Now tell me no more about Christmas,
I have survived it once again
busy, short-shrift no less
than usual.
It’s the tinsel, the politics, the hype.
I have survived it once again
hungry, bereft no less
than usual.
Someday I’ll pass it all by
the tinsel, the petty politics, the hype,
and celebrate the astonishing love meant
to be usual.
Wanda McCollar
I wanted a frog
in my garden,
I wanted his voice,
his splashing around,
when one appeared
I scorned him.
Was it my aversion to
nictitating membranes
slipping over
blinkless eyeballs,
or webby-toed
sticky suctions, his
unforgivable froginess?
There are other things
that look like frogs –
flowers in green paper,
rumpled blankets,
a crumpled letter,
tear-soaked Kleenex
looks like a frog,
his pond-green Peugeot
leaping away.
Wanda McCollar
Sexual Selection
A nematode glides,
aimless, undulant, until he spies
a female opportunity,
then, excited, accurate, quick,
hot-wired for it.
On a broad leaf
fruit flies assemble,
displaying their greatest intentions,
she inspects these
contenders (for a week!)
One mating is all she gets
ever, but no shortage of
healthy progeny --
good choice.
Echoing trills, moonlit
dances, aerial acrobatics,
erect feathers and
splendid blue faces,
peafowl, pheasant, penguin
all know what to look for,
warbler, wolf, fox
better make good choices –
it's a mate for life.
Enlargement pills, trading,
selling, buying, cheating,
beating, addiction, abandonment,
pedophilia, murder –
you know the rest.
The species that exercises free will.
Wanda McCollar
Suppose an Apple
of Queen Elizabeth I
who lifted her spirits
by its smell,
and a boy tipping
one after another into
the pounder, of cider,
of calvados,
of Pliny who told
about those who ate naught
and lived by
this smell alone. Suppose
from a filigree of
raggedy rows,
from windfalls pillowed
beneath
laden branches,
one --
perfect in the palm
round, firm
smelling of morning,
of crispin, ginger gold,
jonathan, winesap from
the Shenandoah Valley,
of gravenstein,
paula red and ruby jon,
of peelings yellow, green, red
and nearly black,
of firm white flesh
sweet and tart.
Crunch.
Wanda McCollar
This morning the sun rose
a fraction north
of its normal spot.
You must shift the moss
a bit south on all barks,
reposition those leaves
tending to flip in morning breeze,
you know - aspen, birch.
Redirect the bees,
turn flower faces two degrees-
you can leave the dew alone,
I suppose, it'll be gone soon,
but you'll have to do something
about those birds.
I expect a report by noon.
------------------------------
Headline: Psychologists find Mondays really are tougher at the work place because of demands of the bosses.
Tweet Tweet Twitt
Yonder she sits at table spoon poised over her hot broth's froth
listening to church bells knoll. Serenity amidst bustle. I think I love her.
Now a knave hitches his sagging hose and approaches his features
coarse his smile salacious. I fling myself at the brazen-faced varlet.
Willie, if you slack your duties I'll clip your tweeter. O woe is me to
have a son who takes up time to rant such foolishness.
Wanda McCollar
The prompt is found here http://readwritepoem.org/blog/2009/08/14/read-write-prompt88-fresh-from-the-wordle-word-bank/
Wind is a Poet Tonight
rising over the house percussion,
swashing rain against the window,
a snare drum above the bed,
whooshing down spouts,
and in the darkness of that din,
we snuggle tighter, loving
the perfect safety of each other …
No, wait.
Those last two lines
darted in on poetry’s gauzy wings
seeking shelter, but
there’s no truth in them.
... and in the darkness of that din
I raise my voice and
sing an off-key duet with the wind
and its erratic band:
sssssssssshhhhhh under the eaves,
aaaaaaaahhhhh in door cracks,
oooooooooooooooooooo
Wanda McCollar
