3WW: Darkness, Patronize, Weaken

The last couple weeks
have been a darkness

watching my mom
weaken day by day.

Tomorrow, I’ll be going
to Florida to care

for her for a week.
That’s twice in the last

few days that I had to patronize
Direct Air for plane tickets.

The first time was for her
and the nice girl behind

the counter upgraded her
to first class and let me

go through security
to stay with her

until boarding time.
The second was for me.

So, poetry has been
far from my mind.

I miss it. So, right now
I’m going to take

my computer outside
and sit on the porch

and read what everyone
else has written.

Random Words for TOP: Mice, rust storm, blinking lights

Totally Optional Prompts suggested we use the following words in a poem. I managed 3 out of 4: black mice, durien sherbet, a rust storm. blinking lights


I peek
out my bedroom
window
to see his back-up
lights blink on
and his truck
leave the driveway

before getting
out of bed
and turning
on my computer,
a blue sun
in the middle
of the foggy
morning.

Then words
like black mice
scurry across
my screen

and the rust storm
of dry regret
becomes dust

that I can blow
away with the click
of a key

or save
as a document
of a mistake
disappearing
in red taillights
through the gray mist.

ABC Wednesday: Z

It Begins with Z

I can’t resist
a dare.

It’s 1962
and I’m thirteen
at 4-H camp
in Allenstown, NH.

Competition night.
Another girl
from my hometown
challenges anyone

to say the alphabet
backwards. No one
can do it so she wins.

Fast forward one year.
The same girl
offers the same
challenge.

I’ve been practicing
all year and am ready,
“ZYXWVUTSRQ
PONMLKJIHGF

EDCBA!”
My turn to win.
The other girl
sulks back to her seat.

3WW: Drip, Hypnotic, Sulk

Berlin High School Junior Prom 1966

My Prom date
was such a drip.

Tall, skinny, and blond,
not even cute.

Tongue-tied and sweaty
he held me loosely

while we danced
to horrible band music

that floated around us
in cracked notes

then got stuck in tissue-
paper roses.

His eyes were hypnotic
in their blue blankness

and zombie-like I followed
his shuffling steps

all that boring night,
all the way to 11 o’clock

when we left and went
to his nerdy friend’s party

where there wasn’t even
any booze. On the way home

I sat in the cloud of my pink
gown sulking because

this long-anticipated night
had turned out to be as flavorless

as water. I don’t even
remember his name.

Monday Poetry Train: I Saw Time

I saw time
this July morning
on I 95
between Saco
and Biddeford, Maine.

In the middle
of a bank
of lavender clover,
a clump of brown-eyed-susans

staring at me
through autumn
eyes.

I rolled
my window
up against
the chill.

Fireworks for TOP

I went to ReadWritePoem and used their prompt generator to get 5 five words that I hoped I could produce some sparks with: willow, pell-mell, swerve, pleat, cedar. It didn't really work all that well, but this is what I came up with, anyway.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As I swerve
into my sixties,
I can feel the steering
wheel of my life
shuddering.

The scenery
is changing:
leaves falling off
the weeping willows,
cedars bending over.

The road feels like
it is pleated, now.
I bounce along,
hoping I never have to
shift into Park.

3WW: Gloom, Kneel, Transparent

In Spite of the Gloom

Oak leaves
as big as hands
shine as if they’d
been painted
with polyurethane,

Fog, transparent
enough to see through,
settles like kneeling
parishioners in the pews
of pine trees.

I sit
inside the yellow sun
of our camper
typing letters
into words,

linking words
into sentences,
then watch as they
braid themselves
into this poem.

Weather for TOP

I hear the Morse Code
of raindrops
on the roof
of our camper

tapping out a secret
message. To my husband
it says, “No fishing for you!”
To vacationers

here on the coast of Maine
it says, “Too bad you spent
all that money for this.”
But to me it says,

“Time to curl up
with Bel Canto and read,
time to write a poem,
time to sip a glass

of merlot and feel
the velvet spread
like the fog draping
the trees in gossamer.

3WW: Sweet, Yearn, Collapse

My brain has been on vacation! Sometimes I just need a break. Here's a little cinquain.


When I Yearn

Barefoot
I walk along
the mirror of low tide.
The problems of my day collapse.
Sweet peace.