"beribboned" poems
I can say definitively
and without reservation
that I once had more to say
and once I said it well
The taste of the words
of the children in flux
the ex-children
the children in recovery
leaves an aftertaste of
sweetness I can mimic
but cannot make my own
though I know I have
the recipe
somewhere
Their words tumble
like dusty pebbles racing
downhill rebellious
ebullient and unruly
avalanches to ants
while mine drag
the feet of their tiny
y's and g's
p's and q's
like rainy-day-slogged
future people
wending their way through
weeds and reeds of
bullies and written responses
The taste of the words
of the newly-minted
suddenly people
with centuries-old ideas
cellophane gift-wrapped for their
daily birthdays
beribboned and bowed for
kindergarten picture day
leaves a memory of
butterscotch and peppermint I can imagine still
but cannot make my own
though I know I have
the recipe
somewhere
Mar 19, 2012
Mar 19, 2012 at 8:58 PM UTC
_For as the curtain rises,
So too the curtain falls,
No accolades, no entourage,
No 'Brava!', no applause.
An unrehearsed performance,
By a monodramatist,
A solo show, a pantomime,
An improvised burlesque.
Critics stand in groups debating,
The value of my work,
They gossip in the aisles,
The playhouse now a kirk.
My eulogy their invention,
My obituary the prize,
The best review I've ever had,
A mix of humour and soft lies.
I have played the loving daughter,
The honest aunt *****
The independent sister,
The true and loyal friend.
The sympathetic neighbour,
I have played the errant niece,
The mentor, guide, and confidant,
The ***** and the tease.
In truth, I am a diva,
Living mostly in her head,
But this remains unmentioned,
In a tribute to the dead.
Once rose bouquets beribboned,
From the greatest and the good,
Now a solitary arrangement,
On a coffin made of wood.
For as the curtain rises,
So too the curtain falls,
No accolades, no entourage,
No garlands, no applause.
But wait, I see my error,
As indeed these things exist,
But not for me to comment on,
Nor as I would have wished.
For my aspect is fair frozen,
I cannot turn the page,
My performance has now ended,
And I have left the stage._
Sep 14, 2020
Sep 14, 2020 at 3:51 AM UTC
on belatedly hearing of an old friend's death
A simple 18-year-old
Pennsylvania kid.
He volunteered
to lead a patrol
down a heavily
mined road.
Gifts were exchanged.
He gave them
half a left leg
and a whole
right foot.
They gave him a
shining silver star
in a beribboned box.
A few moments
of congratulations
before whiskey, drugs
and homelessness ensued.
The hero's life.
Now he is dead,
the medal long pawned.
Life can be merciless
even for the brave.
No part of this story
means anything.
~mce
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 7:52 PM UTC
Our garden's masterpiece,
Fairies in each fleur-de-lis,
Blossoms of gauzy glory,
Perennial veils of fairy stories,
Beribboned spangled treasury,
Fairies flitting so flowery,
Our queen of ruby roses,
Posies for all, one supposes,
Flowerets the best cuddle,
Essence of Spring, residual,
There are fairies in the flowers in the garden,
One ruby rose--then a garland!
Nov 5, 2015
Nov 5, 2015 at 12:50 PM UTC
Some once called him a Grand Old Man,
Others called him a slime,
You couldn’t get a consensus that
Was even, all the time,
For some kow-towed to his money, while
Others fell by his sword,
His life was overall sunny, while
His victims quailed at his word.
He lorded it over his children,
He ruled their kids with ease,
A sullen look from beneath his brow
Would bring them to their knees,
His will was forever changing
As solicitors came and went,
One day he’d offer a mansion,
And another day, a tent.
When he finally died he was stony broke
And they wondered where it went,
He’d always been abstemious
But the money had been spent.
He left all their lives in ruins with
Their expectations gone,
A couple of ramshackle houses were
The only things they won.
There wasn’t the money to bury him
So they left him where he sat,
Up at the head of the table in
His black, beribboned hat,
He glared at them as he’d glared in life
One hand on the table-top,
Where he used to tap with his finger
As if it would never stop.
Tap-tap-tap on the table-top,
Tap-tap-tap it went,
His eyes bored into the back of your head
As if to say - Repent!
And people scurried, this way and that
To divine what the tartar meant,
The grim old man in his black top hat
Who ruled to their detriment.
They left him sat and they locked the door
Didn’t go back for a year,
Til the eldest, saying ‘let’s know for sure,’
Returned with a tinge of fear.
‘He might have stocks in his waistband there
Or shares hid under his shirt,
Or cash stuffed in his beribboned hat -
He treated us all like dirt!’
He ventured into the dining room
Where the grim old man still sat,
His eyes a-glare in the year long gloom
From under the brim of his hat.
But as the eldest approached him there
The finger began to tap,
A steady rap with a note of doom
That would curdle blood to sap.
So Toby dived to the tinder box
And he leapt up with the axe,
His face as pale as a ghostly tale
But determined to attack.
He raised the axe and he let it fall
Severed the finger there,
It skittered across the table top
As the old man fell from his chair.
The stocks were stuffed in the old man’s hat
The shares were stuffed in his sleeve,
And so much cash in his waistband that
They said, you wouldn’t believe.
But still he’s locked in that grey old house
For they found it wouldn’t stop,
That severed finger that skittered there
Still taps on the table-top!
David Lewis Paget
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 1:17 AM UTC
Gift wrapped,
so softly,
she
wishes
the touch of her lips
to fall upon his deepest dreams .
