On Re- reading Billy Collins..

Around about midday on Fridays, among other tasks,

I clear the mist, scoop the sea and push the mountains

 at the local community centre, all while mouthing

 the five healing sounds of the elements

SSSSS...CHOOO...SHHHH...HAHHH...WHOOO

with the aim of self preservation and renewal...

And I thought there were only four of them-

elements that is-

Or else one hundred and eighteen,

if you count the periodic table...

But we're talking Qi Gong here.

So every week I shake, swing and flow

in the hope of finding

what I actually find 

with a lot less effort

when I read one of your poems.

Billy Collins reads a poem

Copyright 2023 Cathy Leonard All rights reserved

Painting the Town

 

Nothing becomes you quite like your strutting.

You're determined to go out in style.

Not for you the drab greys and browns

that dowse my canvas.

Your choice of palette is shocking pink and ruby red

upending the head nodders, 

the tut- tutters, the chin-waggers-

"She couldn't be!" I hear them say.

But inside you are

and nobody can say when...

So meanwhile, woman,

keep doing what you're doing

and paint the town red.

Copyright 2023 Cathy Leonard All rights reserved

Resolutions

 

On the back of a used envelope I write, not a list of to-dos exactly,

but more like a set of military manoeuvres.

On the North facing flap- a retrieval exercise

Both belated birthday greetings

Email M

Text T

While to the South I plan to open up new neural pathways 

by taking up German- again

And it being the month of Janus,the two headed Roman god,

Facing West where the sun sets I intend to review and reform

starting with an elimination of the superfluous

And Eastward where the sun rises

I will repair the rest which is, hopefully, most of me

But somewhere in the middle, about the Equator, I write Research Butterflies

for someone yesterday said that a poem was like a net to trap and contain,

 by which I think they meant feelings. Words as stakes, or darts or pins?

and I thought of butterflies as you might and of poem as butterfly rather than net

not to be pinned or mounted or frozen

But to let settle, let startle, let shift and finally  let fly 

Copyright 2023 Cathy Leonard All rights reserved