The Colosseum

Gladiators fought there,
Bleeding through the cheers,
While tourists of today (like me!)
Imagine all those years.

The structure still stands proudly,
Well, parts of it, at least,
As cameras click where once were bouts
Of human versus beast.

We step on stones first placed there
In the ancient days of Rome,
Where Jewish slaves took eight long years 
To build it, far from home.

We marvel at this masterpiece,
At all that's still intact,
Envisioning the action
From the hints we can extract.

Espresso

In Florence, if you need a lift
Assistance is easy and swift.
Espresso - 3 sips -
Will not go to your hips
But will perk you - it's Italy's gift.

It gives you that jolt you require
When energy drains make things dire.
One strong little cup
Helps to pick you right up -
Why, a poem it may even inspire!

In the Piazza

A sculpture by Cellini*
Stands in Florence in a square.
Since 1554 you can find
Perseus still there.

He holds Medusa's head aloft
Triumphantly to show
All comers of his deed,
The head the proof they'd need to know.

Commissioned by a duke, Cellini
Worked for nine long years,
Resulting in a masterpiece
As great as it appears.

How magical to gaze at something
Made in ancient times.
No words can quite convey that feeling;
Neither can my rhymes.

*Benvenuto Cellini

Carnevale

How lucky to be on vacation
To find yourself met with surprise
When a spectacle you didn't count on
Unfolds right in front of your eyes.

For here we are touring in Venice,
Where, next to the tourists in jeans,
The revelers, masked and in costume,
Create some incongruous scenes.

It's Carnival time! Carnevale,
As those in the know like to say,
And watching the celebrants saunter 
Gave us quite a fortuitous day.

Most people plan trips to partake in
The festivals at a locale,
But we'd no idea we'd be seeing
The Renaissance by the canal!

Brought to Life

An author has a picture
Of her characters in mind,
But seeing them on screen might leave
That image far behind.

Except in cases where a role
Exactly coincides
With the writer's vision and the choice
The casting crew decides.

This happened in "The Wife," a film
Which sure deserves a look,
And stars Glenn Close to represent
The wife who leads the book.

An article I read described
The author's sheer delight
When she saw the movie and she knew
The actress got it right.

I wonder what they talked about,
When Glenn and Meg* did meet,
For listening to that conversation
Must have been a treat.

*Meg Wolitzer, author of "The Wife"

Manhattan Real Estate

Apartments are expensive
With an extra monthly fee
For maintenance, which I can
Understand, to a degree.

But in an advertisement
For a condo that’s for sale,
A factor was included
That would make some people bail.

Along with monthly maintenance,
The purchasers would pay
Nine hundred for utilities
But, more outrageous, they

Would have to shell out, with no choice,
(Get set for Oh, my goshing!)
A fee of almost fifty bucks
For monthly window washing!

Perhaps it’s people just like me
Who prompted such expenses.
My windows, lacking such demands,
Display the consequences.

In Rhyme

I'm a fan of symmetry
And that explains why I'm 
Obsessed with writing poetry
Exclusively in rhyme.

The rhythm helps me organize 
My thoughts in rhyming feet
On a plethora of topics
Which I rarely do repeat.

Though I play around with rhyme scheme
I admit that I am prone
To the one that's here before you
In my cozy comfort zone.

Many scoff at rhyming writers, 
Viewing all our work as fluff,
But I'm proud of my creations 
And, to me, that is enough.

Late in Life

Here’s to those who, late in life,
Might cultivate a skill,
A goal which, years ago, they never
Thought they could fulfill.

It might be blowing glass
Or playing chess or learning French
Or any of a hundred other
Thirsts that time can quench.

For those no longer shackled to
The workaday routine
Have the luxury of tapping
Some yet undetected gene.

And no matter if it’s music
Or athletics or the arts,
There is no age too old for what
Enlightenment imparts.

Furled

One orchid blossom opens;
The rest stay tightly furled.
Yet isn’t that the way that life
Unfolds within the world?

The possibles may tease us
So we watch and wait and hope
As we try to gain some purchase
Up our lifespan’s slip’ry slope.

The orchid by the window,
Water, air and sunshine-fed,
Still refuses to release its buds
To let the petals spread.

Some seeming opportunities,
Though close enough to snatch,
May exist to merely disappoint,
Like eggs that never hatch.

Oversights

It must be tough to edit,
Searching calmly for mistakes,
Whether spelling or grammatical,
That every author makes.

Still, it bothers me when reading
And some errors have slipped by,
Causing me to wonder, how much
Did this edit-person try?

First an idiom I noticed –
“Chock it up” instead of “chalk.”
Just to clarify, I Googled;
I was justified to balk.

