The Usual Gamut

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110121

DIABETES AND YOU (for Jaime)

Diabetes comes from DNA
and from the way you work and play.
Diabetes comes from what you eat,
especially food too fat or sweet.

Diabetes makes you drink and pee,
plus, it affects how well you see.
It makes you tired, it numbs your feet.
Let's make this sickness obsolete.

Do not be a diabete!

[ASIDE: Jaime made a presentation on diabetes
and footcare to our Lions Club.]


110120

COFFEE PRE-JUNKIE (for Lizzie)

Medicate your head?
Why do what you will rue
and later struggle to undo?
Meditate instead.


110119

PLEASE EXPLAIN

Who is this person who,
in photos and in mirrors,
looks pillowy, marshmallowy,
and billowy, but who,
inside, feels willowy?


110118

THE EVERYDAY VARIETY

For better or for worse,
I make and fill my own thirst;
when I want a poem, I write a verse,
and—best of all—get to read it first!


DEMISE SURPRISE (for Sargent)

Someone just died
at age ninety-five.
People keep dying
not known still alive.


110117

WINTER WAKING

Winter-haze tonal grays
can make moon-sky
bright as noon-sky
and early wakers wonder
whether morning
is coming or glowing.


110116

DRAFT HORSE

I’m workin’ on
a long, long pome;
plowin’ long and steady.

It’s gonna be
a hard, hard pome;
I’m tired of it already.


A BOUT

Clouds out-crowd.
Clouds attack.

Sun’s uncowed by bully clouds—
through a crack, it slips back.
Then it puts those clouds to rout.

Sun is back.
Sun is out.

How does this come about?
Sun, no doubt, has more clout.


110115

EMBRACING THE SHADOW

[ASIDE: Under construction. This long poem
will take a while to complete and edit.]


110114

PROGRESSION

Winter is kind,
and ever more bright;
as she suspends heat,
she extends light.


OFFSPRING

You greased it, eased it,
cursed, birthed, and nursed it.

You raised it, praised it,
groomed it, pruned it.

You composed, concocted,
and spun it;
and it looks so easy
once you've done it.


110113

WHEN?

Bundled up
one way or another
season after season
people are waiting
people are holding in;
bundled up
one way or another
season after season
bundled up as babies
people are holding on
looking to each other
each waiting for the other
waiting for release
bundled up and waiting
waiting for a reason
or just for an excuse.


110112

WINTER BLISS (for Connie)

Perfectly
simple serenity:
me on bed
in sunlight spotlight;
cat on me.


110111

BLIND REFLECTIONS

Emma dear, Emma wise—
what’s inside those Emma eyes?
I see, in them, myself reflected
but mine are not, to you, a mirror.

I see in yours myself reflecting
why mine are not, for you, a mirror.
Emma dear, Emma wise—
what’s inside your Emma eyes?


110110

POETRY

Not the words but the way;
no specific thing you say.
It’s the truth told by the lie,
the do not know that answers why.


110109

BEAUTY MARKS

A few of the nuns
(let's not say which ones)
had—let us say—
facial blemishes
which, in any case,
they bore with good grace,
helping us know
what God cherishes.


MOMENTOUS

In this now,
my struggle’s
through.

World, …I am
at peace with you.


OBIT

Poet:
probed deeply,
wrote long,
reportedly died of
stub wounds.


WEB OF DECEIT

E-linked, business-network friends
keep recommending further friends,
but to claim these, one must state
form of relationship to date.
For the terms sites recommend
(classmate/colleague/client/friend),
how to answer is hard to guess—
there’s no sort of, just no or yes—
and these implied acquaintanceships
foster false pre-lationships.


110108

SLEEP-IN

I wake today
when the birds untree
and rise to flock.

I wake to the sun
and not to the clock.


BRIEF SANCTUARY

They’re our cats
but we root for the mice,
one of which
was discovered today
dried and flattened
under an out-of-the-way rug.
Poor baby is now a mummy.


110107

ISP’S

Once the computer
was an extension of us;
now that’s vice versa…
and it keeps getting
wersa and wersa.


110106

GOOD DAY

Up, groom, eat,
then out the door.

Drive, arrive, work, drive,
and eat some more.

Catch the mail.
Write a pome.

Good day:
good away, good at home.


110105

FLURRY OF HURRY

Flit-flit-flit;
I’m in a tizzy—
not a state of zen!

But it’s nice
to be so busy—
every now and then!


110104

COOL CATS

Winter cold gives no pause
when outdoor freedom beats cold paws;
“Let us out!” our cats insist.

Icy blasts don’t deter
those brisk excursions they prefer
(and, in truth, cannot resist).


110103

HOW I SEES IT

Once agin, I awake
to butt of cat in my face.

Cat don’t mean to offend.
Naw, an' mine's the “livin’ end!”


110102

APPLICANT (for Hermann)

With a wink,
I will state
if I’m asked:

I can think,
I can wait,
I can fast.

[ASIDE: Siddhartha's résumé.]


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