Poem of the Week #99

Cooking Thanksgiving Dinner with My Sister

You with the vision, direct
operations, determine the proper size,
shape, and timings of things.

I with the knife, do the chopping
and paring. I check the clock,
keep the work space clean.

I’m okay taking orders.
It was different when we were little.
Then, I was the big sister

and you followed my lead.
I dressed you like a rag doll;
told you there was no Santa.

Here in the kitchen, you are reverent
about chestnuts to be peeled and cubed,
potatoes to be wedged and roasted.

Green beans, we blanch three minutes,
garlic we mince just so. I want to obey
your laws, but when you aren’t looking,

I simply cut up the orange
(without removing the membrane),
and toss it in the bowl.

Later, no one complains.
Our dinner is well-eaten. But I know
you stuck to the rules, and you know,
I broke them.


Lisa Vihos

Poem of the Week #98

Avoidance

Avoidance
becomes annoyance.
Can one guiltlessly
delay the inevitable pressing
energetic urge to create beyond
flotsam and jetsam blocking the way;
gargantuan in proportion to the deeper things,
hastily glossed over? What is actually required daily,
is hard work, (seeming contradiction), time spent sitting still
jovial in the clover, smelling roses only shirkers share. Sharing
kisses and caresses, and whiffs and caresses and more of same,
languished lovingly and lastingly on a lad or lass of your choosing.
Muscular thrust and whichever way you prefer to go, whether fast or slow,
nasty or nice, but massively much more delicious than anything so dull as
organized left-brain thinking that can only bring forth some kind of
pseudo-progress as far as someone’s idea of real productivity goes.
Quixote went off looking for the impossible dream, thus leaving
rigorous milkmaids to rake their mown hay while the
sun shone for boys who graciously shivered their
timbers and knew how teasingly to play
under the budding cherry tree, freely
versed and finding absolutely nothing
wrong with certain maneuvers.
X-stasy will reward
your undone
zippers.

Lisa Vihos

Poem of the Week #97

Dimestore Novel

I am not a ballerina in an ivory tutu.
I am not a spinster left to hobble.
I am not the girl behind the make-up counter
who dreams herself a ballerina in a dimestore novel.

I would like to be the knight in shining armor.
I would like to be the one who gets the girl
behind the counter. I would like to be the dance
inside the ballerina’s head.

I will be the bobbled dance upon the counter.
I will be the night, the moon will be my harbor
(discarded cloud of tulle and smeared mascara)
I will be like rain on her Sahara, I will be

the dimestore novel, dog-eared on the nightstand,
a simple counterpoint to everything they said.


Lisa Vihos

Poem of the Week #96

Honey and Peas

When we were younger
we shared with a bunny.
We offered a plateful
of green peas and honey.

We shared with a goat
who always said please
and cleaned up a plateful
of honey and peas.

Our tree was a flower
our flower, a star.
We sat in the clock
to wind up our car.

Our book was a good one
our shower was sunny.
Our table was laden
with green peas and honey.

Where have you vanished?
Where are your knees?
Do you still fill your plate
with honey and peas?

Do you talk with your hands?
Do you battle the stairs?
Do you pardon the tables,
waltz with the chairs?

Cook up a storm?
Squander your money?
Still grace your plate
with green peas and honey?

In five hundred years
when you fly with the bees,
will you come feed me
some honey and peas?

Lisa Vihos