Wednesday, October 10, 2012

October 10, 2012 - OctPoWriMo



 
Boots-alicious

 

Dressed for rain

In New York

 

Rubberized boots

Slicker yellow

Tan and blue plaid

Purple with flowers

Navy with Ralph Lauren’s polo player

 

Shiny silver hiking boots

With embossed floral pattern

Loose laces tucked down inside the

Grommets standing wide

Like a wicked witch’s collar

 

Cobalt patent leather, ankle highs

Three gold buttons stand at attention

Along outer sides

 

Nut brown leather knee highs

Side-zippered

Sole to knee

 

Black patent,

Waterproof gortex panels

Contrast with texture

 

Burnished taupe knee highs

Five carved buttons

Run up the outsides,

 

Fifth Avenue manikin

Complements her chic skirt

With black leather knee-highs

On tall stainless steel heels.

One-upping the masses

in transit

 

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

October 9, 2012 - OctPoWriMo

In Flight

Before take off

Travelers on cell phones

voices

ricocheted

all the way back

to Seat 38E,

third-to-last row.


Overhead bins,

Slammed

Slammed again

Too stuffed to close,

No items to shift during flight,

Guaranteed.


Seat 38E.

Sandwiched

Between perpetually-whooshing

Rear- cabin toilets


Add to the symphony

Ceaseless engine noise,

The buzz and whirr magnified

Inside this fiberglass shell


Cough, cough, cough

Atchoo! Atchoo! Atchoo!

How many“bless yous”

Does a polite

traveler

murmur

Before

ducking and dodging,

hunting up her Vitamin C?

Monday, October 8, 2012

October 8, 2012



First Taste of Wine

The Cassells cellar
Oh.
Really
A cellar
Earthen-floored
Must-scented
Raven-aired


Grandma Annie Cass-sells
and ten-year-old me

We heave away worn wooden doors
Throwing daylight underground
Pick our way down brick slab steps
Let our eyes adjust
Then I follow her
En route for
wooden plank shelves against one wall.
She stretches toward a dusty jug
Pours a half-pint jelly jar
One-quarter full
Pronouncing “grape juice” and
Taking a sip.
Passing the jelly jar to me
She cautions
“Just a little now.
It makes you feel all warm inside.”
Her eager
knobby fingers reach
for the jar
as it leaves my lips.


Sunday, October 7, 2012

October 7, 2012

Trudy

Trudy
Animated, passionate
Encouraging, questioning, challenging
Emanates light wherever she walks in the world
Sharing, protecting, caring
Steadfast, compassionate
Friend


Her birthday poem
Written and read
A scant thirteen days 
before,
freed from pain, 
she left us
weeping for our loss.

Today
Her cactus blooms
Ah.
She's back.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

October 6, 2012



My Dad
Thomas Cassells, October 6, 1917 - March 14, 1972


 
 

He was the tallest man in the world,
My Dad.
His voice thundered from the skies,
And when it did
We children of the 1940s stopped, listened
Answered yes sir
Jumped right then
In a minute did not exist

He was like a chocolate-dipped ice cream cone,
My Dad
Beneath the hard-shell exterior
Laid a compassionate heart,
Love-filled,
Harboring a man who, in retrospect
of course, was funny.
How did you meet Mama?
On a slow boat to China.
He was the tallest man in the world,
My Dad.