I Saw A Ghost Today

 

I saw a ghost today.
A shadow in the shrubbery
a lurker behind the shed.
A floater in the corner of my eye
or am I growing a cataract
like everyone I know
mistaking angels for ghosts
seeing something where there’s nothing.
 
My father said he had a guardian angel
and his name was Joseph.
Father talked to Joseph.
Such intimacy, like the whisper of a lover.
Maybe I have one too.
 
Call me a cynic—I looked it up.
But why wasn’t Joseph watching over him
when he lost two fingers in an auger.
Or when he rammed a nail up his foot—
a rambunctious boy—
and nearly died of blood poisoning.
 
I thought I saw a ghost today.
An anomaly in the fog
A lurker in the lilacs

When in the doorway bloomed.

Do I just flat out ask—

Hey! What’s your name?

Written for Shay's Word Garden using words from her word list taken from "The Waste Land and Other Poems" by TS Eliot.  And for d'Verse's Open Link Night (with a little twist of Whitman's lilac). And it's a secret (for Poets & Storytellers United) I guess I don't mind telling now as my father is with Joseph.
 
 

The Remaindered Novelist

                                                                        

                                The wastebasket is the writer’s best friend.                                                                                                                                            - Isaac Singer

                                                   Remaindered, v: (to dispose of a book left unsold at a reduced price)

The Remaindered Novelist

 

Once had a debut named Cannon

spectacularly reviewed

bound in calfskin and vellum.

 

But a blogger was unkind

And a brushfire engulfed him.

Now he’s remaindered—

a sale table has-been.

 

Seagulls caw and scavenge

outside his writer’s retreat

on a windswept dune

to which he absconded.

 

With spring’s coy blush

tourists trek over his dune

with painted toes and smart phones

on a hunt for the juice.

 

But his jump shot was perfected

with crumpled up vellum

and no trace remains of

Cannon’s war-weary fellow.

Written for Shay's Word Garden - "The Legacy of Ladysmith"  Her word list challenge this week for an original poem was taken from the forgotten novel, The Legacy of Ladysmith by John Kenny Crane. 

I had never heard of this novel (the Boer Wars?) but it sounds intriguing and I can think of many more worthy novels to be relegated to the sale table. 

What writer doesn't fear the dreaded remaindering?

Christmas Shopping at the Liquor Store

We met between the cabs and the sirahs —

My old lover and I.

A hank of chardonnay-colored hair

Fell between the Prosecco and Aperol

As he peered at a label with a falconer’s

Eye and I tripped over the Budweiser

Horses into his arms.

If wine is poetry,

Old friends are run-on sentences.

Let them come and take us away.

Playing with words for Shay's Word Garden.  Her word list this week is taken from A Coney Island of the Mind by the late beat poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a favorite of mine, and also the owner of the famous City Lights Book Store. Visit her post this week to read his Junkman’s Obligato. 

 

And for the last dVerse of the year, a Meeting at the Bar, Zen Poetry. This was my Zen moment in the store before we went to the bar!  Happy Hoppy Holidays!!!

Election Day Eve

The phantoms of disorder

dance across screens

but from whence they were conjured

no one can say.

On election day eve with naysayer cries

they'll don placards like

cheerleaders outside

a car wash brigade.

They walk along byways

like bad actors

on the dole,

whisper and hiss

intrigue and lies.

The republic is under siege

with three days to go

by jackals that feast

on the leavings of fear

while the acolytes of the lie

with their camo and guns—

        as fungus grows best

        out of the sun—

repeat what has spewed

from the maw of the king.

For Shay's Word Garden List Poem.  The challenge to compose a poem using words she has taken from the lyrics of Jim Morrison and his poetry collection "The Lord & The New Creatures". I'm a huge fan of The Doors and everything Morrison so this one I could not pass up. If you are likewise a fan of the Lizard King check her link. Also, linking up the Poets and Storytellers and the power of three. And won't we all be glad when this election season is behind us and we can relax with a cold one, or hot, as the case may be. Cheers!