Gilded,
so delicately,
she
wants
memories of her fingers
to join his own on naked skin .
Smoothly,
so wholly,
she
welcomes
thoughts of his arms
wrapped around her.
Beribboned,
so gently,
she
wafts
scents of her hair
into his every waking moment.
Spoken,
so temptingly,
she
whispers
words of her heart
to ease his longing
from afar.
Wantonly, she waits.
May 21, 2012
May 21, 2012 at 10:17 AM UTC
As they grew older they grew further away
Withholding their love
Remote, with apparently little to say
No words, no tears, no kind of stuff
Falling from their distant lives
Living with new thoughts, lovers, wives.
A troupe of sons, gambling with time!
Alexander was a rotten son of a brilliant father
Misled by a mother’s lies
Into an oedipal outrage. Spurred to violence, rather
Then be a man he became a legend, pursued by biting flies.
Betrayal often leads to success,
The betrayer a psychological mess.
The love of a child evaporates
Evident in the lives of kings
The urge for power saturates
Ignores duty, gratitude, those kind of things.
But hell! So what?
We once, objects of their beaming infant smiles, received such a lot.
OK, Richard the First left his father to die alone,
John ripped the money from the dead man’s purse,
They then fought each other for the throne
Making a family feud undeniably worse.
Throughout history, the mothers taking new ambitious lovers
Caused greater angst amongst whole generations of brothers.
Families are rarely friends: brother fights brother
Sister quarrels with sister, battling incessantly,
Despising each carefully chosen lover
Examining each other critically.
The success of one initiates gloom,
A show of brilliance, a thunderous rain-wrenched boom.
Compared to great and legendary figures
Our problems are played out beneath a dimmer light
We drown our thoughts with liquor
Squabble like screeching bats in the night
No grabbing of swords, fastening of armour, beribboned horses
Our mundane arguments have tiny causes.
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 6:54 AM UTC
Gift wrapped,
so softly,
she
wishes
the touch of her lips
to fall upon his deepest dreams .
Gilded,
so delicately,
she
wants
memories of her fingers
to join his own on naked skin .
Smoothly,
so wholly,
she
welcomes
thoughts of his arms
wrapped around her.
Beribboned,
so temptingly,
she
wafts
scents of her hair
into his every waking moment.
Spoken,
so softly,
she
whispers
words of her heart
to ease his longing
from afar.
Wantonly,
she waits.
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 17, 2012 at 3:12 PM UTC
I see ladies of a certain age
jump out at me,
breaking through sidewalks
with their floppy handbags
and floral dresses,
a gaggle of clowns
enjoying a last laugh,
giggling like girls
on a long-ago prom night.
Suddenly I'm charmed
by the vision
of a lovely young woman
greeting a tall man.
He hands her white orchids
and a beribboned box of candy.
The man does not see her
wink at me
as his massive arms encircle her
and the sidewalks open up again,
swallowing us up in seconds
while our aged revelers flee
in adolescent revolt.
Jul 7, 2015
Jul 7, 2015 at 12:08 PM UTC
Our Science Film
Autumn colors leave me
Pining for black and white
Grammar school reel to reel
Science films snaking through
Rackety Cold War projectors
Chalk motes swarming
Cones of gibbering light
Can-do voice-overs
Always a hiccup off
Read by radio men
Sporting pale miens
Pie plate headphones
Brylcreem slick
Perhaps a Scholastic
Short featuring winsome
Child actors playing
You and me
Button noses
Wrinkled in stricken
Joy at a baby bunny
Wide eyed and stock still
In an apple crate
Beneath an apple tree
Leaves schooling in binary
Shimmer on the summer
Breeze blowing through our film
An introduction to photosynthesis
Or the metamorphosis of caterpillars
It matters little to you
Beribboned in gingham
Or me flying flapping
Dungarees
Platinum hair
Whipping our faces
Sky a china white
Behind ivory billows
Framed forever
Dimpled and laughing
Milkweed exploding
From our fingers like secrets
Shared in alabaster
Sign language.
Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 8:03 AM UTC
Because nothing says democracy more
Than sending off the daughters of the poor
To die for Raytheon and General Dynamics
And for the President, whose manly sons
Shoot animals dead with their great big guns
But when the the bullets, bombs, and shells are raining
Those brave lads won’t be found in basic training
Since when it comes to the generals’ slaughter
They’ll send to her death your little daughter
And when the generalissimos yell “Go!”
Our Merovingian Congress won’t say “No”
They fight the wars with perks and private jets
As do their beribboned flag-rank house pets
And so our daughters are the harvest yield
That must forever rot in some foreign field 1
As for our leaders’ daughters, don’t be so hard -
Someone’s got to sun-bathe in Harvard Yard
1 cf. “The Soldier,” Rupert Brooke
Feb 25, 2019
Feb 25, 2019 at 3:48 PM UTC
imagining absurd decorum trying to sit side-saddle
in a drawing room, hoping to attain some sense
of grace, whilst miserably uncomfortable, makes me want
liberation for all of such corseted beribboned ladies
let them run, in fields of gold, let them hear Sting singing
siren song to come away, loosen your stays, and follow
only this life, none other, throw down your needle-point,
cast from you the good book, and let limbs run wild
roll me in heather, under bridges, come to sky
in fields where the plow-man knows me well
tis a fair morning to a wonderful new day
come away, he smiles, my girl, come away
shall we n'er meet again, will have my plow-man
he shall have me, and the wanting comes in waves
May 30, 2018
May 30, 2018 at 6:38 PM UTC