Though it's not yet fall, folks are calling September "autumn" - poems

Couchwood in autumn, PL

DELICIOUS FATIGUE

Falling

into the bed

without nightly reading--

bushed from two days of minding a

toddler.

LEGACY

Out of

fifty tulips

he gave her before he

died, the pink one lasted until

Easter.

OH, NO!

After

company left,

I sat down to relax,

saw a dryer sheet peek from my

pant leg.

HAIKU
while I'm reading

a crisp brown leaf

sails onto my journal
~~
white spaces
in the haiku journal
ideal for my own
~~
at the last minute
the singer changing his song
to "Amazing Grace."

~~

c 2016, PL dba lovepat press. First 3 poems from "September Cinquains," 2003; haiku from "a lamp to work by," 2012

A poem for late summer

Photo by Thurman Couch, Pasadena CA

NOT YET 8 A. M.

I shuck

my sweaty clothes,

work shoes & sox, re-dress,

wash my face & arms & feet to

cool off.

Barely

a month into

my 80th year, I--

every third day, as my gardener

suggests--

water

the fifty new

plantings against summer's

heat. Thirty-seconds of wanded

water

into

the hearts & roots

of each--Knockout roses,

eleagnus, althea, crape

myrtle,

bridal-

wreath spirea,

redbud & yellowbell.

Like an old mule, I schlep the hose

forward.

Hoses--

all three of them--

make a 200-foot

red-and-green stream through the yard when

stretched.

Too tired

to move them back

to the narrow strip of

lawn where they stay, I give myself

a drink. 

c PL 2016

Mid-August poems

Mandevilla, several summers ago

Anna Pearl Couch's birthday is August 19. She has been in heaven for ten years.

in a wobbly hand

her thank-you letters--

83rd birthday

--from Connecting Our Houses, 1997

~~~

~~~

mid-August cold front

bringing the temperature down

to 90 degrees

--from It's August Already? 2003

~~~

back-handing the rose

to dislodge the walking stick--

now, knuckles with thorns

--from only sky and sand, 2005

~~~

getting together

more often for death

than for lunch

--from fishing in the clouds, 2010

~~~

heavy with water

the hanging mandevilla

barely swivels

--from the lighter side of darkness, 2012

Son Eric's beauty spot, several years ago

The sources mentioned (in order) include a flip calendar of haiku and senryu by PL and Dorothy McLaughlin, New Jersey; the others are monthly calendars made and sent to friends during the years they were published.

c 2016, PL dba lovepat press

Yucca - one of the long(er) poems in my new book, Hiding Myself into Safety

Yucca in Winter - PL

Yucca

Granddad must have loved       
yucca, planting it in front
of each house he built, even

the one for himself and Grandy.
Eighty years later, I betake myself
street-side at that ancient house

where—in the past—someone
planted iris, thinking to soften
the unfriendly yucca?

In early August’s coolness, I snip

brown tips of iris blades, yank

yellowed leaves. With gloved

fingers spread like hen’s feet,

I scratch away dead foliage,

 nested oak leaves.

Each old yucca--bottom dead--

I pull over like a naughty child (and there

the simile ends), sever each base.

Did I hear them sigh, as if glad
to be shed of holding upright
the newish green rosettes preening

like teenage girls waving at passing cars?
Several baby plants peek among the iris.
Callously, I yank them up, throw

on the growing pile of detritus
Even so, four passable yucca plants still
center the green and clean bed.

Later, I receive my reward: a tall bloom
stalk that eventually opens to an ivory torch.
Perhaps that’s why Granddad loved yucca.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~


PL c 2016

The Idaho Rambler: poem

THE IDAHO RAMBLER

Poor Maw, she tried to make it look
like dyin' was God's will,
but I had figured God, like Dad,
left, moved up to Boville.

I itched to see Shoshone Caves,
Fort Hall and things beyond.
With jumpin' beans loose in my jeans,
Maw called me Vagabond.

Maw went along with all my schemes,
no nag to settle down;
she'd made that blunder earlier--
thought that's why Dad left town.

But step-dad Gayle, he ranted, said
"Book larnin's your best bet
to git a job, a house, a wife,
and learn to manage debt."

His head is full o'notions
and his pocket's full o' Skoal.

I thumbed my nose and went my way,
found work: packed peat at Mann's.
Got tired and quit, but couldn't lose
the stench on my two hands.

I hitched to Preston after that;
we stopped for beer, buffet.
The trucker, he played snooker, pool.
I met a farmer, Ray,

who needed five good wranglin' hands
for cows he meant to buy.
The pay? Four-hundred every week!
(The luck of my buckeye.)

His head is full o' notions
and his pocket's full o' Skoal.

Picked up some gear, reported in;
his wife gave me the creeps.
She sneered, her eyes bored through. Does she
plan evil while she sleeps?

We found the cattle easily
then hell took paradise;
Ray wrote bad checks to pay for them,
resold at market price.

They'd planned a way to save their hides;
we hadn't looked ahead.
Like my prediction, I died young,
gunned down with slugs of lead.

His pockets may be full of Skoal
but 'is back is full of lead.
~~
Devised from a news article back in the early 2000s. Published in HEROES FROM HACKLAND, Summer, 2003, the late Mike Grogan, Arkadelphia, editor and publisher.
c 2016 PL dba lovepat press



Cardinals, cicadas and crickets: poems

Disregard the snow--or if you're really hot, imagine...

 

a break in the heat

windows open to cicadas

and birdsong

~~

 

hidden

in the Virginia Creeper

a singing wren

~~

 

seeing red:

apple feeder, salvia

and cardinals

~~

 

drone of the traffic

close, but unseen

a cardinal's 'chit-chit-chit'

~~

 

crickets still singing

a yellow leaf falls

on my yellow shirt

~~

 

trip to the feeder

hummingbird stops on in-line

wire: cat, child close by

~~

 

 

Wikipedia image

 

 c 2016 PL dba lovepatpress

 

 







Back to the 90s - found poems from past Julys

Though this photo is from sis Carolyn's garden, the hydrangea plant in my yard dates back to the 60s. Google Images doesn't have anything I want to republish here, so the hydrangea photo has to suffice.

 

 

1996 - Associated Press article

 

month of rains

a boat to the flooded house

to resuc his cat

~~

 

1997 - news of Belarus

 

Independence Day

changed from July 27

to July 3

~~~

 

1997 - news

 

Palestine youngsters--

nothing to do but taunt

Israeli soldiers? 

~~

 

1997 - news photo

 

children playing

on the anti-aircraft gun

in Cambodia

~~

 

1997 - news photo

 

pickup truck with chain

dislodging tractor trailer

from the anwning 

~~

 

1997 - news photo

 

two weeks of rain

leaning over the sandbags

checking the Ober

~~

 

1999 - news photo

 

John-John's funeral

amid the white-clad sailors

the family in black

~~

 

1999 - Paper Trails, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

 

whipping the young tree

with a rolled-up newspaper

gets the sap flowing

~~

 

1999- Ann Landers

 

the disadvantage

of too many advantages

crippling the children

~~

 

c by Pat Laster dba lovepat press