Might give you an idea ......

The Word That Got Away

And I stand there

abandoned by my own vocabulary.

People get twitchy,

embarrassed for me , no doubt.

They imagine

I’m humiliated by this betrayal.

But what I feel

is more akin to grief.

I knew that word well.

We were old friends.

If it’s escaped me,

surely it is only a vacation, not divorce.

My fear is that

it has been waylayed by strangers,

kidnapped, stuffed in a trunk,

sunk in the ocean, forgotten.

And I stand there

holding a big bag of money

waiting for the ransom note

or a dictionary.

I've thought of those ladies so many times.

9-11-01 after returning from Italy

Throwaway Friends

Two gray-haired ladies in pedal pushers

stand on the curb

near American Express in Rome.

They brighten at our Texas drawls,

ask if we are in the Vatican tour.

We are.

One fans herself against the August heat

with a crumpled city map,

shares a laugh about Italian disdain

for ice and air conditioning.

From New York,

she has been following

an itinerary like our own--

Venice, Florence and now the eternal city--

ten days of foreign flavors,

the trip of a lifetime.

Knowing we will forget her name

along with all the others we learn that day,

we climb on the bus

behind her friend and ask about jobs back home.

She glances back, flashes a smile.

Oh, I work in the World Trade Center.

I’m sure you know the place

Invisible Geometry

The challenge is to construct a square

without drawing any lines.

The squares are already there

and the circles, rectangles, octagons--

it’s only that we don’t see them.

We see a blank wall, an empty screen, a clean page.

But nothing is ever truly blank, empty or clean.

Everything is cluttered

with invisible points, pulsating

like an electronic connect-the-dots game.

Chaos has its own pencil, is busy

making lines all over our paper.

But if we visualize a line from A to B

to C to D with each journey of equal length

and significance,

we can form a square,

give it concrete shape, at least

in our own minds.

The trick is believing

trusting the possible connections,

the geometry they bring to life

in a world where all things are possible.

Projects

We always begin by making a list

of unrealistic goals.

Not that they appear unrealistic at that point.

No.

We make the list in ink--

pencil is too pessimistic--

and we look forward to crossing completed

tasks off

with bold, straight lines.

That is spring.

We project success before the end

of summer.

But fall arrives

and rolls along

and the list becomes a heckling spectator.

Jobs weren’t done in the priority order

we assigned them;

some are half-done, others

never started.

We vow this is the last time,

next year we won’t count chickens,

we’ll take a trip, let the roof cave in.

If I am going to avoid such tragedy again and if I am going to share this Blog......I had better start posting. Old stuff if not new.

Lost Files

This is a horror to admit. Recently my poetry files simply vanished from my computer and I was shocked to find they weren't all backed up. I have the Chapbook and a lot of my oldest stuff. Of course, I have the Interboard Poetry contest winners....... but so much was lost. I would appreciate anything that any of you might have of mine.

Sorry I been gone so long!

Wow! So Long since I was here. I need to update. Have been so busy with the business and our website pages, it is easy to forget about this room. I miss everyone!