Retirement, a tanka
Retirement, a tanka
Alone forever
Just a stack of books and time
Happy as a lark
Coffee greets me day and night
Now, where’d I place my glasses?
Gatherings
My life is abundant with enriching gatherings —
maybe God spoils me with these,
parishioners, praying friends, generous with time and selves
like even more family..
Nativity is a Catholic parish that has welcomed me
warmly smiling and chatting and encouraging my ideas
sharing prayer stories, so that
weekly Mass is a treasured gathering.
Friends who also enjoy writing gather together monthly
bringing their new creative writing, or found gems.
Sharing snacks, general conversation.
Mostly, we hunger for each other’s next piece.
The Summer Family Reunion gatherings bring together lots of aunts, uncles. and cousins
Grandparents married two families together — Anna and Patrick Callahan married
James and Sadie Boyle, some decades ago and we keep trying to stay connected.
Summertime, 2022 will resume the picnic, fun after the pandemic pause.
A Lincicomes’ Family gathering for Christmas has been held at my home,
the eldest child of one of the first Boyle generation.in America
My Irish trait of storytelling, and the children answer questions
to get their pick of the visible Christmas presents.
Gatherings, big and small, are generally feasts of food,
favorite beverages, shared clean-up, catching up, sharing news,
new babies. achievements, tricks learned, graduations, and retirements.
Gatherings that make us feel loved are special blessings indeed.
By Nancy Ann Smith, Poetry Marathon Prompt # 12, June 25, 2022
He
His name is Freedom but he prefers to be announced as We, Us. He or Him. Please don’t refer to him as them, they or those.
He cannot pale any bluer in the face. For centuries no one has told him what to do. His stained glass eyes pull Us closer to the divine.
They don’t know if he breathes through nose or gills. We know that his priorities are bills.
I would love to snap on his powdered wig and black robe. I’d shrink to gavel size and hide with all the other tricks up his sleeve, sopping up genetic sweat with my moppy hair.
His name is uncle, the verb, used as a cry or surrender of defeat. His name is freedom but he prefers to be announced as We, US, He, or Him.
His priorities are bills. Government name Clarence sitting in the judiciary seat.
I wonder if he still pushes pills the way that he’s bulldozing femininity.
He has the power and right to act, speak and think as he wants.
We are in the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority.
12… Strange New Worlds (a kouta, 7775)
Pike slipped into my inbox
recommended silver fox
by my husband and lover,
who knows good fox.
Stubborn Dog, a septet
Stubborn Dog, a septet
Bowen, outside dog
Trapped with indoor family
Always loves a trip to the dog park
Racing dogs along the fence
Never wants to leave
Dad hates this
The Looted Storehouse (Hour 12)
It’s the heart of the wet season
When the woods are drunk
And we cannot navigate
The mighty ponds
On the paths to our farms.
Overgrown weeds hide
Hideous reptiles.
Cold comes knocking
So we unlock the stores
To fetch faggots we gathered
When the woods were dry
But the storehouse is empty
While we slept
While we enjoyed relief from
The scorching sun
Folks to whom we entrusted the store
keys robbed us dry,
Shared all we had gathered
Among them.
Now our children are dying of cold
No firewood to keep them warm.
You Have Got to be Kidding Me
You Have Got to be Kidding Me
A birthday party for a dog?
Next, you’ll want one for every cow, horse, or hog!
Please don’t ask for one for the duck.
He can have one when he learns to drive my truck.
Hour 12, prompt 12_ The drums of war.
I hear the thump thump sounds of strange drums.
Faint sounds but getting louder with each new beat.
These are no drums I knew.
Not the sounds of the long drums accompanying a bridal party.
Or the gangan celebrating a chieftaincy.
It is not the ikpa, for no one died. No one that important anyways.
These are neither happy nor sad sounds.
Just of fear, a foreboding , a warning.
Of a river of blood about to flow and of voices on the brink of a wail.
Of vultures, circling, patient, waiting
Like guests at a wedding about to feast.
These are like no beats that I knew.
These new drums are the drums of war.
Venn Diagram
I plot my interests into acceptability diagrams
and use the finished piece to distance myself further
quarantine, I call it, is the reason I don’t try
musing that exposure to me is misery
and that there are so many others you’d like
working with much larger circles.