Anniversary, a sonnet

In early February's grayness, bleak
with icy wind chill factors, roads to match;
depressive news besieging us with crime
and war and homelessness, I spend some time
remembering when love bloomed on my cheek:
a new forever love, a love unique,
I thought. Dame Fate inveigled me to snatch
you from a treadmilled, empty life, attach
myself. Your joviality refreshed
my soul--long steeped in silence. Bonded, meshed
in love, we wed amid red valentines,
those symbols cherished love defines, enshrines.
   While vicious winter plays its warring tune,
   I snuggle into memory's cocoon.

PL- 2004, published in Lucidity: A Journal of Verse, Spring, 1997

February Etherees - poems

DECONSTRUCTION
I
pour out
a saucer
full of trail mix
from SAM'S: finger-thick,
salted raisins go in
a glass jar; shake out peanuts
and cashews laced with M-and-Ms
on a napkin. The brightly-colored
candies jarred again for yogurt sundaes.
~~

SANS ELECTRICITY
The
ice storm
on Christmas
of two-thousand
will be remembered
for its severity:
broken limbs and fallen trees--
many pulling down power lines.
Pioneers bundled up, lit candles,
soon refugeed to any place with heat.
~~

UPSTARTS!
A
twenty-
six-year-old
thinks his budget
for the state's better
than the governor's plan.
What hubris! What chutzpah! What
egotistical bravado!
Then I recall that after college,
I thought I, too, could change my local world.
~~

FEAR OF FALLING
Once
bitten,
nature's fault;
twice bitten, it's
mine. I moved the car.
Hearing the soughing winds,
I quickly drove it farther
up the driveway. Spindly maple
limbs, even if they fell, wouldn't bash
the car's roof, as happened with oak branches.
~~

PL, c 2016
Etherees were "invented" by a Malvern AR woman, Etheree Armstrong. A syllabic form of 10 lines, beginning with one syllable and ending with ten.

"I heart u" poems

what to give a love
allergic to flowers
and chocolate
--Dot McLaughlin, NJ
from Connecting Our Houses,
Laster/ McLaughlin, 1997
~~

eating
Valentine chocolates
second week of Lent
PL - from seagull standing its ground, '16
~~

Valentine's Day
on their anniversary
he files for divorce
PL - February's Fallout, '03
~~

lacking the courage
to ask a widower out
on Valentine's
PL - from hearing puffs of snow, '06
~~

Valentine's Day
a bouquet of spirea
forced to bloom inside
add to it 5 daffodils,
a spring of japonica
PL - from drop by drop, '13
~~

after a walk
Valentine-candy breakfast
melting in my hand
PL - from winter's loose ends, '05
~~

The pink satin heart,
his first valentine to her,
now filled
with buttons and bits of fabric
from forty years of marriage.
D. McL - from the still green horizon, 'o6


HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Birds, birds, birds! --poems

"You fellows go on
I'll rest here on this rock
a little longer."
--penguin, photo, AD-G
S. Breidenthal


two juvies--
father bluebird
shows them how to drink


splashing each other
Fluffy Sparrow
and Mr. Redbird


Two Trips with Warm Water
Liquid
in the birdbath
surrounds the plate of ice
beneath. February's sunshine
welcome.


mid-February
the gray bird I can't name
eating despite the rain

drenched mother redbird
on the icy limb . . . no food
she joins the robins


seagull on the sand
even when waves lap
through its feet
~~~~~~
~~~~~
PL

Fickle February: poems

 

CINQUAINS

 

A warm

winter day. I

bring four smallish houseplants

outside for a spate of fresh air.

Me, too.

 

 

Doves call,

dogs bark and folks

pass, returning from work.

Nearby, a robin chitters. Oh,

such peace.

 



Perfect

as a flower-

show speciman, except

the iris blossoms several months

early.

 

 

Heater

warming the cats,

while I use a lap robe--

gift from my son last Christmas--to

keep warm.

 

 

Racket

in the dining

room--small gray legs climbing

the screen until I rap the loose

window.

 

 

The whump

of the blackbirds

leaving. Another whump

when they returned. The airplane adds

a drone.