THANKSGIVING

 It's Haibun Monday at dVerse, and Frank has asked us to consider in these troubled times those things for which we are grateful.  Submitted to dVerse, November 22, 2021.

My grandfather was a man of small stature, usually wearing  bib overalls.  His forbears founded the first Methodist church in the settlement just north of the Ohio not many years after the Revolution.  Each succeeding generation lived simply, working hard to scrape a living from the land.  Grandpa bowed his head each day at supper, and thanked his God for simple things -- food for sustenance, weather for his crops, the roof over his head, and his family.  I’m grateful I learned from him that these simple things are truly the necessities of life.  All the rest is detritus, the miscellaneous claptrap we think we need today, the embellishments of the necessities.  

grandpa had it right

we just need the basic stuff

giving thanks for enough

BEWARE

THE SUMDAY MUSE #178 

BEWARE

behind the façade of rust and peeling paint

chicanery and debauchery 

gambol with evil 

waiting….

for those who would open the door

AN ORDINARY MAN

FRIDAY WRITINGS~~ The following prose reflects my thoughts at the funeral service of my niece's husband in a neighboring state. Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United, November 19, 2021. ********************

He grew up in a small town in a family of ordinary means.  He and his two brothers fished, played ball, and  honored their parents.  After school, he joined the Marines and served for four years.  He returned to his small town, and made his living as a carpenter, known for his skill in cabinetry.  He married and he and his wife settled at the edge of a small town where they raised two sons, of whom, he was extremely proud.  He was a kind man with many friends in his small town, always willing to lend a helping hand.   He led his life in an ordinary way, and when the years settled upon him, he became a beloved grandfather, taking great joy in time spent with his grandchildren.  

When his time came, he fought cancer to the end, and lost his battle at home with those he loved around him.  At his funeral service, a stream of family and acquaintances paid respect, most having a story of some kindness he had extended  them.  He’ll lie at rest in the cemetery on the hill overlooking a bend of little Rook’s Creek, where the cold November wind scatters the golden leaves of the aspen planted on my brother’s grave long ago. far from a city of any size, far from busy highways and high rises. 

 An ordinary man. Well loved.  A life well lived.  

QUOTH THE BARD

Quadrille 140 and we're given the word "fair" for our poem of exactly 44 words.   Submitted to dVerse, November 15, 2021. 

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To be or not to be

In words of the bard

We find  the being

     Is inordinately hard     

We give our best 

All we can bear 

But obstacles appear

      It doesn’t seem fair       

All’s fair in love and war

Says the bard, what’s more

THE CONSOLE RADIO

POETICS TUESDAY  and Laura asks us to take a page from our memory as basis for our poem.  I could not seem to get my memory in poem form, so I offer it in prose, still so vivid in my memory.  Submitted to dVerse 11/10-21.

 

Prominent in my memory is the console 

radio that sat by my father’s rocking chair. 

I remember December, 1941, when it brought

somber news of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

I remember the voice of Gabriel Heater as he

reported each evening on the battles “of our

boys” as World War II progressed.  I sat beside  

it, an old blackboard across the arms of

father’s chair for my desk as I did homework

and listened to the soap operas of the day. such as

“Our Gal Sunday”, a little girl from a mining town

in the West who tried to find happiness married to a 

wealthy and titled Englishman”. That radio is

part of the fabric of my memories growing up

during World War ii.

TECHNOWAR

 PROSERY MONDAY,   Merril has issued the challenge to write our prosery of EXACTLY 144 words to include the following line from Adrienne Rich's poem "Planetarium" -- "I am bombarded  yet I stand".  Since software changes are afoot, I've issued a warning prosery.. Submitted to dVerse, Nocember 8, 2021.

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                                                              TECHNOWAR

Recently I read  Windows 11 is about to be released upon us. Simultaneously,  Yahoo e-mail is giving me a daily “Update Now”.  This means somewhere in some techno-den  the geeks lurk, busily planning to make changes proving they are worth their exorbitant salaries, and it is about to happen in a double dose.--one from Microsoft and one from Yahoo. In my experience these changes are thrust upon us,  the unwitting trouble-shooters,  to help them sort out the kinks. “I am bombarded, yet I stand” to the very last minute with my Windows 10 and my current Yahoo e-mail.  I’ve already seen their nasty little footprints when my mouse suddenly converted itself from single-click to double-click and began to respond tantamount to rollerskating in peanut butter. After a couple of weeks this seems to have mysteriously corrected itself.  Don your flak trousers, friends, change is coming.  

BROKEN

THE SUNDAY MUSE #185

BROKEN

broken glass, broken vows, broken heart

some things are cursed from the start

like translucent wing of dragonfly

speeding unknowing into hurricane sky

delicate particles cast asunder

lost in lightning, wind and thunder

like the shattered glass, translucent

crystalline, colorless, pallucid.

clear the shambles, exorcise

and vow, like Phoenix, again to rise