the last 2

Decided to end last week’s reading with two gentle poems from 1964-65, back when I was 18, 19. This puts 47 years between the oldest and newest poems read.

~ ~ ~

Confessions of a Conservative

Let others munch spare frogs legs and things
Or their mother’s tidbits so fine.

Not me.
I prefer wee bumblebee wings
With a pipe of blueberry wine.

I’ve no desire for porcupine stew
Aunts coated in chocolate yea thick
Fried crocodile
Ala flayed caribou
Or some other chef’s table trick.

A simple table whenever I dine.
Not mine all these modern cuisines.
I’m quite satisfied with blueberry wine
And old fashioned bumblebee wings.

~ ~ ~

S.O.P.

It hurts to be a teddy bear
To sit alone, unused
No longer wanted anywhere
Just left alone, confused

I’m tossed aside to lie in here
This dank and musty chest
The dampness serves to hide my tear
The dark to mock my past

Not always thus, this has been no
I was her fair haired toy
She loved me once, I pleased her so
I shone, her chosen joy

Yet here I lie in darkest net
Her love for me did end
My love for her she deemed forget
She found a stranger friend

And now the stranger she does mold
And twists him through the air
While in this chest my heart grows cold
Alone and frightened, bare

~ ~ ~

More important — today is Lady K’s 38th birthday. She’s a Christmas Eve baby. That’s gotta suck, sharing your birthday celebration and presents with Christmas and everybody else who are also celebrating and getting presents.

Lady was 32 when she entered my life, so I’ve known her around 14% of her life, while she’s known me maybe 8% of mine (that’s what happens in May-December marriages). But she’s the most interesting person I’ve met. In fact Lady’s my favorite person ever, as well as friend, love, partner, companion, artistic collaborator, co-reader, wife. For me it’s basically she, the cat, and me as tribe, group, and nuclear family — probably phylum and genus too.

Before Lady, I sat alone in neon darkness in my studio pumping out web pages for AgenOfChaos, unaware three white cancer nodules were growing on my voice box (an ironic situation for a performing poet, wouldn’t you say).

Since Lady come along five and a quarter years ago, what a long strange trip it’s been, is, and will be, amen.

Happy bornday, babe.