These poems have been children

Some exceeded expectations

While others struggled just to get by

The low standard of what is considered

a ‘poem’

Some came easy

Others were a forced labour

(one even broke its curfew and snuck in after midnight

 Breaking my consecutive day streak around the midpoint)

Some have stood in front of me with their axe

Unable to tell a lie pointing where the cherry tree stood

Then we have those that claimed, “Not Me!”

With their mouths full and cookie crumbs on their face

I hate the times they acted out

The times I didn’t have the time nor patiences

To deal with them in the manner

That a good parent should

These 30 creations in 30 days look tired

It is past their bedtime

Thanks for stopping by

Goodnight….

I wrote this poem in the dark

My mind it had a little spark

But I’m not sure how

I should feel

For it is not that legible

I once heard small towns have the biggest funerals

When he:

Was a farmer who served on agricultural associations

A coach on hockey and soccer teams

A supporter of municipal politics

A bricklayer building chimneys and pouring concrete pads

A high school custodian

and a photographer for the hometown newspaper who did weddings for those who couldn’t “afford a professional”

When they say “small towns have the biggest funerals”

And if all this was done within a community with the single postal code V0X 1A0

Yeah small towns do….

Writing the grocery list in alphabetical order almost seemed logical

by the end of trip to the store while following it in ascending order

it turned out a “not so much a good idea” kinda thought…

apples, bananas, and carrots lulled me into a false sense of security

I was doing something right….

I won’t even mention the headaches of tuna and toothpaste

far too many options

Chunky or Flaked

in oil or water…

the tuna, not the toothpaste

Things I no longer need to remember;

My old high school locker combo 5-45-30

The alarm codes to my first job 4592,4791

The licence plate number of my first car FAK 709

The complete lyrics to Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”

My blockbuster video card number

And

How much it hurt when you left

I shouldn’t be so cynical

heck, who knows

“LA face with the Oakland booty…..”

Those lyrics are culturally important

I’ll keep those…..

The. check engine light came on

It is supposed to be a yellow icon if a motor

But I am not seeing that…

To me, it resembles a submarine that has exceeded its occupancy creating an odd combination of claustrophobic impending doom and the joyous strains of Ringo singing that we all live in it into such an evenly balanced tug-o/war that one forgets the worlds problems… including the fact that the check engine light came on in the first place

She spent the morning of her wedding anniversary with her mother, waiting for him….

He spent that same morning and that afternoon, laying on a couch under a warm blanket, drifting in and out of conscious and staring at an oil painting of her on the wall that a friend had painted for her celebration…. counting the hours until he would take the prescribed pill to fall asleep and end the day which should have been his 50th wedding anniversary

** I want to clarify that I have not seen the show or if the treatment of the show is unnecessarily gratuitous by premium cable channels notorious for unwarranted nudity **

“Have you seen that TV show?”

They ask

“Nope”

“It’s got

incest and misogyny,

rape and prostitution…

There is

violence and warfare

death and dismemberment

Psychological torture and physical disfiguration

of young and old alike”

“Huh..”

Now I’ve read Norse and Greek Mythology, and I’ve read the Bible front to back so I’ve consumed plenty of this…

So I personally see no need to consume something created in my lifetime, that I need to place in an artificial historical context in order to consume and enjoy it.

I’m not judging anybody, I’ll just put it in the “it might be good, but not for me” column

I do my part

I recycle

As I take the frozen pizza

Out of the box

The box

Is a picture

of what the pizza

Inside the box looks like

I take the plastic off

And throw that in the trash

Because I can’t recycle that!

But I take the 12″ box

And the circular cardboard disc

And recycle that

I can sleep at night

Doing my part to save the planet

One unnecessary box at a time…

“Your shoe is untied” they say…

I know they are only trying to be helpful

They don’t want me to trip on the untied lace

While carrying boxes

Or end up on one of those “You won’t believe #5” internet click—bait sites

Involving my footwear and the ‘escalator of doom’

They are only trying to be helpful

And I know, because on ‘one of my good days’

I pulled out a measuring tape

And it is less than eight inches from where my hand

Rests upon my thigh while standing to my knee

And another six-teen inches from my knee cap to the top of my foot

But this is not ‘one of my good days’

And the less than two feet seems like a mile away

Once had gotten a small pebble in my shoe

While rushing to work

I’m now too embarrassed to admit how long it stayed

in the sweaty confines of my sneaker

I simply couldn’t put forth the effort it required

To remove it until I took them off

I often leave them tied up so I can take them off and on

As if they were slippers

I leave them rather loose so I am sometimes meet with

The command to “Pick up my feet”

By those who seem irritated by my shuffle

“Your shoe is untied” they say

As if I didn’t already know…….