Sunday Gray Blue

Sunday blues
They drag me
down
My pale heart
Still grieving
Gray skies
Reveal late
Summer's lie
My soul since
Ceased
believing
Window sweat
Draws me close
But leaves
My fingers
seething
My mind
Sensed warmth
Was still in sight
But the
Sun
Is so
Deceiving

Get There...A Journey in Flight

Flying has its ups and downs
A trite statement
One might say
From ground to air
And back to ground
Balance barely
Kept at bay
While passengers
Flip through magazines
I scour my carry-on
For Dramamine
Yes, flight's an invention
Too dizzying for words
If not for desirous destinations
Flying would be strictly
For the birds

Exclamation!!!!

An unexpected consternation
The source of much perturbation
Adds complication
To troublesome translation
My hope for the nation
An abrupt end
To multiple and mixed
Punctuation

My Right Brained Adventure

Once in a while
My mind drifts off
From this
Chaotic world
To a place
Where all of your
Yesterdays
Are still
Ahead of you
And all of your
Tomorrows are todays

Where your
Dreams
Are Reality
Or
As you
Wish

Your decisions
Delayed
With no
Consequence
Right brain
Relinquishes
Its Self defense
Paying no mind
To all that is unsure
It drifts
Willingly
Into the next
Adventure

#message

Botched
Bungled
Beat up
Bashed

An autocorrect here
A misspeak there

Walking the line
Walking back in time

The message stays there
No matter how unclear

Swallowing
Is hard
When your
Tag
Has been
Hashed

Just Around the Corner from the Light of Day

Oh data
My data

Stuck in
Freeze frame
Each time
The same

An edit
Or two
Another
Might do

But not
Soon enough
I shall publish
This stuff

My findings
Exposed
Another chapter
Be closed

And I can
Finally
Get on
With my
Life

My First [Car] Love

I met her on a Tuesday
After work

She was confident
No hiding grays
No pretend spryness
No imperfection could make her blush

Yes, she will teach me a thing or two

Her current love was there
Looking longingly at his first
Knowing it was time to let go
He reluctantly handed her over
To me

I was not her first
I sensed
I would be
Her last

We drove away
And got right to
That awkward getting to know each other phase

Touching
Smelling
Listening
Neither holding back

I knew instantly
This little shit box--
As she came to be known--
Would take me
For one helluva ride.

What is this Faddery?

What is this faddery
That makes me sick
Are the fad food fadders
Pulling a Trick

It's name is quinoa
Or so it's spelled
I've tried to pronounce it
And over-dwelled

Kinoha, Quinnoa
Both very wrong
I doubt I'll be writing
The quinoa song

I cannot pronounce
And therefore will not eat
You stick with your grains
I'll relish my meat

Bye-bye quinoa
Bye-bye for now
If you're that good Keen-wah
Why are you not Keen-wow

For the Love of Cheese and Puppies

I sit in the same spot every weekend morning
Second bench from the corner
Under a shade tree inhabited by birds
With extraordinarily poor metabolic timing

The neighbors think I'm crazy
That weird lady who sits in waiting
The dog lover
She has puppy envy of the worst kind

I look down into my book
Pretending I don't care
Crazy's not the worst thing to be
Imagine if I were a cat person

Good Lord

A new little guy joins the flock
Jumping, nipping, pouncing
The other dogs welcome him with reservation
He must earn his place

Whimper, whimper, ruff
Little guy acts so tough
While the others ignore
The pup implores

How about a little cheese
With my whine?

Insomnia--A Love Story--Sort Of

I lie here  fixated  on the green  glow  of the  third  apartment from  the  top  of the  building  across  the street. Why green? I read  one  of my favorite  short stories  that was  posted  in full perhaps illegally  (who knows) on the Internet. I tweeted it  because  I could and  joined the  willful  data sharers. The one  about  Maggie's dopey, hangdog look  is  one  for the  masses. Brilliant, Alice Walker. A to-do list  running  through  my mind. Not even  the hum  of the  furnace-thingy  can lull  me to  sleep. I hate you,  Reticular  Activating  System.

Winter Dryness--A Poem

The desert runs from 

my nares 

to 

my ethmoids
A trail 

of sand 

fills the void 

that remains

 after 

the last remnant 

of moisture is gone
Mucous membranes retreat

their will broken 

beyond repair
Hematocytes march in 

to claim their 

winter stronghold
It is done

the 35% will never be 

enough 

to stop 

the clots 

that barricade the door
Oh blood

your hubris bites thee 

as you suffocate 

in 

desiccation
Humility might be a virtue

but humidity

or lack thereof

is a bitch.

Mother's Day, A Poem...Sort Of

My Mom doesn't have a Facebook
An enigma she erroneously calls "My Face"
She doesn't tweet
Doesn't pin neat stuff to an imaginary corkboard
And no matter what you are doing on your smartphone she will call it texting

That's just her

She'll answer the phone when you need on the fly cooking instructions
She'll call you out of the blue to see if you are the one kid who called
And didn't leave a message
She'll watch a Hallmark movie with you from afar while praying the Rosary
And clipping articles from the week's newspapers

She's a formidable Jeopardy opponent
Should have won at least 3 or 4 mil on Wheel of Fortune by now
Remembers poems she's read in high school
Can still recite the Orders of Insects
And is quick to solve that one crossword clue that's had you puzzled for days

But that's just her

I won't see her this Mother's Day
I'm a bad daughter like that
I spend my weekends decompressing from a week's worth of sensory overload
And making absolutely zero progress on the papers I'm supposed to be writing
We fill the void of time and space with coffee talk on Saturday mornings

If I posted Happy Mother's Day to All the Mom's, she wouldn't see it
If she did see it, she'd question the misuse of an apostrophe
Apostrophes denote possession, dear, she'd say
She won't see this admission of guilt unless I print it out and send it to her
Maybe I will, maybe I won't

That's just me

Instead, I'll call her later and work through the crossword puzzle that always has the dumbest clues
I'll Google quietly while she ponders the clues--quietly so she doesn't say
That's cheating, my dear
She'll ask over and over whether I have ANY letters filled in
And I'll tell her she's getting rusty in her old age

But that's just us