MY MUSE COOK
By David Allen
She reads cookbooks
Like Romance novels,
Dog-earing pages
For future kitchen trysts.
She whips up wonders,
Finessing the recipes,
Adding her signature touch,
Transforming deserts
Like Black Forest Trifle
Into “Oohies” that words
Cannot describe.
She holds kitchen court
With our grandkids,
Crushing Oreo cookies,
Sifting, pouring, stirring.
Flour covered faces and hands
Announce another magic cheesecake
Has been born.
Archive for December, 2016
MY MUSE COOK
Posted: December 24, 2016 in PoetryTags: cookbooks, cooking, grandkids, muse, poem, poetry
A CHRISTMAS TALE
Posted: December 22, 2016 in PoetryTags: Christmas, gifts, giving, Holidays, memories, needy, poem, poetry, presents
A CHRISTMAS TALE
By David Allen
This is the giving time of year
To do something for others
Not as well off as you
One of my clearest memories
Of this merry time of year
Has little to do with decorating trees
Unwrapping presents, or a Christmas feast.
It’s the day I sat in my paper’s district office
After helping the manager cover unclaimed routes.
I was 13 and getting ready to bike back
To my family’s housing project home
When I paged through the paper
And casually came to the list of needy families
The Paper – Long island’s Newsday – was sponsoring
I came across a dead-on description of my family’s plight.
There was no doubt the woman with seven children
And a husband who had lost his post office job
Due to self-medicating mental wounds from the war
Was my mom, a suspicion confirmed Christmas morning
When we opened more presents than we’d seen in years,
New toys and clothes, not the hand-me-downs of Christmas past
People unknown to us gave us the best holiday ever
Now, decades later, my wife and I give what we can
To brighten the season for others,
Perhaps hats and gloves for the homeless,
Or bags of food for women and children
Huddled in domestic abuse shelters.
It’s the giving time of year, you see
Time for sharing with those much more needy.
CHRISTMAS TREE
Posted: December 8, 2016 in PoetryTags: Christmas, christmas tree, love, muse, poetry, soulmate, sympathy
CHRISTMAS TREE
By David Allen
Thirrty-three Christmases have passed, I know
And all of them had me warm and aglow
With love for the woman who became my wife
My muse, my soulmate, “sticky booggers” for life
(Okay, we spent one apart when I was far out of reach
Preparing a new home for us on a Guam beach)
The picture above shows how my love
Feeling sad for our fallen Christmas tree
Stretched out on the floor in sympathy
It’s the kind of thing she does, you see
And that’s just one of her traits that captured me
UPDATED Nov. 2922