The ironic plight of the introvert
A hole
filled
a hole
nothing of substance
not recommended
on the whole
you are what you eat
A hole
filled
a hole
nothing of substance
not recommended
on the whole
you are what you eat
twenty one hours
nineteen minutes
from bluegrass fields
the urge to write is as fleeting
as the crisp air that falls
upon us after day’s end
then shrinks back with
return of sun
red dust settles but
there’s more to come
as I walk to
retrieve water
connection
food
ice
spectrum of color
surrounds me
in this harsh landscape
begs me to paint
not write
If I ever need a quick something from the store,
there is a nearby pharmacy I can walk to in minutes,
a walk I’ll gladly make in almost any kind of weather,
but I especially love it on these spring/summer days.
Along the way, I pass by a closed down restaurant,
a family favorite that fell just before the pandemic.
I was sad to see it go, for all of the memories made there
and I think about their beauty as I pass by.
Around this still standing shell of a building,
the landscaping is gradually being reclaimed by nature.
Untended gardens now burst in a myriad of colors,
flowers I would name if I knew anything about flowers.
There are oranges and yellows in star-shapes with slender petals
and my favorite is a white kind with a deep purple center.
They stand like queens over the garden
with butterflies and bumblebees coming to pay homage.
This all strikes as a different kind of beauty
which only blossomed because nobody cared.
These persistent plants fill a space that would
otherwise look like everything else.
All this makes it just another place to draw inspiration from
in daily battles with feeling like not a lot of people care.
Untended, I grow on my own, which then helps me discover
all the beautiful ways that life keeps going on.
The temple of the rose
Is attended by its petals
As it tries to teach openness
In the garden as if it held
The secret that would
allow us to return
Like a fragrance
New breakfast treat, iced raisin bread
Sugar Snacks in the cereal bowl
honey in Orange Pekoe tea.
Allowed a lone walk
to the corner store
for bread and candy.
Scrapbooks to make
with cut out pictures –
Ladies Home Journal.
Grandma and me, front porch swing
shelling peas, snapping beans
enjoying our lemonade.
Picked roses from trellis
mint from the garden
making our own ice cream.
After supper porch watch
Fireflies and emerging stars.
Then bubble bath in the claw foot tub.
Watched Grandma let down
her long silver hair and
brush one hundred strokes.
Hot cocoa and off to bed
lulled to sleep with whistle of
traveling railroad nigh.
-Sue Neufarth Howard
Standing there waiting
in dull red worn jeans
pale mustard shabby sweater
flip-flops in February
leaning against the pale wall
clutching her violin case
she stares
The Childrens’ Conductor
comes forward
with “Get your fiddles out.”
The young girl
perhaps eleven
with hair lighter and duller
than her sweater
looks around
no expression on her face
Picking up her instrument
out of its case
she takes her place
joins the others
in this fiddle choir
Front and center
she does not change her gaze
at the adult’s washboard accompaniment
and bass broom with strings
set in washtub for reverbs
Chilly in the shade
under the canopy
of the community center
with children herded to warmest wall
to play in a staggered line
No excitement in their faces
On cue they pick
up their bows
and fiddle.
She’s the majorette in her own
marching band, leads her own parade.
On thoroughbred legs, she proceeds
with pride. Her mama told her
the world was hers and she believed.
Her movie-star smile, a sunburst of delight,
she scans the audience as though she’s
just discovered rapture. How could
your heart not open at that joy,
that promise.
This prickly pallid blue shroud enwraps my flesh,
on a poem by Ocean Vuong
the day-orb slides cock-
sure as a yolk into a light-
lusty horizon scratched & marred
by Timothy grass, by solitary Jeffrey
pine its desiccant bark corroded to
russet as ancient waves slap rock spitted
sand far below this cliff while behind
a peel of moon peers from clouds
shape & shade of detritus
lobotomy of swollen cumuli
& hills are pewtered in water-
thin white & that feckess moon
tries to lord-verb itself over
distant forests gentled to midnight-
green burned obsidian shadows celloing
indistinct as a chorus of butterflies
