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As I set out
To jot down this poem
I had no earthly idea
Of what would transpose

And who all would be
Joining along
I'm as surprised as you
To these goings on

I don't recollect
Any of this being nearby
All the glimmer and glamor
Catching my eye

With my mind letting loose
In the wondering why
All of these characters
Are invading my rhymes

There are seals riding trikes
Uniformed Taiwanese
Clowns and their like
With smiley faced knees

Lepords in tights
Like we need more of these
A Kardashian or  two
To put our minds at ease

Daryl Hall and John Oates
Singing loud 80's tunes
And what would be a poem
Without a cow jumping over the moon

Or a chimpanzee
Swinging through the stanzas with ease
Using the tails of snakes
Like a flying trapeze

There's even a racoon
By the name of Rocky we know
Using his Boogaloo
To sweep dust from the poem

And look it's Bob Hope
Selling soap on a rope
To keep it all clean
With a rated "G" tone

With so much going on
Inside of this poem
Guess it's best I stop here
As this has gotten rather long...
Sometimes you just gotta write for the goofy fun of it...
Give me five acres of green forest
Give me a clear blue sky
A rippling stream in the sunlight
And an orchestra of birds
Give me peace
A fresh start,
close of old business.
Father Time
reborn as a babe.
Promise made
and rarely kept.
Dreams are ground
to fine white powder
beneath the stone
of new beginnings.
Boy becomes madman,
father becomes ghost.
The haunting begins.
January, 1977.  The cruelest month of my life.

NaPoWriMo day 4 - a poem about "the cruelest month".
Home – This warm familiar place
An ****** of every day to me
Where cooking smells and laughter dwell
The cat curled up on grey settee.
Noisy kids run in the hall
Sun beams hang in shafts of light
But dust motes in suspended drift
Reflect that something isn’t right.

Agitation twists her thought
He said he would…but didn’t then
Which led to heated, wounding words
That killed the mood and distanced them.
Home, where no one lies and cheats,
No one says those hurtful things
Unravelling the textured trust
Dispersing peaceful tranquilings.

No one storms into the night
With slamming doors and loud abuse,
Wracking sobs at kitchen sink
Unravelling to no good use.
Fearful, wide eyed, silent kids
Crept away to sanctuary
To furthest bedroom down the hall
Where silence helped the peace to be.

Home – that warm familiar place
That ****** of everything to me,
Where once, that ghost of happiness
Would dissipate from us to flee.

M.
Evocative issue which destroys more homes than imagined.
Domestic violence a manifestation where trust is betrayed by the very people we are closest to. Where primarily, women and children suffer
the trauma of physical and mental abuse. Something which is never forgotten, never fully recovered from.
Sadly, my earliest memorys are reflected here.
M.
If you thought at all tell me what did you think?
did you blink at the light of the sun?
or was it the flash from the cameras
that dashed
to get a glimpse of the gun?

The eyes are still steady, the hands are still ready
to go six more rounds in the ring, but the man is
unwilling to take the Kings shilling.


If it's for war that you look
it's on every street, for
every bone that you break
there's one more.

The lawyer tells me to fight the good fight
it don't matter none if it's wrong or it's right,
fight and be done,
I blinked at the sun
and didn't think at all.
I followed your song to its horizon
and I became the horizon;
looking back at an empty shell.
I met you with a full bag of promises,
Leaking out a corner hole;
Leaving a trail even Gretel could follow.
You were lurred, picked up the droppings
Til you were sated,
Then turned back home,
Turned away;
The hook fell out -
We fell out,
Those promises lost their flavor.
In the seventies
we brought back silks and saris
hot with colours
that shocked the nights
Punjabi embroidery
on cheesecloth kaftans
mirror glittered skirts
that were spun with light
Kashmiri shawls
and Afghani dancing dresses
arms full of bracelets
silver and brass
enameled and etched
and singing with ***
rings of Ivory, sapphire and jet
necklaces of jade and threaded apple seeds
rain forest timber bowls
white marble boxes from Agra
with precious inlay stones
our little Taj Mahals
we wandered the globe
like a magical village
of lovers and
and came back
with backpacks of dreaming
and hope.


© M.L.Emmett
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