A wry little poem here from Devonne, about telling the truth….
Is there any better place to be than your hairstylist’s chair? I am grateful for the conversation and friendship that I’ve found there. ♥️💇♀️♥️
The Truth-Teller
Tag Archives: Guest poem
The poems referenced in my poem “In Another Poem”are…….
So, as promised, the poems referenced in my poem “In Another Poem” are:
How did you meet your wife by Richard Jones
We real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks
Invisible Kisses by Lemn Sissay
I wandered lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth
If you want to read the original post here it is:
https://thecheesesellerswife.wordpress.com/2021/01/13/in-another-poem/
The Poet’s Circle on Zoom
Another great poem from Jim Feeney at Stopdraggingthepanda. Enjoy!
The Poet’s Circle on Zoom
Way back when, in the time before Covid,
the Poet’s Circle would meet once a month
at The Post-Coital Beetle
for an evening of mixing metaphors.
Last week after much discussion
we had our first session on Zoom
and I don’t mind telling you
it was a white horse of a different kettle
a whole other crap shoot.
There were problems of course,
some of our members
had difficulties with the technology
and that was just the tip of the molehill,
as one of the poets observed
you can lead a leopard to water
but you can’t make him change his tricks;
but when The Academic Poet suggested
that metaphor has no place in modern poetry
that was when the spittle really hit the screen
it all went to hell in a hand basket
and that’s an idiom not a metaphor.
I tried to cool…
View original post 49 more words
Pōhutukawa
An additional Christmas treat from Ankh Spice in New Zealand:
On the downslope from solstice
our true December trees
are brazen, bloody-bright. You can keep
your dark, doomed pines, all smooth tradition
for the baubles – sadness-
-in-waiting beneath fake snow –
that never worked out here
on the edge. Our festive day is gaudy
with the tinsel-glare of sun, we grew up ripe
to glut ourselves on light this time
of year. The young, the old, they really crave
the exact same simple gift. And pōhutukawa,
she shows you every year how to age
shamelessly. Carried on her auntie’s back
toward the squalling new year, you’ll hear
her last dirty old laugh with your eyes
open (none of your damn grace required), flinging
all that made the new gods whisper scarlet wanton
to the hot south wind, spreading fierce
naked claim and delight. Every path,
every last road out of here, it pants
with spent red. It’s so easy
View original post 273 more words
Day 13: Christmas Cheer
Another fine poem from Jim Feeney posted as part of Sarah’s Advent Calendar. Enjoy……
Your cell phone rings
but you’re not listening
because you left it
in The Fox and Vixen
behind the cistern
in the last stall on the left
next to the condom machine
and now it’s 4 am
your wife sleeps soundly beside you,
in the corner of the room
your hangover squats
sorting a tray of instruments.
It all began with a few beers,
some Christmas Cheer
so how did it get
from there to here?
Slowly you remember or think you remember….
Did you really poke your boss in the chest
and tell him that you know better
that you know best?
Did you really down three shots of scotch
grab Mark from marketing by the shoulders
and proclaim “I love you bro”
over and over ‘till he begged you to stop
to let go?
And why, why, why
did you call that shy Dutch girl from accounting
“sad-eyed…
View original post 199 more words
Old Lady
We need more poems about getting old. Here is a wonderful one from Glenys:
Old lady blood problems
old lady pills.
Tiny toes dangle
from huge balloon feet.
Stretch marks cross my shin bones,
feet and ankles vanish.
Old lady giant ankles
more old lady pills.
Old people clipboard forms,
old people ‘flu jabs.
All line the waiting room
old people recovery time.
Old lady walks to town
fit as fit can be.
Old lady taxi home
after two hours’ shopping.
In my mind
I am middle aged
but my body keeps doing
old lady deeds.
Previously posted April 2016.
Shoe
Another great poem from Robert Ojaki. It’s relevant to both the USA and UK today:
Shoe
The right has only one option,
as is true of the left,
neither to mingle
nor disappear like washed socks
or loved ones in a casino.
There are those who believe
in fallen towers and pasts
burnished beyond recognition,
and truth, as it was written, for them,
in blood, with money inherited
from thieves. The puddle happens.
The door rotates. A snifter shatters.
The shoe’s approach defines its wearer.
* * *
This first appeared in March 2016, but somehow seems even more appropriate today.
Untitled Poem by Li Shang-yin
Leonard often shares Chinese poems, and this one is simply wonderful:
It’s so hard to be together, and so hard to part: a tender
east wind is powerless: the hundred blossoms crumble:
the heart-thread doesn’t end until the silkworm’s dead,
and tears don’t dry until the candle’s burnt into ash:
she grieves, seeing white hair in her morning mirror,
and chanting at night, she feels the chill of moonlight:
exquisite Paradise Mountain—it isn’t so very far away,
and that azure bird can show us the way back anytime.
translated by David Hinton
all the talking: for JEP
This poem by Leonard Durso catches my heart….
some time toward dawn
a shot of whiskey
burns its way
down my throat
in memory
of you
and all the talking
we had
and all the talking
we missed
The morning after the poem
Thotpurge has finished a poem about not finishing the poem. Brilliant!
at first light, on a
single sheet of paper, I found
a poem that does not want to be
read, a sky that will not know its
end, a cloud that realized it cannot
resist the wind, and a moon that
longs to scream over and over and over
again that all it can ever see,
is darkness —
the poet, as always,
did not
show up
at the
reading
The Cheesesellers Wife 