Coffee Shop Poetry
Voices came in sizes and inflections
telling their lives in all directions.
Stories of anger, mothers and life,
sexual encounters and academic strife.
Nationalities were all represented,
each as they stood an presented.
Works of art in a smoke filled room,
coffee ordered and quickly consumed.
Listeners listened and interpreted the verse
some as a blessing, some as a curse.
Emotions were heightened as one gesticulation
stood on the edge of suicide or elation.
Others subdued in memories of war,
while others recalled the evenings they scored.
Readers and audience like me were all strange,
as we take words and life and uniquely arrange.
Then step to the mic, they gave up their soul,
from the very young to the seasoned and old.
My hair caught the smell of smoke in the air
while I listened and captured the love and despair.
I turned in the end and stood to see
they all were a fraction of reflection of me.
Copyrighted: CMM 2004
Blarney Stone
The blarney stone that must be kissed,
upon the young and old secret wish.
As leprechauns hide in the trees
Equinox calls for winter’s eve.
Promising to find a rainbow’s gold
while tales of Gaelic undertake of old.
Now the Celts beckon their clover green,
caftan plaid skirts give away the genome,
Threnody hushed from the past…
as renaissance of wishes forever last.
© CMM 2013
(dedicated to Stephanie n Jonathan )
Books
Reading aloud, then silent we read,
seeking the wisdom of writers indeed.
All through our history we recorded in verse,
and later share and later rehearse.
All of the philosophy, and all of the rhyme,
that is given to us all throughout time.
Even as we mount the books on the floor,
the information we read, we begin to store.
We look for more wisdom, more stories, more plots,
we continue to read and to write the ‘have nots.’
For as long as we think and as long as we muse,
we will continue to read of life to be amused.
The understanding of ages and scholars and such,
as they reach for us in books and continue to touch.
The core of our being, the mind and the senses,
breaking down walls and removing the fences.
These writers and poets and philosophers too,
will continue to be there for me and for you.
What keeps us apart will join us together,
will lighten our load, as we stack and we gather.
So the next time you pick up a novel or mystery,
remember that this will go throughout history.
of sharing and caring and quoting the said,
and reading to little ones while still in their bed.
Copyrighted: 2002 CMM
Lost Letter
Cleaning my desk,
I opened an envelope stuffed
with keepsakes, cards, letters.
Crinkled against time, some tattered
with wear, I saw an old familiar address.
Pulling it from the pile was like pulling
a friend from the reservoirs of memories.
I opened it, the dust had settled on his words
as ashes and sand settled on his grave.
He had written to tell me that he was diagnosed
with cancer …
He reflected in ink, spilling his frozen moments
of time on the paper, as he waits for the rest of his treatments.
Slipped in the envelope was a picture he had taken
of a seagull taking flight.
It was this, the lost letter, I had looked for
from the past.
© CMM 2013
Valentine’s Day
Oh, but the heart that has labored love
in laced valentine’s of past.
Cutting out the ribbons of red,
to give in hopes that love will last.
The confectionaries create their wares
and boxed in all heart sizes.
As anticipation builds in
the expectant heart she prizes.
The day will wear and waiting passes.
How will the promise come?
The time for many and then a few.
But, from the hopeful one?
But, from the hopeful one?
© CMM 2012
Ole Missouri
Running on a wooded ridge
I stopped in
reverent pause
to see the water
brought by summer rains.
The Missouri River ‘s fury
floods spring’s tilled crops.
The fields hide in waiting waters,
the gray still-stagnant waters slow to recede
taking homes.
The hopes of farmer’s toil…
as he sits at a
nearby diner.
Sweat-dried hat placed
on the counter,
his burnt brown brow wrinkled
from worry.
The Missouri River
still continues to flow
near-by…
now back within
the levees,
quieter now ,
the rains have stopped.
© CMM 2011
Shakespeare and Days of Youth
Perched below the shaded trees,
cools the sun’s luncheon rays.
Crossed in contemplation knees
are the enchanted Shakespeare days.
Tempered heat of springtime lawn
varid carpet lays beneath.
Lurching words without alarm,
bid from metamorphous sleep.
Anthony and Cleopatra fight,
as sonnets woo the lady’s fare.
Henry the IV comes from the night,
poets and lovers, a wispy pair.
The yeoman genius now buried in tomb,
leaves with the youth a place to learn.
While even when he left the room,
all other works are now discerned.
copyrighted: 2005
CMM
December 21st
Winter’s gray and silver sky.
Pry upon my watchful eye,
as I see the sun go down
setting shadows on the ground.
Yet I know and then I hope
when darkness comes that I will cope
with the fact that this will be
0nly temporarily.
For after December 21st
the snow will come from winter’s burst.
The sun will once again begin to shine
taking up more of the time
of day to give back to me;
my longing sense of sanity…
Copyrighted: 2010 CMM
Sterile Winter’s Return
Cold the sun
which days now come,
a frozen still breaths
a summer now done.
Barren limbs
widows time,
to watch and listen
a quiet sublime.
Oh, but the promise
of summer’s youth,
is lost among dried
leaves now mute.
The wind, the breeze,
does not remain
as time has come,
winter’s season reclaimed.
© CMM 2011
1st Sunday in Advent: He Came
As the chickadee finds its nest,
among the prickly leaf—
The labored Mother sighs,
as birthing finds relief.
Then nature joins a chorus,
among the star they sing—
Humanity realized his birth,
of the resurrection King—
He came among the world,
in quiet winter’s rest—
chickadee without notice,
continues to make his nest—
Copyrighted: CMM 2001
Eagle and Child Inkling 