Where Is Our Hat? (poem)

From Thursday a prompt from Laura Bloomsbury for an ubi sunt  poem (where are they) a term taken from the longer Latin phrase, Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt (where are those who were before us)?

It asks:

  • title your poem with the question – where are the/they…
  • use the questioning within your poem, even with repetition
  • DO NOT ANSWER it though – the questioning is rhetorical

So this then …

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Where Is Our Hat?

Where is that hat

the one that cherry topped preparations

for another night of revelrous revelations and demonstrations of youth

reanimating another’s time from a naive mood

unintended disrespect of a memory I never met

left, found, bagged bundled in a box

in a church parking lot

with long coats and proud button striped shirts 

and slacks that hung just right

above two toned shoes and finger snapping cool  

and watches spun from a hip

like street corner’s zoot cliché school

once

a hat

.

Where is that Fedora worn

for fun

with no sight to the slight

of history of a man

reduced to a bag bundled in a box in a church parking lot

but one that fit just right

soon

then

on me

.

Where is that hat I pine

bought for a dime but only a penny for thoughts

now

please

I hope

In these expensive times

to wish to recall

in my own time

of a man and a hat

gathering things, soon, in a bag bundled for box in a church parking lot

to be found

.

Where is our hat?

Fish Tales (poem)

A Quadrille prompt at dVerse Poets earlier this week from Mish, another 44 word poem with a prompted single word to include. The word this time around?

“Fish”

The prompt explains, more in full, Mish’s inspiration.

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Fish Tales

They hung

flung

high in the air

where they stunk of

fish

too long in the sun

tales

spun

fish oil charlatan

from podium

none worthy of consumption

‘cept for willing blind deaf dumb

with fetid wine and green crawling buns

fishing false salvation

On A Shelf Between … (poem)

Newest Quadrille prompt at dVerse Poets from Lillian, dVerse’s 44 word invention just, with each prompt, to include one particular word.

This time around? The word sunrise.

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On A Shelf Between …

They live inside,

worn flowers between pages

of a red velvet picture book

with prettied painting of a sunrise

in a box

between

letters and monuments

on a shelf

between

sweet still scented scarves and wool socks

behind that hat you wore so well

When We (I) Were Writers (poem)

The idea here, from Grace, was to make a try at at a different poetry form, Trolaan.

As per Grace’s prompt:

Trolaan, created by Valerie Peterson Brown, is a poem consisting of 4 quatrains. Each quatrain begins with the same letter. The rhyme scheme is abab for each quatrain.

Starting with the second stanza you use the second letter of the first line of the first stanza to write the second, each line beginning with that letter.

On the third stanza you will use the second letter on the first line of the second stanza and write the third each line beginning with that letter.

On the fourth stanza you will use the second letter on the first line of the third stanza and write the fourth each line beginning with that letter.

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So, I thought back here to my undergraduate days when I, and my friends, envisioned ourselves as writers, poets.

.

When We (I) Were Writers

We (I) were words at seeming will

Wrought with grand poetic intent

With a hubris of great writers of skill

Willing envied youth to supplement

.

Every piece was poring/pouring soul

Even knowing in my heart to avoid such a thing

Easy it was claim “soul” glorying to all my one unfounded old

Entreating “hearts” then even made me worse for sing

.

Vanity of but soul would make readers quake at my depth

Vowing to pen classics worthy of masters

Vacating a notion of things just, just things to be said

Venturing not into words that mattered

.

And I came about but in slow, still, revelation

Amid not the soul nor heart’s cliche but the every day

Aweing how sudden old wrought dramatic word made way for just, just simple observation

And that that, that simplest of thought, just might be the true soul say

Songs of Angels & Devils Or Devils & Angels (poem)

New Quadrille prompt this week and this one from Kim. It’s that dVerse Poets 44 worder that asks to include one word.

Here?

“Quiet”

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Songs of Angels & Devils or Devils & Angels

One sang itself as quiet

One sang itself as noise

Another tuned truth

While another lyric’d lies

Yet another was fear of light

And that one? Fear of night

Yet they sang, sung together

To confound

Leaving us decipher songs, sing on/of our own

Of Glasses, Old Men & Sisters (post-post)

So in the header for my blog here I do my best to give you an idea of what to expect if you decide to do some rummaging around some strange man’s attic or scream, after such, for help to anyone who might be listening on the front path three stories below to get you out of the shackles and chains (though, good luck with that – these are new double paned storm windows).

