The Current Norm in Rainstorms

Hurricane force winds battered the UK this past week causing untold damage. Not to mention the increase in numbers and the destruction of tornadoes here in the US. Storms worldwide have definitely become stronger, and I remember enduring more than one such rainstorm last summer.

The Current Norm in Rainstorms

A slash of sizzling light from the hand

of a bellicose warrior rampaging

across a raven sky rent the moonless

gloom. Lightsabers stormed.

Wrath overtook the street, gushed

over curbs, rushed like brigand bots

spewing mayhem in a parched city

as mortals huddled behind bolted doors.

The dragoon, riding the wind, moved on,

rallying the weeds but leaving withered

grasses slammed by the downpour

and the air clammy as a damp kerchief

tossed as he withdrew.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

If Shakespeare Were a Sailor

Here is another in my series of poems about historical figures if they had been forced to choose different professions.

If Shakespeare Were a Sailor

                      after Charles Tomlinson

If Shakespeare were a sailor

he would have salted sonnets

on the sails and rollicked beneath

the billows above him, seared poetry

into the masts, and laid-by threads

of gossip from ale-swilling sea dogs

in the ports of Inverness and Aberdeen,

around bereft temples and animated

fountains of the Western Sea and more,

all while aching to luff these tidbits

into dramas once favorable winds

blew him back to London City

and into the arms of his beloved,

the theatre.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Walking Hazard

I have a hard time deciding what bothers me most when I walk country roads. Right now I swear it's the bitter cold, but come summer it would be those irritating flies.

Walking Hazard

#*!% flies wait to swarm any

mammal breeching their airspace.

Undaunted and doused with odious

repellent, I slap my way along.

A ribbit, sounding like an out-of-tune

guitar, betrays a bullfrog slavering

at the prospect of insects diverted

form my slipstream to his tongue.

And if I attached ribbons of flypaper

to the brim of my hat,

would my nose be the first and only

thing caught?

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor  

Recipes - II

At Christmastime I prepare a bunch of different goodies, but I always include the cut-out cookies of my childhood. And I think of my own mother, so at home in the kitchen.

Recipes - II

My mother played her recipes

               like an irascible improv artist.

Forays into the kitchen meant

     a chance to riff but always with

           a baseline of "farm fresh" eggs.

Quantities rarely specified, followed by

casual instructions to bake, cook or steam                       

                     "Until done."

 My Dad typed the only recipe with detailed

            directions that I have of hers.

        Rare as a piece of once lost music.

At Christmastime when I first baked a batch

              of these cut-out cookies

      I heard reproof buried in her words:

"Next time, don't be so stingy with the dough."

Her comment echoed like an off-key note

          until she reached for more.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

A Yuletide Nod to Dr. Seuss

It's Christmas week again. And in the aftermath of last year's diminished season, I wrote this poem while thinking of the Grinch. May all of you enjoy far better Holidays this year!

A Yuletide Nod to Dr. Seuss

Last December in Minnesota

the prospect of rain reigned.

Scant chances lived for a white

Christmas or even a sit-down

with a stand-in Santa.

Come the Day itself no Nana

and Papa, but parcel post presents

under the festive tree.

No Uncles Bob and Jake,

Aunts Kelli and Kate, nor any 

cousins with new games to play.

Instead, a novel stage set:

a Zoom gathering with herky-jerky

movements and faces frozen

before folks signed off, retreating

to a dinner of discontent, featuring

downsized roast beast.

Still, the people sang the season

but ended their chorus on a sigh, and

from somewhere a catcall floated by

for the virus that stole Christmas.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

 

 

If Dickens Were a Ditch Digger

A while back I posted "If Galileo Were a Gardener" after Charles Tomlinson's poem "If Bach Had Been a Beekeeper." I wrote a series of poems in this vein, and from time to time they will crop up. Today is such a day. 

