When these bellowing winds learn how to whisper,
I'll uncover my ears and learn how to listen,
to whatever stories the winds want to tell.

When the stale cold air is fresh with mint,
I'll take a deep breath and expose my skin,
to whatever sensation the air wants to impart.

When what you say shows in what you do,
I will give you the whole of my heart.

I am a poet, and I complain.

The Sestina hurts my brain.
The Sonnet feels too old.
Free verse is uninspiring.
Haiku is just too cold.

Limericks are just schticks.
Tongue twisters give me blisters.
The Song runs much too long.
I have nothing left to write.
Naught but words about my plight.

A broad board bears a bare bear.
Aboard the board the bear drinks beer.
A boar boards aboard as well.
What the board can bear is hard to tell.

Her hands still keep the page within the book
until the spine is placed upon the shelf-
and while, she reads, and thinks, and dreams, awake-
He drinks a cup of tea to rest somewhere.
She lives within her thoughts alone we know
and swims a sea of words she's born to love.

His thoughts will ebb and flow not bound for love,
unless she writes these words into a book,
for he shall not hear words of love we know,
without the girl undressed upon the shelf,
The light will bare to reveal the words somewhere
and he will try to prove he's not awake

For how can dreams expose his thoughts awake?
How does this girl claim strength of mind to love?
She must have lost her grace to stand somewhere.
Or she must be confined to feel through books.
Perhaps she still remains upon the shelf
a piece of glass could break if dropped we know.

She smiles as she picks up a cup we know.
A cup of tea she drinks while he's awake.
So fond of dreams she'd live upon the shelf,
if he might find the time to read her love.
Her spine confined and saved within the book.
He placed the book upon the shelf somewhere.

Unfair! He cries such words may lie somewhere
within a book that's too far lost we know
but when he dreams and thinks and reads the book
she knows she speaks to he that dreams awake.
She's bound but words still sail and land to love
and there is sweet release upon the shelf.

She is not glass nor born upon the shelf.
She lives alone its true and dreams somewhere
And there is he who she will fight to love
despite a failed attempt that's past we know
If he can dream and read her words awake
the words will speak beyond the misplaced page.

For now the book remains upon the shelf .
Awake they read in time alone somewhere.
We know that they won't turn the page to love.

The view from the bedroom doorway reveals a room awash in yellow.
A mystery color, as there is no sun- further inspection shows the cause.
A drapery of meager means filters the gray light, a cheap fabric curtain.
The tone in this room sounds different than the crunchy snow piles outside.
The yellow curtain, fabricated sunshine, tricks the mind to winter’s rival.
From the bedroom doorway one sees the still scene and swirls a cup of tea.

No honey, no sugar, no milk, no cream, pure- Alone, remains this tea.
A peppermint-infused, herbal blend, a de-caffeinated regime is the cause.
As the tea swirls, I marvel at the mental gymnastics to disguise winter outside.
Certainly winter doesn’t take it personally, and summer doesn’t notice its revival.
In an effort to create a five-sense depiction of summer produced by fabric yellow,
I go forth with canned flowers and breezes, and from bottom up spray the curtain.

Ouch! Now winter is hurtin’. I have blocked the whole season with only a curtain.
My apologies, Dr. Seuss. Yesterday, was your birthday. I’m far too simple to rival.
You were born in a March winter, I’m sure you sympathize. Born clear, like my tea.
Bathed in heat from a forced air system, standing in the bright light bare yellow,
I peek through the sliver where the curtains part and note the frozen land outside.
Soundlessly I listen to a curious noise and wonder: "What could be the cause."

Parting the fabric further and turning my neck 33 degrees, a sight gives me pause.
A javelin drips upon a flower pot below. It makes a puddle clear, like my tea.
Perhaps winter passes and that icicle filled flower pot will grow a blossom yellow.
A happy notion but simply not heartwarming enough encourage me to venture outside.
So here we are, you, me, a memory of Dr. Seuss, standing near a smelly curtain.
I wonder how we shall ever tell the story of our seasonal survival.

Ah Winter! Your skilled freeze through my blood hath no rival!
Swish the fabric panels shut. Get the “Krazy Gloo”. Don’t open that curtain.
Walk sternly toward the kitchen to bubble and brew another pot of tea.
Allow your mind to drift and dream, cease to analyze the problem and its cause
Switch from peppermint to chamomile and allow your heated mind to mellow.
Whatever you do, don’t go outside.

Winter is a grizzly bear tapping a clawed paw and growling outside.
Except, grizzlies hibernate and are too odiferous to be concealed by curtain.
And, only polar bears are white, grizzlies are more the color of my cup of tea.
When I thought winter why did I think grizzly instead of polar? Polar is cause.
Cause but not effect, the effect is grizzly- if polar and grizzly ever rival.
Lesson, if polar and grizzly come to town don’t eat the snow if its yellow.

So the sestina ends its song, as it began, on a note not blue, but yellow.
And the curtain still rivals a sense of summer when I would drink iced tea.
Winter’s breath cannot cause me to abandon my canned floral breezes inside.

The red yarn laces in a bold pattern of entangled road ways and cul-de-sacs
the perfect traveling sweater, with built-in maps to the the places I imagine
I'd wear it to. I could rest comfortably in a train compartment in this
sweater, or maybe ride a llama in Peru(if Peruvian llamas allow you to ride).
I think this sweater could handle an Alpine trek on cross-country skis,
and probably some Russian gambling party involving copious amounts of vodka.
I know this is a smashing sweater for a muddy spring walk near any glittering lake.

This sweater has already been to the office, and the grocery store, the gas station
and the DMV. The patterns are familiar to me and as bold as any sweater's life might be.

This sweater has gathered lint from the local bookstore and has smelled like
Chinese food. This sweater has been tossed to the floor when one was in the mood.
There is a loose loop that dangles and if it snags somewhere-
This versatile sweater may never arrive here nor there.