Next, a character is asked,
At someone’s house, to shed his shoes.
Yet, upon a piano’s pedals,
Those same sneakers he does use.

You might think it’s nits I’m picking
But such errors hit a nerve
For the oversights of editors
We readers don’t deserve.

Watching On Demand

In days of yore, way back before
The TV screens were flat,
We’d watch a show but didn’t know
In future evenings that…

We could install a way to call
A show that we had missed
For, understand, that On Demand
Back then did not exist.

If we were out, there is no doubt
We’d never get to see
That program which would so enrich
Our lives from our TV.

But nowadays, a series stays
Available to view
Until the night the time is right,
To me, for its debut.

Emergency

The meaning of “emergency”
Should not require discussion.
Ignoring one, you’d think, would have
An instant repercussion.

Today, though, some “emergencies”
Are not what we once thought.
A hospital ER is filled
With those where scrips are sought…

Or diagnoses which, before,
The office of a doc
Would be the place where patients
With a flu would likely flock.

The government “emergency”
Appears to me the same,
A non-dire situation
Called such merely to inflame.

A punishment is possible
For dialing 9-1-1
Reporting an “emergency”
When clearly, there is none.

The time has come for pols to act
With conscience as their guide,
Before a true emergency
The people will provide.

The Note

His parents out to dinner,
Henry got a little sad.
He wanted to be tucked in bed
By no one but his dad.

To comfort him, I had a thought –
A message I would write
To tell his dad, when he got home,
To kiss his boy good night.

But Henry said, “No, Nana;
By myself I’ll write the note!”
With spelling help and neatly printed,
This is what he wrote:

“Daddy, please come snuggle me,”
And then he signed his name.
I promised that his father
Wouldn’t miss it when he came.

He drifted off; his dad lit up
When reading Henry’s plea.
He followed through, though Henry slept,
But wouldn’t you agree…

How sweet and touching is this tale?
For children, as they grow,
Expand the possibilities
Of how their love may show.

In Vases

In vases all across the land
Red roses have the upper hand,
Presented, proudly, to the wives
Who share their husbands' beds and lives.

Most likely, such a posh bouquet 
Would not appear except the day
When special plans must be arranged
So Valentines might be exchanged.

The roses stand up tall and straight
Before succumbing to their fate 
For as the days drift by, they'll droop,
Their water turned to murky soup.

The vases will go back on shelves 
With nothing to amuse themselves 
Until this time next year rolls 'round 
When filled with roses they'll be found.

On Valentine's Day

Here’s a start: a candy heart
Or long-stemmed bright-red roses;
Lingerie, to make her day
Romantic, one supposes.

Not too hard to find a card
With sentimental saying.
For a treat, go out to eat
(And naturally, you’re paying).

Better yet, go into debt
And buy a sparkly trinket.
Dim the lights, so appetites
Include champagne – then drink it.

Or, don’t fuss and be like us –
With years of love behind us,
We’ve agreed, we do not need
A token to remind us.

Fatal Attraction

The London Zoo set up a date
But didn’t quite anticipate
The male, once locked in with his mate,
Would do much more than dominate.

The keepers, though they did await
This tiger union, were too late
For Asim, straight out from the gate,
Sought only to exterminate.

He mauled Melati, no debate
And didn’t seem to hesitate.
When workers tried to advocate,
Her death they had to contemplate.

This story does illuminate
That those who try controlling fate
By matching stripes, or some such trait,
Might find that they miscalculate.

Sleet

Though rain in the spring might be sweet,
Something flowers and bushes all greet,
In the winter what falls
Is what hardly enthralls,
But instead is that stuff known as sleet.

It makes all the cars slip and slide
And for people who venture outside,
We get pelted with ice,
Which is not very nice
And we couldn’t walk fast if we tried.

Without all the beauty of snow,
And making our to and fro slow,
Sleet just gets in the way
And it spoils the day;
How I wish it would get up and go!

Up Your Asterisk

I’m not a fan of censorship
But there should be no risk
When writing of a body part
To use an asterisk.

When not used as a swear-word,
Which might garner a tsk-tsk,
A mention of a tush should not
Require an asterisk.

We’re grown-ups here and therefore
Criticism should be brisk
When chosen words are censored:
Shove it up your asterisk!

First Birthday Cake

He eyes the candle, reaches out
To touch the flame it’s bringing,
But someone quickly blows it out;
Then everyone starts singing.

The brightly frosted cake is pushed
To where his little fingers
Cannot avoid some contact
And those gooey frosting bringers

Then find their way to cheeks and chin
And finally, to lips,
Resulting in repeated dipping
Of the fingertips.

The birthday face is nicely smeared
With neon green and blue.
His cute plaid shirt is also streaked
With cake and icing goo.

The grown-ups laugh; the cameras flash.
The moment justifies
The mess created by this birthday’s
Yummiest surprise.

February 9, 1964

Between performers we did know
(Remember Topo Gigio?)
Ed Sullivan would introduce
New acts and sometimes he’d let loose
A revolution from his stage
For viewers of a certain age.

I was among those teens that night
Who watched and screamed in pure delight
When John, Paul, George and Ringo played
The sweetest music ever made
(At least to us, for rock and roll
Tapped into every teenage soul).

Today’s that date. In ’64,
With no idea what lay in store,
That show unleashed, on each TV,
A moment etched in history –
The Beatles sang, to wild acclaim;
The world would never be the same.

Doctor's Orders

We learn to take our medicine
No matter what the taste
And follow doctor's orders,
Though uncomfortable, post haste.

Yet children have to be convinced,
For if the flavor's vile, 
They'll try their best to fight it 
Using obstinance and guile.

Perhaps a bit of bribery
Or trickiness might work,
For medical instructions
Aren't ones we ought to shirk.

So we must do what we must do
To get that dosage down, 
Despite the knowledge we're the cause
Of grimace, grouse or frown.

Anniversary Poem

I caught his eye and he caught mine
(Though after years did pass,
He told me what attracted him
Was not my eye, but ass!).

Exchanging names, we made a plan
To meet at evening's end
(For this was way before a text
Or email we could send).

We both showed up, hit Chinatown;
With chopsticks we did eat.
(He taught me how; I've used them since.
They make the meal complete.)

Today's the date we celebrate
That night so long ago.
We've stuck together through the highs
And every single low.

We'll dine tonight with chopsticks
(Though the food we'll eat is Thai)
And wonder how so many years
Have seemed to slip on by.

Hard and Soft

I like a pillow that is soft,
A mattress that is hard,
For people have their preferences
In soft and hard regard.

I much prefer a crusty roll
To one that’s like a puff
And vegetables, when cooked, to me
Are never hard enough.

In jewelry and music,
What I favor’s big and bold.
The delicate and silky,
Though quite lovely, leave me cold.

When contemplating hard and soft
There is so much to find
But I will leave the obvious
To picture in your mind.

Sixty-five Degrees

February should be cold,
Not sixty-five degrees.
I sweated in my jacket when
In past years I would freeze.

I shouldn’t be complaining
For the temperatures will drop,
But all this fluctuation’s crazy –
Will it ever stop?

Last week I dressed in layers;
Today just one sufficed.
In two days’ time the puddles
And the roads will all be iced.

I miss the times when calendars
Could pretty much predict
The weather, which would match the clothes
The night before I’d picked.

I Never

I never learned to ride a horse
Or parasail or dive.
I never learned the trick involved
In keeping plants alive.

I never learned to knit or paint
Or tie a scarf or juggle
And calculating time zones
Always seems to be a struggle.

I never learned to hook a bra
With fasteners behind me.
For annual exams I need
Somebody to remind me.

I never learned to ski or ice skate;
Neither is a crime.
Yet somehow in my life at least
I learned the joy of rhyme.

I'm Too Old for the Super Bowl

I’m too old for the Super Bowl.
I care not for the game
And every single play, to me,
Looks somehow just the same.

A kick, a pass, a step or two
Then everybody’s down.
Repeat ad infinitum
‘Til somebody wins the crown.

Commercial breaks once made me laugh,
At least a scattered few.
Now more and more I watch them
And I just don’t have a clue.

And then the halftime show! To me,
A disappointing blend
Of posturing and thugginess
I couldn’t wait to end.

I’m too old for the Super Bowl
But I've an alibi
At least for this one, ‘cause my grandkids,
Game-time, stopped on by.

Shadowless

Neither Punxsutawney Phil today
Nor Staten Island Chuck
Saw their shadows when emerging,
Which to many is good luck.

It predicts a shorter winter
And an entryway to spring,
Though there's skepticism surely 
When a groundhog is the king.

Still, we hark to their predictions,
Causing many to rejoice.
Yet, the almanac, to me, would be
The harbinger of choice.

Words on a Page

Last thing before bed
And the first upon waking,
Before he gets dressed
And finds out what's been shaking,
A book is what Henry
Is glued to as tight
As a kite-flyer clings
To the string of his kite.

Right now Harry Potter's
His evening fare.
Both Mommy and Daddy
The chapters do share;
And mornings when Nana
Is there, Roald Dahl
And his novels hold Henry
Completely in thrall.

A lifetime of stories
And reading awaits,
But rather than trust it
To chance or the fates,
Our Henry has learned
How the mind of a boy
Can, from words on a page,
Fill with journeys and joy.