Poem-a-Day challenge, 25-50 (Oct - Nov 2015)

26. NATIONAL POETRY DAY                                                       10/8/15

If you think that just one day
is all we need for poetry
then I’d have shrug and say
your phillistine is showing free.

 

27. DEFEATED                                                                                10/9/15
Defeated!
And, like a dying body
That releases its bowels
At the moment of expiration
Release this exultation
Not in a cleanse of pride
But to admit the end.

There is no more hope:

Those dreams of youth
Have long since dissipated
The sagging, weary flesh
Of age cannot be conquered.

  

28. L'AUTOMNE                                                                               10/10/15

Quand les gazons perdent leurs vert
Et les colibris prennent le large
Quand les petits écoliers mettent de longues manches
Et les épiciers n’ont plus de pêches
 

Ça veut dire que l’été est fini,

et l’on pense aux devoirs qui restent
avant les fêtes, avant les grands repas.
“Assez de couvercles? Assez de manteaux?”

Car la couverture de feuilles mortes

n’est jamais suffisante pour chauffer,
et les fines pluies qui viennent
ne vont personne désinfecter.

 

29. BUSCANDO LA POÉSIA                                                        10/11/15

Dice que todo lo que sí puede piensa
que es la poesía
los abejorros de los perros
las canciones de los periquitos
y no importa lo que dice.
cada bobo en la calle
y mi perro quien busca el caca de gato
es tan capaz de encontró que la verdad poesía
que un editor de revista literaria.
Porqué si puede que
las animales salvajes hacen sin embarrada
naturalmente
y mismo el mejor poeta del mundo
necesita creer algo de artificial
algo sin naturaleza
mismo si busca a hacerlo
en una lengua extranjera.

 

 
30. MOЯ COБAKA                                                                          10/12/15

Моя собака очень Непрочная
Она хочет съесть Что-нибудь
Она идет, где она не должна.

и когда она скучно

когда она скучно
Она приходит ко мне
и она дышит ее неприятный дыхание

(My dog is very naughty

She wants to eat something
She goes where she should not.

and when she is bored

when she is bored
She comes to me and
she breathes her nasty breath

 

31. SALESMAN                                                                               10/13/15

Talisman
fails man:

salesman
impales man!

(Mailman
nails man.)

Bailsman

jails man.

  

32. DEATH IS WHEN THE CARING STOPS…                         10/14/15

Don’t be haunted!
Death is when the caring stops.
Too late to ask if “that’s what Pops
would have wanted.”
 

33. …WHILE I’M HERE                                                                  10/15/15

While I’m here,
thanks for your solicitude.
After that, you’re never rude;
you’re free and clear.

 

 

34. THE GOP FIELD                                                                       10/16/15

Oh, there's birthers and Bengaziists
and Twenty-One apologists.
There's literally some loonies
who call themselves "Blood-moonies,"

There's climate change deniers,

and "War On Christmas" criers,
defense of Marriage touters,
and 9-11 doubters.

Oh, there's "Starve the Beast" subscribers,

intelligent designers,
one world governmentalists
watching black helicopterists…

Some fear secret Muslims

and closet Reds within the Dems,
Beck's "most important story,"
Fed ammo inventory.

They'll fight the Jade Helm takeovers,

give rape "legitimate" makeovers...
They all need help, but none will dare:
fearful of Obamacare!

 

35. WHY IS RAISING KIDS SO HARD?                                      10/17/15

Why is raising kids so hard?
You'd think we were getting
punished for something.
Think of all that sleep deprivation
in the first six months.
Is that anyway to
propagate the species?

And look at your childless friends:

the DINKS
who go to Machu Picchu,
spend Christmas in Hawaii
and take up skiing-though not
on these plebeian local hills-no!
They spend a week in Vail!

Who’s the richer? Perhaps

they’ll have no one to grieve
as they lie on their deathbeds,
but perhaps they won’t
have a reason to be grieved!

Being a martyr for the species may not be

worth the cost of the funeral…

 

 

36. I DON’T WANT TO MOVE A PIANO                                      10/18/15

To those well-meaning folk
who don't mean to poke
but want me to know
how much he will grow
when we get him a spinet--
well, just think a minute:

There's only one way

it will come all the way
to my living room,
and it isn't by broom!
So don’t give me flack
if I vote for my back.

  

37. CALLING MY FRONT YARD                                                  10/19/15

It's not a butt Dial
but I’ll hope you'll excuse me
for calling my front yard.

The sprinkler is on the Wi-fi

I have it on my phone
in the Internet of things.

I have to talk to my phlox,

a message for my lantana
urgent news for the daisy.

 

 

38. THE MOSQUITO                                                                       10/20/15

A mosquito in the room
hangs around just out of sight
she will wait till it's dark
since she knows I'm hunting,

And she does not want to die

She's a cunning little witch
and she wants to drink my blood
And to use it for her brood

So I cannot go to sleep

If I do she'll suck me dry me dry
and infect me with disease--
Guess I'm staying up all night.

 

39. PANTOUM ON MAKING DINNER                                         10/21/15

What should I make tonight for dinner?
Day after day: pasta or chicken?
We're getting tired of eating the same thing—
I think the kids are going to mutiny.
 

Day after day: pasta or chicken?

But by the time I get home from work...!
I think the kids are going to mutiny
If I don't try another recipe.

But by the time I get home from work,

who's got the energy to try something new
If I don't? Try another recipe,
we're getting tired of eating the same thing.

 

 

40. REUNION                                                                                   10/22/15

I can only muster random thoughts
on the class reunion coming up
which I have agreed to attend
although I don't look forward to it.

For who wants to see the damage of age

upon those shades of our secret past,
those deeply imprinted
icons of our legendary youth

It is hard to recall us then:

young, beautiful, and
innocent as the day is short--
such delicate children!

