Libby Weber's Blog, page 25

June 15: Night Stroll

Come walk beneath a thousand blazing suns

Whose distance renders them to sparkling points

And let the the moistened grasses when we run

With fallen dew my sandaled feet anoint.

Let constellations witness our escape

From suffocating confines of the home,

The lucent firmament will make us gape,

Its shifting beauty guides us as we roam.

You comprehend the reason for our tryst

Amidst the starlit, jasmine-scented night-

The tender skin behind my knee you kissed,

Your eyes sought mine, the stars weren’t half...

June 14: The Finch Response

Galapagos’s tortoises maintain

An interesting reflex when a bird

Alights upon them, it’s as if the brain

Declares all other stimuli deferred-

They haul their massive carapaces high

As short and stump-like legs will them allow,

With necks upraised, gravity to defy,

As still as figurehead upon ship’s prow.

This unresponsive state lets native finches

Pick off the shedding skin and parasites

Upon its most discriminative inches

Sans inadvertent startling into flight.

Yet sleep’s descent I cannot yet allow

Whil...

June 13: Purpose Full

I have forgotten what it’s like to lack

A deadline looming just around the bend.

Accustomed now, I’m quite taken aback

When there’s no challenge for me to transcend.

My mind feels stagnant when I do not write,

And sluggish at those times I do not read,

Or work up well-loved poems to recite,

And scores to sing, the old to supersede.

I wonder if my patent inability

To be without new projects is a skill

Or failing- either is a possibility

For work itself is neither good or ill.

As long as my enjoyment outwe...

June 12: Tried Patience, or, Happy Birthday, Mom!

O Sainted Ellen of the Grilléd Cheese:

You fed the hungry lunch in bright array,

Our childish apprehensions did you ease,

And with your laughter banished our dismay,

And with a bowl, as first donned by St. Loony

Up the Cream Bun and Jam, upon your head

Made golden halos seem supremely puny,

Declaring naughty words could now be said.

Irreverence isn’t singular among

Your virtues; kindness, fearless curiosity,

Inspire us to sing what was unsung

And emulate your thoughtful generosity.

I only hope my life wi...

June 11: Le Pew

When through the open window evening breeze

Delivers a distinctive sort of funk,

I know that for some time I’ll take my ease

Surrounded by the stink of eau de skunk.

Inhaling that distinctive sulfurous scent,

Reminds of my childhood when a whiff

Of woodland musk inevitably meant

That with a skunk our dog had had a tiff.

I’m now convinced that each skunk adolescent

Selected my street for initiation

To cross the lanes when traffic is incessant

Which all too often leads to ruination.

Their fates were writte...

June 10: Summarize Proust

My seatmate said, “That book is pretty big-

What’s it about?” I wish I knew

How to describe without seeming a prig

Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu.

“The longest greatest longest novel ever written?”

“Reflections on names and shifting perceptions

That chronicle the joy of being smitten

By literature and love at its inception?”

“The book my friend and I had planned to read

The summer he abruptly passed away,

Thus kindling in me an impassioned need

To savor every volume past ‘Swann’s Way?’”

Fo...

June 9: Fifty Meter Freestyle

With plays and poems Shakespeare did decree

The iamb as the undisputed king

Of metered feet, disdaining the spondee

And anapests to make his poems sing.

Verses sound unbalanced with a trochee

Swapped for each iamb, one foot left over,

And lines that are all spondees can’t not be

Bland stuff that could not urge one’s heart to stir.

But of course there are meters more graceful that naturally dance

For the anapest brings us sweet memories of childhood rhymes,

Dactyls, by contrast, intensities always enhan...

June 8: Least of All Possible Evils

When deadlines change from three weeks into one

Priorities must then be rearranged:

Allot the maximum that can be done

And hope that no one task will be shortchanged;

For when there are three tasks, and two of them

Involve a partner, you’ll be glad you worked

The solo parts: strategically condemn

The groups and hope the partner hasn’t shirked.

But destiny ignores all strategy,

No matter how meticulously planned

And so whatever outcomes you foresee,

Prepare for their dismissal out of hand.

Through work an...

June 7: The Cliff

One’s first activity in several weeks

That works to stretch the body and the mind

Is sure to put some roses in one’s cheeks

And afterward will help one to unwind,

Endorphin clouds in which the body drifts,

Warm muscles loose, the brain demanding naps,

All make one blissfully oblivious

To immanent and foreordained collapse.

When it arrives, it turns the brain to lead,

Joints crack and new-found aches belie contusion,

While stiffness spreads through shoulders, neck, and head,

Attempts at cogent thought en...

June 6: Grr

Through growling grogginess I do perceive

A growing groundswell of determined grit

To grab with gruffness, nevermore to grieve

For time lost as in gross gridlock we sit.

Grandiloquent is our collective grouse,

With gravitas our grievances we air,

Grappling regret we ever left the house,

Exchanging the most gratifying glares.

It’s said that misery loves company,

But on grey days, we’re all of us annoyed,

Our solitary grumping will trump any

Pleasure that could result from schadenfreude.

Yet Friday brings...