If You Love Where You Live

If you love where you live

That’s a wonderful fact,

But you can’t expect others

To always react

 

To your choice of address

With a positive spin,

Especially if

It’s a city you’re in.

 

Oh, I’d never live there –

All the crowds and the noise!

The hustle and bustle

Which no one enjoys.

 

The subways and traffic,

The homeless, the rats;

The crime – have you noticed

The murder rate stats?

 

It’s useless explaining

Your opposite view –

The people to look at,

So much you can do.

 

The buildings, the plantings,

Museums and shows,

The shops and the restaurants

Everyone knows.

 

No matter how hard

You may try to convey

How you feel in the city,

There isn’t a way

 

To convince those who hate it

The reasons you’ve got.

It’s either inside you

Or else it is not.

Empty Seats

I’m watching the Open,

(To me, such a treat!)

Surprised to see every

Unoccupied seat.

The weather is iffy -

There’s been lots of rain.

Perhaps that is why

Empty seats still remain.

Of course, it’s a work day,

With kids back in school,

And sneaking away

Maybe isn’t so cool.

But I don’t regret

That I’m watching from home,

A comfortable place

To be writing this poem.

It’s nice to see sports

Where the action is made,

Though the travel and cost

Make TV a fair trade.

Rumbles of Thunder

There are rumbles of thunder,

Yet, outside, a bird

Is chirping; I wonder

If he has not heard.

For rain clouds have started

Ejecting some drops

At Nature’s imparted 

Commands; movement stops

In the trees, where each leaf

Hangs there quiet and still

For it is my belief

They’ve a job to fulfill,

Which is follow the lead 

Of what Nature decides.

To survive, they must heed

Their instinctual guides.

As the raindrops increase

There is no other sound 

Than the cloudburst’s release;

Not one bird sticks around.

Planting Evidence

To help nail drivers using a phone,

To which everyone seems to be prone, 

A cop in disguise

Used the trick of surprise 

To create quite a ticket-time zone.

To be honest, each ticketed schlub

Joined the “What the heck?” questioning club,

For the officer was,

In his role as the fuzz,

Dressed, alongside the road, as a shrub!

Where They’re Headed

Where do all the people go,

The ones who share the road?

For certainly not everyone

Is in vacation mode.

Are they visiting a relative 

Or dropping in on friends?

Maybe off to work or out to shop?

The traffic never ends.

I wish that I could stop each car

And take a little poll,

But certainly such action

Would exact a heavy toll.

For the last thing that is needed

Is to interrupt the flow,

So as far as where they’re headed,

Well, I guess I’ll never know.

My Earrings from Skye

My earrings from the Isle of Skye

Got complimented twice

And though I wear them for myself,

Acknowledgement is nice.

 

A local Scottish artist

Finds the sea glass on the beach

And forms it into shapes, at prices

In most tourists’ reach.

 

The ones I bought are silver

And they look like dangling fish

Filled with colors to resemble

What they’d look like as they’d swish.

 

But the best part when I wear them’s

Not attention to their style;

It’s the memory of being there

On that delightful isle.

Entitled

It sounds pretentious if I claim

The title of a poet.

Though people know I write in rhyme,

A whole lot more don’t know it.

 

If I am asked what job I do,

I say that I’m retired,

For teaching was my livelihood;

No details are required.

 

My poetry takes precedence

In my post-teaching years.

A poem a day is what I write,

Yet I’ve not changed careers.

 

If I had, I’d be a poet

And would say so if you asked.

Maybe in the recognition

Of my prowess, I’d have basked.

 

I’ll acknowledge it’s a hobby

Which takes up a lot of time

And within my soul, I’m proud

Of what I get to say in rhyme.

 

Yet, unlike the average doctor

Who must be addressed as such,

I’m uneasy using titles

Which don’t matter very much.