If Dickens Were a Ditch Digger

                     after Charles Tomlinson

If Dickens were a ditch digger

he would have shoveled the muck

of London, manure and mud clinging

to his clothes, as he uncovered a child's

broken crutch or exposed a tattered

piece of wedding veil beneath layers

of earth harboring ghostly reminders

of splintered lives while pesky

young pickpockets marked others

as he worked, quietly mulling over

his finds and shaping tales to entertain

his children at home, mesmerize

his mates at the pub.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Unnerving

The sound of gunfire in the city scares me witless, but not so in the countryside. Conversely, the wail of a siren, so common in urban areas, frightens me while at the cabin.

Unnerving

Dawn spreads like a freshly

cracked egg over the rim of the world.

A red-bellied woodpecker tattoos

a tired oak, a pair of trumpeter swans

                                      pulsate contentment

and the surreal calls of loons croon.

Above all this

                          a whispered sigh

                                                         of a siren.

                   From my days in the ER

            too many minutes clutter the clock

               in the wake of a rural calamity.

That wavering hum,

                   the deadliest sound in the forest.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Mid-November

Fall lingers even here in the north country. I find it hard to reconcile bare-branched trees with the warm weather that has hallmarked our days.

Mid-November

Fall pulled a fast one,

absconding with all the foliage

while we reveled on picnic shores.

Leaves drooped, orphaned underfoot

until streets of naked trees jolted our gaze.

But nature thieved more than raiment

pinching extra days for a summer

grown disastrously fat, filching our sense

of seasons. Only light wraps at sundown;

we crawl into night exposed.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Restlessness

Covid fatigue set in long ago, and like typical ennui it waxes and wanes.

Restlessness

Almost an Eden until boredom

bores in. Pine-scented air and white-

tailed deer, lake and lily pads outside

                                              my door.

Covid-19 on the back burner but

so are the neighbors. Glimpsed at

and waved to through stands of trees.

A routine changed from city tennis

and Happy Hour with friends

to decoding portents of winter

from wooly bear caterpillars.

The overused kayak beckons

with all the zest expressed

by a maitre d' signaling a table

                                          for one.

The hours drag by desultory

as the droopy fly on the screen.

Novels with bookmarks stuck

at the front lie scattered on tables.

Take Away menus lack pizzazz,

    find themselves dumped back

        in the drawer, ignored.

Only the robins scavenging

the lawn seem absorbed by a task,

but that, too, won't last.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Illusion

Covid continues to dog the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike. It is both a topic of concern or a subject to downplay, especially in the north woods.

Illusion

Some of Winslow Homer's clouds

belong to the sunrises. Opalescent

conchs of early morning.

If he were painting now

in the north woods, wisps of steam

above a lake shaded periwinkle

would beckon.

And in that mist he might place

an outline of a boat with the smudge 

of a fisherman casting,

unconcerned with whispers

of a plague swirling around him.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

(In)significance

I recently acquired an image of the Pale Blue Dot. In 1990 NASA commanded the spacecraft Voyager 1 to turn its camera around before exiting our planetary system for one last picture of home. The photo set me to thinking.

(In)significance

The night sky a reminder

of unknown worlds light-years

                                   distant.

The star-scape a redemption

from the overbearing sun.

Our own burning luminary,

mastermind behind the Aurora.

Despite its confidence in being

    the center of the universe

it remains a trivial flame,

ablaze in a forgotten outpost.

An "en passant" solar system

in the Milky Way

itself a bantam galaxy nestled

                 between billions of others

with Sol only a provincial official

                                on the periphery.

But I puzzle how can this be 

since the cosmos clearly revolves 

                                          around me.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

The Inscrutability of Wild Things

As promised, it's September and I'm back with my scribblings, but with a change. I will not be clogging your inbox weekly with my poems. Instead, twice a month I'll be sending out new material. 

Today's lines stem from one of my walks up in cabin country. However, I normally see deer and not their predators.

The Inscrutability of Wild Things

Up ahead an animal like a stuffed

toy from my childhood bed

sprawls on a country road.

My eyes sigh, "Dog on the loose."

The rhythm of my walk pulls me

onward toward the shapeshifter

at the border of the blacktop.

An urge for flight flashes my neurons

                                            too late.

A strapping wolf wobbles to a stand

like an old man, drifts off and vanishes

into the grasses.

