Run-up to December - HAIKU

                                                                autumn-bare crape myrtle

AN OAK LEAF FALLS

INTO THE MINI-ROSE BUSH

WINDCHIMES' TUNE

~~~~

one month later

finding

my Halloween shirt

~~~

flying

into the birdbath

leaves and shadows

~~~

CAT JUMPS TO THE RIM

OF THE BIRDBATH . . . PERKS HIS EARS

AT A FLOATING LEAF

~~~

skimming

in the lake water

trees and clouds

(photo, S. Breidenthal, AD-G)

~~~

late November

beyond the bare tree, a flock

of blackbirds fly by

~~~

A THUNDERSTORM

INTERRUPTING

MY RAKING

~~~

grandson in a crape myrtle at The Wharf

c 2017 PL dba lovepat press

"Improv on 4 lines of Frost" - poem

IMPROV ON FOUR LINES OF FROST

It would take me forever to recite
all that’s not new in where we find ourselves,
to live once more on family’s old home place
now that my mother, your great-granny’s gone.
The house is mine, as eldest, to maintain,
and ours, my grandson, since you’re mine to rear.
Let’s walk around the grounds where I once played:
the chinaberry here, persimmon there.
Mulberry leaves outside my bedroom swayed
in wind, threw ghostly shadows on the wall.
That yard, which neighbors keep immaculate,
grew our potatoes, limas, purple hulls.
When I was six like you, this grassy patch
played host to jimpsonweed and cockle burr.
Back there, the woods, which some years Grandpa set
on fire by accident, sit tamed in streets
like suburbs. Muscadines, blackberry vines,
plum thickets, black-eyed Susans—all are gone.
I’m going to put you in your bed, if first
I have to make you build it. Come, the light.

c 2017,  Pat Laster dba as lovepat press

published in:
Lucidity Poetry Journal II, 2012
Grist (MSPS Anthology), 2013
Hiding Myself into Safety: Short Stories & Long Poems, 2016

Rain and other subjects - poems

HAIKU

rain

running along the roof line

away from the storm

~~~

CINQUAINS

Last night,

a thunderstorm.

This morning, pine needles

carpet streets and roadways like brown

velvet.

~~~

THE SAFARI ROOM-I

Couldn't

tell if it was

thunder or the traffic

this early Sunday evening in

Piggott.

HEAR ME ROAR - II

Thirty

minutes later,

thunder rumbled around

this building as if to say, "I'm

thunder!"

~~~

SHOO! (FLICK)

The rim

of my coffee

cup close to the fireplace

sports an Asian beetle nosing

around.

POST-RETREAT

Sleeping
around the clock
after a week away
with no op for my usual
naptime.

c 2017 PL, dba lovepat press

Autumn photos and poems

Wary/ like a guard dog/ or the secret service/ Greye checks the yard with feline eyes/ then sits.

a flock of blackbirds

flying down to the cotton

no scarecrow around

Lady/bug lights on my/ puzzle page. Sans even/ a hello! I quickly flick it/ away.

A squirrel/ under the car/ forages for acorns/ abundant from the wind in the/ oak tree.

sunset

adding its colors

to autumn foliage

--Dorothy McLaughlin, from our calendar,

CONNECTING OUR HOUSES

c 2017 PL & DMcL, co-author's of Connecting Our Houses, a perpetual haiku calendar, out of print