(unedited. feel free to post suggestions for improvements, criticism, etc.)

I want to Live

I want to live each day
in and odd and special way

so that when I am old
and so no longer bold

I can look back and remember
and say as I replay memories
'See that girl living? thats me, do you see her?'

I want to live without regrets
if you do to, well then, lets

not so much that we never err
but that we don't replay it until morbidly
introspectively ourselves down we wear.

(unedited.)

Red flowers in plastic cup
brothers brought much
mom says thanks,
thats enough.

brother adds last
stands back to look
says it looks like
fluffy red lettuce.
and so it does.

(I wrote this last summer. Not exactly poetry, I don't think. Sorry.)

Sun glares on white stucco. The house doesn’t tan. I’m in the shade, sweaty. If houses could it might melt. The block wall is high but I can still see a fan hanging from the back porch roof. I’ve never seen it spin. It looks like a bat, dead, but still hanging on. The wall has a gate: rectangular boards imprisoned by black metal bars.

Drab bushes sit, mannerly, by the wall, their roots discreetly covered by perfectly raked rocks. Except for the sedate waving of bush’s leaves, all is quiet and still. The sun heats the stucco on the house across the street.

Notes do the Shuffle Step

The notes shuffle step one behind the other out of the speaker
Trumpet notes boldly bebop to the beat
The passionate percussions pour out like oil,
Uniting all the rest in harmony,
Peacemakers, music shakers, beat creators.

Guitar strums, it softly hums,
Flute flies, it glides, it swirls,
Piano nimbly dances along,
Fiddle jumps, skips and prances,
They all come together for a song,
Made of dances.

Bless-you-ing

I hear someone in the bathroom,
Sniffing and sneezing.
I know it must be one of my little brothers.

Who is it? I call.
I start running through names.
No answer.
I go check.

Why didn’t you answer?
I ask sternly.
He looks guilty.

What were you doing?
I was bless-you-ing,
He happily replies

Packages

The fed-ex truck came today,
Bringing pure packaged joy
To our house and our group
Of five, all boy.

They had been told their bike helmets would come
Simple minded they accepted this as fact,
Not wondering how or why or where,
‘they just knew to send them here.’

When the man carried the box to the front door
They all gathered to stare,
When the slip of paper was signed, they all cheered.

Keyboard Music

Tap, tap, tap.
Rat-at-at-at…
The keyboard sings.

It croons its way across the paper on the screen.
The way is works is tidy, it is clean.
No ink stains and no tedious erasing,
just the poetry of finger motion,
the magic of seeing my words appear,
where a moment ago all was clear.

Carrots,
fresh clean soapy after taste
newly pulled and washed.
I eat the tangy skinny little strings and enjoy them,
crunching their sour sweetness between my teeth.
Finding pieces later.
Enjoying that too.

Cigar Scented Book

Pages thick with quality
Lingering cigar smell
Traces of another reader.

I wonder about
the reader I can smell
who left a aromatic clue behind.

Did he enjoy this book?
Why then is it now mine,
This beauty,
This finely perfumed
solid paged
wonder?

I conjecture at its unknown,
guessed at past,
smitten, in love with a mystery,
I plow on,
Pursuing the tale
Perusing the pages
Tasting of the vintage word-wine.

Welcome! Within the next few days I will begin to post poems, old and new. Please be aware that these are all my own poems and that under copywrite laws as I am aware of them copying is illegal. If I were a guy, I would use Tim Eaton's excellent threat- "You steal from me, I break your kneecaps."

But all this is a very unpoetical start. I am pained at my own failure. I'll have to try harder in future.