Habits not haphazards
are needed
for the next decade.
‘Keep desk tidy’
is not a habit
and you know it.
‘Tidy desk daily’
might help.
– – –
Rachel McAlpine
blogging101
Stuff in a blog
Let’s not pretend
that stuff in a blog
is poetry.
A blog is a diary
upside down, a silo
where notions wait
for processing
or better times.
Crammed tight
they twitch
in the dark.
They long to sprout
and see the light.
Let’s spill them out
and set them free.
At worst the birds
will feast.
– – –
Rachel McAlpine
Just add water
And a blog is a coat
of many pockets,
a continent
of join the dots,
a magic painting
wanting only water.
My father’s blog
In my father’s blog
are many mansions.
A blog is content
in a room full of cells.
A blog is ever empty
and willing to be filled.
A blog is not lost
and may never be found.
– – –
Rachel McAlpine
Poems in the cloud
Blog poems rise
like steam from a heated heart.
Ghost poems floating
like bubbles from a spring,
one long knotted rope
of cirrhus scarves.
Drifty. Cloudy. Quickly
off the screen.
Speak softly
Speak softly
to the newly wed,
the dearly dead.
Speak loudly
to your Uncle Fred.
– – –
Rachel McAlpine
Senior poems in an ebook
Do you get sick and tired of being drip-fed poems, one per day? Would you like to have a bunch on a single theme so you can pace yourself?
That’s easily fixed. Go straight to Amazon and get yourself all my Senior Poems in one ebook. You’ve read some of them here. You know they’re kind of fun and sometimes even wise. (Not sure how that happens, but the Muse works in mysterious ways.)
Buy Senior Poems on Kindle for a ridiculously small price
In my skull
My skull is an occupied
sofa. When someone
makes a home in your head—
no room for poems.
– – – –
Rachel McAlpine
Surreptitious
Friendship slips
out the window
when lovers shout
and part.
It may ring the doorbell
later
when neither hurts
nor waits
nor wants.
*
Rachel McAlpine
Healthy Things
I should never be sick
’cause we have Healthy Things
(says Ruby).
They’re little tiny small things
and they’re a lion. Here, I’ll draw one for you.
There are arrows pointing to their tummy,
with skin dots, pale, very hard to see.
You should always have one a day
so you don’t get sick.
Well, I’ve got the hiccups inside my tummy
so I should have had more.
They taste like — how can I describe it?
Say you were cooking a Healthy Thing
and you just needed two ingredients:
an orange and some salt.
You squeeze out the juice and mix it up,
pour it into a salt bowl
and it turns into a a Healthy Thing.
Hm, how can I describe it?
It tastes like lemon with sour salt.
They’re called Healthy Things
because they’re Healthy
and because they’re Things.
*
Rachel McAlpine
Advice from Ruby, aged 4 or 5
Poems in the wild—Rachel McAlpine 