Haiku

After much search I find
the lost key in the lock
where I left it.

by Dean Blehert

What rhymes with orange?

Challenged by a fellow poet, here's a rhyming stanza Dean came up with off the cuff:

Maid, sculpt your hair with orange gel
For coif where lover or angel
May, safe from cooties or mange dwell
And loving fingers – O!—range well.

by Dean Blehert

(Not exactly a rhyme with just "orange", but pretty nice, nonetheless!)

One Day

One day in the middle of my life
I realized that I knew nothing
about living with a woman,
having friends, making money,
owning a house, and caring for carpets,
plants, animals, and cars.

What a relief to recognize
all my vague fears as precise
ignorances!

What a joy to be rewarded
for 37 years of knowing it all
with the chance to learn something.

by Dean Blehert

Untitled

Rain. I stay inside
where the rain can't touch me, but
neither can the sky.

by Dean Blehert

Close Encounters of the Fourth Course

The dessert tray, a shimmering alien civilization
Of mirrored chocolate domes and creamy turrets
And tessellated plazas, cherry-studded, with gardens
of emerald kiwi, descends, hovers, whisks away,
Hovers near again — I feel tractor beams
Reaching out to me, probing, searching
For intelligent life to pervade, and now,
All purpose, all sense of proportion
Vanished, I am being pulled in, closer...
Closer — suddenly before my glazed eyes
The pecan pie is about to speak to me,
I know it...
And that's all I remember.

by Dean Blehert

Faking it

Sometimes it's hard to know what to do.
It's like losing your place in the music.

The music doesn't stop:
If you miss your entrance,
you take your lumps in silence
and join in where you can.

"Could we please take it from the top?"
you plead, but the music goes on,
its only concession being
to incorporate into itself

(perhaps a tremulous violin
counterpointed against sneering clarinet)
the sub-theme of your pleading.

by Dean Blehert

Making Fun

He made fun of her for feeling sorry
For baby seals and other dumb helpless
Creatures. His mockery soon cured her
Of that feeling, which, it turned out,
Included her love for him.