The Problem with Mansion House Parking

We turned into a parking garage on Fourth Street
Looked like a good place to park
But as we descended into the bowels of the earth
It suddenly became very dark
We kept driving downward and into dead ends
Beyond which lay more parking spaces
Soon we saw people searching for exits
That they were puzzled showed on their faces
We finally parked and feeling relieved
Proceeded to pass through a nook
Got lost and came face to face with a wall
A haven for rapists and crooks
Suffice it to say we found our way
But not without effort and bother
But next time I have to pick a garage
I'll certainly choose another

Sharp, Hot, Hard, and Jagged

Things have changed since we were young
We drive plastic cars and live in plastic houses
Our children play on soft, rubber playgrounds and mulch
We eat food from unbreakable jars
Edges, asphalt and glass,
Things of the past

I Speak LTD

I speak LTD, STD, FSA, HSA, OOP, RX, OV
I got you covered
I know it back and forth, upside down
You look me up, your rates go down
I'm a broker
I got you covered

Quick In

Egret tiptoes
On sneaky feet
Peeking in the water
Pretending to look elsewhere
Quick in
Quick out

Rain

Drip ........ drop
Plip, plop
Misty spray on the way,
Powerful showers for hours
Light strike, thunder kite,
Rain slides, glides, shoves aside
Sea of water, Neptune's daughter,
Torrential, differential, sheets,
Slides, blinds, subsides

Puddle
Splatter
Shake

Patent Leather Dreams

Patent leather shoes
Patent leather car
Patent leather purse
Patent leather girl
Looks slick
In black

Chain of Rocks

Rushes water rocks
Route 66
Ethyl
Vacancy, view
Vast, mile-wide
Shore
Chocolate milk mud
River

Maybe

Planets are burning their signatures
Into the universe across billions
of galaxies and
Zillions of miles
Short Cut
by
Wormhole Meetings
Between Species

Patience is a Virtue

Patience is a virtue
Many people believe
Good things come to those who wait
But don't you be deceived
The terminally impatient
Are the ones to succeed
As the slow get behind
The quick take the lead
By the time patience is forty
And getting its first break
The impatient have already retired
And moved on for goodness sake
When patience turns sixty-five
And looks to the years ahead
The fast ones have grown older
Impatience is already dead

Make-Up Artist

Oils, lotions, powder, potions
Flow in colors out
To be whisked up on a brush
To blend out on the cheeks,
The lips, the skin, the lashes
To glitter
To moisten
To enhance
Au natural
invisible

Digby's Fine Photography

Digby's fine photography

Portraiture

The line of her

Missouri Sunrise

Clouds fold
To gather in mourning
A hushed stillness
Attends the wake

Between the clouds
A candle
Held upside down
Dripping hot wax
Warms the earth

Until

The flame ignites
Into colors
Sparks of kindling
Flash the sky

Waking the spirit

Follow the light, the light !
Celebration of a life

Morning

Morning streams
Like consciousness
In a sudden
Trips past
The limits
Of night's censor
As thoughts rush out
Before brain catches up

Sharon

A breath of fresh air
blew into his life
and her name is Sharon

Dad

You've accomplished a lot in your life.
Married a beautiful bride.
Retired from a job
That provided well
For your family
For forty years
Interrupted briefly
By the second war
Brought up two wonderful children
Who grew up
To make their own way
In the world
You've lived well
In two houses and
Luxuriously
In an apartment with a pool
You've listened to baseball games
Test-driven cars
Gone to air shows
Played tennis
Suggested discreetly that
The upstairs neighbor
Quiet down after 10 o'clock at night
Peddled a stationary bike
Planted flowers and trees
Made compost
Turned down your hearing aid
When you needed to
Painted the hhouse
Shoveled the snow
Built a garage
Paved the driveway
Complained about the weather
Watched the sun come up
Watched the news
Laughed at Red Skelton
And Lucille Ball
Read the paper
Traveled extensively
And most importantly
Been happy
And made those around you
Happy too

Country Wind

The country wind blows
through her auburn hair
The daisies grow wild
under feet that are bare

The water splashes
in the fishing pond
The apples smell sweet
from the orchard beyond

Sunbeams sail across
butterfly-filled skies
So beautiful, it brings
a tear to her eyes

Rae

My grandma's name was Rae
Like sunshine in the window
A warm place

As best I recall, I last saw my grandma when I was around age 10, so this is how I remember her, in a very warm childlike way.

The Sand Bar

My attempt at a Robert Frost-like Poem and based on a true story:

We went one day to see the river winding

Walking for miles, looking and then finding

A sand bar which could be seen far away

And growing closer, beckoned us to stay

For it looked just like a swimming beach to us

With fine-grained sand and driftwood and such

The main channel of the river flowed by it on both sides

It took the mighty Missouri River long and wide

To hold such a lovely piece of land

And still have room for barges on the other hand

The sun sparkled off the sand as a crane touched down

The ground too hot to touch was what he found

He took off again as we got closer still

The only thing between us and the sand, a hill

Then we saw something we had not seen before

Washed up purposely, it seemed, onto the shore

We looked and looked again for it didn't seem right

For two wooden deck chairs to have drifted into sight

They sat next to one another on the sand bar giving

The appearance that this uninhabited island once held living

Beings who had long since moved away

Leaving chairs where they once stayed

But from our point of view up on the cliff

We couldn't tell if they were really chairs or drift

Wood that just came to rest in pairs

To make us wonder if someone had put it there

Autistic Girl

Let me see your eyes
Amber listens and looks up
Her smile lights the room

This was based on therapy sessions with a 4-year-old autistic girl. One of the things was to encourage her to make eye contact. This is a haiku. I found a really cool haiku blog on blogspot that I am following now.

The Storm

The storm writes on the wind

Rhymes lightning with the rain

Freely expresses its thunder

Drops

hail in iambic pentameter

Sends

floods down the page in sestinas

Scrawls sonnets in fresh summer rain

Memorial Day Poem - Arlington Cemetery

Among the many, beauty
Leaves that rustle in the wind
I saw his face look out at me
And I looked back at him

A visit to a veteran's cemetery seemed a good time to publish a poem I wrote a few Memorial Days ago. The poem talks about leaves rustling in the wind. It could also mean that beauty leaves us as life turns to death, or the beauty and peace you'll fnd at the cemetery, and finally, remembering someone's face in your mind as you imagine him looking back at you.

Spinning Down from Heaven

I thought I would point out a few things that I am trying to accomplish with this poem. First of all, notice the alliteration of the S sound - representing the silence of the falling snow. The indented lines are meant to resemble falling snow and I did my best to describe what a snowflake looks like:

The snow is falling
Like frozen spider webs
Spinning down from Heaven

(Ok, well it's supposed to be indented, but blogger won't do it)

Moment of Sleep

At the moment of sleep
the head swims
the mind dives
deep in a pool of black
floats immobile
before dreams
begin

Photo by F. Dan Digby

http://web.me.com/fddphoto

Sedona

I looked up and saw God.

A poetry student wrote this after a visit to the mountains of Sedona, Arizona.

Photo by F. Dan Digby

http://web.me.com/fddphoto

The Red Wheelbarrow

I am starting this blog because I used to be afraid of poems. If you've ever been turned off of poetry because your book of poems starts out with a section written by some intellectual who says, "the dissociation of objective reality.........", (???) then this blog is for you.

I like simplicity, sounds, to string together words to create an image of everyday things.

Take for example, William Carlos Williams' The Red Wheelbarrow:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens