Late March, before dawn...

Haiku
late March, before dawn
songbirds, rooster and I
prepare for the day
~
flick of the curtain
all the birds disperse
except the robins
~
brightening
a corner of the home place
patch of daffodils
~
tiny husks of oak's
new growth anoint my writing,
fall in my coffee
~
Senryu
gun cocked...slithering
toward the back-pasture turkey
only a muffler
~
Mom's clock
doesn't have numbers
it has birds
~
the week-long school break
and spring begin together
the child's fresh head cold
~
caddying
for his 4-year-old
grandson
~
ruptured aorta...
died at 50...friend's comment:
"He had a big heart."
~~
c 2010 lovepat press

Michael's: Closed

The doorway dripped hot water
puddling ancient, gaudy carpet.
I sat against the springs-damp wall
and remembered last year . . .

. . . Late, we'd adjourned to the pub
to meet, mix & mingle, as per the schedule.

A cameoed caricature in the elevator
promised a piano bar; the performer
sat uplevel, beseiged by older men
who supposed they were entertaining her.

You smoked, nursed a yellow drink
(screwdriver? lemonade?)
She ordered a scotch and water,
I, a frozen marguerita.

Next evening, we met yet again.
Would piano polish the day's intense poetry wash?

Conversation snaked through chapbooks,
hoaxes on editors, college teaching, demise
of downtowns Des Moines, Detroit, Decatur.

When did the subject slide to relationships?
She talked of husband, children, granddaughter;
I flashed a photo of the newest man in my life,
a 2-year-old grandson, hastening to explain
he was the only man in my life.
You acknowledged a sister who read your poetry,
a brother who did not. (No wife? sweetheart?)

A riveting crash exploded the drum machine,
softened, sequed into a lush piano-soprano rendition
of "I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You."

c 2010 lovepat press

March--a good month for haiku

picking the buds
of the daffodils before
the grandchild does
~
pear-motif house flag
furls in the gentle March breeze~
green shoots through dead leaves
~
a sheepish March first
wood violets on the sill
with the Africans
~
the roadside's
dense blue patches
of Johnny-jump-ups
~
on each bare branch
of the beautyberry
a goldfinch
~
the coolish promise
of a starry March evening
our Friday night date
(idea- M. Masterson)
~
first time to sit out
this spring . . . cloud passing the sun
cools the westerly

c 2010 lovepat press

March into March-- cinquains and other short forms

Changes (a tripod)
Silently,
I sit apart and muse
about the puzzling death of our love--
how green can turn to brown
so quickly.
~
Coincidence (cinquain)
Nearby,
cathedral bells
ring Vespers; far away,
a locomotive blows. Two sounds,
same pitch.
~
Donald Tatman, Arkadelphia AR
Three books
published after
he turned ninety. Wrote them
out in longhand in a Big Chief
tablet.
~
I wondered why the bird fussed
(cinquain sequence)
Cleaning
for patio
picnic, I stashed extra
stuff in the garage. The next week
I found

--to my
dismay-- a nest
in a small watering
can. I looked closer: a long-cold
wren's egg.
~
Couldn't Be! (limerick)
In charge of a grandson named Fred,
He told me just what his friends said:
"Unless she's a pixie
Your 'Mom can't be sixty.
If she were that old, she'd be dead!"
~
c 2010 lovepat press

FOUND poems

Haiku

one frozen apple
with blistered, shiny skin ~
creek runs under ice
~Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Senryu

she trained herself
to live 'in deprivation'
just half-sticks of gum
~Joan Didion on Emily Harris

famous
for being famous:
Anna Nicole Smith
~ from the news

her 88th year
most successful one ever
in winning contests
~Hazel Bell Nicholas, personal correspondence

still out of step
twenty years later . . .victim
of a different drum
~Joan Didion, After Henry

". . . living
past celebrity
to exhaustion"
~about W. Faulkner & E. Hemingway by John Leonard (New Yorker)

"coaches
using words like surreal--
that's surreal."
~Doug Smith, AR Times

". . . single to married
to single in
thirty-six hours"
~Barry Gottlieb on Britney Spears

Valentine's Day and Snow

Valentine's weekend
playing in new snow
not far from the Gulf
~
after a walk
Valentine candy breakfast
melting in my hand
~
Valentine's Day
on their anniversary
he files for divorce
~
a lilac sky
this lover's-day morning
but in the west
~
Valentine's Day
last vestiges of big snow
but more is falling
~
No Luck
Kitten
crouches from trench
in the snow, preparing
to launch an attack on a bird
nearby.
~
gradual snowmelt
revealing stepping stones'
"Patience," "Laugh"
~
kittens pushing
"Let It Snow" porch rug
into the drifting white stuff
~
c lovepat press 2010

February already?

new snow
on pink japonica blooms~
Groundhog Day
~
a bird's nest
cradling a newborn
burden of snow
~
leaving the bus stop
bright light in rearview mirror's
the cold morning sun
~
the vacant house
filching late daffodil buds
to force into blooms
~
beginning of Lent
the matte of ashes above
her shimmery blouse
~
west wind
thawing the thin ice
on the birdbath
~
30 degrees
only the paperman's tracks
in the ice and snow
~
c lovepat press 2010