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Saturday, October 13, 2012


3 POEMS

















When George Took Me to Greece

Jet-lagged and hung-over, we climbed the rough old road. 
A black boulder jutted onto the path and George said, 
“That's Socrates' Rock." 
I stopped when my lover spoke, startled out of tangled thoughts,
touched the stone, then leaned against it, 
looked up and to the east and gasped.
The Acropolis, just there, undid me.
The setting sun lit the hill
and golden temples floated
above the shadowed slope. 
My back against the ancient
teaching rock, I dissolved.



                                                                                     
                                                                                


LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING

If you think by your death you have left me alone,  
to pine, to regret, to watch cable tv, you're wrong.

At bedtime I wear a new black lace gown,
and arrange myself to advantage
on sheets finer than any we shared.
I’ve left the back door open. 
I believe I thrum.  I hear 
his step and then we begin.

He attends to that place
below my ears, knows how 
to rub and nip. There is time for my breasts, 
time for him to stoke me, each inch
until my supple back arches, reaches, pleads,
demands his weight. We twist, turn, lift, 
sate, shout, pound pillows, laugh.

Then something, a noise? 
I wake, on my side of our quiet bed,
my short white hair mussed, our gray cat 
stretched along my pale, restless thigh.



The Dice are Not To Blame


Ted swam far from shore with a bar of lead. 
He loved it, you see, until he drowned dead.
Mick had a trick of giving his money
to heartless bosoms that called him honey.
Sharon kept caring for drinkers and dopers
gamblers and cheaters and whiners and mopers.
Benny saw double and never could tell
which one had substance and which was a shell.
Mick, Benny, Sharon, and poor dead Ted
had luck that sucked they frequently said.
I didn’t agree and suggested instead

 that they didn't have to sink 
     they could listen to me,
and let go of their lead 
     when they swam in the sea.




2 comments:

david coyote said...

I'd walk miles to read your write!
But I'm so pleased that I don't have to.

Poems work their magic best when awakening old memories. It so often feels like we've walked in each others footprints. That kind of magic.

Be well,

Cuz

Karen thisoldhouse2.com said...


Snippets of a life, so beautifully written.