He was resistant for some time, but eventually, in the habit of all husbands seeking relief from a determined wife, one day he divested himself of that bit of hirsute magic that had attracted her in the first place.

He appeared at the breakfast table, a stranger with a naked upper lip.  Oh sure, the distinguished gray was still at the temples, but something important was missing.   She placed before him, as she had done every day for five years, two eggs sunny side up, toast and crisp bacon.   She poured his coffee and quietly remarked, “Thank you, dear.  You can grow it back now.”

SOLILOQUY

Frank has asked us to Meet at the Bar
and consider the act of soliloquy at
DVerse.  Since I am in the throes of
relocating, I’m spending a lot of time in
soliloquy as I sort and pack. 
Submitted to dVerse
January 10, 2020
*******************

Sorting out the yesterdays
To make room for tomorrow
Packing up the joys
Leaving all the sorrow

Scattered photographs and memories
Like mismatched sox
How do you gather memories
And put them in a box.

Life is lived in chapters
Battles fought and lessons learned
Along the way a life well lived
As onward  pages turned

Now this, the final chapter
With moments yet to text
May it be long and joyful
Followed by what comes next!

WORRY

Mish presents an interesting challenge for
Poetics today at dVerse.  Reach for a book
at hand, read the last one or two lines, and
let them be your muse. Below is my line
and source:
“Quite soon it was only a speck that vanished in the distance”

Out Of The Deeps by John Wyndham

Submitted to dVerse
January 8, 2020
*************

Each night, as soon as my head hits the pillow, worries come marching one by one.  Larger than life, each seems insurmountable and takes its place beside others of equal enormity, until they form a chorus of what ifs and how tos accompanied by crashing cymbals of I can’t, I won’r, and I didn’t.  A swirling miasma of unknown calamities overtakes me, like a non-swimmer in deep water.  A wise man once accused me of  pole vaulting over mouse droppings and advised me “Consider if it will be a worry next year at this time”.  Wise advice, easier said than done; but words I repeat to myself as I consider each worry.  If I’m able to apply the theory, quite soon each is only a speck vanished in the distance.  Oh joy!  What freedom.  Zzzzzzzzz

sleep is slow to come
worry worry go away
you'll be gone one future day

ROAREFIED

Quadrille Monday at dVerse
The key word is ROAR, and
we're limited to 44 words. I used
to have a mighty roar, but it seems
greatly reduced of late.
Submitted to dVerse
January 14, 2020
***************

My ROAR has become a whimper
My energy is spent
I’m left cowering in a corner
Wondering where it went   

  

I’m moving!  Oh heaven help me
I am finding the going rough
Lost in the ROARefied dilemma of
WHAT TO DO WITH  MY STUFF!   

CYBERLAND

Open Link #257 at dVerse
When suddenly our cyber connections
fail to take us to the magic land of
"the net" chaos reigns supreme.
Here are my thoughts about that.
Submitted to dVerse Open Link
Night.
January 9, 2020

*****************
The day was dark as any could get
We couldn’t get onto the internet
Our iPad, laptop, HP and Uverse
Were all beset by a dreadful curse.
Nothing to do but sit and doodle,
Hopelessly lost without benefit of Google
We’re pitiful orphans that fate forsook
Unable to access our friends on Facebook
We just keep mumbling, “what to do, what to do”
We know we have e-mail, but it’s all on Yahoo.
We just stare blankly, saying “why, oh why”
Deep in despair without our wi-fi.
If we survive ‘til tomorrow, my son, his wife and me
We look to a hero from AT |&T
Hopefully he’ll see our plight is quite tragic
And work some wonderful, mysterious magic.
We await his arrival with anticipation
Expecting an end to this cyber isolation,
And this feeling we have that minute by minute
The world’s going on, and we’re not in it!

PURELY ELEMENTAL

At dVerse, Sarah has asked us to
write a poem inspired by the elements.
Here’s my tongue-in-cheek response.
Submitted to dVerse
January 7, 2020
**************

Hydrogen, helium, lithium and sulfur
went out for a walk one day
and on their way they encountered
copper, gallium and zinc

followed in close succession
by arsenic, krypton and rubidium
it’s said they nodded as they passed by
quite compatibly,  I think

What marks this passage, you ask
which is seemingly incidental
and I reply, as you might expect
it’s purely elemental. 

ALPHA AND OMEGA

Haibun Monday at dVerse, and we're
challenged to write a haibun on "beginning… again"
I am reminded of a childhood song we used
to sing on the school bus ...
"I knew a man named Michael Finnegan
He grew whiskers on his chin again
Along came a wind and blew them in again
Poor old Michael Finnegan begin again"….and it
would be repeated endlessly!
Presented to dVerse
January 6, 2020
***************

It has been a winter of sorrows and farewells.  It’s
difficult to think of beginnings when reeling
from three funerals and the overwhelming feeling
that the pieces of my life are falling away. Yet each
day brings a beginning…granted a beginning of life altered
by loss of familiar voices and dear faces, but a beginning
to prepare for move into a new home in Spring, the
joy of watching the lives of youngsters in the family
as their lives unfold,  and the blessed assurance that
Spring will come again. 

bleakness of winter
a time to anticipate
Spring’s new beginning