OPEN HOUSES

OPEN HOUSES

Spring break traffic going south,
snowbird traffic coming back.
Roads loaded,
slowdowns, 
enough to go around.

Hannah and Alyssa, day two,
ready for spring things to do.
Meme and Papa wrest from the past
MAMMOTH CAVE. 
Good for their dad
and, with luck, his kids too.

From the start, evidence
of a generation of improvements.
Take the walk to the entrance,
lengthened, made steeper . . .
and less stable.
A money-saving thing?
No sign of the handrail
I am sure we used before.
There is more.
 
To enter, descend
steps,
enough to operate several escalators.

I am surprised they missed that cue.

The kids, running ahead, lagging behind,
with iPhone camera and flashlight apps,
played games with prehistoric ghosts
or whatever their imaginations enticed
from our dimly lit environment.

On the way out
our aging limbs were sent back 
up the eternal steps and walk,
harboring memories of when an ascent like this
would have been fun.

Disney’s improvement, exits  which take you through
gift shops directly in front of you.

The kids  -- surprise, surprise --
made great use
of their opportunity to exercise.

The cave trip a win,
reaching back again,
why not . . .
SEE ROCK CITY
where gnomes guide
your garden walk 
through Swing Along Bridge
and Fat Man’s Squeeze?

At the top, overlook seven states
and savor ice cream.
Then rock wall climb
and conclude with a stroll
through The Village of Nursery Rhymes,
once a grand finale,
now with today’s technology,
a bit of a curiosity.
But who knows where people like Disney
get their ideas?

Our Tennessee fun
ended down
and up
The Incline,
a railway from long ago
built to shuttle maids and butlers
fro and to
their lofty employ.
Now we tourists,
with nothing better to do,
ferry up and down
or down and up.
You must do two.

MOUNTAIN HOUSE

Destination one,
Blue Ridge, Georgia.
Southern tip, Appalachian Trail.
Check your map. 
If you see straight roads
look again.
You can’t get there
straight
from anywhere.
A loaded minivan, our borrowed car,
was not designed for this.
Growl, hiss,
grandpa missed
his blue Jaguar.

Sunday, a dry county, no corkscrew.
Instead, grab Sunday brunch
on an Old Town walking tour,
busy until, but closed by, three.

Monday,
a scenic trip north by rail
to Copperhill,
Tennessee.

One hour up,
one hour back
along the Toccoa River
where it continues, Ocoee,
in Tennessee.
Fly fishermen, enjoying the day,
didn’t bother with our cameras
catching them,
our prey.

A two hour stop to eat and shop,
stretch, walk, then hop the state line,
painted blue.

An early spring caught the locals 
unprepared for loaded trains.
Souvenirs, however, could be found.
The movie, “Hunger Games,”
now at the show,
inspired our girls to try their hands
at arrows and bows.

The trip back included a practice stop,
anticipating next Saturday’s Easter egg run.

Howell and Tish’s mountain house,
ours for three days,
propped, somehow, on a mountainside,
and reached by a vertical drive,
down,
has up and down decks,
and multiple levels.
We did not get comfortable
until assured 
the laws of physics had not been tabled.

A crane-your-neck ceiling
frames a western mountain scene.
Spring dogwoods below
lace white petals through
pine trees
lopped at the top to improve the view.

Windows to the west,
it was hoped by our hosts,
would gather family for fellowship.
Hannah and Alyssa gave it a test.

With their imaginations razor sharp
(but arrows rubber-tipped),
they went into the woods.
The hunted survived I am sure.
Catch-and-release guides these kids in the wild.

Here’s what crossed my mind.
If you leave it in the woods
there are few limits to 
the stories you can tell.

CITY HOUSE

Destination two, Huntsville,
Alabama’s house of many porches
and owners who excel,
do hospitality really well.

Take a look

out back
at courtyard, carriage house and porticos,
tools for exceptional hosts,

and out front
at sidewalks and streets
groomed to tout an earlier era,
now filled with walkers greeting
neighbors.

First time visitors, 
Misses Hannah and Alyssa,
played with Lovey and Trixie,
French Bulldogs
returning the favor.

Meme and Papa, old dogs, new tricks,
tried to absorb BMW M3s
and James Bond martinis
while straining to recall
bird calls and flower smells
from 40 years ago.

Day two, tour a mountain, the one
that attracted Werner Von Braun’s
rocket scientists from World War II.
Hannah, with Sparky,
the perfect aunt,
and today, really in her Element.

Then to Alabama’s space museum
and Redstone Arsenal.
A mystery of astrophysics --
spaces with multiple centers.
Meme and Papa will testify
to visiting one at Huntsville
and another at Canaveral.

