June Cleaver Sends Best Wishes and a Casserole

A Poem for Carolee's Mother on the Eve of Surgery


May your apron wrap round your waist
snug as the man of your dreams at your thighs.

May your flour be content to hide its purity
in the darkened circle of a porcelain rooster,
never dusting your cheeks with traces
of another self, another pale incarnation.

May your cookies rise like hips
in heat, hold their softness on your tongue
even after the oven has cooled.

May the man in white deliver the milk
of compassion, seasonal nog and spirits
well before you prowl the morning
floorboards, a rested angel in flannel robes.

With this dish, may your gut fill
with what it needs. May you find
each ingredient at your fingertips.

Poetry Gong - Poem 30

After Hosing the Last of the Dead Rabbit From the End of Her Driveway, June Cleaver Writes God a Letter


Here’s what I think—
you created reflection
for your own amusement.
********************************************************************************

This should be a happy occassion: the last poem of poetry gong. 30 poems in 30 days! But, it is with sadness that I post this last poem. I have really enjoyed the discipline of the gong. And the surprises of what poems may arise when I force myself to sit down and write--no matter what.

My plan is to continue a 5 day gong. Or maybe...60? Nah! Hmmm................

Poetry Gong - Poem 26

Sometimes, Nothing At All Happens


Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.” Isaiah 55.1-2.

Jesus delivered the milk today.
I was expecting the mailman,
tromping through the fallen

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Alternative title:

June Cleaver Considers an Affair, Decides, Instead, to Whip Up a Devil's Food Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

Alternative endings: Must be written...

A question: The first three lines each have a "the" I could take out the fallen, and leave it as "fallen leaves" but I like the idea of "the fallen" as in us, the people Jesus is supposed to save. What to do?

In a Strange Turn of Events, June Cleaver Shreds Her Apron

I want to be Captain America for awhile.
I’ll kiss my ship.
I love ships.
I haven’t been Captain America
in a long time
I can’t remember if I have a ship.


(Meanwhile, the children roost in my limbs)

Looking really closely
I see it is my heart.
Not my ship, but my heart.

I don’t need a screwdriver
to fix my ship
steady vessel.
My heart rides on the edge
of my sleeve, call it my cape.

(Meanwhile, the children toe the dirt for clues)


My ship doesn’t fly.
(I don’t have a ship.)
My heart hides beneath the folds
of my cape, cowers from crabs
from cats
from bats on the wing.

Flying is overrated.
Perhaps I should take a train.

(The children are grounded)

Am I there yet?


My heart can’t take it.
Captain America,

take your vacation.

Wish you were

here.

June Cleaver and the Soccer Moms Release Their First Single

No one heard us sing
so now we fly.

We drift through suburbia
flaunt our floating (it’s all we’ve got)
in front of the birds.

Why not?
The beautiful and drab sparrows
eat our food
dirty our walks
defy daily our call to silence.

We hold our babies to our breasts
hold our breasts
for better viewing
former rosebuds
now drying blooms
in our hands.

We fly
and boast
and dream
of being held like this
baby or breast
coddled
cradled
caressed
caught in an updraft
or cosseted in cotton.

Winged
wanton
we drift without cords.
Chordless,
we are a silent song.

So long
as we flock together
someone is bound to hear.

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Inspired, in part, by Rick Mobbs' gorgeous painting and this week's prompt at Read. Write. Poem.

Not to mention my obsession with June Cleaver.