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Dementia: A Haibun
Tonight my longtime friend will try to explain to me why her dementia (still in the early stages) sometimes makes her incoherent. She’s tried this before. She knows that halfway through her explanation she will find words getting harder to form, and she will quit in mid-sentence. She doesn’t want me to give advice. She just wants someone to listen, someone like me.
Midsummer mishap—
I stumble on the pathway
leading to the gate.
More The Whirligig #276
More Writers’ Pantry #30 at Poets and Storytellers United
Bleak Is the Stable
Bleak is the stable and frosty the hay;
The old shepherd’s moaning, “Please go away!
Give me some quiet, for that would be bliss;
Messes annoy me—just look at all this!
Some other farmhand should milk the brown cow,
While I feed the lambs, the calves, and the sow.
Yes, I know my part, I know it right well:
Work is my worship, despite the rank smell.”
More Sunday’s Whirligig #244
More Pantry of Poetry and Prose #8 at Poets United
They Gave Me Words to Work With
They gave me words to work with,
I knew not what to do.
The words were fried and swirling,
Lips, chicken, certain, stew.
I looked at my reflection,
While writing couplets down;
I looked not like a poet,
But like some silly clown.
The more I wrote, I hungered
To write some lasting stuff;
Then I threw my pen away
And shouted, “That’s enough!”
This lull in fevered writing
Will give me time to think
Of how to spread my table—
Forget the pen and ink!
I’m grateful that my table
Holds something that tastes sweet,
For writing leaves me famished,
And now it’s time to eat!
Poem © 2019 by Magical Mystical Teacher
Gloomy Day
A gloomy winter day,
a day for looking forward
to the promise of spring
when everything
(yes, even stones)
begins to soften
and flowers give off
an achingly wonderful fragrance.
She can smell them already—
grape hyacinths, daffodils and tulips—
or is that the dish detergent?
Suddenly a cargo truck roars by
in the street outside her window,
jolting her out of her reverie.
“How easy to act the fool,”
she murmurs to her cat,
then scrubs the crust
from her only plate.
More Sunday’s Whirligig #139
More Poetry Pantry #380 at Poets United
Whirling with Amy
Each vignette begins with a phrase culled from “The Kingfisher,” by Amy Clampitt.
~~ 1 ~~
poetry is gone—
the miner and the farmer
clench their teeth with toil
~~ 2 ~~
a downtown churchyard
where old women holding court
leer at three old men
~~ 3 ~~
A dazzled pub crawl—
what shall we give the barkeeps
for their jollity?
~~ 4 ~~
pastoral nightfall
under the crossed oak branches
a tryst by moonlight
~~ 5 ~~
ruined nunnery
celibates used to live here
now skittering mice
~~ 6 ~~
on Fifty-fifth Street
threading the intersection
with thundering heart
~~ 7 ~~
a Sunday morning
somewhere across the ocean
where no church bells toll
~~ 8 ~~
some grizzled spruce bog
where creatures keep to themselves
and no one sees them
~~ 9 ~~
seeing how his hands
go searching through the haystack
for missing needles
~~ 10 ~~
stunning tapestry
woven with thread of gold and
the blood of martyrs
~~ 11 ~~
Through the long evening
one expression recurring—
“You don’t understand.”
~~ 12 ~~
among its headstones
one in the cemetery
bringing you to mind
© 2014 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Poetry Pantry #219
More The Sunday Whirl, Wordle 179
