Living Poets Society - Hello Poetry

Jan 6

Francie Lynch

We'd never call them losers
Because they couldn't stand;
We'd lift them up from off the ground
On worn out knees and hands.

We'd never call them fools
Because they wouldn't talk;
We oohed and ahhed with all their sounds,
And they did it as they walked.

We heard a blend of sounds spew forth,
Like a can of spilled alphaghetti;
They roared with their oral prowess,
Like lions of the Serengeti.

As years passed, and they were graded
(And most certainly not by us);
They might return with D's and E's,
We'd never judge or fuss.

This is how we treated them,
Our children that we raised;
I hope that our puzzling world
Will forgive, forget and praise.

Positive thinking moves...

#children #childrearing #praise

Dec 2024

Francie Lynch

The Fourth Territory

Canada already has:
10 provinces
3 territories
3 coastlines
Baffin Island
Two Official Languages
The Niagra Horseshoe Falls (Way Better than the other one)
The CN Tower, Stanley Park, Old Quebec and not to mention The St. Lawrence Seaway, Whistler, Algonquin, Banff, Columbia Ice Fields, Montreal, Jasper... and on and on and....
More oil and gas than Saudia Arabia.
A belief in WHO and NATO and Green Energy.
A Great reputation,
and

Kindness and Dignity.

Why in the name of all that's decent would We want to make the United States our Fourth Territory.
To be a Province would take decades. Excess Baggage.

What we don't have is a narcissistic, mysogynistic, bigotted conman, who is a convicted womanizer, fraudster and felon, who has little regard for the betterment of our Earth and civilization, as our country's spokesperson.

We do have a soon peacefully and unwittingly departing P.M.
It will be a walk in the snow for him on rue Pere Pierre...Just in time.

Just Sayin"!

Our three Territories are: Yukon, North West Territories and Nunavut

#canada #usa

Dec 2024

Francie Lynch

Oh Come, Oh Come...

This time of year,
When trees go bare
And snow covers our ground,
I come down
With a seasonal disease...
Weeks prior to Christmas Eve.

The onset is a distant twinkle
Shimmering in the deep;
That gives me such a nuanced twitch...
I itch to hang a wreath.

And when I sneeze,
I'm joyfully pleased
To shop for such and stuff.
I horde it in a secret place,
Then worry I've not enough.

When my muscles get tired and weak,
My back gets bent and sore,
When my body starts to sweat...
I await the seasonal cure.

I'll run a fever, hullucinate,
Take to my bed and wait.
Don't present me meds,
Don't ring me up a nurse,
I'll protest and rave.
This winter ailment,
This gifting curse,
My present proclivity,
Will only break
Come Christmas morn.
Oh Come, Oh Come Nativity.

#christmas #illness #gifts

Dec 2024

Francie Lynch

Sooner Than You Think

You know what I don't hear
That I heard when I was young;
It'll all be over soon.
Sooner than you think.
I heard the doctor say that,
And the pacings of
The Presiding Proctor
Raise tensions in the room.
Then someone says, It's good for you.
But I'm not holding the spoon.

This too shall pass,
The same sun will rise,
The rain falls evenly
On both our sides.

I don't believe in six of one
Or half dozen of the other;
Or the other side of the same coin.
Seldom do we get what we deserve.
I have yet to witness the last
Going first or vice versa.
Maybe there are lasers in space
And brain worms,
Black is not white,
White is not black.
Words are friends.
Fear not,
For they are with us always.

#words #semantis

Nov 2024

Francie Lynch

Ye Shall Know Them

We can't know them
By their religion.
Too much hypocrisy.

We can't know them
By politics.
It's ever-changing... or not.

We can't know them
By country.
Zillions emigrate and immigrate.

We can't know them
By their clothes.
Emperor or not.

We can't know them
By their words.
Too many equivicators.

We can't know them
By their jobs.
At home or away.

We can't know them
By their family.
Nuclear or extended.

We can't know them
By their deeds.
They say one thing, and do another.

But look to the roadside.
In the ditches.
By the curb.
In the bins.

Ye shall know them by their garbage.

"Them" is us.

#identity #knowledge

Nov 2024

Francie Lynch

Sustainability

We keep good records.
Starting dates, endings.
Wars, plagues, starvations.
Emigratiions. Genocides.
Religious and cultural shifts
Continue in sustainable growth.

Not unlike my Magnolia,
Some of whose roots got burned
From excessive fertilizer.
The foliage suffered, not the trunk.
This year there are fewer buds.

