Widow Johnson and “Old Man Whiskers” [rev 6]

Wearing clean well-worn clothes,

widow Johnson visits old man whiskers, on invite.

Her mischievous greeting smile and wrinkling forehead (burrows of time —burrows of life)

quickly disappear as she walks through the door

carrying a deck of cards and a cribbage board.

 

He could tell she played this game before.

 

They have coffee, chit and chat

while she shuffles the cards

and ask him to cut, if he preferred that.

He does several times and they play cribbage.

15-2, 15-4, and a pair is 6 and on and on it goes.

Up one side of the board and down the other

until he’s skunked. Twice in the best of three.

 

Still counting each hole with one finger,

checking the peg’s last hole and repeating the score,

she takes his hand, winking at him,

leads him up the stairs to the bedroom,

as she sing-songs quietly, but quite clearly,

hearing widow Johnson giggling,

“LoooZaaaaa.”

 

The Night Before Breakfast {vol I “Mill Street”]  2013-1018

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A note found on the refrigerator in April

Whee!

 

It’s not what you saw,

            Or, the illusions you have seen;

It is how you experienced the process,

           where ever you have been.

 Realizations, at it’s very best.

 

This splattering and spluttering

            are promises at it’s worst.

They come and we go

            We die and we grow

And grow again to land, face-up to rest.

 

So let us go and gather what we need,

           While we are here. Sit and see,

Embrace yourself, then go and gather.

           Enjoy the same ride

Of your rain drop and enjoy the splatter

            Wheeeeeee…

 

1960’s Erotica’s Dream: It Was Our Call

Bras and skirts (later heightened to obscenity)

Cleavage proposing investigation!

Poses with Polaroid’s, hidden in desk drawers,

Exposed, but, still wearing panties

Pasted under peek a boo panty hose.

She never shaved then, why should she? Bikinis were not “in.”

What you wanted to grab was only a blush

Squished into a sandwich of sin.

Didn’t we get married then?

 

Boyfriend throws away the playboy!

But, keeps it under his bed! That dirty dog!

Even then, it was better than the Sears catalog’s

Sticky pages, “Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys.” *

 

Married, divorced with children, avoiding nuclear war;

Bomb shelters, not being aware the bomb went off in our back yard.

Elementary school, high school, and college, if we went that far.

Shedding sideburns, gartered stockings, no hair or no stockings at all.

Settled in with Social Security, a little retirement,

And still dry humping. Waiting for the real thing to fall.

What’s the bitch?  Bastard! Yup, it was your call.

No it wasn’t, you ate the apple too, and said it was my fault!

And, when I think about it, shit, how did this happen?

 I guess we’re not perfect at all!

We is, because, we isn’t.

Well, then it was our call.

 

 

*Shakespeare…Cymbeline: IV, ii 

“…Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys

Is jollity for apes and grief for boys.”