July 2024
Bio Note: The author of 16 collections of poetry, a book of short stories, and 4 children's books, I took a break from "heavy" topics to publish in May How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled? Spelling Mnemonics and Grammar Tricks (Kelsay Books). As one word nerd to another, I hope you'll take a look at these witty poems and fun graphics.
July 5th
All the flag-clad oohs and ahhs fizzle
just past midnight, a slight singe of burn
hovering over today: patriotic hangover
with stars and stripes banging about in brains
that never OK’d reciting names and dates
in 4th grade History. Such a dazzling,
distracting explosion: all that reality behind
the pomp, so ceremoniously like that other
season’s parade: winter’s green/red (the frigid
red/white/blue) pa-rum-pa-pum-pummed
into “Little Drummer Boy” with only tepid recognition
of the day’s conviction. Holy Mother
of Jefferson, the fireworks’ dizzy outbursts
of Me! Me! Me! reveal our belief in nothing
but the day’s commemoration, the morning after’s
leftover hot dogs or eggnog a hodgepodge of forgotten births:
nation and God piped-in patriotically
as afterthought for the background.
Originally published in New Verse News
Author's Note: The poem below was written for our first anniversary. This year my husband and I celebrate 31.
Battlefield in Peacetime
Not four score seven years ago—but one
we joined our homes, our names, our aging hands
for and against the battles that would come
and treaties fired, as those from this land
of Gettysburg, the dirt that bloodied love
for love of other still. Husband, we live
out of two pasts: a weakened frontline of
dismembered plots; unplowed field left if
not remembered. We, almost pacifists
in such as love, count up all others' wars
(here, and in our lives): their fists and kisses
loaded and exploded; the way our scars
in middle-age forget to fight. Defend
to death with me our peace, my allied friend.
Originally published in 2River View
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