Thoughts on email from a friend far away.

He sits down each evening
regular as clockwork.
Sixteen hundred to be precise;
reads his email.
Dirty jokes from a brother,
admonishments from his mother.
Happy pictures of a well-groomed garden
From a well-meaning wife.
Within a portable aluminum cocoon
he still hears random gun shots.

At night, instead of children
He tucks men in bed.

I feel you could expand the last two lines......bedtime stories are of enemies losing their coordinates, and sands that lie calm. I say get into the whole tuck them in routine. I like songs myself.

Thanks for the read, Lavonne.

D

Yes, I will.  These thoughts were going through my mind as I drove home last night. I posted it without any modifications hoping to get someone elses take on this subject.

Thanks!

After reading SLEEPLESS MUSINGS and "I" POETRY:

"We spend several lives learning how to shut up and then bam! One life will do it."

This line struck me, so true. I have lived life after life, biding my time, biting my tongue. Then something or someone else inside me will choose a hill on which to die which never seems worth the fight in retrospect!

Virtually all my poetry is I poetry. It becomes my petcock and often I surprise myself when I have finally been able to express an emotion, reaction, or experience that I have been dealing with.

Fall flushes first
in poison ivy;
with a scarlet shout
ivy vines up the pines
and chokes color
from oaks
forcing the forest
to rummage
the last of its palette
before the canvas
is washed in
winter white.

At my house that would be happening all summer.......the ivy choking oaks.

Nice read. Thanks.

Backlit,
an S-curve silhouette
patters in the bathroom.
Jars and bottles
tapping on the counter.
Frogs peep-singing,
heard through
the window screen.

Nestled,
her match is already
drowsy and dreaming
of puzzle-piecing
the night.

I hope you'll move some of these to the submission board later.

Good read.  d

Thanks - D
Still searching for title ideas on the last two...

Lavonne, I think you know very well what poetry means. I like very much your poem. Impressive and moving.
Vasile

Thank you Vasile. Your compliment is appreciated so very much!

The Chilled Air

Across my street
is a telephone pole
and beside it
is a white cross
marking the last stand
of a boy fleeing the police.

Last summer
I drove a stretch
of Highway 431 where
a string of 37 white crosses
shouted names at me
as I passed.

Again today,
one quarter mile away,
three boys dared to
test the physics of
an object in motion
and lost.

The lives of these
children hang in the air
and the chill clings
to my skin. This fall
air is colder
for the lack of their warmth.

Made changes. Needed to see it in print so I could adjust a few words.

observing myself

Although I sit at my
drawing table
nearly every day,
I have just now
noticed the cobweb
spanning watercolor
brushes in
a tomato can
within my reach.

Looking for a title for this one


My son and his girl
live in a flat
in town
with access to fine dining.
So when my birthday
rolled around
they took me
to a little out-of-the-way place
where all the PHD candidates
gather to postulate
and where I would
be sufficiently impressed.

It was while I was enjoying
my pan-seared tilapia
with baby vegetables
that I glanced at the wall
across the room,
vaguely trying to fathom
the artwork
hung for sale.
From underneath
a faux antique frame
crawled a roach.
One of those
big,
black,
shiny ones
that you imagine
must have come
from a jungle
somewhere.

I smiled behind the rim of
my wine glass;
thinking
this is a much better birthday
than last year
when I spilled the
cheese fondue
down my white shirt.