"The Old Folks" by John Steuart Curry

At home in rural Kansas 

A hot Sunday in mid-July

Mother and Father, back from church

Relaxing in their rockers

Buddy, their dog, watches alertly over the yard

Shortly Mother will cook Swedish pancakes

with lingonberries for lunch

But first some quiet time

Despite her blurry eyes

Mother is nearly done knitting her scarf

Father just finished with the Sunday Gazette

He wonders why he bothers

The world, so torn with chaos

Ugly politics, violence at home and abroad

Each year they appreciate their farm more

Their own private sanctuary

A place of  abundance and serenity 

The children, of course, are grown adults

Off in the big city, far from the farm 

Still friendly, but with lives and families of their own

The couple rarely talk with one another

Everything’s been said so many times

Yet they enjoy a special closeness

A product of their fifty-two years

Life is good, not perfect

She takes medicine for her heart

His back pains keep him awake at night 

But they are always there for one another

Night and day

And will be until the very end 

Swinging

  

I love to swing

When my mother pushes me

I go so high you’d never believe

Like a seagull soaring over the ocean

Searching the blue waters far below

Sometimes I feel I am close to Heaven 

Up here so high in the clouds 

Looking at the people’s tiny houses

Sending angel prayers to the sleeping babes

I have no fear when I’m high in the sky

I know there’s a safety net of love

My mother is always there for me

To catch me if ever I slip 

Swinging high

Swinging low

Swinging high again

Swinging my way to the unknown

Senior Moments: A Rhyming Sestina

That TV remote is so slippery to find

I suspect that its rays might be curdling my brain

I search through the sofa, underneath, behind 

With all this commotion, I pray I’ll stay sane

My spouse says the doctor should X-ray my mind

But at my robust age I’ve no need to complain

My trip to the mall, this does lead me to complain

From home to Northgate, very simple to find 

I turned south, not north, I’m afraid that’s not sane

Just one more faux pas by my fuddled-up mind

CVS might stock herbs to jumpstart one’s brain 

Magic herbs could keep me from falling behind 

Losing stuff in the fridge, in the drawer or behind 

The milk disappears, I fret and complain 

The image of that bottle, so clear in my mind

My wife says it helps if I use my brain 

Lost milk, it takes her one second to find 

She hands it to me, harbors doubts that I’m sane 

PBS dramas, it helps to be sane 

I lose track of the story, I’m hopelessly behind 

Too challenging, it seems, for my ossified brain

The meaning of Poldark I struggle to find 

But despite my confusion I never complain 

Even losing the whole plot, I actually don’t mind

Jeopardy was designed as a boon to one’s mind

A memory refresher that keeps seniors sane 

I often know the answer but the words I can’t find

I shout at the screen, I twitch, I complain 

The contestants too quick so I fall far behind 

Please, Alex Trebek, help revive my dead brain 

“Be sure to bring your name tag,” I instructed my brain

But I wore my wife’s instead, a silly prank by my mind

My classmates giggled, no need to complain 

They’re used to my dithers, my lagging behind 

Labelling myself “Katja”, who would think that is sane

But to wear my own name, not that simple I find

Senior moments I find give me cause to complain

Dead gray cells in my brain mean I’m losing my mind 

Falling more and more behind in my quest to stay sane 

All Hallows Eve

On Halloween we shed our normal selves

We dress as ghosts or pirates, kings or queens

Then frolic with the demons and the elves

And fill our bags with colored jelly beans

But Halloween is more than fun and games

This is the night the dead return to life

The witches’ brew is bubbling on the flames

And Dracula is searching for a wife

The children ring the bell in search of treats

They’re clueless as to what awaits their fate

I fear that werewolves prowl the city streets

Perhaps a ghoul digests the flesh he ate

I think I’d just as soon stay home tonight     

This poem puts me in a state of fright

Black T's

      

     

The Goodwill arranges its T-shirts by color

I skip past the white and the gray

I usually thumb through the red and the blue

But it’s black shirts that carry the day 

Black T-shirts, so forceful, so strong

Most thugs never mug a wearer

Even big guys step out of the way

While their kiddies look on in sheer terror 

Black T-shirts remind me of zombies

Of panthers and black bears and rhinos

Tarantulas and scorpions are blacker than night

Many dreaded creatures that cause human woes

Nosferatu and Dracula always wear black

Darth Vader and Lord Voldemort

Plus scary good guys, John Wick, The Dark Knight

James Dean, other rebels of his sort

Black stands for mystery, power and death 

Why I’m drawn to this color is odd

In truth, I am more of a lime green guy

But for fantasy, black’s my facade  

The Social Scientist As Poet

The day he arrived at his quite advanced age

My dear cousin Alfred proceeded to retire 

A true social scientist for forty plus years 

He began writing poetry, a calling much higher

Alfred’s sonnets were informed by his social science training 

The rules: be clear, be accurate and objective 

Stick to the facts, no fantasies, no feelings

Impersonal description, so lyrically effective

Pitfalls that Alfred avoids at all costs:

Flowery language, allusion, ambiguity

The personal, the subjective, the introspective

Metaphors, similes, any hint of incongruity  

Alfred’s quest, you might say, is a radical venture 

He rids his poems of all things poetic 

Our society is much too confusing as is 

Conflict and chaos, distressing, pathetic 

Alfred says that his poems bring light to the darkness

Restoring needed order in a woebegotten time 

His verses bubble over with certainty and structure  

Not to mention fine meter and lines topped with rhyme 

It’s hard to predict what the future will bring

Some scoff at the drabness of Alfred’s new goal

But order and clarity are very dope things 

It doesn’t bother Alfred if he’s lacking in soul 

Letterology: A Book Of Divination For Our Troubled Times

Numerology gets more applause and acclaim

A source of wisdom for two thousand years

But Letterology, a wellspring, if you are seeking

to unravel the psyche, to calm rampant fears 

Letterology interprets the letters from one’s name

In my case, for example, the initials D-C-L 

One probes their meanings in the sacred texts

One’s life course, one’s destiny, Letterology will tell

                  D-C-L: The Readings

D is the image of an Army helmet

          Of a bullet, a quonset hut, a coffin’s end 

The sound of D is duh-duh-duh-duh

          The din of a jackhammer dismantling concrete

D stands for demon, degenerate, depraved

          Also dilettante, dullard, doofus

 Thus D is the Dark side of D-C-L

         And D is in the first place, the foundation, the core 

C is the image of a cup of hot chocolate

          A happy smile, a bowl for chrysanthemums

C sounds like cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh

          The soft song of cicadas at twilight

 C stands for capable, confident, clever

          And chatty, congenial, cordial, chipper

 C is the Creative side of D-C-L

  But sadly C is stuck between D and L

L is the image of a dead end road

          A broken twig, a clock just past midnight

L sounds like luh-luh-luh-luh

          The gibberish of an infant babbling in his crib

 L stands for lazy, lethargic, lackadaisical

          For loony, light-headed, lopsided, lumpy 

 L is the Lamentable side of D-C-L

         L waits in the last place, the guardian of the end

What should I make of this unsettling reading? 

All hope for the future is with the letter C

D-C-L should change his first name to Cramer

When C’s in the first place, one is happy and free