While now, judging from the website,

we have grown thick, wrinkled…
have we grown wiser
or just more fatuous?

 

41. THE CLIFF                                                                                 10/23/15

Silken primates clamber
through the forest's greenery
and sometimes, some of them
come to an open rocky plain
that ends abruptly in a sudden drop:
a clean end of the line; a cliff

Some go over without ever seeing it,
some throw themselves off deliberately
some try their best to ignore it
though its presence is disturbing.

Meanwhile

it continues to ignore all of them.

 

 

42. A SUMMARY OF THE EIGHT BENGHAZI HEARINGS     10/24/15
One was a question she was asked in the dark;
drafted by a mouse, but posed by a shark.

Two was a sneer designed to debunk,

that lingered on the lips of a crippled skunk .

Three was a hoot calculated to mock,

creeched by an owl and a frustrated hawk.

Four was a snort--breathed over her shoulder,

by a lame pachyderm, grown recently bolder.

Five was a sigh that was hissed by mistake-

the dying gasp of a flattened snake.

Six was the grunt coming after a hurdle
knocked down by an over-ambitious turtle.

Seven was the noiseless jerk of a shrug

made by a highly intelligent bug.

Eight was a waning cacophony of yups

fading from a den full of wealing Fox pups.

 

 

 

43. REUNION REDUX                                                                   10/25/15
Well, that was unexpected!
Who would have supposed
that after 35 years
we would have grown up!

And so it came to pass:

the young became older,
the foolish became wiser,
the tarnish became more silver.

None put on airs,

Laura listened kindly to my tale,
Tina told hers bravely, and
Eileen's eyes still in glimmered merrily.

Even the ones who, as boys

tried hard to be flip--
Chris, Bobby, John, Joe--
even they were pleasant, sensitive.

After all, at 35 years

no one is still an unhatched cocoon;
all phoenixes have been reborn. Now,
we’re sharing pics of the grandkids.

 

44. MR MOM                                                                                     10/26/15

Hustle the kids out of bed!
Monday morning, hard to get going.
Your shirts stained, wear another instead.

Get on that bike or you'll be late.

Tuck in your shirt, your underwear’s showing!
I need to get to work by eight.

Sent the fourth grader a text to

remind home he's got an experiment growing
and that I'll take him to Tae Kwon do.

A carpool takes care of the brother

in the middle--handy, cause I'm slowing
down-still gotta get the other

at swim practice. Rats! I burned

the potatoes! Chicken's glowing
nicely though. Guess I learned

something while the wife's out.

the first few days, I was rowing
upstream. Chasing three crafty trout.

 

45. KISSING YOUR KIDS                                                              10/27/15

When they're babies of course
there isn't much debate
kiss their chubby little cheeks!

But later—maybe age nine or ten
if you haven't quit on your own,
they may request it.

And, once you stop,

can you ever start again?
If not, will they take it to mean

That you don't love them any more?

I suppose that’s what they’ll tell their therapist.
Either that, or too much kissing traumatized them.

 

46. OBSOLESCENCE                                                                    10/28/15

Do you ever think about
where you'd be if you lived
10,000 years ago?

Statistically, I'd be dead by my age—

maybe not by disease—gored by a mammoth,
perhaps, or done in by a croc.

If you’re 30, you’d be a grandparent by now.

Unless you're a woman, in which case you'd
probably have died in childbirth.

And if you are a nine-year-old boy,

you would probably not be reading this
but, more likely, fighting for your life—

spears and rocks flying

from every direction
as the neighboring villagers

Come to steal

your precious supply
of dried maniok roots.

 

47. TWITS                                                                                          10/29/15

I signed up to follow the Twitter
Poetry and Fiction recommendations--
some of whom turned out to be
prostitutes, pimps, and purveyors of puerile pablum
And now I've got myself a following of 120 strangers.

It sounds even less impressive

than it really isn’t.
cyberstalkers? I don't
guess that many
would break bread with me at
Gesthamane.

Still, I have a congregation

ready to watch as I upend
the moneylenders' carts
and sermonize from some mount.

 

48. OCTOBER                                                                                  10/30/15

It started off with warm and mild days;
September loaned it something of its grace.

Then, as the sky rose high against the sun,

the songbirds and the leaves left, one by one.

Those of us still here, now one year older—

draw on long sleeves, and feel colder.

We don't resent it, though, we know

the way all such things go:

there’s something wrong about

a winter's day so hot you could go out

in shorts and tee shirt. Better if you froze!

Grandparents shouldn’t dress in skimpy clothes.

October teaches us that Summer's gone.
Time to find a clean shroud to put on.

 

 

49. WILLOW GLEN HOLLOW E'EN                                             10/31/15

Let's just start off by agreeing
that this is a very weird holiday,
who's sole point
is dressing up and begging for candy.

Where I live, in chi-chi Willow Glen,

kids get trucked in from the East Side—
don't even bother to put on a costume:
large teenagers with empty pillowcases.

The neighbors don't seem to mind:
giving away dollar chocolate bars--
hundreds of dollars' worth of fake
skeleton decorations in their front yards.

It's a one-night orgy!  Monsters parade

for diabetic quantities of candy,
everyone's yard lit with plastic zombies...
…in 12 hours the Christmas decorations will start.

 

 

 

50. UNE JEUNE FILLE                                                                   11/1/15

Il y a pas mal d'années
une jeune fille est née
dans une famille folâtre

Et, l'on dirait sans blême

elle n'était pas loin elle même:
va plutôt demander chez les girafes!

Cinquante ans plus tard

elle a la génie pour comprendre
des gens farfelu comme toi;

pour ainsi dire,

tu trouveras géniale
partager une bouteille avec soi.