What you do is view space through
a telescope, the Hubble,
then take space shots on a carnival ride
as often as possible
before heading back inside.

With the perfect uncle,
Apache pilot, Brendan, Alyssa flew
a simulator, shooting enemies,
first one, then two, then . . .

whew . . .

we did as much as we could do
until
time to return to Michigan
and cash in
those bragging rights at school.


DRK
4/28/12
6/6/12  

UP TO SPEED?

UP TO SPEED?

That driver and his car
Both moving at a crawl

Surely I won't drive that slow
When I get old

I do at times elect to drive less fast
An omen? Premature?

I could better think this through
If this traffic were not itching so to pass


DRK
1/19/15

NEW FAMILY DAY

NEW FAMILY DAY

Front and center, kids, form a line
with the judge behind his bench.
No need to mention,
official momming, the agenda today.
First, a chance for those with something to say.
Then, Emily, fourteen, has a paper to sign.

Years of uncertainty, now o’er the legal cusp.
Regimes bend and slide,
the new taking wing to soar,
not with a mighty roar
but the clear quiet clap
of Emily’s tap.

Rap, rap.
The gavel’s tap
triggered tears,
then applause
and cheers.

Rap, rap.
Capturing the day,
lovers’ hopes.
Despair is so last year.

Rap, rap.
Olivia swiveled the judge’s chair
while Emily, the eldest, heard
her sentence:  years
arranging family dinners,
February twenty-third.

Rap, rap.
Photographers walked,
indeed,stalked,
poking lenses
into unfolding events.

While they nosed
Hannah and Alyssa posed,
squirming their best courtroom grins.

DRK   http://dennis-keefe.blogspot.com
3/24/12

PRINCIPLED PEOPLE

PRINCIPLED PEOPLE

Have a good day today?
Find a more efficient way?
Or, even better, show another
how to improve?

I sing of the attractions of virtues,
virtues that let you go directly to action.
They excise excesses in choices,
that morass of reflection, other's opinions and options.

I was brought up by a neighbor
for giving her child an unbelted ride.
He was one of the kids who piled inside.
A twenty foot drive to the garage
stirred the roar.

You may have friends who save.
Financing a hoped for future outweighs
the discounted value, today.
Do they ever come out and play?

The economist,Martin Bronfenbrenner,
chided his profession
for its irrational passion for dispassionate rationality,
giving the dismal science a tongue-in-cheek smile of reality.

Gym rats, with rigor, day in and day out, work out with vigor.

I chastised,
every chance I could get,
a friend who smoked cigarettes
until I discovered my vices.
 
Have a question?  Get it answered.
No questions today?  An answer’s on the way anyway
from one who can‘t wait to explain
life
in a one sentence cliche.

If you can get by on the limited attitude arsenal
which feeds that irrational passion
you can be healthy, risk free, or financially secure.
Pick one from the list.  There are others.
The trick is not to confront your rules
with your neighbor’s. 

DRK
1/26/12 

FILL IN THE BLANKS

FILL IN THE BLANKS

My favorite gift today,
a blank book requesting poetry.
My grandkids have such taste,
weaned on the likes of Silverstein, Milne and Seuss.
Why should they read grandpa's verse?

The empty spaces in these pages
can capture nothing
that has not been uttered better before
by Eeyore,
or with more spunk than The Cat in the Hat.
I have no attic retreat
promising enlightenment.

But I am buoyed by this advantage.
These giants of the literati,
had imaginations which took them to the edge of the world,
but on trajectories which did not meet
those of my kids’ kids.

I can write
inspired by names and faces etched in mind,
of how Emily, Hannah and Alyssa,
Olivia, Senja and Blake
have filled the spaces of my time.


DRK
1/26/12

GREEN POETRY

GREEN POETRY

That’s our forte’.

Rambling prose,

discursive,

is there room
for more of those?

Today’s leaner lifestyles dictate
limited data bytes,
recycled paper bits
and a carbon free voice
of light, footprint-free
metaphors and similes.

What’s the point?
Information obesity.
Reduce it

with a diet of lies --

high potency poetry,
exaggeration energized.

Word burdened?
Get relief with verse.

It’s tersive.

I can only guess
where all that prose
goes.


Dennis R. Keefe
11/19/10

HOT SEAT

HOT SEAT

Need your bod thawed?
Start at the bottom with a merrier derriere.
For a little January chili silliness
warm your bum
or hotten your botttom
by getting it heated seated
to a hot butt temperature
that sears your rear
to a sizzled ass.
Heat tweaked cheeks
will leave your sacroiliac’s
sacrum chili hot.


DRK
1/5/12