In Training

At twelve
my biggest problem
was negotiating
a weekly allowance.
I earned money
babysitting
and dusting
furniture
for
fifty cents an hour
but that didn’t cut it
especially
when it came time
to get my first
training bra.

Next to getting my
“friend”
the thing that terrorized
me most
was beefy Braun’s gym class.
Man, even her breasts
had muscles.
She wore a
sports bra
under her man uniform
would often
steal a peak
from the showers.
Watching us change
into that ugly one piece
blue uniform
that was always riding
up my butt,
exposing my red pimply
goose bump legs.
Meanwhile cruel young eyes
would whisper
point and chuckle.
Look-she still wears an undershirt
hiss, hiss, meow!
So I begged the old man to have a heart
I was the oldest
had to train them
on how to raise a girl
Didn’t know how they did it
in the old country
didn’t care.

Spring came early the year
I got initiated
into the big girls club.
A club
that I dropped
in High School
diverted by
other things
until they
discovered that
I was short
on my Gym credits.
Of course
by then
I was
out of training.

Revelation

The best place
to hide
is in the open
just below the nose.
Saying out loud
what others
wouldn’t,
couldn’t.
The best secret
stares you down
dares you
to ask
is it true
or just my imagination?
It must be a coincidence
you couldn’t possibly be
telling me,
could you?

Celtic Wedding

inspired by
Pieter Bruegel’s painting “Wedding Dance in the Open Air”
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/b/bruegel/pieter_e/10/index.html


Red ribbons flash, strut
in a green triangle to
an undulating
Celtic pulse. A bawdy shade
plucked out of this human chain.

Book Recipe

I've spent half of my life traveling the globe

the other half looking for my reading glasses
remarkable when creating a new recipe.

Directions are as follows:

Preheat in a humid eighty degree oven.

Grease and flour pens.

In a large saucepan melt
½ cup of sentiment
Remove from heat and add 1 cup sugar.
Substitute eggs with thirty
individual portraits and
one hundred three photos
and add one teaspoon of vanilla.

Beat in
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder,
1/2 cup flour, replace salt with
1/2 cup Watercolor Art depicting local flora and fauna
4 cups pithy verse and provocative prose
and add 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder.


Spread evenly into a prepared pan.

Bake in oven for nine months.

Do not overcook.

To serve:

Sprinkle with passion

Charm with dramatic flair

And toast with a wee dram of Scotch.

A Look Back

Thirty three years
picking up dirty underwear
and socks
well,
actually thirty five
but who’s counting.
Countless trips
to the supermarket
preparing weekly menus
varied and colorful.
Pushing
and pulling
Rainbow vacuums
across lint filled
carpet and ceramic tile.
Bleaching the mildew from
bathroom grout, pulling
matted hair from tub drains.
Raising a precocious child.
Balancing checkbooks,
paying bills on time
weekly cutting the Hawaiian grass.
Washing the two Great Danes,
the two cars, two trucks, boat and four motorcycles
testing the pool alkalinity.
Pulling weeds
lodged between purple
and orange
potted bougainvillea
perched on top of river rock.
Climbing on top of roofs
at thirty eight
to dislodge shingles making sure to
toss them the same way into the truck
and then sweep and sweep and sweep.
Of course
there were
hundred dollar bills
tossed into the air and stuffed into B cups
while dancing to Hank Williams Jr.
after long grueling jobs of
backs bent in two.
Cruising the inside passage to Alaska.
Daring to follow
in the footsteps of the
Apostle Paul
from Civitavecchia to Egypt
Israel the Greek Isles and Athens.
Trips to the outback
combating the ferocious
sticky fly population with the in-laws.
Retired over ten years now
because I chose not to work in a smelly gym
trying to convince pudgy socialites and corporate
divas to back away from the table
and do an extra lap instead.
Releasing the poet
at fifty
to recount
the dim and not so dim memories
of a life well lived
single-mindedly disturbing the
cobwebs
from their menopause cave
sinuous strands glistening
in the tropical sun.

Pithy Proverbs

Fear
is waking up
cold
wrinkled
puffy and
all alone
with no
credits
to your name.

Faith
is
believing
in
unspoiled
fruit
floating
in
a rotten barrel.


Words
contain
power
use them wisely.


Genius
is blind
to
wisdom’s heart

A bad poem
never
shows itself.

A good poem
flits
in the breeze
of reckoning.

Be kind
introduce
yourself
to
the poet within.

Workout Lingo

Warm up for ten minutes to lubricate joints and stretch cold muscles.

Today’s workout will stress barbell exercises
Shrugs, upright rows and curls.


Curls- I only have an hour
I don’t have time
to get my hair done.