March 2024
Bio Note: I was invited in 2009 to join the critique group, The Hartford Avenue Poets. The group is instrumental in improving my poetry. I became a life-long baseball fan at the age of five when my mother moved the radio into my bedroom to entertain me when I had the measles. I received the Lorine Niedecker Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers in 2018.
Not Exactly Paradise, But Lost
I remember before we forgot how to tell stories
before the things that helped us forget how
found their way to us, before TV showed us
that look on Lucy’s face that told the whole story.
I remember stories being told around the dinner table
eyes on people’s faces, not the TV.
And songs being sung around the piano,
My Blue Heaven, Sentimental Journey, Elmer’s Tune.
I remember when dropping silverware
meant company was coming, but dropping it
on purpose didn’t count. Coffee and cake served
at the kitchen table after the card game
to send relatives home alert and satisfied.
I remember when entertaining visitors
and other skills, like balancing a checkbook,
or reading a map were necessary for navigating a life.
Sixty-three Cents a Day
The pictures you see on your screen
are of poor poets
some of them starving
unable to pay the rent
pencils worn to a nub
writing on napkins lifted from McDonalds
eating ketchup-packet soup with saltines.
But you can help!
For a donation of just $19 a month
you can bring new hope to a struggling poet.
That’s right, for only 63 cents a day
you can provide real food
new pencils and notebooks
and best of all, new inspiration
to a poet on the verge of despair.
And if you donate in the next 10 minutes
you will receive an autographed photo
of the poet you sponsor
a limited edition “I Saved a Poet” tee shirt
and a framed poem that your gift inspired.
So call now.
What’s 63 cents
compared to a poet’s life?
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL