"The Canterbury Tales"

If you have not read Chaucers
The Canterbury Tales
in middle english
in the last few years
give it a try
the first time I did
was at Michigan State
sometime in the middle 1950s
it was a challenge then
and still is
it was the year I missed
the question "Who was Madame La Giocondo?"
on a final exam
never forgot it
I was just a young girl
from a small Ohio town
who liked poetry
and memorized all that she could
at seventy it still runs through
my head as easily as it did then
never getting old or tired
poets gifts to me
lasting a lifetime

"Spiders" Volume III from " Attack"

aliens may be the only ones
that can stop
the attack of the spiders

"What's Next?"

"Jumping Alien Frog" Volume I by Cara Milnor From "What's Next?"

"SO HOT"

frog shadows dance in the woods
as the sun follows itself
promising another record hot day
texas in the summer is not for
the young or old or anyone else
your feet are in hot hot sand
standing in the afternoon sunshine
sweating as your feet touch the earth
alligning your body to its meridians
about fifteen minutes will do it
you just happen to be standing
in the middle of the allien landing area
maybe that why its SO HOT!

"Broken Fences"

lament
what is meant
a time spent
so many years
frozen tears
layered grief
no relief
lives brief
terminal thief
shaking earth
giving birth
false mirth
wires and posts
false boasts
smoke of life
full of strife
evil hands
arm bands
salutes
heavy boots
hidden fears
lost years
no one can mend
in the end
broken fences

"Silver Threads Golden Needles"

silver threads golden needles
heart strings
Gods words finding eyes
fulfilling your needs
taking the unhappiness
taking the sickness
taking the fear
picking you up
from your fall
when nothing else
can free your heart
and show you the way
all you have to do is ask
His love will fill the cracks

"Music Lesson"

the dancer
dancing to the music he hears
no harmony
octaves of mixed up crescendoes
no rests
following the established rhythm
his notes
a lost routine
last notes
taps
music lesson

"Our Place in the Day"

our place in the day
centering the peaceful instant
detached searching to connect
sunlight shines through
a cottontails pink popsicle ears
looking like wet roses
on a foggy morning
a mother hummingbird
teaching her baby about
red hibiscus
texas yellow bells
hummingbird feeders
and feral cats
intense beauty clear message
fulfilling wanting eyes
quiet still presence
invading impalpable paradise
braiding us still tighter
usurping our undertow
two souls in the breeze
dangling in its clear motion
showing us the way
touching nothing but the day

"Sinking Down"

sinking down
into the soft gray
glove covered hands
that are polishing
the solid sterling
silver tray
tap dancing on the
mossed granite graves
that echo the names
so carefully etched
clapping hands reaching
for us helping us
keep time
Five Foot Two
Eyes of Blue and
Ain't She Sweet
See Her Coming
Down the Street
mom at the piano
playing the music
we danced to
on her etched name

"Rearview Mirror" Volume II from "Windswept"

rearview mirror
rumble seat ride
those left behind
creating their myth
voyagers black tar roads
huddling winter strangers
sinking from dangling chances
and lost unkept promises
waiting in mapped patterns
for dreamless dreamers
finding twisted highways
fearing to go
fearing not to go
hope behind the darkness
of velvet curtain stillness
rustling in the silky breeze
their maze in the mirror
tuned radio voices calling
hearts cargo in the trunk
where kept secrets are packed
in old deeply folded detours
hiding in the rumble seat
windswept in the rearview mirror

"Livin in the Fever"

livin in the fever
summer in texas
jalapeno days
margarita shade
ice in coolers
windows closed
conditioners humming
california nights
porch swings
cool mornings
lake afternoons
suntan sunburn
believing the breeze
mercury rising
looking for the cool
in the fever

" Flight of the Word"

flight of the word
at a desperate pace
wanting to be heard
entering the race

getting to hot
running at will
finding no spot
not being still

looking for line
wanting a verse
a poem of any kind
nothing is worst

just a lost word
who needs so badly
space to be heard
taking it gladly

never lose heart
words are needed
for lines to start
in a garden seeded

words put in soil
to patiently grow
their place to toil
is all they know

"Morning Moonlight with Hadley"

early morning
before daylight
four month old
granddaughter Hadley
with grandma
on the queen bed
in the quiet loft
of the log cabin
the moonlight formed
a soft white blanket
in the darkness
on the bed where
I laid her down
we just smiled
at each other
in the dim shadowy light
and listened to the wind
whistle around the windows
Hadley was liking this
ahing and cooing and
playing with her feet
perfectly content
words were not spoken
the peacefulness
surrounded us
after awhile
I put her in her bed
she fell happily asleep
in the morning moonlight

"Lost and Found"

paths need direction
they show the way
like nowhere maps
going nowhere
ambling needlessly
stomping the ground
making the ants run
breaking the flowers
looking for stuff
broken eggs in a nest
no chance at life
walking alone
making the most
of the finish
timepiece wound
wings on the wind
no horizon
lost and found

"Endure"

foggy days rainy nights
alone in silence lost questions
pushing the knob on the top
of the top up and down
tilting spinning holding on
knowing this for sure
if we can't adapt we must endure
change is sticky routine boring
hard decisions easy ones
tapping fingers typing
good times bad times
holding tight to the page
oreo years of layered days
remembering you again and again
as I wanted you to be
finding your way into the misty night
holding me in the truth
telling me to endure

"Another Day"

today I will write only what words can say
anything else I will save for another day

"Weather Today"

I looked at the weather today
and decided to run away

"Lazy"

can't seem to stop it
it just won't slow
don't like it one bit
don't want to know

curved thoughts driving
down an old minds road
each barely surviving
under such a truck load

where are the stop signs
who built this expressway
mixed words of all kinds
each paving my guess way

desperation sets in
searching for brakes
held tightly in the wind
word cars of all makes

how long will it last
heaven only knows
with such a long past
a word only grows

freed from this task
my mind grows hazy
all that I ask
don't think me lazy

"Happy Trails"

chance friends
today sends
those you meet
on the street
in the end
become a friend
some stray
others stay
like a piece of hard candy
that lasts and is dandy
or candy thats slick
and is gone very quick
what makes it this way
friends can't really say
sweetness seems best
a memories good test
friends are like sails
that make happy trails

"Java Trench"

inside the human wall
deep in the earth
plates are shifting
wanting movement
lining the scale
holding destruction
moving power
birthing waves
reaching beaching
faithfuls fate
from the depth
fingers grasp
the hourglass
turning in it over
and over and over
wanting the hour
it holds
as the plates shift
in the Java Trench

" "

why not write
about something
about which
nothing is known
like

"Ticking Clock"

constant strolling
thoughts roaming
flaming goals
endless glomming

leeching souls
hovering past
opening goals
longing cast

hummimgbirds know
blue morning glories
grabbing brain glow
captured stories

curving roads
groovy lanes
lock load
line claim

festering greed
grinds down
poetry seeds
by the pound

no more verse
always can
still terse
good plan

no key today
lock stock
futile clay
ticking clock