9 poems dugger - Trish Dugger

Poems by Trish Dugger
The Tea Party
Vagaries of Spring
Over the Edge
Because I Always Tell the Truth
To a Caraway Seed
Lettuce Lettuce Lettuce
Otherwise
I Had Tea with Mary Oliver
Scrambled
Shades of Love
Happily Ever After?
Honeysuckle So Thick
Night of the Grunion
Mother’s Day
Dresses in a Shop Window on
Coast Hwy 101 in Encinitas
Fashion Chic
Frog Festival
Dear Gene Kelly

Shades of Love
At dinner I told Bernardo about
my offshore bank accounts.
He smiled as he reached for
more Lobster Thermador
and poured another glass
of Chardonnay.
How soon do we sail for the Cape?
His eyes the azure blue
of his cravat.
I love him. He loves my money.
We both love the Cape.
How do we know what we love?
Our pocketbook tells us.
A shop girl in an upstairs flat
loves herbal tea and her cat.
And when my money and
I are spent,
Here, kitty, kitty.

Happily Ever After?
That is the difference between you and me.
Cloth napkins. It will never last.
With each new move we lose some sweetness.
And slip covers? You don’t get it.
Still, I admire your bravado and
to a slightly lesser extent, your thinking.
Like most cowboys, you are conservative.
I can look at that two ways, or not at all
if I want your boots beneath my bed.
We thought we could come to this bridge,
sit a while and find a solution.
Never has steelwork seemed so serene.
Every day as the grapes come in they
reveal a verdict on decisions made earlier.
I know you will never find snow peas
more attractive than beans,
or asian squash more handsome than
jack-o’-lanterns. You don’t seem to mind
our differences, but I go to sleep wondering
what kind of person doesn’t like sushi?

Honeysuckle So Thick
in the canyon, a kid can walk on it,
lie back on a honeysuckle hammock,
head spinning in mist of sweet scent.
He picks a blossom, pulls its stamen,
puts it to his lips, sips its one drop
of honey and floats, eyes closed.
Sudden frenzy of bees. Muffled
thunder of resounding hum sends
him stumbling from woozy wonder.
But now he knows how heaven feels,
the spell of its aroma, its honey taste.
And now he owns a secret place
where nobody can ever find him,
sunk deep in honeysuckle vine,
yellow dust on his bare feet.

Night of the Grunion
We sip gin and tonics
at Bongo’s Beachfront Bar.
Floodlights dance
on waves licking a sea wall.
We lean into each other,
touch knee to knee.
I finger your thigh. You point
to a heron as it lands and
stands facing open ocean.
Suddenly the surf flashes
and shimmers with fish,
elusive grunion coming
ashore to mate, an urgent
ritual seldom seen,
said by some to be a myth.
We abandon drinks and
run barefoot on the beach.
I giggle and reach for
slippery fish spawning at
high tide under a full moon.
Silvery little grunion wiggle
and twist in damp sand.
I hold up my skirt, briny wet.
My legs sting with sea salt.
We hurry home to undress,
wriggling under a full moon,
beneath a pine in our side yard.

Mother’s Day
All day long, every damn day
she lifts laundry from
the washing machine, flings
blue jeans into the drier,
slaps jam on slices of bread,
wipes sticky finger prints off
door knobs, trips over toy trucks
and baby dolls, plastic bats
and building blocks, drinks
cold coffee, eats leftover crusts.
This day is sparked by hugs
from tiny arms wrapped around
her thighs: I love you, Mommy,
by excited shrieks from her kid on
a two-wheeler bike: I did It! I did it!,
by her husband’s sudden hands
on her waist as she leans over
soapsuds in the kitchen sink.
Go sit down, Baby. I’ll finish up.
And she postpones running away
for another day.

Dresses in a Shop Window
on
Coast Hwy 101 in Encinitas
trendy kicky
flippy trippy
fluttery rufflely
feminine ware
strippy strappy
barely there
size 2 or maybe 3
put a one in front
and you have me
fllibberty gibbet
I’m double digit
much too hippy
not very trippy
but topsy-turvy
I like being curvy
and my pocketbook knows
I like buying clothes
so where’s a
double digit shop
I’ll be there
hippety-hop

Fashion Chic
I am
wearing
earrings,
peony pink
Austrian
crystal
chandelier,
dangling
down to here,
a smidgen
short of my
shoulders.
They
complement
the dress
I recently wore
before you
pulled it up
and over
my head,
tossed it
on the bed.
Peony pink Austrian
crystal chandelier
earrings are very hip
with almost any dress,
and way cool with
no dress at all.

Frog Festival
Frogs are having fun,
whooping it up
down at the Frog Fest
in the creek,
while I am struggling
in my thought kitchen,
trying to boil up a batch
of words, snapping them
off like green beans...
ping ping ping
into the bottom
of an empty mental pot.
Spring has sprung.
Frogs are croaking.
I want to cook up a poem
but the fire’s not smoking.
Guess I’ll kick off my shoes
and get a bucket
and go on down to the creek
and catch me a few.
Frogs are not
as slippery as words.

The Tea Party
He loved his tea at three or so.
I’d heat the dented kettle, pour
a stream of steaming water on
a tea bag in his Spode cup,
but that day I poured
steaming water on loose tea
in a new teapot and let It steep
while my old man put down
his rake and cleaned up,
smiled and winked at me.
I’d spotted the white china teapot
in a thrift shop of St. Barnabas.
Rich parishioners’ castoffs put
my prized chipped Spode
to shame. The teapot without
a defect for two bucks gleamed
like an icicle in moonlight.
I stopped at an A & P
on my way home, picked up
a package of Fig Newtons,
and I had the makings of
a tea party for my old man and me
I still have the white china teapot
high on a shelf I can hardly reach.

