Python

Python got tied in knots
Pulling Eve's leg about an apple

Adam tried to get a word in edgewise
All to no avail

Who got that apple
After the first bite
Ah that's a tail for later

Copyright 2016
Richard L Ratliff

Animal Crackers
A smal book of illustrated poems in my new book
Animal Crackers
Now on Amazon.com/author/richardratliff
My quirky humor available for all
Order now hellp a starving poet
Great Christmas guilt

Kiss across the sea          

Can we hold hands across far distant lands
And share our kiss across the troubled seas
Let us breathe the air from around the world

Can we share thoughts in the clouded skies
And embrace the images of lovers
Carried along by thoughts of each other

Let the words we share warm your heart
And shrink the distance that separates us

Copyright 2017   12/1/17
Richard L Ratliff

She Is
  
She is supple and soft
Slowly quick and taut
She is here – yet not
Elusive and still to touch
To touch --yet not
She is embraced yet free          
Expressive and quiet
She is lucid and opaque        
Earthen yet a lark
She is a smile in the dark  

Copyright 2001
Richard L Ratliff

Strutting Out

I love wearing a well tailored suit.          
Strutting in my sartorial repute.              
Crisp spread shirt collar, matching tie                
And dimpled half Windsor knot
All with puffy pocket square to eye.                                                                                

Dark navy with a faint pinstripe                    
Two button coat and Four button sleeve
Blood red silk lining type                            
British tailored elegance to perceive
Slacks cut just a half inch to the back
Stepping out lady on my arm



Copyright 2014
Richard L Ratliff

Got rejected        

Had some poems rejected today
Some 25 year old editor; with an MFA
Suggested getting rid of some chilies
They weren't cliches or common images
When I lived them 40 years ago
Life experience doesn't change much
But at 25 how do you know
That life is a series of cliches            
So acclaimed they are repeated again and again


Copyright 2018
Richard L Ratliff

Lemon drop  

That lemon drop is bearing down
So hot it wilts artificial flowers
And melts my plastic apples
Maybe I can draw some clouds
To soften that blistering orb
And tame that yellow candy drop
Before it melts the rocks
That line my path


Copyright 2018
Richard L Ratliff