Life In Our Neighborhood: A "Found" Poem (from NextDoorClifton.com)

Hello beautiful neighbors of mine!

Anyone need anything

I’m Available!

I need help in my garden.  Muscles!

Ms. Birkenleoux has been located…

Cliftonites are cool

Feeling worried 

Bad odor in the air

Loud booms

what happened on Kirby Ave? 

Did you mistakenly swipe my trash bin?

WHERE SHOULD I CALL IF I NEED THE POLICE? 

Anyone have a torque wrench?

Interest in cheap Russian/Ukrainian tutor

Looking to buy a $500 car

Piece of scrap wood? 

need to borrow a manual wheelchair

Looking for a Goat to Rent

Lost Kitty?

Still looking

Mr. Stripes

Sorry Sad Little Cat 

Dead orange and white kitty cat on the I74 exit to Colerain

Farewell to Good Cat Stan 1998-2017

The park was trashed!

drug deal on Edna Ave

gunshots

home burglarized in broad daylight

serial purse snatcher on/around Ludlow

Warning: man exposing himself in public

What type of tree is this?

Large bird

Let me ask you something

Help my mom please

Clifton neighbors are the best

Moving

Inner Walls

My inner walls are crumbling

I can feel them straining in the dark of night

Or at the movie house

when some fleeting image on the screen

sparks a latent memory

and it spurts right out

stabbing at my throat and chest

I utter an involuntary sigh

and my wife whispers

“What’s the matter?”

and I shake my head

pretending I didn’t hear  

There is a secret room

at the back of my brain

that I have used since infancy

to bury certain thoughts and feelings

Painful happenings

Embarrassments

Distressingly stupid acts

A lie I once told to a girl

How I nearly harmed my two-year-old

The time I nearly killed us all on the turnpike

Past moments of agony and regret 

Locked away, sealed off

But now in my penultimate years

my arteries are brittle

and this room has gotten so crowded

so packed with refuse

that the walls are starting to crack

or even burst wide open

At first I tried desperately 

to hold them together

But now I’ve come to realize

that maybe I should let the bad stuff out 

Poke at it, massage it 

Turn it this way and that

To accept the whole package

Warts, pustules, and all

Age Eighty

I never imagined I’d reach age eighty

though my grandfather did this and so did my dad

Implications of eighty are many and weighty

Most days I’m happy, the other days I’m sad

One thing that strikes me, I’d have to say

Eighty’s not as old as it used to be

I always though it meant loss and decay

But actually now I feel more and more free

There are things about eighty that most call scary

Like cancer and heart disease and terrible strokes

Also your ears and your nose get more hairy

And the wise guys make jokes about older folks

At eighty you’ve used up a lot of your life

Of course you could also say that of fifty

My life is now quieter, less filled with strife

Though one more decade would also be nifty

I think I’ll make ninety my next life goal

and walk at least ten thousand steps a day

A glass of red wine is the best for the soul

And poems help chase the demons away 

The Ant on the Patio

Eight a.m., coffee on the patio

I’d slogged my way through the Enquirer

Skipping most stories, so boring, empty

Sudoku, more enticing but

even it imploded at the end

Just then I noticed a solitary black ant

making his way round the table’s rim

Running for two or three inches

Stopping, looking here and there

Running some more 

His body language, clear signs of panic 

“He may have to do this forever,” I thought

This ant will never discover

that the table rim is round

Not a drop of water, not a speck of food

Nothing but barren gray metal

Will he run in a circle 

until he dies?

I caught my breath, gave a sigh

I felt sorrow for the ant

and also identified with his plight

My own table rim is larger

but every bit as circular

Fruitless, bereft of nutrition

I went to the kitchen, found a piece of cardboard

I would lure the ant onto it

Then lower him to the ground

I hurried back to the patio

Much to my astonishment

the ant was nowhere to be found

He’d left my table

for a better ant place

I felt a vicarious sense of triumph

If that ant could solve his predicament

There’s surely hope for the rest of us 

"What Is Marriage Really Like?"

“Grandpa,” they asked, as it got close to bedtime

“What is marriage really like?”  

I hemmed and hawed, my brain stuffed with weevils

Marriage can mean so many different things

An Argentine tango, a Chinese buffet  

In bad times, the chilblains or snarling pit bulls 

Suddenly it came to me, a Eureka moment

“Children,” I said, “marriage is like…a hike in the forest!”

And we all know what hiking in the forest is like 

Hikers set off with such rosy expectations

Eager to embrace nature in all its splendor

Fireflies mating, squirrels building their nests

The rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker

Even mysterious snarls from beyond the pine trees 

Deep in the forest hikers find their own secret space

Friends, parents, neighbors, far off in the distance 

They can laugh and sing, hug and kiss, do a silly dance

Or argue and scowl and scream and rant

But, as hikers, they have to create their routines

Which way to go, to the east or the west?

When one gets tired, the other slows down

And what to do when one strays from the path? 

