Southern Storm

(This one actually won an honorable mention for non-rhyming poem in a Writer’s Digest Competition.)

Southern Storm

You missed the snow.

The flakes sped by my window,

carried by the

quick wind of out

quick Southern Winter.

Small delicate feathers

of ice, unwelcome,

for the South hates

snow, hates cold,

hates anything

that is not hot, moist, heat.

The snow like down

escaped from a fancy pillow

let looks by a childish

fight between gods

of the North and the South.

You missed the snow.

All that is left

is the damp tattered

remains of

Winter

For Grandmother

(This is one my instructor really liked.  Originally, it was much longer.  I thought poems had to be long.  He told me this was all I needed.  He was right.  I learned that sometimes, only a few words can impart a great deal of meaning.)

For Grandmother

The strands of the web trail in tatters

from the doorjamb to the wall.

For God, the prodigal child,

had poked his finger through the center of it’s soul.

(It used to be three whole stanzas, and even I admit the last two were a stretch, and really didn’t go with it.  So glad when my professor said the poem ended at the end of the end of the first one.)

The Late 1990s

(I’ve been going through some of my old papers, and found some poems I wrote at least 15 years ago, when I was taking a creative writing class.  Thought I’d share a couple.)

Buggy

The whir of wings ends abruptly on my shoulder.

I run.

I rant.

I remove it.

I flick it away with my finger.

I slam my foot on the wriggling mass of sticking limps and orange eyes.

And it’s dead.