On a Gloomy Spring Day

On a Gloomy Spring Day

It was a gray day –
gray sky, gray dreams.
Rolling fog came pushing
it’s way across the ground
masquerading as a goblin,
and I looked for a safe
place, a hidey hole.
Hope hung limply,
like a worn out chemise,
until a small trumpeter
with a black cap chirped
notes of promise into the air.

Bragging Rights

Bragging Rights

This poem’s been dragged and bagged
and now it’s lagging behind – trying to
flag down some scallawag staggering
by, wagging an extra word or two
that it needs to snag if it’s ever
going to be able to brag about itself
properly, on paper

Dee brings out the silly in me

Tethered

d’Verse Poets Pub – Poetics: March Wind Ekphrastic

I used the painting by John Sloan, Sun and Wind on the Roof

 

Tethered

 

 

I wish for wings to take me

sailing over these rooftops

Wings that flap like the shirts and

sheets on this line, struggling for release

into an unknown world

Yet, like the sheets, I am tethered to

this place – not with ropes and pegs,

but with invisible threads that

bind my heart to yours

 

My Life as a Word Junkie

My Life as a Word Junkie

 

I search them out, put them

on lists, hoard them for myself

I secret them away on scraps of

paper and keep them in rows in

the depths of old journals.

I snatch them from the pages

of books and catch them as they

tumble from the mouths of friends

and strangers. I hum them to myself

even when there is no music. I seek

their meanings in a tattered dictionary

and find their relatives between the covers

of a thesaurus. They comfort me

in the middle of the night and sooth

me during storms. Each one is unique,

perfect as it is, and sometimes I string

them together into poems.

A Brighter Day

A Brighter Day

 

Same Carols, same twinkling lights

Same Santa ringing a bell

Year by year the people notice

less and less, taking it for granted

Until a small girl in a red hat

walked down the city street. When

she smiled, she tinseled the whole day

We Come Once More

We Come Once More

We come, once more, to this
thankful
season. A time of introspection for
poets
whose cups spill over with syllables of love,
with souls
filled to the brim with joy and sadness, and hearts
that beat
out the rhythm of life and death
with truth.

waltmarie poetic form