Vagaries of Spring
She continues to put out
even with fifty years tucked in her floral bodice.
The camellia, a variety called Mrs. Hinkley,
leaning by my back door, staggers
under the weight of lush pink blossoms.
It’s spring and I’m thinking, You rule, Lady.
Still flaunting your stuff like the town slut
strutting down Front Street and nobody sees
your outrageous display except me anymore.
You and me, we remember the clothesline
along the fence where I pinned tees, jeans
and sheets to dry in spring breezes.
Stepping in duck poop, holding clothespins
between my lips, I invoked whatever gods
of gas dryers to favor me with kindness
and reminded myself our pet mallards mate
for life, a good example to point to while
reaching for my man’s elusive hand.
Look, Honey, they’re so devoted.
Today March blusters across my page,
tumbling down its days, heading for April.
Spring again and me without a glitzy top
in my closet. One of spring’s must-haves.
So says an uber fashion guru on tv..
She wears a J.Crew utility jacket in paprika,
one of Spring’s must-have spicy colors.
I seem to hear the nearly inaudible pining
of my haphazard wardrobe, similar to
the whining of kids for popsicles.
True, my dresser drawers are crammed
with drab tees and jeans in various sizes.
I’m not up to crying this morning
over remembrance of sizes past.
Small black tee. Size 8 jeans.
55 years ago April first. That cute sailor
in the window seat of a Greyhound bus.

Over the Edge
How easily we lose parts
of ourselves.
My youth slipped over
the edge of a sharp pain.
We move in and out of
each other like
shadows through statues,
leaving traces and
grabbing what we can
on this invisible odyssey.
While sliding through your
spine, I placed an ache
in your lower back
You took my sense of
balance when you
roamed inside my brain.
My heart gallops
across the moonscape
on your nightmare.
My mother, slightly tipsy,
walks inside me. I can’t
find my mind anywhere.
An English woman
woke up one morning
with a French accent.
I speak in tongues.

Because I Always Tell the Truth
Richard Shelton
I must admit
sometimes I feel
so alone
like maybe I’m
the only one
who doesn’t get
the red wheel
barrow
and the white
chickens
the rain yeah
I get the rain
so much depends
upon the rain
plants grass and
at last
the rubber boot
industry
which is huge
in Oregon

Dear Gene Kelly
Extra dry with a twist
at the La Valencia
Whaling Bar.
Dark in a booth for two,
you licked your lips
between each sip.
Your leaps and slides
exciting
on the silver screen,
I dreamed of being
your leading lady
from the first time
I saw you at the Rialto,
singing and dancing
in the rain.
There’s no explaining
chance encounters.
Bumping into each other
on Prospect in La Jolla,
we went reeling and
my packages scattered.
You helped me gather
them up and asked me
to have a drink.
To think a few martinis
would provide me with
a lifetime of daydreams.
I confided I was a poet
and recited my aubade
to Auden, and after a refill,
I spilled my racy limericks.
You laughed in your
raspy voice to choice bits.
I have no regrets except
you didn’t ask me to dance
and I want you to know
that I can really cha cha.

I Had Tea with Mary Oliver
last evening. She droned
on and on about spring
violets in soft forest moss.
She lost me in a bog on
the edge of a pinewood.
I smiled and nodded in
response to her tedious
musings about peonies,
wild life creatures, fawns
and bees, ants, while
I dreamed of dancing
in a peony pink gown,
sleek satin, a hand
sliding down my back,
like tea with honey
sliding down my throat.

Otherwise
Seems like a long time since
the waiter took my order,
disappeared behind a swinging door.
I rearrange silverware, move a fake
carnation in a dingy glass vase
to the neighboring vacant table,
take out my paperback. A few other
solitary diners, moored to separate
small islands, lift forks and eat in
a sea of silence. I dog-ear my page
as the waiter reappears with
soup du jour. Friday. Clam chowder.
Once it was otherwise. Fridays.
Me and Dino at Bully’s cruising for
seats at the low bar, shouting out
our orders over laughter and chatter.
Doubles. On the rocks. Extra olives.
I knew someday it would be
otherwise. When his ship sailed
or, as it happened, sank.
And a deep longing for gin soaked
olives sinks its teeth in me.

Lettuce Lettuce Lettuce
rise above petty peas and caramelized carrots.
Once and for all we must squash rumors
of rutabagas rabble-rousing among radishes.
It has been disclosed the rumors were
started by malicious scallions and onions
with bok choy motives. There is some truth,
however, to current reports that turnips
are turning tricks in soup tureens.
This must stop, of course, for the good of
decent folk everywhere. Furthermore, free
brussel sprout handouts must end before
they become a drain on our economy’s
cabbage. The people have spoken.
They demand the government stop clear
and present parsnips with an artichoke
hold on democracy. Together we can
overcome kale. Never forget that this is
a country where freedom from broccoli
and spinach is guaranteed. Thank you
and God bless all our sweet potato pies.

Scrambled
over easy sunny side up
upside down hash browns
catsup on top
links on the side order up
hot cakes cold case
who stole the bacon?
all the king’s horses
paw the ground upside down
boiled and poached
sunny side over french toast
he unzips me in back
I slip out of
inhibition and u n l o o s e n
him in front shake his
cool disposition
we abandon all decorum
in a scramble of
arms&legs
I tell him stay the night
I wonder how he likes his eggs

To a Caraway Seed
Curved
like a tiny
dark scimitar,
you hide in
a slice of rye.
I bite into your
heart, slightly
sweet but
bitter,
releasing
oil of
Byzantine
nights,
sights
along the
Bosporus,
sunlight on
Topkapi as you
glide under my
bridge, return
to hiding and
my tongue,
a crusader
after an
infidel.