A POET TAKES THE DAY OFF

A Poet Takes the Day Off

Gone today: 

Bird watching sessions,

leisurely conversations

with the back porch muse

and critter news.

Inspiration Point, special events,

can you hold your effects,

issue rain checks?

I travel today with more intent,

unrelaxed –

less wander, less wonder.

I have given my eyes and ears,

my nose for the noise of words

the morning off.

Sent to recharge and

return refreshed,

they disappeared

without committing a time to me –

reserving, I surmise,

their usual element of surprise.

                                                                              

So here I am

with unpoetic urgency –         

and uncharacteristic zip.

The change refreshes,

this mission trip. 

Let them watch me for a change,

conjure their own verses.                                                                                                                  

My wife’s car needs oil

and the appointment is

at ten.                   

Dennis R. Keefe,

5/19/08

WHAT IS TEMPORARY?

WHAT IS TEMPORARY?

                      

I don’t usually choose  

to park this close – 

unlike those

who sport

handicapper signs.

Parking lots

help me exercise.                        

And this cane

you think you see

is actually                  

a mountain hiking stick.                                                                             

I say I’m practicing.

In reality

it steadies my walk    

and helps me manage

my sciatica.

The stick, it’‘s just temporary.

Freedom will come with surgery.

But it is normal for

old spines to collapse.

So I may keep my stick –

stow it there

with all my other

hiking gear.                                                                                                                                                       

   

Dennis R. Keefe

October 21, 2009

SENIOR, RISE

Senior, Rise

Have you met your organs lately?

Have they come knocking on the door

with new found complaints

about quality of work-life at the store?

With luck there are some that haven’t failed as yet,

maybe one or two. 

 

That heart you never noticed,

does it shimmy, shake or flutter?

How many procedures have you tried?

And did they make things any better?

How about your lower back,

your upper neck,

those disks they haven’t fused as yet?

Sound like you?

You may becoming senior-ized.

I’m not just talking senior eyes

but  ears, memory and a whole lot more,

things that will no longer be ignored –

an organ concerto, if you will,

of instruments in dissonance

which know

to penetrate your hearing now

they have to screech and yell.

If this is you, senior, rise.

You’ve projects to complete.

You've heard the advice

about getting up and moving on.

Did you remember to write it down?

Dennis R. Keefe

May 1, 2009

JUNIOR - SENIOR PROM

JUNIOR - SENIOR PROM

    An all you can eat parade
    people and food promenade
    between kitchen, table and buffet 
    bring your partner; choose a tray
    enjoy the grand march display.
   
Juniors First

Culinary convenience for
super-sized bargain seekers.      
lots of time in the lines,     
eating done in double time
Kids beat a path
to the desserts and back
                               
Man, wide as an aisle, side to side and front to back           
Wearing jeans, boots, and a “Texas” tee, black
clears the way; his buddy:  a beer gut strut.

Rumpled gent, scraggly mane
suspenders sag ‘mid looping chain
unable to contain wrinkled shirt
or keep his pants from sweeping dirt.

Woman with waddled sway
Gently rocks a tee-shirted titty tent
Cantilevered over tray

Another steadies
her partner’s unseen feet
plodding, in a guided stagger
O’er stomach out, head back, straight               
               
    Their diet:
        don’t get old
        lose weight one body at a time.


Seniors Last

Retirees’ noon hour
running on,
seniors gather
dressed to the nines
complete with a smile
out on the town
for the day’s big meal

Slimmer, survivors
jackets, vests, seasonal sweaters,
Permed hair, caps from aircraft carriers
Tech-accessorized with walkers, oxygen
and wheel chairs

They limp, lurching to the lines, hunched, 
pausing, twisting,  humped and caned
plenty of time for chatting games.

A curled body, hawk-nosed, caped in copper
rocking in an eagle walk, side to side,
peers down on her steam tray
prix-fixe prey

Experienced eaters
    (Soup bowls carry more dessert)
spend less time in the lines
Find their fun between tables in
Booze free schmoozing time
           
    “Boo.”
    “Oh, you scared me to death.”
    “How’s our timing?  Been here long?”

    “Haven’t had to go see my doctor in a long time.”

    “I used to trade combines every     year.”                           
    “What’d you get for your old one?
                       
Especially good for the widowed male

            Their diet: don’t get fat; lose weight a pound at a time

Dennis R. Keefe
June 18, 2007

               

AMONG THE YOUNG

AMONG THE YOUNG

The young,

who won’t be called old,

like to act older.

The Old

like to be thought young

but insist on acting their age.

From men in . . . hibited:

“Touch me, free me,

released

for intimacy.”

And women in . . . libited:

“Release me from the feel

that touch is all there is to be.”

Fears of the white –

not doing color right.

For others,                                                                                  

Fears started with lack of color.

Dennis R. Keefe

March 23, 2009

LOOK AT ME

LOOK AT ME  

She,

strutty and bouncy

a walking teen exhibition

of torso contortions. 

He,

straight, up, down, and square.

Line ‘em up, line ‘em up:

         Zippers, buckles and buttons.

brushes, un-musses his hair.

Me?      

Number one in competitive caps.

Last year’s Master’s, this year’s Players

Fished Michigan, marched at Selma

How about them Dawgs, and . . . Bama!                                                 

Some

like to show noshing class

with French boules, batards and baguettes,

California Napas and Oregon Williamettes.             

Are you 

Hybrid prissy or Caddy sassy?

Stereo rude?

Does your truck need room?                           

Yo,

Mama in the minivan,

chauffeur that hood.

How great are we?

Lie to me.

Dennis R. Keefe

November 13, 2008

GETTING SOMEWHERE

                                       GETTING SOMEWHERE             

I am small.

Lots of places I could be,

a filler of niches

unobtrusively.

Others are tall,

shapers, 
of the chips which fall.
 

Bigger spaces tempt

but mean

a stretched consequent

or two.

In the end, too many years,

and too much here

to be . . .  there.

I try, from time to time,             

to entice them near.

But fear their preference for            

my roundness, square.

Dennis R. Keefe                                                       

December 22, 2008