Poetry Selections

I Tried!

Inspiration has dropped me as a client I fear.

No rhymes come to mind as I struggle to hear

A phrase that sounds right to my waiting ear.

Subjects elude that might bring me cheer

So I stare at the TV and drink my near beer

Maybe try fiction - no rhymes needed, dear.

My story goes nowhere cause no thoughts will appear.

When will a topic make itself clear?

Once again it remains too unclear!

Some authors need quiet and so disappear

To remove any blocks and get brains in high gear.

But now I am stuck – I beg all of you here

How can this rhyme end and avoid all your jeers?

All I can say is: it is it done, my dear.

--By Kate McKay

Instant Gratification

By Mary Pignone

Instant gratification

That’s the American way

I want to own a Porsche

When I can’t afford a Chevrolet

No more taking baby steps

We want the whole enchilada

So go for the gusto why don’t you

With a bank balance of nada

The Jones’s can’t even keep up

With debt as high as the sky

What were we thinking when we were young

Did we think that we’d just spend and then die?

Live for today we say

For tomorrow my never come

When it does and we fall on our assets

Is this where our stress comes from?

We want it now, we deserve it

And then we want even more

We can do if from the comfort of home

Don’t have to go to a store

Cars and vacations, restaurants and spas

Houses full of stuff

Does any of it bring fulfillment

When the piper calls our bluff

The best things in life are free

As the old saying goes

Too bad we don’t get that memo

Until our debt ceiling grows

Our things own us, we don’t own them

Cameras and alarms we install

What will we have to offer up

When we get our final call

TIME

By Heather Koelle

Lush green deciduous trees surround our house

Wild Raspberries paint a riot of ripe redness

waiting to be picked by my grandson and me.

In a college gym, I watch my oldest grandchild

Receive his high school diploma, while

The 200+ graduates toss their tasseled caps in the air.

The pool is open. Summer on the calendar has. not yet arrived.

My granddaughter, Anni, is lifeguarding this year—clad in a sweatshirt.

I transition my swimming from the warm YMCA to the icy water at Swarthmore Swim Club.

On Father's Day, I think of my dad, now long passed since 1988.

Now my husband is a grandfather.

Time is passing.

Our veggie garden sits neglected, overgrown with weeds

But somewhere in there hides a cucumber plant

And tomato plants ring the splintery wooden fence

Our breezeway, once built by my husband in 1967,

now sits with its wood paint peeling, screens full of holes, and drainpipes held together by

electrical tape.

Could this be a metaphor for our marriage? Or for the aging of two people once full of life and

love?

After many years of pattering little feet

Our grown children are now parents themselves.

Time is passing.

Yet the spark of youth remains in my heart

He keeps it burning. But_

the fire has turned to a glowing coal

Time is passing

For all of us

Who knows when the clock will stop?