The earth heaves,

and I, stock-still beneath the swirling sun,

                                           start to breathe.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor 

Seventh Heaven

I'll be taking off July and August but I will be back sometime in September. Before I go, I hope to leave you with the sense of wonder that comes with viewing an unobstructed night sky. And, yes, the poem is a rerun.

Seventh Heaven

In wildwood clearings I linger

on the dock of midnight,

circle under the marvel of stars.

The summer sky shifts

the view I witness in winter

when Ursa Major rides low

but tonight somersaults higher

in the heavens of July.

And from his father's arms

Ursa Minor, tossed upwards

like a laughing child,

dangles the North Star on a string.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

A Rift in Harmony

 If anything, this life has taught me the more things change, the more they remain the same.

A Rift in Harmony

The buzz of tonight's open air concert

recalls the long ago shiver of Woodstock

glimpsed from a half a continent away.

Music and images from a rolling screen

mingled with the sounds of a newborn,

the misgivings of her young Republican father.

Snatches of "White Rabbit" and "Pinball Wizard,"

the psychedelic rock of Jimi Hendrix

and his "Star Spangled Banner" rode the airwaves,

backdrop for Vietnam and Civil Rights.

Generational tsunamis on the coasts but a reason

for channel changing in our heartland apartment.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor 

Chief Complaint: Blurry Vision

A few weeks ago I attended a family reunion of sorts in Phoenix where I was reminded that a nephew's wife contends with multiple sclerosis on a daily basis. MS primarily affects adults but, occasionally, adult diseases present to Pediatric ERs.

Chief Complaint: Blurry Vision

The slender teen opens

her closed right eye

and sends the orbit wandering,

similar to her own weaving walk

for the past two weeks.

A head scan reveals cannonballs

scattered on the battlefield of her brain.

Not tumors but damage

from the arsenal of multiple sclerosis,

protective coating stripped

from nerves, leaving them as vulnerable

as the unsteady adolescent before me,

struggling to focus.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Mind the Clutch

Sometimes the ride is smooth, sometimes rough. It's not unusual that normal wear and tear call for readjustments.

Mind the Clutch

Random stretches of misfires,

like an engine out of sync, ping

our relationship.

Sometimes we flare, talking past

each other like cars revving

their engines, ready to burn rubber.

Sometimes we stall, walk away

fuming, struggle to recalibrate.

Mechanics 101: Assess the problem,

uncross wires of communication,

and tinker.

Even the touchiest Jaguar responds

to a gentle touch.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Seduction

My grandson is currently at an Air Force ROTC camp in Hattiesburg, MS. His first taste of military life. He has one year of college left before he leaves to serve full time. I wrote this last fall but it feels right to post it now.

Seduction

Stripes of sunbeam pierce window mornings.

Birches rustle, stretching limbs and flicking tresses.

Loons and lily pads unfold to wisps of daylight.

Autumn's oblivion blushes a maple's brow.

The hum of a small plane, the song of a Siren,

swells, promising the sky. And miles away

my grown grandson veers towards the Air Force.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

A Prayer in the Time of COVID

A year ago I came across a photo taken in pre-COVID times of people delighted to be cooling off in New York City, standing among spraying jets of water. This poem, as with all Found Poetry, is from words reframed and given new meaning. They come from the sidebar accompanying the photograph. And with COVID starting to ease, the prayer just might be attainable.

A Prayer in the Time of COVID

                 A Found Poem, Independence Day,

                 Amy Weiss-Meyer, The Atlantic,

                 July/August 2020

Messiah,

Bring back the jubilant highs

of carefree camera shots.

The honored tradition of standing

with strangers:

                        - the homeless,

                 the shirtless, the drenched -

those cooling-off atop fountain grates

                    in city parks.

Recall the easy sociability of others

orbiting the perimeter of urban life,

the playful water, the palpable pleasure.

Frame me joyful on a summer's night.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor 

Wild Woods

More than once this past winter I found myself staring from a cabin window and letting my imagination rule. The scene that engrossed me wasn't nearly as entertaining with the coming of warm weather. 

Wild Woods

In the wildwood a fallen tree

     suggests a baby dino

or maybe a funky black rhino

pausing before a crossing.

