From here
to there
one degree of the angle
dangles.
My train should be
on the next track.
Hello, goodbye
I cannot fly.
More tracks,
one train.
The Little Engine
That Could
farted.
poem
All posts in the poem category
TO WRITE A POEM
Published January 25, 2020 by Nan MykelTo write a happy poem don’t you
need to be happy? Liar if you’re not.
At this moment I’m neither happy
nor unhappy.
So…not much fuel in that tank.
No one wants a gloomy poem.
What’s left? Mad? Ditto for rants.
If no one is happy these days
and sad and mad are verboten,
we could pray and hear our echoes
bouncing between billiard balls
around our table of plenty.
But if hunger and thirst were feelings–
empathy alive in this land–
I’d eat this page in a minute
and spit out the truth in a can.
nan
A WHAT-IS-IT?
Published October 15, 2019 by Nan MykelALAS THE POOR CLICHÉ
Once a cliché was all there was
In the land of milk and honey 
If the cat’s got your tongue,
A frog’s in your throat,
Down in the dumps
While crying out loud
With the screaming meemies
You’re really in a pickle.
While he’s sleeping like a log
Drunk as a skunk,
Seeing stars,
A pain in the neck,
Low man on the totem pole
Who speaks with a forked tongue,
He’s the one wearing pants,
The big man on campus.
Nan may re-work this some day.
Look at Me
Published July 13, 2019 by Nan Mykel
I am a bear.
But am I really?
My identity is caught
mid-stream.
Can you help me out?
When you look into my eyes
what do you see?
Do you see you or
do you see me?
No longer a living tree,
what have they done to me?
Cast into the scuzzy borders
of someone else’s reality (yours).
Caught in the net of your own
imagination, fake firefly in a jar.
Who am I to you? Who are you to me?
Shells, washed up on imaginary
beaches, carry life forms, sometimes
not. Look in your mirror and see
is it you or me caught in transit?
An ACOA’s Confession
Published July 12, 2019 by Nan MykelThis old violin has lost
some of her strings
and like many an ACOA*
she’s filled to the brim
with lizards, and things
but mainly her stuffing is jello.
When I awoke in the night
and turned on the light
I prayed (to the Universe)
that today would be free
in its entirety
of fight.
*Adult Children of Alcoholics
A Tree Library
While continuing to try to continue organizing “my stuff” I came across a passel of earlier poems. I don’t know which have made their appearance in this blog and/or d’Verse, but I just felt like giving them a run-through again. One a Day takes the —what was it?—away. Since I love my Media Library, I think I’ll add a random pix, also. (This must be what happens when you start getting old.)
Old-Fashioned Politicking
Published March 1, 2019 by Nan MykelTHE POET FOR COUNCILMAN
To The Voters of the Town of Martinsville
Two years ago as you know well
The Ticket bore my name
And if you scratched it off or not
I thanked you just the same
Again I ask for your support
Not that I claim to be
A better man than others are
For all of you know me
But promising to ever stand
For what is just and true
I will simply sign my name
And leave rsults with you.
Yours to serve,
J.L. Minter, The Shoe Maker (?)
(An early Henry County Bulletin of Martinsville, Va.)
New Roommate, Reblogged Poem Fragment by lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown
Published November 17, 2018 by Nan MykelLove it!
New Roommate, Chapter 2
I have the need to be alone, to hide away, sequester,
but my roommate never leaves the room! She’s somewhat of a nester.
She seems to be ensconced here with her creepy boyfriend Lester,
and my irritation’s turned into a boil about to fester.
I may not make it to the end of the next semester
when I can find a roommate who is less of a rester.
She can be a talker or messy or a jester.
She can use my makeup, wear my clothes or gripe and pester.
In fact, I will take anyone short of a child molester,
so long as she’s a roamer—a gad-about, a quester!!!!
See Chapter 1 HERE.
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/16/sequester/
A Poem Can Be About Anything
Published November 10, 2018 by Nan Mykel
I wonder if…
A Poem Can Be About Anything
What shall I share today of me;
the shades that sleep under my tree?
The wild dogs of the night who drool,
or getting an A while yet in school?
Poems mirror the mind, you know.
What’re the parts we’re willing to show?
Blood from a refugee’s eyeball
pooling on the floor at the mall?
Or perchance Paul, my sixth grade crush
forgot later in life’s mad rush;
the spear point found atop the soil
speaking loud as any gargoyle.
The soft fur of Gracie, my love
who looks after me from above;
we oft don’t speak full truth in here,
hoping instead to spread good cheer,
leaving old timbers to shake–
from an underground earthquake,
echoing the ocean’s great roar
contained yet by the shore.
Careful not to rip the bridal veil,
crawling along the moth-eaten trail
we sing out long our private song
which from Darwin’s book we took.
I Embrace- A Poem
Published October 15, 2018 by Nan MykelI embrace
the green mountain bosoms
of the Great Smokies
and the calming silence
of the lake early mornings,
quiet save the splash
of a fish in the rising mist,
reassuring that
after all is said and done,
there was a time
in living memory
when things were better.
ADVICE
Published April 29, 2018 by Nan MykelDwell not on finding Truth my friend
for it shall drive you mad.
The eyes that spy the way things are
will only leave you sad.
Bedlam is filled with clear-eyed folk
whose blinders were shorn away.
Unalloyed truth can scorch
and even love betray.
