The Poetry Marathon

Solo white feather
Gently rests on verdant moss
Until the wind blows

Embrace It

Fifteen weeks of isolation
In my hovel all alone
Keeping careful six-foot distance
Is more space than I have known

What want now is to touch you
Wrap you in a big bear hug
Feel your arms about my person
Cuddle in all warm and snug

How long? How long can this go on?
How long can I stand this fate?
Wanting nothing but to be touched
Caught in this ceaseless mandate

Angler Fish

In the briny deep
Where weird creatures creep
Dwells our friend the angler fish

His head is quite bright
With its own special light
Which he waves about with a flourish

When feeling a bit peckish
Himself to replenish
He goes fishing with his little light

When fish swim close in
By their tail or their fin
Our friend here gives them a bite

Our tale’s little moral
Is one filled with sorrow
For any fool fish down below

Don’t be dazzled by lights
Both appealing and bright
Or down someone’s gullet you’ll go

Our World Tonight

It’s our world
It’s our world
It’s our world tonight!

These streets are ours!
The trees are ours!
The fences, porches, and yards are ours!
It’s our world tonight!

These masks are ours!
The disguises, ours!
The shrieks and howls and growls are ours!
It’s our world tonight!

All pumpkins – ours!
All skeletons – ours!
All bats and cats and rats are ours!
It’s our world tonight!

These sacks are ours!
Those treats are ours!
All the candy in the world is ours!
It’s our world tonight!

The bright moon is ours!
The black night is ours!
All spooky things of fright are ours!
It’s our world tonight!

It’s our world
It’s our world
It’s our world tonight!

The Victrola

My Father’s job took him from farm to farm
Sometimes he came across treasures tucked away in barns

One day he brought home a cabinet Victrola
Four feet across and standing on spindly legs,
it boasted two compartments for records
and a front panel that could be slid away to reveal the horn
But the magic happened when you lifted the lid

Here, in a velvet lined compartment, lived the turntable
A lever underneath it controlled the speed
Next to that, a small built-in dish held spare needles –
some made of steel and some made of wood
We learned to lift the arm and replace the needles often,
especially the wooden ones, which didn’t last long

Before a record could be played
someone volunteered to turn the crank
At first, we worried it could be over-wound
But a resistance built up as you cranked,
so the last go rounds were slow and hard

Somewhere we found a stash of records
big heavy 12-inch disks
that withstood a steel needle’s abuse
We listened to Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey,
Fess Williams and his Royal Flush Orchestra
and many, many more a lot less famous

When the power went out
and TV, radio, and high-fi were of no use to us
we’d open up the Victrola
An ordinary cabinet revealing its secret self
like an enormous pop-up book unfolding
and play the records at half speed for a laugh
searching out the silliest lyrics
each discovering a favorite or two

Our Victrola – a little trip into the past

Affection

He brings to me a cup of coffee
In my favorite mug
Warm and sweetened to perfection
Before I’ve had the chance to ask

Bessie Coleman

In cotton fields, Bessie stood
And looked up in the sky
Oppressive heat filled Texas days
But one day she would fly

Bessie walked four miles each day
To a school with a dirt floor
She excelled in mathematics
So one day she could soar

Bessie got a scholarship
And went away to school
She continued on through college
For the skies she’d one day rule

In Chicago, Bessie worked two jobs
To pay to learn to fly
But she had to go to Paris
To learn to rule the skies

Bessie earned her pilot license
The first Black person ever!
The skies belonged to Bessie now
Because of her endeavor

Symbiotic

the air I breathe out
is breathed in by a plant
the air it breathes out
is breathed in by me
a wheel of air
cycling around
making life possible

Steps

Our playground sits above our school
Cut into the top of the nearby hill
Up more than two flights of stairs
Part steps, part path

My arthritic knees carry me slowly, slowly
While dozens of children thunder past me
They are already deep in play
When I make my way to my favorite bench

The other teacher leads the games
Kickball, or Quidditch, or Sharks and Minnows
While I sort out the disputes
and watch for rough play

Each day, a little victory
I made it to the top again
Each day, a little apprehension
How long can these old knees keep up?

We gather them in
And head down the path
Tomorrow I face my toughest challenge
yet again.