Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Scenes from a Rainy November Day - poem cycle

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com


Scenes from a Rainy November Day

For my Daughter


Dogs

The dogs have completed their dawn patrol
Running and circling in the cold grey drizzle
Barking enemies furry and dogmatic
Completing their…duties…in the fallen leaves

Wagging for me their after-action report
And rightly honored with a well-earned pat
They scamper back to the I-just-made-that-bed
And in their tunneling unmake the made

Pillows and sheets a mess – oh, well, that’s fair -
Little would-be wolves asleep in their lair


Coffee

The breakfast dishes unwashed in the sink
With the excuse that soaking them awhile
Is a good idea, when really it’s just a hope
That someone else will do the washing-up

Coffee is good – better than scrubbing plates
That second cup, taken like a sacrament
In slow and meditative sips, with thoughts
Sailing out into the rain, and back again

Pushing back against those futile wishes -
(There is no one else to wash the dishes)


Writing

A glowing laptop sits upon a desk
Idling patiently, waiting for a thought
To be tapped upon its five rows of keys
The molecules of communication

To be pushed about until they organize
Wandering imaginings into thought
And then sneaked up against another thought
And yet another…that’s not it…delete

Poetry embraces chaos, and finds -
A little more chaos in writers’ minds


Books

Perfect for reading, this stay-inside day
A couch, a lamp, a blanket and a pup
For cuddling up with Hercule Poirot
But he is thinking by the kitchen fire

And Keats is coughing on a window sill
Churchill’s speeches rumble with the toilet flush
Old Yeats is sailing to Byzantium
While Doctor Zhivago is lost in the snow

A book of English verse beside the bed -
Did Pushkin leave books strewn about unread?


Rain

Raindrops, the baptism of summer past
And a half-wild child’s laughing sunlit games
In dancing across the leaf-shaded lawn
And singing silly songs to the butterflies

But now the child is penance-bound in school
Learning to code at a blinking machine
Until the yellow bus splashes her home
To the chili soft-bubbling on the stove

For now -

Dogs and coffee, and writing, books, and rain -
And autumn dreams beyond the window pane


No comments: