Poems
by KJ Hannah Greenberg

 

 

Creels and Hampers

 

My creels and hampers, nonetheless,

Infuse me with accomplishment.

 

It’s arrogate to weigh on social shifts,

Especially when quaiches dropped

Become yesterday’s fiery sati.

 

When housecats blep, few fingers

Get chewed nor noses scratched.

Gowks, anyway, attempt

Propitiating felines.

 

Syncope oft arises from cases where

Contumacious sorts stop prancing

‘round mulberry bushes, halt

Their peregrinating through

Local howffs.

 

Most sapid ales drown champions,

Leave lorn ladies alone, frighten

Small children other than

Scare away pedant souls

Accustomed to viewing

“Lower classes.”

 

All in all, Zeligs, singularly, survive

Such goings-on as supplied by

Taverns’ mendacities. They

Disseminate calm when

Other folks can’t help

But button lips else

Bite back tongues.

 

Those people appropriate reverence

Due to asynchronous colleagues

While blowing foam bubbles

From their beer, whistling

About meltemia, rorquals,

Foreign lasses, maybe,

Also, the price of cod

In distant ports.

 

 

 

 

 

Clouds

 

In charcoal, pressed increasingly harder,

The clouds tinted.

Until emptied of rain, of hail, of snow.

 

Thereafter, like scattering feathers,

They floated apart.

In their stead a single dandelion grew.

 

 

 

 

 

Viral Murmuration

 

Strange phenomena, like those resulting from thousands of denizens swooping together,

Coordinating their patterned promotions of specific causes, be those centers tin hats,

Vaccinations, hand sanitizers, social distancing, buying plastic spatulas, parkour,

Gives rise to an unenviable exclusivity.

 

Some angelic-looking strangers are axe-murderers, or dads delinquent with child support.

Other times, they’re just people working hard to invalidate experiences by which

Women motor the media or direct themselves toward sexual matters without

Questioning attitudes on reproduction, housing, inequitable salaries.

 

Certain factions, further, don’t consider applying mores because the more they undertake,

The more carnage they evoke via “benevolent” friends, colleagues, and neighbors.

Difficult experiences behoove us to put principles before pleasures, to protest

Kneeling on someone ‘til they die, to argue against ransacking capitols.

 

The nature of compassion’s ethics, plus certain ways in which systems of social behavior

Impact favorably on individuals, increases social investments when successes from

Divergent cultural elements are not relegated to youngsters, but falls on everyone’s

Beloved habiliments. At such times, civilization stabilizes.

 

 

 

 

 

Love between Friends

 

The nights we chimed like broken glass, laughing so hard that

Waitstaff hushed us, posing fingers on lips, arms akimbo, were

Moments of sangria-inspired sunshine, of polyglot bloodletting.

 

You with your divorce and me with my domestic griefs, could

Have patronized taverns, hostelries, alehouses, habitually, but

Yielded to children’s, pets’, also various green friends’ needs.

 

When moons were blue, or pink, or red, at least full, as women,

We’d drink to breathing, ambulating, fleeing transplant surgery,

Likewise, sales on eggs, toilet tissue, leaf rakes, art, pantyhose.

 

Then you relocated, uprooted kith and kin, began once more with

A new man; not just another coast or city, county, state, but clear

Across the realm. First, you called daily, talks newlywed-colored.

 

Weeks became months became years. Your children grew, married,

Mine got educated. Your grandson’s portraits traveled thousands of

Electronic miles. I volleyed with photos of potted plants, bonus cats.

 

Today, my youths contemplate partnerships within corporate offices.

Yours churn out babies. Galleries promote your art, pay your debts.

My words become pages, books, collections; my home’s unchanged.

 

 

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