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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
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