April 26, 2013, 7 pm at the Harlow Gallery, 160 Water Street in Hallowell. Light refreshments served. Suggested contribution: $3.00. For further information call Ted Bookey at 685-3636.
Here’s a sampler to whet your appetite:
I Was Slothful Today
I didn’t take a walk
I did play solitaire
I didn’t clean the house
I did do too many puzzles
I didn’t call my mother
I did eat a cookie
I didn’t make the bed
I did read a book
I didn’t pay the bills
I did enjoy the day. –by Martha Floyd
Mission Accomplished (Triolet
As she started down the aisle
I had a premonition
that she’d used a bit of guile
As she started down the aisle
she wore a very pregnant smile
Though she’d not mentioned her condition
as she started down the aisle
I had a premonition) – by Anne Rosenthal
Personas Plus
To become a really successful poet
I thought I needed a new persona
My younger personas no longer fit
My present one was old and worn.
My wife said I didn’t need one
And we couldn’t afford it anyway,
But I knew that there was a sale
In the mall at “PERSONAS PLUS”.
Lots of plastic and large displays
Movie stars and famous athletes.
Forty percent off on politicians.
But all I wanted
were poet personas.
I finally found a wild-eyed radical
A dreamy romantic and an epic rhymer
A drunken genius and a nature lover
Together in a pile of “Clearance Bargains.”
I tried them all on but none would fit.
And all were past their “Sell By” date.
So I went back home in my old persona
And wrote poetry. –by Jim Todd
Looking Ahead
My dog has lived
longer than I thought
He moves more
slowly than I
When completely
unaware of others,
he moans.
It seems to comfort him
I wonder what kind of dog
I’ll take home
when my old friend
is gone
He’ll have to be smaller.
One I can lift, yet not so tiny
He will scramble around my feet
Cause me to fall
A lady I know
has similar thoughts
about her aged husband
He moans quietly too –by Joan Nicholson
She Sits Quietly
She sits quietly
This frail old person—
Over one hundred years
Are jumbled in her head.
She hums a Swedish lullaby
And rocks in gentle rhythm
As the pulse of decades
Throbs through her being.
The flirty young girl is woven
Across the woman’s buxom dignity
And forms a living tapestry
Of blood and bone and mind and souls.
The stereo-typist’s skills are gone.
The eyes no longer see with clarity.
Sounds are softened, often lost.
She’s cold despite the summer heat.
But let a man approach—
She’ll hear that lower voice
And out come all the old responses.
The fluting laughter and breathy voice
And sparkling wit and swift riposte
Come bubbling up from that deep well
Of basic unquenchable femininity. –Betty Bernstein
