Thursday, August 30, 2012

Lunbering, logy Isaac wreaks havoc- poems written while viewing an online photo gallery

by Pat Laster

Before
Isaac, two men
sit under a tree, watch
waves while they are still quiet and
peaceful.

Seagull,
a fallen tree
and water decorate
the marina parking lot. Blame
Isaac.

Toting
buckets of mud
from a hillside dwelling,
the barefoot man steps gingerly
downhill.

Isaac
passes, leaving
heavy showers causing
mudslides, yet one more disruption
of life.

c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Cats keep me company

Greye (near) and Boots
 
Dealing with Greye while sitting outside during an early mid-August morning
 
I.
"Make up
your mind!" I tell
the cat, poised at the door.
"I'm not retired just to serve you,
old man!"
 
II.
"Stop it!"
No sooner out
than the cat meows to
go back inside. "I'm not moving--
not yet!"
~~~~
 
Three senryu
 
playful longhair jumps
at the hem of teen's skivvies
while he's still in them
 
pesky cat
pawing around
in my purse pocket
 
I open new cheese
for the last two crackers~
cat arching his back
~~~~
 
A cat poem by the late Hazel Gaither, Arkadelphia:
 
"To A Cat"
You never even lift a claw
Or catch a pantry mouse,
Yet you enjoy a pampered life
And dominate this house.
 
I marvel that you sway us so,
And question: "What's he got?"
You answer with your mystic eyes:
"Charisma, dear, that's what!"
~~~~
c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press



Thursday, August 16, 2012

(Some of us don't go) Back to School

"Not This Year--We've Retired!"

Fifty-
five years between
them, two retired teachers
don't go through the first-day-of-school
chaos.
~~~~

first day of school~
blue morning glory atop
the clump of kudzu
~~~~

"No sidewalks to School"

High school's
six blocks from home,
but I drive twenty blocks,
merge with cars from three schools on the
first day.
~~~~

second day of school~
child's new retainer thrown out
with his lunch trash
~~~~

"Unchanged Voices"

At two-
thirty, I hear
children pass by the house.
But no, it's junior high football
players.
~~~~

"Empty Nest"

Traces
of Billy, now
gone off to college: two-
-inch locks of brown curls still litter
the porch.

c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press

Thursday, August 9, 2012






















Parched Peanuts


The memory of peanuts spawns a smell
that emanated from my grandpa's barn--
those dried and dusty weeds had hung from nails
since Grandpa sent us out to harvest them.

Like fresh-cut wood, they had to cure and age
till dry and ready for the fire. We shucked
the earthy goobers--really roots--from stalks
of mother plants who'd done their job: produced
their offspring; suited now for compost, or
for burning.

                     Laid in sieves of screen, the nuts
were shaken till all flecks of musky dust
fell through. We took the first clean pan of them
inside for Grandma's cookie sheet. The stove
was hot. She set the oven gauge to warm;
alarm for thirty minutes. When she popped
them out, she used a pancake turner, flipped
the cooking nuts.

                             "Another half-an-hour,"
 she said, "and they'll be done." They disappeared
again in oven's darkness. We stayed close
to kitchen door, inhaling fragrances
that--unbeknownst to us back then--would stay
with us forever.

                            So they did; our kids,
now grown, insist on bowls of peanuts parched
in Mama's modern oven. Nothing beats,
they say, the smell, the click of shell, the taste
unique that conjures sweetest memories.


c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Where did all the flowers go? (after Pete Seeger)


by Pat Laster

"Ain't it awful, the heat--ain't it awful...
from Kurt Weill's opera, "Street Scene"

Still too
hot for outside
work, so my flowers will
probably die. It's either them
or me.
~~~

Wind chime's
paddle moves but
not enough to set off
its tubing. Beyond, cat on my
new car.
~~~

"Rain as my Muse"

I sit
on the front porch
during a thunderstorm.
Like the plants sucking up water,
I wait,

seeking
in this morning
coolness, direction for
the next development in my
sequel.
~~~

Summer--
Why pay to lie
in a tanning booth with
heat lamp above? Spread a pallet
outside!
~~~

"Unrequited"

A huge
summer-wilted
blue jay zooms toward water,
sees the cat nearby, flies off, still
thirsty.
(1st place, Siloam Springs, 2007)

c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press