Archives

A DEAR AND PLEASANT STRANGER

May15

A voice echoing my words and feelings
across the lake it comes softly,
hauntingly familiar. I know her.
I’ve never met her. But her sound echoes,
a placid refrain nestling eerily in my brain.
Her fears are mine. Her joys too!
Always at the ready with a heady rebuke,
or an endearing worded embrace;
compassion and grace are hers
and she shares their effect gladly.
Sadly, we are two who have never
seen eye to eye to confirm that my reply
matches hers – and hers, mine.
A true sign of friendship that was planted
and is tended daily and weekly,
meekly surrendering to her wisdom
and her Good-ness. It is witnessed
in each poetic ponderance;
caught in this metered dance, taking
every chance to let her know
how much I continue to grow
through her nurturing gentility.
Nothing to fear or loathe;
a heart of gold. Clear and present.
A dear and pleasant stranger.

Walt

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT MARIE ELENA

Apr25

A writer. A comrade. A poet.
A friend and confidant.
Always there with the words I need,
or the support I want.
Star-crossed rhymers, meeting at a time
where neither was sure that poetry would cure
all that ailed our aching hearts,
but finding a nugget of truth
in the gems we penned and shared one April.
A genuine thrill to see she was reading me,
and me she. You see, right out we had doubts
that our muses could fit the bill. And still
we have times where that self-doubt flourishes
and nourishes our retreat from our precious poetry.
But it was she that brought me into focus,
this blooming crocus in Spring’s early journey
into rhymed reason. The right season to bloom.
Soon, we discovered that our commonality lay
in the mass of murkiness that masquerades as
a Great Lake, eerie in it’s coincidence.
In every incident, our stories intertwined,
one mind writing two different points of view.
Between me and you, she saved me as a poet
and a person, pulling as I said, from the gates
of a hellacious place in my life. Battling
a wife, and disease and the loss of a friend so dear,
she was always “here”. With a worded smile,
a comforting haiku hand on my shoulder,
and help lifting all boulders from said same.
In a name, “the best friend I’ve never met”,
you can bet I have been blessed. As you can see,
what’s not to love about our Marie?

Walt

OPPOSING SHORES

Jul27
One of the quintuplets nestled,
dividing countries and states.
Friendship awaits at every crash
of lunacy’s pull. Waves across the water,
shore-to-shore in a connection,
eerie and complete. We join daily
in an exchange of written wonder,
falling under its spell.
Person-to-person, Toledo-to-Buffalo,
on opposing shores a kinship blooms.

Walt

SONNET FOR AN APRIL MOON

Apr30

The final April moon will soon take leave.
Contentedly, he navigates the sky.
He knows not that his passing makes us grieve,
Nor hears the tone of our collective sigh.

For thirty eves, the moon has cast his spell
Releasing inspiration from his core
Yet, now has come the time to say farewell,
As April’s moon will strum our hearts no more.

No gathering beneath his fetching smile,
Nor once-upon-a-timing ‘neath his glow.
Though next year, he will once again beguile;
Inspiring prose and verse to daily flow.

Our melancholy hearts will melt away,
For there will be a new moon come what May.

Marie Elena

KENNING’S WALT

Mar3

Beatles-mad
  Polish lad
    Friday’s child
      Smidgen wild

        Stuff fixer
          Rhyme mixer
            Beach walker
              Ed talker

                Hard worker
                   P.A. lurker
                    Bills fan
                      Buckeye man

                        Poem writer
                          Sleep fighter
                            Word gifter
                              Mood lifter

                                Lake dweller
                                  Funny feller
                                    Smile bearer
                                      Blog sharer

Marie Elena

There.  I KNEW I’d seen a photo from your BeatleMagic Ed Sullivan gig.  Hope you don’t mind that I snooped through your FB photos and snatched your Ed Sullivan impersonation pic, Partner. Too fun! Now maybe my “Ed talker” line will make a little more sense to people, eh? ;)