Snowfall cloaks the creature's

back and brow. Or maybe it's

the prow of Paul Bunyan's

canoe, even his misplaced shoe.

A golf club thrown in frustration

or the front of a wiener dog

escaping a tangled situation.

Conceivably, a croc surfacing

from the frosty thicket. Maybe

the emergence of a hefty cricket.

Illusions firmly planted in drifts

   of the mind, a make-believe 

 pastime until harbingers of spring 

                start to sing.  

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Looking Glass Blues

It's been almost a year since my favorite stylist hung up her scissors. And still I search for someone to keep my short hair neat and trim.

Looking Glass Blues

She promised me a pixie haircut

But delivered a deranged elf effect.

It made no difference how hard I tugged,

Sawed-off bangs taunted me, haunted me.

Resembling a deranged elf, I searched

For solace in an enchanted pond and cringed

At the butchered bangs abusing me.

The stunted strands refused to stretch.

No fairytale transformation at hand.

Tried to bury my hair beneath a headband

But the stunted strands popped free.

Sighing, I decided, "It could be worse."

Restyled it and a scarecrow appeared.

Knowing time alone would address this mess,

I kept telling myself, "It could be worse,"

And fervently wished to hide inside.

I knew in time my bangs would behave

And it made no difference how hard I tugged.

If only I had been able to hide inside

With this botched promise of a pixie haircut.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor   

Scourge

It's pleasant to walk the country roads around our cabin, but warmer weather brings irritating black flies to contend with. That one 80 degree day we recently enjoyed? When I went walking I met with a contingent of their sibs, not nearly as big but just as irksome.

Scourge

Flies arranged as relay runners,

like the latest lineup of backbiting

politicians, hound me, wreathe

my head, assault my ears, slip under

my visor, and flash past my eyes.

Swearing, I swat at the tormentors

chewing my hide. The lowlands

loom. Prime breeding ground

for mites and nasty sound bites.

"Bug Off" spray simply seems

to rankle them. My only hope:

a stiff breeze to blast them 

into oblivion. Keep them at bay.

Even a passing pickup sends

the pests scrambling. But like

politicos on pause defending

past actions, they soon resume

their swarming.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Spring Saplings

Shortly after we moved into our "new" cabin in 2019, we planted two young crabapple trees of differing varieties. Here is their story so far.

Spring Saplings 

A comical brush-like crabapple

boasting straight-up branches

now buried in springtime blossoms

droops after last night's storm,

top heavy with fuchsia tints.

Across the yard, savaged by winter

and ravenous deer, a half-sib clings

to scant buds streaked shell-pink.

Undaunted, this fledgling

dressed in gossamer thin greenery

tucks the few florets into her hair,

charming as Cinderella.

Offspring of kindred stock,

one thrives and the other struggles.

In fairytales the downtrodden

triumph, stepsisters fade away, forgotten,

and Bambi doesn't shred young trees.

But these two dwell in a proper forest

where work boots trump glass slippers,

and pumpkins remain vehicles for pies.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Building Renovation

Some of the older buildings in the Twin Cities have been repurposed for other uses. Like the old Pillsbury Mill converted into apartments, and a smattering of antiquated brick and mortar schools into condos. But the original Children's Hospital? 

Building Renovation

Across the freeway

a mere home run away

from the "new" Children's Hospital

stands the old one.

Labs and wards converted to condos.

Juniper plantings, zinnia beds struggle

to soften the structure.

Tell me, who can live there

on units that housed the sickest kids

or in a repurposed operating room?

Does a whiff of phenol cling to lobby walls?

When did sadness first leach

into those dusty, coco bricks shading it gloomy

as a Charles Dickens facade?

And how can the new tenants,

even on the sunniest baseball days, not see?

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

If We Disregard the Ditches, How Can We Survive?

Melting snow has exposed winter's detritus, and it is disturbing to see along the country roads I walk. Last summer's debris lingers.

If We Disregard the Ditches, How Can We Survive?

Dips and depressions hold

runoff pockets, pesticides

and herbicides.

Tangled in goosegrass

beside thistles and ragweed

columbine plants poke through.

Scrapped plastic bags flutter

alongside the creeping vine

of Coronavirus.

