two minutes

two minutes until
my corn bag is warm and it is time
to hop into bed
my love has a sore throat
his eyes are drooping
they can only drop when I am
there in bed with my warm corn bag
and now
it is only 41 seconds and a poem is
slow in arriving, but it is not days of
painstaking writing that I am seeking
short is sweet
sweet is often short
enjoy it

A hole in the sky

a hole in the sky,

a tunnel 

to blue skies and rainbows

into the blackness of space

unless we turn our faces back 

to the blue sky,

the emerald earth

and fall back to

the earth

through the hole in

the sky

the training begins

twenty push ups goes to thirty
a plank goes to a downward facing dog
stack the yoga bricks
I'm heading for vertical
the six month to infinity plan.
I can no longer resist
the peer pressure to stand upside
down, hands are feet and
feet point skyward
wish me luck.

cartwheels and handstands

she's upside down

and sideways, but

I'm a linear sort,

chin below nose

arms falling towards earth

from shoulders

feet on the ground

I feel more secure that way

I don't think I'd be smiling,

my braid falls down my back

someone insists that I

throw my legs towards the 

sky

I'm dubious.

tongue tied

a swirl of words
flow past me, around me,
through me, stories, exclamations,
questions, answers delivered faster
than the blink of an eye,
my eyes jump from one person to the
next watching jaws moving up and down,
food in, words out, more words,
hardly a pause except to quickly chew
I am dazzled by the speed, my tongue
tries to form words but the moment
has passed and another person is
talking, exclaiming, questioning,
another bottle of wine has been
drunk and I am tired.
I haven't said a word
I am invisible.

looking forward

looking forward

and a little bit back,

no, not as far back as

that old black and white photo,

I did look, and put it away,

looking forward and a little bit back

to Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas trees,

to graduations, births, parties, 

places and times where I saw love,

on streets and in crowds, at the 

student concerts where we ignored the

missed notes and applauded the good ones.

too far back, there was no applause so

let's look forward and a little bit

back. 

a swimming pool for potatoes

they were pulled from deep beneath the soil

in my garden as a cold breeze warned of frost.

their life continued in the basement darkness,

coated in clods of garden soil, neglected

but not forgotten, unknown to them,

their fate predetermined to become the 

Thanksgiving mashed potatoes,

to be baptized and cleansed in a kitchen sink

peeled and chopped and boiled

and mashed and blended with 

milk and butter, salt and pepper.

oh humble potato, I love you so. 

Thank you, thank you on this

Thanksgiving Day for your

yumminess.