Not unlike my grandkids
Holding up our mythology to reason,
Our White Lies.
Our magical lights, speeds of travel
That take us from our immortal Earth,
I snap back,
And slip a dollar under a child's pillow.
This will sustain.

There have always been hard times, worrisome times, but our humanity, ingenuity and positiveness prevails.

#aging #positivity #positiveness

Oct 2024

Francie Lynch

Does It Really Matter Who Started the Fire

"What in the world happened!"

An innocent cliche,
We hear it every day,
At work, at home, at play.

"You don't say!"

A congenial comment?
Perhaps,
but...
Be careful what you say.
It could add to the maelstrom
That's becomes unfriendly fire.

Arguments in... arguments out.
Trash in, trash comes out.
That shouldn't surprise us.

The unseen whisperers make silent decisions,
Unheard among the raging shouts.

Who understands
How it went wrong.
The Why is easy.
But How.

How in the world did it happen?

I can't say.
High School doesn't seem to be enough.
Men feel threatened.
Not enough black hats are being unhorsed.
Women do very well
Walking over coals and broken glass,
In stilettos, clogs, mules,
Bare footed.
They will be revenged.

How in God's name did this happen?

Such unwarranted blasphemy.

#chaos #modernity #modernsociety #society #womensrights

Oct 2024

Francie Lynch

The Family Tree

The upper branches
Of the Family Tree
Are visible.
I'm not near the base
Where I used to be.

There are fewer branches above;
And as I move there's
More and less to love.

Some limbs above have broken,
Suffered drought and heat
Through the elements of life.
But the trunk is true, strong,
Stalwart and flexible
As the lineage of its rings,
These expanding circles of life.
And above,
The transplanted branches
Were rooted with love.
Sprouts apppear below,
As further up I go.
And my limbs
Are moving slow.

Mistankenly posted this one before I had finished it from my notes.

#aging #ancestry #family

Sep 2024

Francie Lynch

On the Road to London

The message was as legible
As orbits in astrophysics.
The syntax was true as
A mathematical equation,
Not calculated by accident or coincidence.
And precise, announcing,

HAPPY VALLEY NUDIST CAMP

Boldly, on a southern hillside,
In white-painted stones,
On Hywy #22,
On the crossroads between youth and age,
Doubt and confusion.

The stones are gone.
Picked over, or, rolled down the hillside.
And the Hywy is hardly used.
How. By accident or happenstance?
Or a higher intelligence orchestrated
The arrangement of the stone message.

And this happened outside our town.
On the road to London.

#doubt #confusion #creation #physics #coincidence

Sep 2024

Francie Lynch

Still a Son

Mammy died years ago,
So I'm older than her now,
Though I never feel this way.
But I'm younger than my father was
Years after his delay.

I'm an aging Granda now,
But I seldom feel this way;
When in my memories,
Where they truly lie,
I'm still their son today.

Mammy is an Irish term of endearment for Mother or Mom.

#family #parents #aging #death #children #sons #mothers #fathers

Aug 2024

Megan H

My Master

How scary it is-
To realize
None of this is truly mine.
Not these things,
Not this life.

Time is my master,
She owns it all.
I cannot keep any of it.

#life #time #master

Jul 2024

Thomas W Case

When the Light Came

Night comes on like
an old hound lumbering
in from the field.
I don't fight it.
I'm getting too old.
I sit with pen in hand,
and wait for the
darkness to show
me something.

I think about vaginas and
Ireland and fish that
hunt a t night.
I think about
Bukowski and
Beethoven, and the
*******, and a kernel
of corn.
I think about my
life and this night, and
how it is better than
those near-death years of
caterwauling and chaos;
drunk by the river, lonely
as a glass snake.
I was living to drink, and
didn't give a **** about
anyone.
I was searching.
I found it
when the light came.

Here is a link to my you tube channel where I read my poetry from my recent books, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, on Amazon and Rise Up Collected Poems and Short Stories, available on Booksie.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qum45hpUqrg&t=16s

#sobriety #life #growth

Jul 2024

Francie Lynch

Spokes

So many roads lead back home,
But not the one where I was born.
That first wet road was slippery,
With curves and hills and holes,
But every mile I travelled on,
Without knowing, I headed home.

Those many highways,
Like a wheel,
Were radiating spokes,
But like the wheel,
They're circular,
So always lead back home.

#home #travel #roads