Bullfrogs, tree frogs and turtles

find refuge here. Deer and fox

dart across the unmarked there.

Swales too shallow to swallow

police injustice reflect the rage

of George Floyd's murder.

Monarch butterflies, gossamer

dragonflies and uneasy neighbors

take flight.

Black-eyed Susans replace False

Indigo. Urbanites eager to escape

flock to cabin country but only add

to the cache of crumpled water

bottles hurling lasting indictments

at people with ears to hear.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

April Ablutions

I confess we drove to the cabin last week, and I forgot to bring recent poems of mine. So, what I'm posting is undoubtedly a repeat. But it's also apropos to the traces of leftover snow and the cold rain we've endured here these past few days.

April Ablutions

Like a curved blade

with shaving cream

recently scraped from a face,

a stubborn scrim of snow

hugs the ground in front

of a newly rinsed car.

The rest of the lather washed

away in a morning shower.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor   

If Galileo Were a Gardener

The poet, Charles Tomlinson, wrote about Bach as a beekeeper. I then speculated about Galileo as a gardener, and came up with this.

If Galileo Were a Gardener

                    after Charles Tomlinson

If Galileo were a gardener

he would have seen the sun

as a benefactor, bestowing

life and fine wines, but also

as a troublemaker spawning

heliocentric thoughts, dry days

and drought-disturbing rows

of ripening grapes, a Milky Way

of vines stretched across Tuscany,

producing withered berries

on branches good only for burning,

scorching as the rhetoric coming

from a Church condemning

his carefully made observations

concerning heaven's famed luminary.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor 

After an Overnight Shift

I recently read The Good Hand by Michael Smith. The memoir of a man who decided to take advantage of the boom times in the oil fields of North Dakota. It proved not as easy as he thought. Being a 24/7 operation, the various jobs demanded workers on the graveyard shift. A connection I could relate to.

After an Overnight Shift

Exhaustion

dogs my bed,

drags me from the sweet

flowing waters of oblivion,

grabs the muscles in my legs

with pointed incisors,

hauls me back to the shore

of dayshine where sleep

vanishes like water vapor,

leaving me to listen 

to garbage grinders,

back-up beeps, and barking

dogs down the street.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Soul Flying

March has a reputation for windy days, and this past weekend was no exception. A good time to fly kites for those daring enough to harness the bluster.

Soul Flying

Jacket tightening gusts

send winter dirt skittering

across empty fields

and kick up dust to smudge

the sneakers of kite runners,

bouncing on rushes of frisson.

Shouts like bubbles of champagne

rise on lusty breezes, hitch rides

on trailing tails, threads of magic.

Colors vivid as scarlet tanagers

and goldfinches at the feeder

take flight above laughing

faces, sometimes muffled

by the masks we wear. Still,

a time to crack open spring.

Kite flying and "socially

acceptable distancing" natural

as an eagle freewheeling

on the wind.  

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

In the Wake of Yesterday's Storm

This is for all of us who had to put up with yesterday's messy weather. But, looking on the plus side, we know that March snow is simply a prelude to spring.

In the Wake of Yesterday's Storm

How much hope the notes

of a songbird hold,

those first to find my ears in early March.

Enough to shrug off a windshield to scrape,

the wet shoe of slush and wonky, winter drivers.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor 

Recipes

Recently, as I was making banana bread from a tried and true recipe, I couldn't help but remember an idea my mother put forward. Good cook that she was, she maintained her secret lay in the ability to simply follow a recipe. I now suspect it was her way of apologizing for banishing me from the kitchen when she cooked. 

Recipes

Directions for apricot souffle

or a quick cassoulet,

sticky buns, peach pies

and even oven baked French Fries.

"If you can read," assured my mother,

"you can cook." And with that she

handed me a daunting tome,

an unopened book free of any dog-eared

pages or telltale drips that might guide

this new bride on a lifelong journey.

                            *

Decades later with both covers gone,

batter spots and sauce spills speckling

the pages, it dwells unused on a shelf.

Too many gelatin concoctions,

too heavy on the cream and butter,

too old school. And yet I cannot trash it

for what it imparts: memories

of a gift given from my mother's heart.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor