Poets Online Archive

ALWAYS TAKE A BANANA WITH YOU (MY WIFE SAID)

Diabetics run the daily gauntlet of oblivion!
One false move and bang! That’s it! You’re gone!
My wife is always full of care.
“Take a banana when you go anywhere!”

Climbing a hill, my sugars are falling!
(In my head I hear my dear wife calling!}
I tap all my jacket pockets in despair!
Checking once, checking twice… no bananas are there,
For fast-acting sugar, the cupboards are bare!

“If not a banana, John, take a carton of orange juice!”
I frantically search my backpack but… really, what’s the use?
As a diabetic’s epitaph, just let these words suffice,
‘Always take heed of your wife’s advice!

John Botterill




HE SAID, SHE SAID

"I don't know why I ever married you," he said.
"Because you once loved me, " she said.
"Once," he said and crashed out of the house,
got in the car and ​drove away unseen by me.
Hiding on the stairs behind the bars of the railing,
I said nothing and snuck back upstairs to my room.
When she came into my room, she said,
"Did you hear all that?" I said no.
She knew I was lying and sat on my bed beside me
but neither of us said anything else for a long time
and we never saw my father again.

Lianna Wright



SIBLING SHENANIGANS

Don't throw your candy wrappers
on the sidewalk, my brother said
as we walked home from school.
If you do, they'll end up
in your bed. I didn't believe him.
He was a trickster, especially toward me,
his little sister. It was too much trouble
to look for trash cans, so I continued
to cast my wrappers to the ground with abandon.
Then, one night, I pulled back my bedspread,
only to discover a Snickers wrapper
under my pillow. Incredulous, I called
my parents, while my brother stood
in the doorway of my bedroom, snickering.

Susan Spaeth Cherry




XX STEPS TO SUCCESS

Move your parents out to where you live,
Dr. Sheila X. Ample said. This is how women
will succeed in science. Your parents can take
care of the children so you can run your lab
and teach classes. Your husband will work days
to be home at night with the kids when you
have to run into the lab for those all night data points.
Live close to the university, so you can make mandatory
appearances at family events. Travel to international meetings.
Your parents and spouse can work out the chauffeuring
of the children. Your offspring will grow up to be
independent self survivors who leave home after
high school. Then you can make your really big
discovery and collect that Nobel Prize.

Leslayann Schecterson




ST. AGNES SCHOOL

Stop playing with your hair and sit up straight,
Sister Mary Pascal said. It's not a cord
you pull to turn on a light in your brain.
If you don't know the answers to that test,
it's because you're reading comic books,
listening to rock music and slouching.
There's only so much room in your brain,
and it's not getting enough oxygen when you
sit like that. Bad enough you're left handed.

Frank Kelly




DWELLING PLACE

Take that magnet off the refrigerator door,
Mother said. It doesn’t belong.
A refrigerator door is for serious things,
the number for Poison Control,
warning signs of stroke and heart attack.
And this one, in case we get another
pandemic, “How Good Is Your Mask?”
But this, a quote from some poet,
“Dwell in Possibility.” What do poets
know? It’s got to go.

Taylor Graham




ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN

My third-grade gym teacher said, “Robby,
you gotta cut your hair. If you don’t,
it’s gonna get in your eyes
and you won’t be able to see where your going.
And if you can’t, you can’t see
when your gonna hit your head
on the ceiling climbing up that rope,
or walking down the hall
or riding your bike to school
or what’s on the blackboard or read books.”
When my mother got called to the gym teacher’s office,
he repeated what he’d told me.
She left with me in tow and said,
“I can see he’s not a Beatles fan.”

Rob Friedman




MOTHER SAID MARRY

Mother said, "Marry for sure, maybe for love."
"Just be sure to marry," She insisted.
We don't want you back, She implied.
She fretted no man would want me.
"We will provide a college education."
In case the marriage fails? I wondered.
I tried the first one twenty years,
Declared it had failed due to the two "As"--abuse and alcoholism.
After six years and three attempts, I escaped.
I married again.
Years later, my brother said, "Looks like someone wanted you after all."
Twice, in fact.

Susan Glenn Lampe




ECHOES OF HER HEART

“If you’re going to do something for someone, do it with your heart”
She wasn’t talking about exactness, precision or perfection
It wasn’t about giving it that impossible 100 percent
Unless that 100 percent was all of “you“
She was talking about purity of action, of intent
Doing what was right- therein was the perfection
We all do things begrudgingly at times
But mom willingly pushed aside resentment or injury
And urged us to do so with a “just let it go”
Overcoming any ill feelings to focus on the act
Somehow elevating it and herself at the same time
Perhaps it was rooted in the practicality of a poor childhood
Doing, not doing, not having, accepting -From needing help to helping others
The act becoming automatic - Becoming just mom – 100 percent.

Terri J. Guttilla



NO ONE

"Become a poet," said no one to me in my first 30 years.
I didn't even say it to myself while sitting at a desk
writing another poems that no one would hear or read.
Then, a first poetry reading that year at a coffee shop open mic.
My knees were shaking and my voice cracked on the first poem
but I read a second and after it was all over a woman said,
"You're a very good poet." I thanked her tingling at that word.
"Do you have a book?" I shook my head to the negative.
No one has accepted my manuscript, I didn't say,
because no one had ever said I was a poet until then.

Seema Singh




ARISTOTLE’S ADENDUM TO THE POETICS

“A little imagination goes a long way,” Aristotle said
At our wrecking ball poetry slam on the East Side. He’s so old,
And he talked a lot. “Nobody needs to see the blood and gore
Dripping out of Oedipus’ eyes when they watch my drama,” he said.
“Classicism has disappeared like the chorus in
A proper play. And protocol is gone. If your poems
Have any boundaries, you need to set them. At the very least,
Read a few haiku or try a little litotes. And please,” he
Added, looking really sad, “We don’t have to be literary
Cannibals. Don’t stand up in front of a pack of word wolves
And announce, ‘This poem is about my girlfriend’s abortion.’
And don’t sully our art form with obscenities or advocate
For the assassination of even the worst of tyrants.”
We felt sorry for the pathetic old guy, so we didn’t boo.

Rose Anna Higashi




EARWIGGING

Our neighbour was gardening.
“Beware of earwigs,” she said to me.
“They go in through your ear,
crawl round your brain
and tickle you to death”
She showed me them on her dahlias,
long feelers and a little forked tail,
“like the devil, squash them!” she said.
Some ran onto my hand.
They tickled and I laughed.
“Squash them!” she cried,
“or I’ll tell your mum!”
But I couldn’t.

Lynn White




OPPOSITE TEACHINGS
I.
My father said
if everyone did only what they liked
we'd still be in the Stone Age

There would be no cars
no townhouses
nothing to like or dislike

My father, whose language
does not capitalize the I
like we do in English

His first-person pronouns
are buried in the dense pages
of his stories

My father, whose life
did not revolve around a me
but a collective we

My father
whose frostbitten lips
bought the pink satin dress
on my back
II.
My therapist says
why won't you do what you please
like Patient X

I say I don't want to be compared
to someone who cuts in the meal lines
and steals clothes from the dryers

II.
My father
let me hold your hand
callouses and all
before waking
from my dream

Jackie Chou