Every minute in the forest, filled with give-and-take  

Hikers stick together on their way through the forest

Moving along at their two-person pace 

They are there to protect and support one another

Talking, watching, pointing, expressing their feelings

It’s sharing that makes their experiences memorable 

Hikes in the forest extend through the seasons

The best of times, a lush world, filled with plenty 

But leaves lose their luster, start trickling to the ground

Freezing ice sets in, the world is near dead 

If hikers stay patient, tiny buds pop open, the flora returns 

In time the forest’s wonders begin to wane

The trees, grass, and streams start to look the same 

As the long hike goes on, talk slows to a halt  

Hikers lapse into silence, immersed in private thoughts

Some portions of the forest make hiking exhausting 

Climbing steep hills, descending into ravines

The forest is challenging, even threatening at times 

Hikers struggle to make their way together 

But sometimes it’s too much and their journey ends

The last leg of the hike is sometimes the best 

Many miles traversed, the end now in sight

A time to reflect, to meditate

To appreciate the sights and sounds of the day 

Fish jumping in the pond, the bullfrogs croaking 

The Great Blue Heron flying overhead 

Memories to bring home to keep the hike alive 

So bedtime is here, that’s the end of my story 

Thanks to you, I’m now definitely clear on one thing 

Marriage is not an omelet, a chess game, a circus

Not a hailstorm, not even the tunnel of love 

Marriage, my chummies, is a hike in the forest! 

A Ballad of Annie Oakley

August thirteenth, AD 1860

A sweet baby girl, Phoebe Ann Mosey

Born on a farm in Darke County, Ohio

Eight children, two bedrooms, a farmhouse quite cozy

By age seven Annie hunted to help bring in money

This child was a natural with her firearm

Taking her kill to the general store dealer

Eight years, she’d paid off the mortgage on the farm

Spring Eighty-One, to the south in Cincinnati

Marksman Frank Butler arrived with his act

He bet fifty dollars with hotelman Jack Frost

“I’ll beat any shooter, and that, Sir’s, a fact!”

Jack Frost and Frank Butler rode up to Darke County

To Frank’s amazement, a five-foot female

His opponent in shooting live birds 

They took turns, each targeting twenty-five quail

Twenty-four rounds and the two were dead even  

Neither marksman had missed even one single shot

On his twenty-fifth bird, Frank made his sole error 

And Annie then won the whole fifty-dollar pot

Frank later admitted, “She took me fair and square”

Head over heels, he thought Annie so dear  

Adoring his poodle, she gave Frank a chance

The stars were aligned, they were wed in one year

They moved to Cincinnati, found a house in Oakley

That’s where Annie obtained her famous stage name

She joined Frank’s act in Over-the-Rhine

The start of her journey to world-wide fame

Several years later, Frank and Annie moved on

Joining Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show

Seventeen years, North America and Europe

Queen Victoria, the Kaiser, and King Umberto

Annie’s marksmanship was other-worldly

She shot dimes and playing cards tossed in the air

Hit targets behind her while looking in a mirror

Snuffed a burning candle and put out its glare

Annie Oakley left the show in Nineteen-O-Two         

She fought for women’s rights, for daughters and sons        

Gave money to orphanages and charities

Taught fifteen thousand women how best to use guns

Annie died in Darke County at age sixty-six 

Pernicious anemia, that was her lot

Frank stopped eating food, died eighteen days later

Darke County, still together in their family plot

Father's Day

Oh Father’s Day, you foolish scalawag

Barely one step ahead of Columbus Day 

But lagging miles behind 

Groundhog Day

or Fat Tuesday or National Pizza Day 

Mothers Day, of course, is another matter 

Mothers deserve their own special day

since the rest of their year is 

such a raw deal 

My thinking, of course, might be

out of date 

since it was formed in the nineteen-forties 

The dads in our crowd, 

just back from the war, 

turned their families into military platoons

Dad were three-star generals

Moms, second lieutenants 

The children, buck privates at best

Just one rule obtained:

Obey every command from on high

Do it quickly and perfectly 

Never ask why

Never talk back

The dads had jobs in the factory or the firm

Bringing home the money 

Thus excused from the menial household tasks 

Moms did the cooking, the cleaning,

the bringing up of the children, 

changing their diapers, washing behind the ears 

Although fathers were in charge of discipline

At least the bodily sort 

Usually with a belt or a ruler

Things we learned from our fathers:

Rich people are superior 

Never show weakness

Stand up, don't slouch 

But here I exaggerate

My father did have a fun side 

He took me along 

to chop down our Christmas trees

and pulled the toboggan behind the car 

Best of all, we went to my uncle’s

drugstore after hours

and created whatever 

we wanted at the soda fountain 

Butterscotch, peppermint, fudge ripple

But I can’t remember 

if I ever got a hug  

Those, of course, were the bygone days

Thirty years later

My dad became a grandfather

I give him credit

He grew to be a much better 

grandfather than a father

Engaged with his grandkids

Interested, affectionate, chummy

Times change 

People change with them

Nowadays there are many more reasons
     to celebrate Father's Day