Hunkering Down

(Image: detail taken from AP photo)

She’s not too bright sometimes,

my father always said. I’m not sure but

I think he meant it took me longer

than most to learn my lesson.

The storm has been raging for months.

The winds die down from time to time,

and being the slow learner that I am,

I'm lulled into thinking all is well.

I can’t say I thought it was safe to go out again

because I never came in. I leaned into the wind,

plodded forward, taking everything that came my way,

but making less progress with every step.

The winds howled and buffeted and tore

at my soul and still I pushed on,

battered and bruised, eye on the prize,

like an idiot, or somebody hell-bent on nobility,

I slog on no longer.

Perseverance is a poor substitute

for winning, and nobility is

just another word for crazy.

***

Linked at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, Poetry Pantry, dVerse Poets Pub

Traveling with the Jabberwock

like that white van on I-95
yesterday,  he came
out of nowhere, speeding

toward who knows what

could be that important as to

cause him to be so cavalier?

as he galumphed past, he paused in my space,

pulling me to him, causing me to hit the brakes,

heart pounding. then as quickly as he appeared,

he moved on, weaving in and out,
drawing others in to founder in his wake,

leaving a field of brake lights behind him.

after years of traveling the highway,

you’d think I'd have learned to drive defensively,

but I get so taken in by the lure of the new places
and the wind in my hair, I forget to remember.
beware the jabberwock and the dreaded vorpal blade.
shun the frumious bandersnatch.

My Fifteen Minutes

Poets United is a wonderful site for everyone who enjoys reading or writing poetry.  Its community of contributors is so talented.

Unbelievably, Poets United has given me the great honor of interviewing me for their "Life of a Poet" series. (I still have to chuckle at that. Me, a poet!)

The interview was published today, and I'm still blushing a little.  I'm a talker, as many of you might have guessed  My dad used to tell me I'd been vaccinated with a phonograph needle. After reading my interview responses, I'm thinking he was right. Oh, boy, I talked. A lot.

Alas, there goes all the mystery...

The Stone

Once, in hallways of marble cold and dank, echoes sang the call of fear. Darkness spoke of death, and in shadows near passed wisps of souls of those who walk the halls no more.

Find the Stone, the wizards knew, decode its secret lore.  From the stone great wisdom comes, its mystery to unfold.  Light eternal will be yours and darkness be no more.

The Stone contained the secret, but hard to find it was.  It hid cloaked in diagrams and symbols and tangled threads and whispers drifting from beyond.

The legend told, beware the flame and ocean’s depth, for they the strongest are. But earth and smoke support the craft  when used with skill, and can convert the dirt to gold.

The alchymist toiled long and hard, stirring, sipping, adding more, as Panacea he would brew, a broth to stave off ills and age, to ensure eternal youth.

Thus long he stirred, his iron spoon swirling the Stone’s milk 'round the flask, when lo! The spoon began to change.  Its ore, you see, was born of ground, and its heart was made of gold.

                

The Alchymist, In Search of the Philosophers' Stone

Joseph Wright of Derby, 1771.

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