January's changing weather - poems

raindrops
sparkle
under
dessicated
beautyberries
[1. 22. '15]

head first
into the brown leaves
its tail twitching
[1.22. '99]

farmland disappears
under floodwaters
and tides
[news: 1.6.'97]

the incessant sound
from a dining-room wall
traced to attic vent
[1. 30. '10]

snowman coffee mug
--no sign of snow so far
this January
[1.23. '12-also true, '15]

"... not bitterly cold."
15 degrees feels bitter
to me
[1.1.'01]

gray streaks of dawn ~
town murdered in its sleep
by a twister
[A. Harter, AD-G, 1.23.'99]

raindrops
in the birdbath--
before my eyes, they turn
into whirling, mesmerizing
circles
[1.11.'15]

Fifty,
sixty degree
temps earlier preclude
any chance of a light snowfall
sticking.
[1.22.'15]

~~~PL dba lovepat press

In Memory of Miller Williams, scientist, poet, father, husband, professor, et al.

Miller Williams, who died on January 1, 2015

 

A poem written in 1999 as an entry in the Poets' Roundtable of Arkansas's Sybil Nash Abrams Award. It didn't place.  In 2004, it won a 3rd Place in the AWC's Rosa Zagnoni Marioni Award. Later that year, it won 3rd Place in Nina Tillery's National Poetry Day award. This is the first publication.

 

As part of an audience with her poetry professor, she accents her Adoro with lines from the Master's poems

 

We sit on his porch

watching the lightning

from yonder Ozark ridge.

 

Thunder rumbles

like the should and oughts

of his father's early sermons.

 

When your father dies,

take notes somewhere inside.

Taut skin stretches over his head

 

as if pinned at the nape.

Once dark and bushy, his hair

now pale and tame, has slipped slow

 

as a glacier into a neckline fringe.

Magnified by tortoise shells,

his dark eyes sink like marbles.

 

But pity the hand whose closing

scissors excise him

and sever the U of A Press.

 

Despite Frank and football,

the literati will have none of it.

Like fans on fall Saturdays,

 

we boo and hiss and leave off

breathing until it is restored.

His poems navigate between

 

innovation and tradition

like a Buffalo River canoeist.

Similes shimmer; some titles

 

are longer even than their texts.

The storm moves to the next ridge.

Listening, we wait.

~~

--PL



Winter is upon us-poems

"Inside"

One cat on the sofa,
one cat on the rug.
Two cats in the wingback chair
locked in sleepy hug.

Sitting at the table,
I relish every bite
of cheese-on-rye while watching
the trees in icy white.
[PL - 2. 5. '14]
~~

"Drat it!"

"Nothing
in the feeder,"
says the daddy redbird,
"so I'll try the birdbath. It's full,
but cold."
[PL - 1. 4. ;15]
~~

Tanka

two bluebirds
filling up
on beautyberries
before
the temps drop
[PL - 1. 7. '15]
~~

Tanka

cardinal sips
under the rock
on the frozen
birdbath--
temps still falling
[PL - 1. 7. '15]
~~
~~

Visions of sugarplums? NOT

day after Christmas--
full-page ads from retailer
and car dealer
[PL -12. 26. '14]
~~

From Baghdad: (two found poems)

in what's left
of our town
you can't tell
who's 'friend,'
and who's 'foe'


refugee child
asked Santa
for a red dress
but he delivered
purple. She's happy.
[PL -  ideas from M Hennessy-Fiske, LA Times]
~~

On Christmas
Sierra Leoneans
staying put--
fear of Ebola
rampant
[PL - found from article by S. Gbandias, Bloomberg News]
~~
~~

Poems from other Decembers, from other poets, too

laden cedar branches
made silent by the snow
nothing at all to hear

[from the late Dion O'Donnol's every day living, 1997]
~~

Christmas shoppers;
into the blind beggar's cup
a silent snowflake

[Dorothy McLaughlin, from our flip calendar, connecting our houses, 1997]
~~

looking up
from my Christmas reading~
thicker icicles

[PL - from Poems for December, 2002]
~~

the full kettle's
garbled whistle~
twenty-two degrees

[PL - from Dynamic December, 2003]
~~

last of the pound cake
I baked for two parties
is now my breakfast

[PL - from rising to the top, 2012]
~~

Auntie's first Christmas
   not only an orphan
   but now a widow

[PL - from a branch of red leaves, 2005]
~~~
~~~

pittypatter: Advent 2014

~Advent Wreath-Google images~

 

 

Advent: 2014

(an Octo sequence)

It’s Advent—twenty-fourteen now--

too many years since last I wrote.

 

I fill my time with handbells, choir

 

--requiring diligence--and bills

 

and cats and house and med refills.

I fill my time with handbells, choir.

Too many years since last I wrote,

 

it’s Advent—twenty-fourteen now.

~~

I used to write an Advent verse

each year, till life got in the way--

 

especially after I retired.

 

I penned one novel, then one more.

 

Activities came to the fore,

especially after I retired.

Each year, till life got in the way,

I used to write an Advent verse.

~~



I hereby vow to take more time

to celebrate the Advent Child,

to live expectantly each day

 

as if the second-coming’s near;

 

make ready, leave no room for fear.

To live expectantly each day,

to celebrate the Advent Child,

 

I hereby vow to take more time.

 

PL - 2014

 

 

December poems

street signs
at Frozen and Geyer
growing icicles
~~
muzzling a Magi--
they set up the frat lawn's
Nativity scene
~~
blue-glass mobile
chiming in December wind--
student in short sleeves
~~
second
son's
fifty-
second
birthday
~~
Hal Borland:
"December's the price
we pay for June"
~~
filling the feeder
and knocking holes in the ice
the bluebirds return
~~
~~
PL - dba lovepat press