I mean, no site worth its salt doesn’t give you some sort of idea as to who or what is behind it and what to expect of its content right? Even if it’s just a pithy slogan.

News sites are good for that.

Washington Post – “Democracy Dies In Darkness” … or at the end of a slinking, weak willed, million dollar pen for an inauguration fund.

“Fair and Balanced / Most Watched, Most Trusted” … always with the jokes and works in progress for them there folks over at Fox “News” huh?

Voice of America “… choke … gasp … Kari … suicidal thoughts … reels … choke … the devil’s handmaiden … Lake …” Ok, that one’s a little lengthy and ungainly.

“This is CNN” … boring and noncommittal has its place I guess.

MSNBC “Lean Forward” … but not too far, leaning forwards or backwards, either way, can be a concern especially when dependent on the winds.

One America News Network … “The Wheels On The Bus.”

Breitbart … “Fuck You Democracy”

And others …

White House News (Propaganda-R-Us) and Travel Agency … “So Many Possibilities” … (that one can change on the fly though, depending on the legality or Karoline’s light ultra or meta ultra condescending mood).

But mine simply lays out for you to just expect things written of my everyday “sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes angry, sometimes funny again because, well, who don’t like funny, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that’s just kinda shit. I pen and sing the occasional parody tune and other songs, sometimes I even get a little bit poetic or story-etic or something like that.

Well, I have covered almost all of this ground recently, a funny one of a cat named Arthur and a one of just bits and pieces, a few things for Mom (so miss ya my dearest friend and this one) a couple of new parody tunes and re-posts of older ones, and quite a few poems (poems) and short fictions (short fictions) too.

But the important thing of note here is that I’ve been able to come about all of these pieces while wearing the right pair of glasses, my “close” glasses.

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Lilly the Car has been making some unwelcome sounds lately, like she’s carrying a bucket of steel stones under her belly, which, truthfully, she has probably been sounding alarm of for quite a while now, cries for help, I just haven’t heard them from listening to my damned heavy metal return to old school volume Deep Purple for open windows in nice weather. That rumble of Ritchie Blackmore and the boys might have even contributed to it.

But when I finally turned the volume down I realized, shit, there might be an issue here. My apologies Lilly, you and my mother could surely commiserate on Steve, still, after all these years, never listening to those pleas to please turn that crap down.

So, I inquired of a shop, which was a concern of mine since moving up this way. Could I find a place like Lou’s (from many years down in Beacon) that I could trust? Well Beck (my Sis if you didn’t already know) via my nephew and his gear head friends, recommended a place called Hari’s that I immediately liked it as I couldn’t find it under “Harry’s” with any search. Nope, I just liked it.

Then I asked Beck if she could follow me to drop Lilly off and then give me a ride the rest of the way to my day. Her commute mirrors mine, or can mirror mine in times like this as she works just around the corner.

And that was it, thanks Beck with a wave. But when I went inside to my desk, started the process of a day, I realized that things were a bit fuzzy.

First thought? Oh, son of a bitch, my eyes just got really bad, like seemingly overnight, then I looked at my phone, even worse, as that shit is small and now I was going to be checking on the going rate of pencils. I was suddenly Burgess Meredith in that classic Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough At Last” where he finally gets his wish for people to be gone and leave him alone in a huge library, with countless books to read for the rest of his days, only to then break his glasses.

Then? “Oh, son of a bitch twice!” I’m still wearing my “driving” glasses. There was relief for a moment, whew, I don’t have to make phone calls to the eye doc I also haven’t found yet for a checkup and distressing news.

But now I had to take my wave back and call Beck to ask for another favor, a much bigger one. Your idiot brother left his “close” glasses in Lilly and is instead wearing his “driving” glasses which aren’t worth a spit if, ya know, ya ain’t driving and could she circle back to the shop, Hari’s, and save me?

Though I can laugh about it now, stupid unintentional things that can follow me from the moment I wake to the moment I go back to sleep (though a lot stupid happens then too, just nonsensically and with more color) but it was debilitating. It gave me a greater appreciation for what I do still have, two pairs of glasses? That’s a non-starter of an imposition.

And it gave me a greater appreciation of a sister who surely just sighs often but still loves me anyway … for the most part … I hope.

