Poems by Adults

by Joe Costanzo, 2024

by Anne Kelly-Edmunds, 2024

The first Daffodil
Opens
Presents its fluted face
To morning’s sun
Still
March’s wind sends
Shivers
Through Rhododendron’s
Waxy leaves
Flipping some
Upside down

by Barbara Progebin Graffe, 2024

Children’s voices in the alley

Tag your it

Throw it to me

Echoes of laughter everywhere.

 

Come in big Barbara

Little Barbara come home

Women leaning out of windows

Echoes of mothers voices calling.

 

Parades down Eastern Parkway

Marching bands heard

People dancing during celebrations

Echoes of steps in unison on pavement.

 

My neighborhood was Crown Heights

Greetings from those walking to stores

Ebbets Field not too far from home

Echoes of crowds cheering on clear days.

 

My Dad’s voice singing songs

Reciting children’s rhymes

His words of encouragement always

Echoes of “I love you forever”.

 

Brooklyn’s echoes are with me always

Bringing smiles and laughter

Fond memories to my heart

And warmth to my soul.

by Charlotte Heotis, edited by PM Heotis, 2024

Three bunnies cavorting in the play yard

Flip turns they do in air

Two woodchucks nibble nearby

Stopping now and again to look

A big crow flies in, stalks close

Enough to interrupt there dinner hour

Each chooses his favorite morsel

And goes his merry way

For sure they will all return another day.

I watch, trying not to miss a move

To spy upon their dinning

To take of note of their menu

They do not leave me a tip

For God has spread their table.

 

 

by Charlotte Heotis, edited by PM Heotis, 2024

A huge graying woodchuck owns my hill.  He peeks out from blackberry thorns—eyes the play yard up and down.  Then, casually waddles out. His fat loose skin waving over his short legs.  Spying a tender dandelion he munches its leaves until he spies others he thinks more tender—thus he proceeds up my hill stopping innumerable times to take stock of what’s around.  Making sure he’s in full ownership of his territory.  Should he even get a glimpse of my shadow in the window he streaks for cover.

Then guess what—I saw him yesterday sitting up under my apple tree—a small green delicious apple in his two front paws.  Nibbling away.   It must not have been tasty because he did not eat much.  Off he ran to his woodchuck hole.  Me being very curious went out to check his tooth marks in the apple. Hope he doesn’t get a tummy ache-I surely would.

by Charlotte Heotis, edited by PM Heotis, 2024

My gait has changed

My hair has too

Sometimes I find it hard to chew

I do not know the things I knew

but I can add a thing or two

I’m still a loving friend to you!

by Alison Quinn, 2024

Candies pocketed,

old chocolates melted flat,

now like dry mud scales,

the sweetness cold and gone.

 

Does the thrill of remembrance

satisfy like creamy satiation,

or disappear in the tasting,

deflated by swift gluttony?

 

Oh, have just one old piece.

Reawaken the craving in you,

Yearn and satiate fully clear.

Surprise!  Taste again.

by Taylor Vertucci, 2024

Under the guise of searching,

a soul shatters,

a mind maneuvers.

It appears self-seeking, but it’s seeking self.

I’m sorry never illuminates

the path to feel whole.

Love, you are enough

to quell the rifling.

A flair of paucity halts the course,

doubling secrets under slipshod lips,

shrouding the truth from desperate eyes.

Life plods on,

and with the empty ache ostensibly filled,

the helm is released.

Anonymous, 2024

My life shattered into a million pieces, the day you died.

Like a brand new puzzle you dumped on the kitchen table; pieces everywhere.

Have you ever tried putting a puzzle together with gloves on? Blindfolded?

As the months would pass, I would start to have clusters of pieces connected.

Almost able to see my life again.

My life with you still in it.

My life before you took your last breath.

CRASH. BAM. BOOM.

A holiday.

A birthday.

A random Tuesday.

The days I missed you a little extra.

My little clusters would shatter again.

I was no longer able to see my old life again.

The puzzle pieces were scattered on the table.

How do I get back to my old life?

Can I?

I was trying to piece together something that will never be the same.

I will always be missing one piece to my puzzle; to my life.

You.

I must take those millions of pieces and start something new.

The gloves come off.

The blindfold is lifted.

I needed to start living my life without you.

We will not be creating memories.

You are now a memory.

My life looks different now.

I put the puzzle back in the box and open a new one.

The pieces are cut the same way.

They fit together the same way.

The clusters start to connect.

This isn’t the puzzle I wanted to put together.

But this is my life now.

This puzzle is for you to see.

To be proud of.

RIP Dad. Forever missed.

by Charlotte Heotis, edited by PM Heotis, 2024

Who set this universe in motion
Filled the seas and the ocean
Mounted up the lofty hills
Then bathed them with cascading rills
Laid out vast arid places
Too, desolate for human races
And capped it all with one great dome
With clouds and stars to roam
A sun to warm and brighten all
Then rotated—the night to fall
Beneath a place we call home
With winds that sometimes gently blow
The good the bad both ebb and flow
What purpose this we’d love to know
Is it a figment, but of time
Or a losing-finding of the mind