Category Archives: prose poetry

Record Heat

prose poetry

​Another day of swelter at the end of July
In just another midwestern city
Streets lined with the predictable pattern
Of overly large trees that provide shade
And sometimes a slight breeze that cools
A pedestrian into a believable possibility
That will not last against the grip
Of the preceding day’s realized threat to remain

One has no chance against the Heat
The sun and the air will have their way
As will our fate
For the dream of what we don’t want
Desperate to soothe us, like the breeze
Thinks the opposite of what is now the remedy
But those flimsy solutions are no cure
Eventual surrender to the umcomfortable

Is like this last line that must hang alone

A Bug on the Move

prose poetry

​It hesitated, then slightly moved one of its crooked legs

Or whatever bug appendages are called
As if to test the air
For which direction the wind was blowing

I learned early not to like bugs so much
To believe they should not be
Wherever I chose to be
To keep them out of my natural order of things

But this bug I watched for some time
Until it moved rather quickly
And me with all my supposed power over it
Picked it up on a kleenex

I opened the front door
Walked to the edge of the stoop
Shook out that Kleenex, waited,
Watched it land, that bug, now in a ball

Does it have an innate stopwatch
That screams out, NOW!
Run! Make your getaway
Not knowing for sure who is watching or from where

I have changed its journey
Me, the compassionate articulator
Of another living thing’s existence
Leaving it to shake off my choice

Even in my supposed gentle Kleenex approach
I have determined for it a different day
Then what it first thought possible
When it put its little leg in the air
And thought itself alone in the decision
Of which way would suit it best

The Introvert

prose poetry

​Outskirts is survival

Predetermined path
No choice. Not truly
All one knows
Not indicative
Of preference
Search always
For a gate

Dont do it
Stay put
Dont do it
Stay put
Dont do it
Yes, stay put
Opportunities lost
Melted chances

Step in lethal
Possible failure
Always
They do not know the torture
Of trained periphery
Forced early
To embrace
Awfulness of self

Give
Dont take
Give
Dont take
Give
Dont even ask
To Be
The no, the risk

As it rises
The current
Its force
Against
The whisper’s nudge
Strength in weakness
Which will
Will win

The Wealthy Thief

Difficult people, prose poetry,

Front page of the newspaper
There it was, bold, embarrassing
Born into a world of everything,
Wealthy, had to take more, for what

Donated countless dollars to charities
The name always there at the top
Now just the thief in the family that
Had been revered for hard work

This man, arrogant in his meanness
Every other Monday placing a plate
Before him, simply waitstaff, a nobody
He could not be kind if it was not seen

I read the article which talks of millions
Why would he, with all that, need more
People wonder who live on so much less
Like me who cringed setting down the plate

Not gleeful or sad at his self directed demise
He is what he always was, simply a man
With too much money in the bank and
No investment made in his heart

Dogs

dogs, happiness, prose poetry, , , ,

The gloomy day outside ironic
Against my singing heart aloft
Despite the bluster of grey winds
Forewarning perhaps, or just this
Gusts to clear out leaves, dust
Trash against fence lines, a chill
Permeating the air with crispness
The man with his cane, stopped on the
Sidewalk, his jaunty cap pulled down
I drive on to my sister in law’s house
To drop a shared item of inconsequence
My pleasure as we speak at the door
Me watching her dog, head cocked
Attentively ernest in the voice of her
Master, the devotion evidence
Of the persistence in attachments
Formed with care and kindness
Driving then, to work, the man still
In the same spot with a younger man
A big brown dog joyfully jumping in the field
Adjacent to the deserted church; for sale
Both men animated by the dog, it appears
Their shared smiles testimony it is so
Remembering now, my five o’clock walk
The beagle standing at the corner of the
House where usually a black cat jumps from
A chair on the porch scaring me every time
That dog simply silent observer, his ear
The only thing that moved in the wind
My happy heart not so ironic after all