Lori Jones McCaffery

Lori Jones McCaffery Jul 20

TIMELINE

Every night their cherished homes
Are scattered like spilled toothpicks
Across a wounded land that
Shudders under angry skies.

Every morning raging water crashes in
And floats away the little things
That added pleasure to their living
And leaves behind just soggy sadness.

Every afternoon the smoke filled skies
Make breathing in a dangerous thing
And leave scorched nothingness behind
To proclaim the power of that inferno.

Every dawning brings new hope
Like Manna from the Bible shining on
The plans and dreams of those
Who aim to vanquish all the tragedies

And make a tiny corner of the world
A cleaner, better, safer place to be;
Kinder to the injured spirit and the broken soul -
A healing, hopeful ointment for a wounded planet.
ljm

Can't hardly watch the nightly news any more.

Lori Jones McCaffery Jul 20

HW-1

With Highway One almost completely to myself
North of San Simeon
I find a pristine ocean on my left
Green covered hillsides on my right,
And a warm sun in a light blue sky above.
The stresses of the city and my topsy-turvy life
Begin to fall away as I relax and revel in it,
All alone here in my faithful Jetta.

This was a road trip I took a while ago.

Lori Jones McCaffery Jun 22

CH 92 - SUPERCEDE

My need to pack a bag or two for an exciting trip
supercedes the urge to spend this hour writing
doggerel in hopes someone will think I am a poet

I’m taking more than I will need. I do it every time
And bring back brand new clothes still neatly folded
Having never left the suitcase or tried on at all.

My poetry is over packed more often than I’d like.
The need to make my feelings clear approaches
Supercedence over litereary form and rhyming.

and the chorus:

A pair of jeans and 4 tee-shsirts is really all I need.
I wondere why I bring so much - it puzzles me indeed.
I wonder also why I write long verses you must read.

I’ll try to cut the wardrobe down, take just one duffle bag.
I’ll try to use far fewer words to raise my poet’s flag
If this should work out either way, I’ll be the one to brag.
ljm

Running out of time for playing. But I'm having so much fun with BLT"s Webster Word Game. I can make a poem from most any word, but I can make a GOOD poem from very, very few.

Lori Jones McCaffery Jun 20

WHEN DREAMS DIE

Dreams have flown like startled doves
In the dusk of summer’s longing.
There is nothing left on the ground below
Except a silver feather and the echo of their cries.

When dreams were kites that sailed the skies
On winds of hope and effort
There were no tall trees to snap the line
And send them whirling through the branches.

When dreams were streams meandering
Through the meadows of our youth
The bubbling song they sang brought peace
And the icy water was refreshing.

But now a dam’s been thrown upstream
To fill a swimming hole for others
And only a little trickle makes it past
The banks that once were lush and green

But now are brown and sere.
The wind has died that lofted
Mythological creations up and
Dancing on the end of twine.

There are no birds in this parched meadow-
Not a dove or Mocking Bird.
There is no breeze or wading pool
But only tombstones carved for dreams
That lived in hope and died in cold reality.
ljm

I wrote this several years ago and never posted it.

Lori Jones McCaffery Jun 20

CH 91 - HUE AND CRY

It is my most sincere and humble wish

That my absence for 3 weeks will not

generate a large Hue and Cry among

Those who cannot exist without my

Daily words of Wisdom and Sagacity

On this site that has become refuge

To so many of us wayward souls.
LJM

Couldn't resist this one. "You set 'em up and I'll zing 'em in" favorite (quote from some forgotten improve star of yesteryear)
Another entry in BLT's Websters Word Game

Lori Jones McCaffery Jun 19

CH 90 -JUBILEE

Announcement:

Next Tuesday we will  begin a 19 day
driving trip.  It will start with a 5-day
Laurel and Hardy Convention in
Sacramento, CA and go next to my home
town of Longview, Washington, where
there will be a big annual Jubilee on the
4th of July.  It’s called “Go Fourth” and
it's famous over the Pacific Northwest.
I’ll visit my rogue brother who still lives
there, and later move on to my water
totem, Long Beach - the longest sand
beach in the world and blessedly un-
modernized and citified. From there
we drive to Seattle to get rained on
and visit my sister. Then the long drive
home enjoying everything there is to see
in Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Nevada. I
don’t have a laptop, or e-mail on my
phone so I’ll be out of touch and
relishing it.  But I will be back on 7/14.
I’ll miss you all. Don’t go away.
                                       LJM

This word couldn't have come at a more propitious time.
BLT's Websters Word Game. Come jin in on the fun.

Lori Jones McCaffery Jun 15

CH-89 UNBEKNOWNST

Funny how it seemed to work.
I got up every day and did
Everything on my mental list.
I chugged and huffed along at it
’Til it was time to pull the plug
And see what sleep could offer.

I made new friends along the way
And lost a few for things
I did and did not do.
I had success and failures too
With mostly humdrum in between
But I managed to leave a trace of me.

Funny how I wound up here at last
Life happened unbeknownst to me
With things that came and went by me
Devouring hours and days and months
That blurred the seasons and my goals
And left me here unwinding it.

Would I go back and rearrange
The way I made my daily choices
If that was somehow possible?
Too much is unbeknownst to me
to chance losing all the good there was
To possIbly erase the bad.
I’ll let the past remain the past.
ljm

Always loved that word. I'm a life-long time logophile.