Sunday, March 30, 2014

Carl Papa Palmer- Three Poems


 cordially yours

sitting on her couch
she has forgotten who I am
greets me like a stranger
treats this stranger better
than she ever treated me

I yearn for her glower
that glint of disgust
the biting sneer
refusal to say anything
nice to me at all



methodist makeover

the huge pile of clothes donated to our church
rummage sale by the war widow her departed
husband a young man just forty four his taste
ran fairly medium along with his size 34 X 32
trousers brown blue tan gray and black dockers
16 ½ X 34 button down shirts and knit pullovers
to keep the wives away from the pile of clothes
my size the rumor emerges these clothes were
salvaged from a state funeral home taken off
dead men after their viewing everyone knows
the body is always buried naked all my size I

won’t try on a single piece of my new wardrobe



Mommy, come see

yelling, excited, out of breath,
bouncing into the room,
his polished ebony eyes
dull to chalky slate

as mother says, In a bit.
Never shifting her attention
from the television showing
favorite summer reruns.

Maybe later.  
After awhile.
After this.
We’ll see.
Not now.

Mommy’s summer reruns



Carl "Papa" Palmer, retired Army, retired FAA, now just plain retired, lives in University Place, WA. He has seven chapbooks and the contest winning poem riding a bus somewhere in Seattle.   MOTTO: Long Weekends Forever

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