Clifton Market

[Preface:  Cincinnati’s Clifton neighborhood suffered a severe loss when its grocery, Keller’s IGA, closed in 2011 after seventy-two years in business.  When efforts to open a new IGA store failed, a group of local volunteers organized to open the store as a community-owned cooperative.  They recruited over 1200 shareholders, numerous donors, and $3 million dollars in loans.  After major renovation, Clifton Market opened on Jan. 22, 2017, much to the delight of the neighborhood.]

Our neighborhood’s filled with excitement

Clifton Market has opened this week

I’ll tell you exactly what it is like

In the hope that you’ll soon take a peek

Clifton Market is like the Green Bay Packers

The people themselves are the owners 

There are over twelve hundred shareholders

Plus some very benevolent donors

The Market itself is a football game

The fans are all rooting for their team

You can buy a bratwurst and a Hudepohl

For dessert, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream

Some say our Market’s an amusement park

Each department supplies its own thrills

There’s a Tunnel of Love for the veggies

And the wine cellar gives us the chills

Clifton Market is also a Broadway show

Jazzy and tuneful and rhythmic

With a colorful cast of characters

And a story line clearly terrific

Going to the Market’s a trip to the zoo

You stroll here and there in a loop

There are zillions of flora and fauna to see

Plus a cauldron of fresh lentil soup

Clifton Market, I’d say, is an orchestra

Different players all playing their parts

As you’d guess, there’s a gifted conductor

Who’s directing with keen grocery smarts

And finally it’s like the Fourth of July

With skyrockets lighting the sky

There are flashes of yellow and orange and green

And the reds of a ripe cherry pie

All in all, Clifton Market has brightened our life

I stop in to buy stuff every day 

It’s so new there’s a sense of adventure

And it helps keep the willies at bay

Winter at River House: A Garland Cinquain

[PREFACE:  A cinquain is a five-line poem in which the consecutive lines have 2, 4, 6, 8, and 2 syllables.  In a garland cinquain, six cinquains are combined into a larger poem, as in the example below.  The last cinquain is made up of lines from earlier stanzas.]

Fierce storms

Our road shuts down

The plow won’t come for days

Snow vacation, smiling children

Laughter

White world

Good packing snow

Snowmen and snowball fights

Dodging among the Norway Pines

Warriors

Christmas

Two days to go

Dad and I, out to the road

We chop down an evergreen tree

Massive

Driveway

Night basketball

A desk lamp lights the hoop

Playing Twenty-One on the ice

Hook shot

Slick road

Sled tied to car

My dad drives twenty-five

Pulled behind, we scream like banshees

Hearts pound

Fierce storms

Good packing snow

Dad and I, out to the road

Playing Twenty-One on the ice

Hearts pound

Forest Chums: Part One

When I grew up in the country

I knew all the animals by name

Here are a few I remember

(I'm not sure their names were the same)

Samantha the frog

Lives under a log

And sneaks out to dine on small bugs 

She rests in the sun

Till her snacking is done

Then goes home and hangs out with the slugs

Ransom the turtle

Is remarkably fertile

He had nineteen babies last June

His wife said, “Enough!”

“I am sick of this stuff”

And poor Ransom fell into a swoon

Martha the deer

Thinks herself a bit queer 

Because she loves daytime TV

She has searched for a set

But has not found one yet

So she settles for crumpets and tea

Hector the squirrel

Met a very nice girl

Her name was Miss Melba Louise

She had fine upbringing

And wasn’t that clinging

Her sole flaw was millions of fleas

Suzanna the rabbit

Has a very strange habit

She stands upside down on her paws 

They doubt she can do it

But when she gets to it

All the rabbits break into applause

Albert the gopher

Is hardly a loafer

He works all day long in his hole

He starts out at dawn

Makes a mess of our lawn

An underground town is his goal

The snake in our garden is named Elvis

Even though he is lacking a pelvis

He gyrates around in the dirt

He likes to eat snails

And scorpion tails

And enjoys a few worms for dessert

So these were just some of our forest pals

A rather remarkable bunch

We had games in the woods and the river

Then came home where mother made lunch

Stars of the Queen City

Cincinnati’s quite far from Manhattan

And it’s even more distant from L.A. 

Nonetheless it’s produced a surfeit of stars

I will tell you of some, if I may

Theda Bara (1885-1955)

Theda Bara was Cincy’s earliest star

She was queen of the silent film era

She did Walnut Hills High and then U.C. 

Though they claimed she was from the Sahara

Tyrone Power (1914-1958)

Tyrone played cowboys and pirates and spies

Few have been so handsome since

He graduated from Purcell High in Cincy

His tombstone reads, “Good Night, Sweet Prince”

Roy Rogers (1911-1998)

Roy Rogers starred in a hundred films

No one in Westerns was bigger

The Sons of the Pioneers joined him in song

And he rode a palomino named Trigger

Vera-Ellen  (1921-1981)

Vera-Ellen was born in Norwood

She took dance class with Doris Day

She won the Amateur Hour at age 13

And partnered with Astaire and Danny Kaye

Doris Day (1922- )

Doris Day was born Doris Kappelhoff

She started on WLW  

She filmed romances with Cary and Rock

Though having four husbands might trouble you

Andy Williams (1927-2012)

Andy Williams wasn’t born in Cincy

But he did go to Western Hills High 

He sold a hundred million records

With Moon River, it’s obvious why

Rosemary Clooney (1928-2002)

