Mrs. Beasley Packed Her Purse

Mrs. Beasley packed her purse
fearing things would just get worse:

gloves and flippers, skates and socks
lotion for the chicken pox

rain umbrella, steaks and fries
drops and goggles for her eyes

cell phone, blanket, tire jack
a map so she could make it back

pound of breath mints, whistle, mace
sun-screen to protect her face

shovel, ladder, power bar
a plastic cover for the car

a barbecue, a four-inch book
a frying pan so she could cook

a deck of cards, a game of chess
her handbag really was a mess,

prepared for all she could foresee
any eventuality

but worse it got, and most unfunny -
she left her credit cards and money!

© 2004 Calendar (Also won first place in ByLine Humorous Poetry Contest, 2003, and published in Poetic Spirits of the Valley, 2006)

April Show

Though the afternoon’s snow-cold breaths
and gray vapors threaten
to lower the curtain
flowers keep bursting on stage.
Magnolia’s tight rose buds
fan out to pink confections
Forsythia leaps
graceful arcs of yellow
Pieris dangles blushing clusters
like exotic fruit.
From shy mauve Lungwort
uncoiling under somber juniper
to Rhododendrons -
fuchsia, orange and red -
promenading in the spotlight,
all the cast has caught
the rhythm of the caper
a chorus line in Spring’s
irrepressible choreography.

© 2004 – Time of Singing, Spring 2004

Everlasting Umbilical Cord

3:00 a.m. –
instantly awake.
Sliver of welcome-home light
still shines under my door
a silent revelation:
he is not yet home.

All sleep securely bound and trussed
by the everlasting umbilical cord,
I go downstairs with my sedatives –
pillow, journal, pen –
assume my post on the couch
and wait.

Every cell tingles
with questions, apprehension,
self-talk, prayer:
What on earth does an 18-year-old
do with his girlfriend at this forsaken hour?
There are people and cars around here
drowned in roadside sloughs
and not found for days.
(Girl, cut the melodrama.)
Dear God, please help him be okay.

Take up my pen
vent rage, fear
and live again a time
when the biggest risk he took
was a leap
from the fourth step
into my arms.

© 2003 – Poets Online (Risk, Love, Revelation, December 2003)

Earthquake in the Sky

Black shark glides through blue heavens.
Torpedo in the sky
pierces.  The tower explodes
billows of orange.

Four deadly missiles launched
   that clear Tuesday morning in September.
Four generous and trusting planes,
   pregnant with fire-eager fuel.
Four passenger lists – mostly ordinary people
   and 18 ruthless, cold fanatics.
Four hits: 8:48 - World Trade Center, New York, North Tower.
   9:03 - World Trade Center, New York, South Tower.
   9:45 - Pentagon complex, Washington D.C
   10:10 - A field in Pennsylvania.

Halt commerce.
Suspend trading.
Re-route all flights.
Close New York bridges and subways.

CNN leaps into action,
everywhere a buzz.
Terrorists have struck.
Hell in the sky and
now on earth.
America Under Attack!

Babel towers collapse,
disappear in a cloud of smoke, ash, dust.

Men in suits, women in business dress
Flee!  Run for your lives
(this is no special effects movie).
Escape the billowing destruction.

Gray-crusted rescuers
   walk in ashen moonscape
   under a charcoal sky,
   mouths and noses covered with rags.
Eyewitnesses describe screams, terror, papers flying,
   people leaping from the inferno.
A nurse’s voice breaks – so many shattered
   bodies, some without skin, limbs blown off.
Stunned Manhattans, two-to-three wide
   walk slowly, grimly down the street
   in the sunny afternoon,  past our screen.

Experts grope for understanding:
“...this is low tech, high concept...”
“...at a time like this, people look for direction...”
“...ending your own life is not what someone does...”

And under the images, an incessant scrolling marquee 
of up-to-the-minute:
...THERE IS AN URGENT PLEA FOR BLOOD. DISNEYLAND - CALIFORNIA
AND DISNEYWORLD - FLORIDA ARE CLOSED.  ALL MAJOR LEAGUE GAMES
ARE CANCELLED. ALL NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS TO GO ON HIGHEST ALERT.
THERE IS AN URGENT PLEA FOR BLOOD...

It is Wednesday morning.
Sunny heavens are empty and silent.
Slowly we surface –  dazed, blinking –
to a landscape that has shifted.
Yesterday there was an earthquake in the sky.
Today we live in a different world.

***************
The news and images of 9/11 ricocheted around the world in September 2001. Here the southwest corner of Canada, we felt the shock along with everyone else. This is something I wrote a few days after the event. It’s not great poetry, I know, only one person’s way of processing those awful events.

January, February

It’s January, all must change
my resolutions cry it!
I’ll clean the cupboards, shine the glass
completely change my diet.
The constant list of things I need
has changed from Christmas treats
to organizers, storage boxes,
and a set of sheets.

It’s February, nothing’s changed
the bathroom scales decry it
(that frozen stash of Christmas treats
has sabotaged my diet).
The hopeful list of things I pledged
discreetly tucked away.
Ten months to do just as I please
until next New Year’s day.

© 2004 – Time of Singing, Winter 2004-2005 (also published in Calendar, 2004)

Career Move

"The Kiss of Judas" by James Tissot (1836-1902)

Crowds come, he speaks, we cast out spirits, heal.
As a career move I could have done worse.
Mobility is upward here, I feel
for I’m the one he chose to keep the purse.
But he attracts the common, sick and poor,
his teachings contradict, they don’t make sense:
First shall be last? Great riches won’t endure?
Expose hypocrisy, unveil pretense?
Patience, I say, in time he will be king;
at lunch she pours rich perfume on his head.
He calls it good and not a wasteful thing:
“It’s a memorial; soon I will be dead.”
I erred. No future here, inner voice chides,
but—other ladders lean on other sides.

© 2004 – Utmost Christian Writers. Also published in Family Reunion – 2007

Welcome

Welcome to the Country Airport,
also called the Loveless Hotel

Would you care for something to drink?
Ultramarine or Blue for their colors passing through us?
Fire aged by Rosicrucian in the basement?

Perhaps a light hors d’oeuvres on the funny side,
or otherwise something more substantial –
unholy sonnets or serious concerns?

Our specials today are Nice Fish
caught just above water, down the winter road,
Septuagenarian Stew
and Night Picnic which,
given sugar, given salt, will forever
spoil you for the idea of the ordinary.

Standard menu also includes
smorgasbord of Anthologies, fine array of
New and Selected or, if you like,
Selected and New, as well as 100 Selected
and the always popular Collected or Complete
in flavors from Angelou to Yeats.

Now that you are coming up for air
allow me to tempt you with the bare plum
of winter rain, picked
at the edge of the orchard country –
archaic smile guaranteed.
Will you end with coffee,
or do you hear a summons?

As to further questions of travel, you never know…
May I suggest the movie At the End of the World,
a stroll through the Impossible Toystore
or a sail on the Boat of Quiet Waters?
But beware the Black Riviera
with its bandsaw riots,
rattlesnake plantain, lords of misrule,
and the berrypicker who will bore you
with stories of what happened
when he went to the store for bread.

© 2003 – Poets Online

************
This is another poem that found its inspiration at Poets Online. The prompt was to write a list poem. Can you guess what this poem is a list of?