Penguin Poems

(a villanelle)

The temperature is down to ten below
Outside, a proper Indiana freeze.
I’m glad there’s no place that I have to go

On roads made treacherous by drifted snow
That dazzles and deceives. For when one sees
The temperature is down to ten below

It’s best to just say thanks, go with the flow
And take a break from planned activities.
I’m glad there’s no place that I have to go

When all the TV programs stop to show
The mercury descending by degrees.
“The temperature is down to ten below,”

They crow, “Here on the Toll Road, and you know
The wind chill’s worse, considering this breeze!”
I’m glad there’s no place that I have to go

Tonight, when all the world is set aglow
By moonlight dancing through the arching trees.
The temperature is down to ten below…
I’m glad there’s no place that I have to go.

The medical kit sits in the corner
In easy reach for each time he visits
Our home. He eats his breakfast carefully
Then pulls the plastic case to the middle
Of a freshly-vacuumed living room floor.

First he pulls the headband with its mirror
Over his eyes like a superhero.
Thus transformed, he takes out the syringe
Pumps it seven times into his forehead
And swings the stethoscope in great circles…

Behind the door, she sits and reads about
Vascular disease and renal failure,
Oblivious to the sagging bookshelf
Until it gives way and books cascade down
In parody of her unending task.

It is a good thing he is here today.
With warmth and sympathy upon his brow
Outweighing surgeon’s knife and chemist’s drug
He grabs his case and is ready to go.
Hippocrates would be so proud of him.

So I was trying to text my sweetheart
About having a date for Valentine’s
But the smart-spelling feature on my phone
Wouldn’t cooperate. It kept turning
“Valentines” into the word “Takeover.”

It made me wonder if the programmer
Had been left sitting alone at a Starbucks
Clutching a dozen roses for a girl
Who never could work out how to tell him
Face-to-face: It’s over – it’s me, not you.

And in his humiliation and fear
That every lover would abandon him
As soon as he had opened up his heart
He threw the roses to the barista
And walked two hours across town in the rain.

Back in the computer lab, he removed
Every hint of love from the software
He was perfecting for use in cell phones,
And replaced it with a subtle warning
That romance is a form of takeover.

Meanwhile the barista went home and dreamed
About the man who gave her the roses
Praying that he would come back in again
So she could get his number and text him:
Thank you for the best valentine ever.

We do not always realize just what
The lathe of memory is sharpening
Until we feel the unexpected sting
Of sudden recollection start to cut
The tissue of oblivion. We shut
Our hardest passages away, then cling
To safer narratives, but lessening
Our being will not pull us from that rut.
Instead, when long-forgotten shades arise
In tandem with a sudden scent or sound,
We should salute these keepers of what lies
Rough hidden in the deeply harrowed ground
That is the soul. Such moments make us wise,
For through old pain, new healing can be found.

At five-foot-five
Diego Maradona
Stood two heads shorter
Than me, wearing this jersey,
The blue and white Number Ten

Of Argentina.
That diminutive wizard
With the hand of God,
Who in four breathless minutes
There in Mexico City

Tore out my young heart
With his maddening mixture
Of dishonesty –
Punching the ball in the net –
And finesse – his second goal.

My good friend Bob went
To the Golden Boy’s homeland,
And when his hosts learned
That I was born in England
They took him down to a shrine

To Maradona,
A store packed with souvenirs
Of that plunderer,
And they bought me a jersey,
Just so they could rub it in.

If one could count the cups in every sink
And draining board across the British Isles,
Still dotted with digestive crumbs, in piles
Of geometric porcelain, I think
The number would make Wall Street people wink
At sexy opportunities, with miles
Of data spread by shark-toothed men with smiles
They learned to fake from stretches in the clink.
The simple truth is, if you want to be
Successful in investing hard-won cash
Within a marketplace that pulls and tugs
Your heart to go against what you can see
Is smart, then shun the charlatans and dash
To read the tea-leaves – just invest in… Mugs.

Were you to ask the thousand reasons why
I love you, I would point you to the snow
Descending lazily outside – a show
So easy and enchanting to the eye
That one can miss the pattern of the sky,
With every flake unique and pure, prepared to flow
With its compatriots to scatter low
A blanket where our fondest dreams may lie.
That graceful synergy of patterns found
Within the winter landscape tells me how
Two lives so separate can fold around
Each other’s beauty and yet still allow
Each one to dance a solitary round
Gracing the slow unfolding of a vow.

(a triolet)

Stay in the room, and do not quit
Until your work is done.
I know it’s hard, but you must sit,
Stay in the room, and do not quit!
The poem’s there, now capture it –
A tale is waiting to be spun.
Stay in the room, and do not quit
Until your work is done.

(with thanks to The Pocket Muse)