Don’t

You don’t have to be perfect (or good) you don’t have to walk (or run) every day through the forest (or keep fit) you don’t have to write poems, novels (or get published) although you’d graciously accept something other than rejection. No one drives you but yourself. Don't smile (wipe that smile off your face) …

Question

I Not words, the way we whisper, argue or goad one other, but tones, rhythms and codes only they can crack. II Bird tracks, feathers brush the path, moonlit snow a kill before dawn. III Songbirds trill grey dawn light hungry mouths open . IV. A junco returns pecks for seeds hears its mate intimate …

Let it all hang out

Hey, girl, put on your dancin’ shoes, you wanna let go have some fun, blast out on the town, kick up your toes it’s time to let loose, get high on air and let er fly play some tunes and sing yer heart up high in the sky swing your bootie, fling your arms, twist …

Play

Beep, beep, video call with my grandson, he tosses the phone inside his little barn. Wham! he shuts the double doors. I’m locked in, with the plastic pig and horse, the cow in the milking stall, corn in a manger. I snort, he opens the doors, peers inside, searching. He shuts the doors. I neigh, …

Blink

Fire hisses in the dark of the moon we dance in circles with no end hearts reverberate like drums shadows wheel and flicker wind swirls acrid smoke great horned owls hoot frogs refrain stars blink out National Poetry Month Day 9 prompt: write in a specific form – the nonet! A nonet has nine lines. The …

All things can tempt me (after W.B. Yeats)

All the dust, spider webs, dishes and clingy things – FB, Scrabble, email, stats and news - can suck all similes and metaphors down the loo tempt me out to dance in daffodils, plant thyme or wander in the woods— me hearing a sooty grouse drum, frogs’ song from the secret pond, mallard ducks scatter …

Medusa

Beautiful, gentle, serene, I bedded with Poseidon (big mistake) in one of Athene’s many temples. Wise (yet jealous) she transformed me into a winged monster, venomous snakes for hair giant teeth, jutting tongue and fulgent eyes— first-class for jetting round the world. with such power, I fly non-stop direct to Putin one glance and he …

Steep

At the ferry dock watch foot passengers arrive from the city. Hear the busker who wears a wizard hat and capris, as he throws a kiss and strums for the styling woman leaving the island. Catch the tears of a mother whose child departs with a loaded backpack. Ride on the upper deck with the …

Melt (a glosa)

Days of rain fade seamless into night: grey dawn, sunless midday, blue dusk. Time is a stone that turns but doesn’t roll. Time is a run-on sentence with no punctuation. from https://rustandmoth.com/artists/tiel-aisha-ansari/ Muscle spasm, gut tight, breath held every cell in my body winces— pain in my neck and shoulders bites like a rat trap, …

“afterwinter” 2022-03-02

I’d hoped for heat after this dormant season, oomph and ambition to dig the garden-- the mock orange is a skeleton of its former glory, brown leaves droop. The grevillea, once a metre wide shows no plethora of red blooms. Black and shedding, scant needles cling, the way humans do. A rufous hummingbird drawn to …