Tag: Poetry

Crow Tuesday: Therapist Garden

Mark Tulin13 Comments

I have a garden

full of baldheaded,

bifocaled therapists

with sofas, chairs

and shelves of esoteric books.

I water them once a day

with my problems and concerns,

fertilize them

with plenty of pain

and angst.

I make sure

they have sufficient sunlight

to jot down notes,

and plenty of space to say:

What would you

like to talk about?

And, that’s all the time

we have today.

I prune the issues

I worked through,

weed the therapists

who lose their

objectivity,

and compost

all my childhood

memories.

Poem: Walkers With Tennis Balls

Mark Tulin3 Comments

Growing older

makes you accept

change,

circumstances

beyond your control.

 

Nursing homes,

microwave meals,

arthritic fingers,

feet soaked in salts,

walkers

with tennis balls.

 

It makes you adapt,

recognize

the lasting things,

remember

the missing things.

 

Doctor visits,

rising co-pays,

bunions on both

feet, murmurs

of the heart,

on the john

way too long.

 

Growing older

humbles you,

makes you accept

your fate, head

and hands that shake.

 

Choose a date,

time and place,

pay the burial fee,

make peace with the

creator,

take a number

and wait

your turn.

On The Porch

Mark Tulin9 Comments

pexels-photo-828764.jpeg

On a quiet night,

the old man

smokes a stogie

sitting on the porch.

He can only watch

the little beetles

with lanterns

light up the sky.

Now he knows better,

he doesn’t chase

after them,

collect fireflies

in Mason jars.

He doesn’t pull

their wings apart,

curious about how

they glimmer and fly.

He knows that

their blinking bulbs

are temporary

as his life,

the fading light

that glows.

©️mft

Poem: Unfamiliar Spaces

Mark Tulin8 Comments

Dreams,
smokey nights
in darkened rooms
with relatives
mixed with friends
and enemies

Dreams,
anxious and
surreal, caught between
narrow walls, thick bars
and fences
with barking dogs

Dreams,
that move into
unfamiliar spaces,
steps with no stairs,
running on fresh
cement

Dreams,
speechless,
unspoken wishes,
lame excuses,
the unconscious
untamed

Dreams,
back to the wall,
head to the floor,
clawing up a slippery slope,
into a maze
without an exit sign

Dreams,
never seem to say
what they mean,
never finish
what they think, until
it’s too late,
the dreamer
wakes up

with a vague suspicion,
a piece of undigested
story,
a cryptic message,
a letter
with no return address.

©️mft