My Week (In Memoriam)

Monday, the day for a trip to the gym 

How is it possible I don’t get slim? 

Tuesday, six-thirty, I’m off to line dancing 

A grapevine, a cha-cha, a bit of of fine prancing 

Then Wednesday eve, our class for zumba

I’m so-so at salsa, more shaky on rumba 

Thursdays I walk to my office from home

It’s there that I fail to write a new poem

Friday at five I have wine with a friend

I uncork the bottle, we sip till the end

Saturday it’s time for the Musee de Art 

A pleasing respite for the mind and the heart 

Sunday, some football or hoops on TV

Then Masterpiece Theater for Katja and me

That, in a nutshell, is my normal week

A few parts are boring, but most are tres chic 

Ladies Who Lunch

                            by Katja Lundgren 

Ladies who lunch

Who are we, sitting in restaurant windows

Sun shining behind our silvery, peppery, gold and auburn streaked hair

Catching up on weeks and months flown by

Catching glimpses of wrinkled necks and droopy eyes

Grasping each other in arms that sag but hold each other firm- as if afraid our lives will vanish with our salads and Bloody Marys

Kiss, Kiss – we blow gently on each cheek

and make deep promises to keep in touch

Before we lose each other – again.

The Best of Times

My father came home from the war

but we still didn’t have any money

so we moved out of town

into my dead grandpa’s cottage on the river.

Set among the great oaks

the only house on the whole River Road.

No electricity, no telephone

no running water, no indoor toilet.

In the winter it took the county

three days to come and plow.

Our own private school holidays.

We pioneers of the Great White North

like Daniel Boone or Paul Bunyan himself.

My job every evening

was to light the candles

and the two kerosene lanterns

on the living room mantle. 

Our water came from the pump out front.

I carried the buckets to my mother

to fill the dog’s bowl, to brush our teeth.

Before bedtime I walked my little brother to the outhouse

keeping an eye out for creatures of the night. 

We took our baths in the river

even my mother and father

though I learned many years later

that our river was dirty. 

My happiest times in those years on River Road

were walking with my dad to the city dump

a half mile up the road

pulling my red wagon behind us

to carry home the treasures we found. 

I searched for bottle caps

to add to my collection

while my dad looked for household furnishings.

A bedside table with a broken leg

a discarded flower vase

an ashtray from somebody’s Florida vacation

rusty old tools.

We lacked this and that but

we loved our life on the river.

The swimming, our green rowboat

with its one horsepower motor,

birches and pines, expeditions to Pig Island.

After two years the Meads and the Orths built houses nearby

and the county installed electric lines on River Road.

Our world would never be quite the same.

Sibling Limericks

Four kids, we were much like a flock of sheep

A fractious bunch, even with Bo Peep 

Our mother watched over this frisky lot

Like ewes in the pasture, ready to trot

Sweet memories when I’m going to sleep 

  

Steven is like a New Year’s Eve blast

A rowdy youth, his chums called him fast 

He imbibed a strong drink

Gave the girls a wink 

And never lamented his past  

Peter is like a museum of art

A passion for beauty runs through his heart 

A photo artiste

Paint and brush, he’s a beast 

A Renaissance man from the start 

Vicki, our sis, like a jazz quartet 

Soulful music though sometimes she’ll fret 

A minor’s her key

Her riffs give us glee 

Such vocals we’ll never forget 

David is more like a cemetery at night

Moody, morose, often poised for flight

Quiet as a tomb

His mind toys with doom

But with siblings he feels less uptight

As a family we’re sort of a Swedish stew

All these fine flavors go into the brew  

True, no two are alike 

A happy medium we strike  

And that said, I will bid you adieu

From My Poetry Room

In a hollow cavity at the back of my mind

there is a hidden room 

where I go when I need to write a poem

I simply close my eyes, grit my teeth, and pass through the portal 

shutting the sturdy door firmly behind me

A room that smells of lilacs and peppermint schnapps

decorated in pastel stripes

Fuscia, lavender, eggplant, plum

Thelonious Monk might be playing Misterioso in the background

Or Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain 

A large bay window on the North wall

displays a series of inspiring scenes

The Menominee River, Ludlow Avenue at dusk 

children at play in the forest

the beach at Siesta Key 

wretched souls in the fifth circle of Hell 

Life-sized portraits on the East wall stare back at me

Dorothy Parker, Ferlinghetti, Hilaire Belloc 

Charles Bukowski, Spike Milligan, Langston Hughes 

A digital message board is mounted on the South wall 

depicting an endless array of poetry prompts

Neurotic anxieties, Valentine wishes, what dogs get confused about

horrid parents, the lucky number 3, cryptids, arthritic joints

On the West wall placards list instructions for poetic forms

Villanelle, Kyriele, Shadorma

Triolet, Ghazal, Rondeau, Oviellejo   

Two armchairs await in the corner

One, plush and over-stuffed, prompts a gentle flow of poetic imagery

The other vibrates madly and shakes loose long buried ideas

For sustenance, the mini-refrigerator offers

Lorna Doone cookies and Canadian whiskey  

On the counter, half a dozen corked vials

contain smelling salts that induce emotions of choice

Joy, torment, grief, longing, mild amusement, confusion 

There at my desk a yellow legal pad, a laptop computer, a #2 pencil 

a thesaurus, a rhyming dictionary, a copy of Bartlett’s Quotations  

I am actually sitting in my poetry room at this very moment

writing this poem for you

I had planned to take a lunch break but

the door is locked, I’ve lost the key

I do have all the necessities

I will just stay here locked in my room 

until the end of my days 

Brouhaha at the Symphony: A Kyrielle

The girl was filming with her phone

The policy — no videos — was well-known

Past concerts, no one ever dared 

The soloist stopped playing and glared 

The soloist demanded she refrain

The girl replied, “That’s insane” 

She continued to film unimpaired

The soloist stopped playing and glared

The president of the symphony came down 

He confronted the culprit with a frown  

But the headstrong girl wasn’t scared 

The soloist stopped playing and glared

The president escorted her out

The girl said he was a lout 

Mouths agape, the audience stared  

The soloist stopped playing and glared     

Beasts of the Night

The close of dusk, I lit my fire

Moonless and darkening

though the crown of evergreen branches

spread its design across the gray-blue sky

Burning pine logs crackled and spit

shooting out sparks which spun to the grass

then flickered and disappeared

By nine o’clock the world had turned pitch black

I called my wife on my cell phone

and told her it was eery, even scary

The park was deserted, no lights, no sounds

A good stomping ground for rural thugs or killers

Just then, a growling noise

I looked to my right

and saw two pairs of eyes

glowing red from the firelight

Then black masks, white snouts, pointy ears

A pair of large raccoons 

side by side, standing at attention

thirty feet away, staring at me

I felt my heart pounding

“Get out of here!” I screamed

“Get out of here!”

“Get out of here!”

So loud I even frightened myself

But the raccoons stood their ground

My wife said over the phone

“When raccoons growl they are rabid”

“Please get in the car, please lock the doors”

A third raccoon appeared

around the edge of the picnic table.

“Get away, get away!” I shouted

clenching my fists, nails digging into my palms

But he too stood unperturbed

knowing his raccoon family owned the campground 

I got up from my chair, retreated to my tent

pulled the zipper tight, tied it shut with a twist tie

I heard pots and pans clanging

A box of kitchen stuff crashed to the ground

And then eventually quiet

Later the beasts of the night

wandered in and out of my dreams