Coffeeshop Writers' Group - Lots of Laffs - My poem: Sacred Ghosts at the Bonfire

Donna of the Beautiful Nails showed us her engagement ring from Denny. We told her to bring him to us so we could check him out.

Carly will meet him tonite in the King of Prussia home of a friend of Donna's. Carly's bringing her homemade lasagna.

Carly wrote a poem "My Dear Friend Donna." Am happy to say they met at our Writers' Group and clicked!

Allan Heller, the only manfellow in our group, remarked, "Imagine if I wrote a poem like this for one of my guy friends!"

 Allan read us another installment in his mystery series starring one Walt Clayton (he hates being called "Walter") about a retired man in a nursing home who, altho confined to his wheelchair, has foiled crimes being committed to the residents.

Very well-wrin and suspenseful.

"You have a great vocabulary," said Carly.

Here's Carly now with her whopping Nutter Butter Drink. She did not like it, never having tasted Nutter Butter cookies.

Adryn, the Giant counterwoman, was happy to bring her another, satisfactory drink.

We love our Giantesses!

Beatriz, who kept warm in her sweater-jacket, read an essay about the amazing world of Moths, who, here in the US of A, take a back seat to butterflies.

After reading her essay, you'll see it should be the other way around. The African Blackhawk Moth actually flies further than our beloved Monarchs!



What could be more beautiful than the cecropia moth or the



Luna Moth, which once pressed itself against my kitchen window.

Carly said that for some reason butterflies remind her of her late father.

DONNA wrote a poem about moving out of her house. Since her husband died, her son has taken it upon himself to be her financial adviser. You can't afford living there, he tells her. You've got to move.

Oh, how we protested!

Here's some nice lines: The house is tired as a porch swing... The dining room calls out for dinners.

I said, it's really hard to capture a house in a short poem, but you did it!

I captured my house in a story I got published here. 

Sadly, I received a rejection notice in the mail today about my true story "My Favorite Felon," and another online of "Leaving Joey."

DO NOT SAY YOU'RE SORRY. That's how things go.

Linda, I said, let's get your foto out of the way.

She read the start of a wonderful short story "Mr Cat's Revenge." It has elements of fantasy and sci-fi. Cats certainly do lend themselves to this sort of thing. Hello, Mr Poe.

SACRED GHOSTS AT THE BONFIRE

They, too, made fires,
the ones before us
striding easily across
the Bering Strait
before quakes severed
mate from mate
pemmican
squash
lacrosse

Then the impasse with
the acquisitive European
who twisted their Christ
to do their bidding
Land ho!
Land's ours!

Some like William Penn
in his Quaker oatmeal hat
refused to torch them
We, attuned to our
Buddha, Jehovah,
Swedenborg, and
teary-eyed Jesus
meet beneath the
covered pavilion
at Tamanend Park.

Todd rolls open the
locked iron gates
of the fireplace
ashes of other fires
like fine talcum
fill the bottom

The master stoker
adds log after log
a fire lifts itself
toward the night sky
the curling smoke
a message no Lenape
will ever receive

Only the animals
deer with their wild innocent eyes
owls, woodchucks, sleepy sparrows call
Stay away!
Stay away!
The enemy is nigh.

We move toward the fire
drawn by an ancient dream
spun a million years ago
All else vanishes
the early evening
the rising of the moon
the anxiety of
being alive one minute
struck down the next
Wasn’t it Garofola’s best friend?
felled by a heart attack at forty-five?

Helen taps the Dutch oven
that belonged to her newly
departed mother also named Helen
I hold out my paper cup
as her mother’s ladle
scoops out the hot mulled cider
I drink as I gaze at the dark fields
my lips sticky
yearning for more.