Shoes Blues

Shoes Blues

11 March 2018

Holes in the soles of my shoes

Has me singing the blues.

After looking at the selection

Of shoes in the store's collection,

Each with its own appeal,

I chose a pair close to my ideal.

At first I liked the look and feel,

Then the flaws started to reveal.

Holes in the soles of my shoes

Has me singing the blues.

Cracks appeared where the uppers flexed.

I didn't see what happened next.

The tops seemed to go unchanged,

But the bottoms were becoming deranged.

That went unnoticed until it rained

And the wetness I felt was unexplained. 

Holes in the soles of my shoes

Has me singing the blues.

Much to my dismay, at home I looked at

My shoe bottoms and could see that

The soles had a crack across the ball.

That's why my socks were wet and all.

I'll have to buy some replacements,

Adding to my money disbursements. 

Holes in the soles of my shoes

Has me singing the blues.

-----------------------------------------------------

Personal note: There's been a lapse in my postings. In December 2017 I got a sore spot on my tongue that made it hard to talk and chew, so I went in to see the doctor. On the 2nd January 2018 the doctor called to say I had medium squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue. On January 21st I went to the hospital and fell among the surgeons. They knocked me out, yanked a tooth, cut out my tongue and slit my throat. The doctors were having such a good time they slit my throat twice, in front and down the side. After a week in Medical Intensive Care and 3 weeks in a skilled nursing facility, I came home. In the SNF I recovered enough to start talking again. On March 12th I started chemotherapy and radiation that will go on for six weeks. I get most of my nutrition thru a feeding tube. I can't wait until this is all over and I can come up with a funny way to tell my dramatic story.

Heart-warming And Charming

Heart-warming And Charming

28 November 2017

Your beauty welcomes me.

Your visual appeal touches me

And goosebumps manifest

To make me feel blessed.

Good looks come from symmetry, 

Proportion and repetition,

Like in the marble parquetry.

All three are done to perfection.

Everywhere, underfoot and overhead,

Is elegance and loveliness.

Prettiness and grandeur are wed

Into luxury and courtliness.

The paucity of my treasury

Prevents me from staying long.

My enjoyment must be momentary,

Short, like I don't belong.

The fleeting moments are stowed,

In my memory where they won't corrode,

To warm my heart with grandness

From the sparks of beauty's flame.

In times of poverty and blandness,

I reflect back on your lovely acclaim.

Competition Disposition

Last year I won the first place gold medal prize from World Poetry Movement. Recently I got an email requesting a submission for this year. I looked thru the poems I had written in 2012 and narrowed my choice down to three: Afternoon Swoon, Resident's Absence and View Adieu.


Competition Disposition
Original by Robert Frost
14 January 2013

Three poems lay on my desk of wood
And sorry I could not submit them all,
Limited to one entry as I understood,
I read them and thought as hard as I could
About which to send in answer to the call.

Each having its own rhythm and rhyme
And all equally appealing
As suited to the subject and paradigm
Of a requested poem at this time,
My quandary proved to be revealing.

The more I looked the less I was sure
Of which was the best to submit
And which one had the most allure.
So I tried the familiar procedure
Of asking the people most proximate.

I shall be telling with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Three poems lay on wood and I --
I used my own judgement to go by
And that has made all the difference.
_______________________________

The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost (1920)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Ideal Appeal

Ideal Appeal
7 June 2012

It feels like summer outside
So open the windows wide.
I hear a twittering bird,
A glorious day is assured.
Sandals and shorts at that
Will go with my straw hat.