Well it seems now that not only will I have to shell out a few bunch of dollars to fix that bucket of metal stones from under Lilly’s belly (you don’t want to know the estimate, let’s just say the number is equivalent to that of a ton of bricks) but I will also have to shell out some more for some backup glasses to leave in my always places … just in case.

Ok, now I have covered the “thoughts on getting older” (for recent things) part of my header as well, or more realistically “thoughts on BEING older”.

Son of a bitch, thrice.

(Love ya Beck … Sincerely, your old man brother)

Sheets (poem)

New Quadrille poem prompt this week at dVerse Poets from Mish

The 44 word (title not included) dVerse Poets specialty that asks you to include one word.

The new Quadrille prompt word here?

“Tangle”

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Sheets

Turning over and over sheets get tangled

in creases

that cut my toes  

in wary dreams

always trying push them whole

disguising away monsters

smelling blood in their air scare stares up from around the foot of the bed

at a child’s grown feet

I’m Ready (part one & two – poems)

Dora of Dreams from a Pilgrimage has a new prompt this week at dVerse Poets to write a dialogue poem so I thought to a second part of something recent, the first part of which I included.

I’m Ready (part one)

I steal steely crazed glances between the blinds

through goggle glasses with cool blinder flaps

and a crushed torn beat bent brim ballcap

in moonlight  

peeking from out a blanket …

with binoculars too

under chairs and baseball bats

and plungers and sticks I gathered during the day

for stand in the heels of sneakers  

that no one would miss

unless there was suddenly company and mom presented trays

or an incident in the bathroom

or the woods missed their kids

or if game time suddenly discovered night had been turned to day

just something THEY would do

… draped over pillows and nosing cats and snoring dogs and sci-fi books

and I waited

by flashlight for the louding star hymns only I could hear

.

I’m ready for you,

I thought,

This time

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I’m Ready (part two)

I startled to it all still in place

the baseball bats and plungers and sticks  

standing in sneaker heels

or balanced ‘cross chair tops

now

still

in place

still

under the blanket for peering from out

that hadn’t been disturbed by Mom company needs or accidents or trees

or nosy still cats or possible waking dogs

startled by a light in the sky through blinds but with naked eye

my binoculars to my side

cool goggle blinder flap glasses almost crushed under my bent brim ball cap

by my pillow star head

a light that woke to ask

“Why I waited?”

“For you” I stated   

.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

I startled to Mom from a Mom’s soft nudge

“Time to bed my little sleepy head, did you have any dreaming luck just yet?”

“You didn’t see?!”

“Of course I did”

.

I startled alone after days upon days and more

after I had grown sore and out from under blanket looks

and my own lore

of forts

built of pillows and dreams and chairs and baseball bats

and plungers and sticks but

with stones

now

new blankets heavier

for tired forts to hide my head

under and pillows just for escape

instead

from these days upon days and more

.

But I still check through the blinds at night

when I can

when it feels right

with still kept nosing cats at hand

but

wishing my binoculars were somewhere in sight

and those cool goggle blinder flap glasses and my old cap

or Mom with a nudge and a love

for my sleepy, wishing, dreamy boy head

to tell me it was alright

that she saw

too

.

“You’re still waiting, we see”

“I always will be”

even more so

now

I’m Ready (poem)

This is to a daily poetry thing for this month I wasn’t aware of and that I obviously haven’t followed along with, but day five did come up earlier for me and the prompt is here … a graph of three columns to basically choose one from each.

Now I’m sure I didn’t quite keep to the prompt exactly but from the three columns I went with “crazy eyes here”, “hymn” and “moonlight”

So, anyway …

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I’m Ready

I steal steely crazed glances between the blinds

through goggle glasses with cool blinder flaps

and a crushed torn beat bent brim ballcap

in moonlight  

peeking from out a blanket …

with binoculars too

under chairs and baseball bats

and plungers and sticks I gathered during the day

for stand in the heels of sneakers  

that no one would miss

unless there was suddenly company and mom presented trays

or an incident in the bathroom

or the woods missed their kids

or if game time suddenly discovered night had been turned to day

just something THEY would do

… draped over pillows and nosing cats and snoring dogs and sci-fi books

and I waited

by flashlight for the louding star hymns only I could hear

.

I’m ready for you,

I thought,

this time