Rosemary grew up in nearby Maysville

She first sang with sister Betty

She teamed up with Bing in White Christmas

Botch-a-Me still makes my palms sweaty

Jerry Springer (1944- )

Jerry Springer was born in England

But we know him as Cincinnati’s mayor

Jerry has acted in quite a few films

His performance was rated just fair

George Clooney (1961 - )

George is Rosemary’s nephew

He’s the one who makes my wife swoon 

He gained fame as Dr. Doug on ER

He admits he can’t carry a tune

Woody Harrelson (1961 - )

Woody grew up in nearby Lebanon

He was bartender in that great sitcom “Cheers”

We enjoyed him in “True Detective” too

Even though it aroused our worst fears

Sarah Jessica Parker (1965- )

Sarah moved to Clifton when she was just four

She studied theater at SCPA

She started on Broadway at age eleven

But “Sex in the City” is what made her day

Carmen Electra (1972- )

Carmen was born in Sharonville

She is not a celebrity to diss

She appeared in Scary Movie and other fine films

And won an award for “Best Kiss”

There are many other stars from Cincinnati

But these are some of the best

I’ll keep my eye open on Fountain Square

Perhaps I’ll see some of the rest

First Tweets

I have to admit I am out of the loop

I never have learned how to tweet

I do know they’re one forty characters max

And when written in rhyme they’re quite sweet

The next time we see our grandkids

I will ask them to teach me some Twitter

In the meantime I’m practicing writing tweets

Here’s a few that have led me to titter

Hello Hello to all my dear friends

I am tweeting for the very first time

I’m going to tell you what’s new in my life

And I’ll try to avoid all the grime

(#FirstTimeTweeting)

I purchased three quarts of spumoni

Then hid them downstairs in the freezer

I chose not to share a dish with my wife

Since she thinks me a selfish old geezer

(#IceCreamStash)

I haven’t slept well for umpteen years

Now my doc’s saying Ambien’s bad

I suppose he thinks I’m addicted

But no Ambien and I’ll be ultra sad

(#NoAmbien)

The vet’s office called with a question last week

They offered us two Labradoodles

Our hearts skipped a beat when we pondered this

If we do it we’re out of our noodles

(#TwoLabradoodles)

I drove Katja out to the suburbs

She nagged me each mile of the way

“Look out!,” “Slow down!,” she yelled in my ears

I encouraged her to silently pray

(#DrivingAdvice)

Our dishwasher went on the fritz

Our service agreement’s from Sears

They said they could come in twenty-nine days

That’s better than twenty-nine years

(#BadServiceAgreement)

My wife chats with strangers at the airport

A habit that makes me uneasy

I never can think of something to say

So I just stand around looking queasy

(#AirportChitchat)  

We are back from our holiday vacation

Life at home seems to be rather boring

We go nowhere and we do nothing

My most robust action is snoring

#LifeIsBoring

Katja wants to get a new car

Our old car has 80K miles

It strikes me it’s running perfectly fine

So I simply reply with vague smiles

(#Don’tNeedNewCar) 

I’m taking these pills for blood sugar

They’re useful for staying alive

I have to pay about eight cents a day

That’s o.k. if they help me survive

(#CheapPills)

The wristband broke on my Fitbit

Now I carry it in my pocket instead

I never get close to ten thousand steps

You might say I’m a Fitbit Dumbhead

(#FitbitFailure)

We are cooped up by such freezing weather

I need to get out of the house

And then making matters even worse

Our kitchen’s now home to a mouse

(#MouseHouse)

Maybe it’s two mice who live in our kitchen

They get crumbs in the middle of the night

I’m thinking of buying some mousetraps

Though murder seems quite impolite

(#Don’tMurderSmallVisitors)

So these are the tweets that I’ve dreamed up so far

Possibilities, of course, are quite endless

I’m eager to send out my very first tweet

I hope I don’t prove to be friendless

Our Friends, The Bloodsuckers

Back when we swam in the river

There were beasts of all sorts in the water

Like crayfish and clams and water bugs

On occasion we might see an otter

Only one of these species would seek us out

And that was the thirsty bloodsucker

It liked to burrow between our toes

Drink our blood and make our skin pucker

We didn’t even know when they got on our feet

They were busy looking for a vein

Then they’d imbibe until they were full

So clever, they caused us no pain

After we finished our swim

We’d examine our feet on the shore

We’d usually find at least one of these guys

Sometimes two, maybe three, even four

Once in a while we’d fail to check

Then they’d ride along with us all day

My mother hated them in the house

It was they who turned her hair gray

Bloodsuckers are two hundred million years old

They are truly incredible creatures

They have three jaws and five pairs of eyes

And other astonishing features

They’re members of the far-reaching family of worms

They have suckers on their front and their rear 

Bloodsuckers feed on turtles and fish

They’ve even been spotted on deer

Each little sucker has dozens of teeth

It can eat up to five times its weight 

I used to worry they’d starve without blood

But they last a full year in that state

The reason there’s no pain when a bloodsucker strikes

Your skin is numbed by its drool

It prevents infection and keeps the blood flowing

The bloodsucker’s drool is so cool

And bloodsuckers are nurturing parents

They carry their eggs till they hatch

Then feed their newborns till big enough

For the youngsters to make their own catch

A bloodsucker’s life is no picnic

Such a struggle to find enough blood

It must be hard to hook up with a fish

Especially when you live in the mud

Bloodsuckers gave us excitement

They encouraged us to scream and to squeal 

We felt very virtuous donating blood

Where else can you be someone’s meal?