Light Verse

 Two plastic cases
One is for morning
One is for later each night
Seven in each for each day of the week, that’s
Fourteen compartments, alright?

Six pills upon rising
Three pills before bed
Nine chances to aid what is ailing
One woman who wonders
One day at a time if the system’s succeeding or failing

One is a multi, a vitamin pill, an obvious choice so I make it

Two combat calcium’s flight from my bones: old, white, and female can’t shake it

Two are because my stomach has strayed into my gullet, don’t ask

Two are for sadness, although I suspect they’re really not up to the task

One is B-12, it builds up the blood, the cells, and the old DNA

One is the latest, supposed to prevent my marbles from rolling away

Sixty-three pills I take every day,
I hate every one, I’ll admit it,
But it brightens the notion that someday I’ll die,
Because then I can finally quit it.

 It’s easy to eat breakfast

Put food into your mouth
It’s flapjacks in the north woods
and cornbread in the south
It’s kippers in the UK
Croissants in gay “Paree”
It’s Pop-Tarts almost anywhere
Wheatgrass in the OC

Wherever we awaken
Our noses sniff for bacon
And coffee perk, perk, perking, in the pot
For some, it’s poi or soy, plantain
Oatmeal with the works or plain
Sugar, lemon, honey, milk
Cocoa, tea, or soy-based Silk

It doesn’t matter who we are, the language that we speak
As soon as we awaken, it’s food our bodies seek

If we’ve been true and we’ve been good

If we’ve done all we could or should

Or if our lives are very sad

And so, we spend to not feel bad

None can refuse the urge to feed

It is a basic human need

So please excuse, those who refuse

To carry shame, accept the blame

For wanting food, they didn’t earn

It’s not a choice (which soon you’d learn)
If ever you should you find yourself

With nothing on the kitchen shelf

 Intelligence with eloquence

Has dropped her knickers here

Everyone is wearing sadomasochist

this year

Be a buddy, be a pal

Take a punk to tea

Smile in the mirror mornings

“Jim Jones can’t catch me!”

We don’t care if we are free

Me just cares about me, me, me

Buy it, charge it, carry it out

We’ve got the card that carries clout

As long as daddy pays the bills

So, I can get my little thrills

Drink my Harvey

Bang the wall

Care I if I’m nowhere at all?

 I don’t have a lawn
For they always need mowing
I don’t have a garden
They always need hoeing

My iron is idle
My vacuum is mute
I don’t wash the car
And I don’t give a hoot

I’ve only one kid
I can barely keep fed
I nap all the time now
So why make the bed?

The cooking I’ll live with
It comes with the eating
The dishes I’ll do without taking a beating

Why then, oh why, am I still inundated
With work that keeps piling up unabated?

It’s laundry that stalks me
Both daytime and night
With a pile of t-shirts, towels, colored and white
Underwear, sweatpants,
Flannels and jeans,
Folded and stacked on the dryer it leans,
It grows ever higher until the vibration
Impacts the stack and provokes inundation
Of clothing and hassle
For now, I’m not sure
Which ones are vile, which clean-scented pure
Clothing that’s strewn on the not-so-clean floor

Lather, rinse, repeat

 My sainted Irish Grammy

Was everything to me

Her love was like a beacon

On the shore of a stormy sea

Her hands were cold

But her heart was warm

She loved her Savior well

But hurt one of her dear ones?

She’d send you straight to Hell

She never missed a Bingo game

Down at the old church hall

A glass or two of port at night

She loved to sing and she loved to fight

And everything would turn out right

If Grammy returned to us all

My sainted Irish Grammy

Was everything to me

Her love was like a beacon

On the shore of a stormy sea

I get my thrills

From daffodils 

Tulips leave me reeling

A bleeding heart

Tears me apart

An old familiar feeling

Violets make me teary

Cherry blossoms cheery

Lilacs leave me breathless

The waiting makes me restless

Color, fragrance, beauty

I feel it is my duty

To plant and care for every one

Remember, when my life is done

I spent my days among the blooms

And not in dark and smoky rooms

Where nothing grows but vague despair 

I fed, I fretted, I took care

And so I hope when I am gone

A bit of me will still live on

Look in my garden, there you’ll find

The “living will” I leave behind