Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry
Poetry of the People
Molly tells me you can read
Your fortune in the bathtub:
Run out, count the stars, then
Lock yourself in the bathroom, turn
Off the lights, and you’ll see
Your grave in the bathtub—I did.
But she must be lying.
Oh what I wouldn’t give
For a nickel and a dime
And a cherry with a seed
Inside to crack my teeth upon.
I’m going home, home,
On my way home. Continue reading “Name This Poem”
What about the b
ees
That hover in the trees
And scout amongst the clover
Though spring is already over?
And what about the crow
Whose call is such a scold
To sparrows and the deer
And any passing near? Continue reading “July Morning”
“The time is out of joint, O cursed spite
That ever I was born to set it right!”
Hamlet’s couplet is a famous one. Who can resist the pithiness, the efficiency, the rhythm and reason of two short rhyming lines?
Cora the Couplet Crocodile can’t. Continue reading “Cora the Couplet Crocodile”
She used to hate laundry days, the acrid
smell of boiled water poured in rough tin pans,
the cheap soap peeling away her red skin,
and the clothes less than spic and half of span.
The washing machine, a wedding present
From a rich aunt, transformed the shade of brown
In the diapers and left them a clean scent
But couldn’t take sweat rings on John’s shirts out. Continue reading “Wash”
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 