Ode to Spring Cleaning

 Ode to Spring Cleaning

Oh, I so enjoy the entry of spring

With its time to awake and be clean again.

So, I construe this glorious list,

Bequeathed to those who might enlist:

Gather the twigs.

Stack winter's limbs

Beside the pit

Where firelight begins.

Take the rake,

Groom the yard.

Remove the dead snake.

Scrape off the chard

From last year's grill.

Flip the compost in its bed

Pile beneath the daffodils.

Where the stone path led

To the wildflower meadow.

Replant the lavender.

Fertilize the shadows

For ferns and coriander.

Along the grassiest part of the brook,

Move the gnome beneath the Gum.

Put him at the old root's gnarly nook.

Turn his face into the sun.

Rake away the decaying leaves

From December's melting pond.

Do not disturb the frog, please.

Turn the fountain on.

Fill to full the feeders.

Strew corn out for the deer.

Dump three packs in the seeders

Sprinkle wildflowers everywhere.

Rake the acorns into small piles.

Rake up all the stones and sticks.

Stack them in piles for bonfires.

Sit chairs out for guests with kids.

Dump all the dead plant sod pods

Into the raised garden box.

Down both sides of the driveway run off,

Plant a second row of phlox.

Retie the rose bush to the lattice

So, its petals do not droop.

Take the porch swing from the attic.

Hang it near the front porch stoop.

Unfurl and hang the fresh Spring flag.

 Clip the lavender lilac tree.

Bundle the limbs with a damp gingham rag

So, the fragrance can blow free.

Brush the cushions. Feed the cat.

Put Momma's rocker on the porch.

Be sure to sweep the Welcome mat.

Make homemade lemonade, of course.

Then put up your feet, let down your hair.

Read poetry. Call your friends.

Say, "Come on Over, Pull up a chair."

And pray springtime never ends.

~P.S. Colley

April 2025

Pandora's Pithos

   Pandora's Pithos

Childlike curiosity unleashes an urn of curses prepared 

For a world inept, deliberately kept, unsuspecting, unaware,

Enslaved by shame and strain of immorality and sin

That rages to plague the mere minds of mortal men.

As unknowingly, innocent fair-maiden fingertips

In twist of wrist, dared unloose the pithos lid

From whence an eerie echo of a fearful shadow

Leapt streaming freed to four corners, fled and hid.

Then spewed out of the mouth of lack's blackness,

Piercing all flesh with conviction's crucifixions,

A vile horror, screaming its deafening dread,

Fiercely devouring as its minions mercilessly fed

The dead still cold while night's predatory beasts,

Swarming, seeking the fleeing mindless feasts,

To prey upon egos of a dust, born to die as dust,

Upon the agents of unrighteousness, and thus upon the just.

Like looming locusts descending upon a dark winter moor,

Gluttony screamed its insatiable appetite for unfulfilled more

Of thorns that pierce, and nettles that wrestle skin punctured and sore

With cries of criticism as famine wakes to hunger of war,

To trumpet all that covet deep into their waste of wantonness,

Unwilling servants of a cruel and restless savage selfishness,

Pestilent craving only what can never be simply bought,  

Destined bravely to forever live as pity's "have nots".

Like hellish hornets, soldiers sting their hard-hearted hatred 

Across smoke-ash war-torn weary, ravished lands, raped,

Leaving cinders for the cockroach shrewd and spindly hands 

That crawl their cruelty alongside comrades in cowardly bands.

Slaves of prejudice chained denied in shackles of fear,

Bow now while vile wagging tongues entreat to endear

To an invisible "they" from an unknown throne afar.

Whipped until lash wounds, unhealed, turn to timeless scars.

Like ferocious flies, born of maggots, in desperation descending,

Draped in the stench of a putrid mildewy dread fast ascending

From the spider-eyed demi-gods who pompously prey

Upon the ruins of a musty-molded humanity's decay,

Where deceptive webs are woven to capture, spin, and play

The blind illiterate minds and miserably mislead them away

Into unrealities where wizards wave beggar rags to riches,

And dragon fire breathes an ire of incendiary wishes.

Like hissing snakes, armless and slithering inescapable insanity, 

Wantonness writhes in wiles of a withering jealousy's vanity,

Lurking lust for envy, views through ignominious mirror glass,

Strangles reverence with hateful utterance of profanity unabashed.

Demons dance to debacle delusions and delight in demented perceptions,

Enamored by the pride of glory from their own contrived reflections.

Deeply depraved by loneliness, vultures of their own self-defiled carrion,

They rot in anathema, crying agony in a world that dares hear no one.

Until God's storms stream barren terrains, a swell and bellow-blustering,

Drowning mortal vengeance vain, and all mundane and merciless mustering, 

Until wild winds of love's rain shower down corroding destruction's erosion

From all foul evils born of mankind's scorn-worn, torn explosion,

Until haphazard hurricanes flood rumble their cleansing truth torrents,

Upon the wailing washed woes of their Sodom city's pitiful abhorrence

Swept away gnashing, crashing loud by tsunamis drowning floating proud,

And swirling whirlwinds lightening flash hope on Heavenly host-filled clouds.

~P.S. Colley

March 1, 2025

Lamentations of Eve

 

Widow at the Window

         Widow at the Window            

Perched like a gazing mourning bird 

          on a worn, wooden windowsill,

She waits alone at spring's noonday window

Where shadows tiptoe through sun-streaked sheers

Onto tainted tones of creamy lace tablecloths,

              Lost in a solace place where

              No one knows her,

              Where no one can harm her,

              Where no one can tell me her who and how to be.

She has learned not to listen to her innermost voices,

       whining wiles of their most painful choices.

      Time always tells her so,

             (Or else she might never know.)

               Her God always listens.

                Her God always hears,

       even in His soulful solemn stillness.

Yet, fate falls deaf upon scarred ears 

     that can no longer bear to listen

           without trickling tender tears of pain

                 that have held back far too many centuries 

                     of too much trouble in their undoing.

Tears that were always watching and crying,    

        over an old man's body, time torn and dying,

            praying strength to leave, then staying,  

              emptiness craving pity yet never saying.          

Leaving behind his humblest honor.

Living beyond his precious pride.

Drudgery drug him down into a darkened grave

     where he remains enslaved deep inside.

             Lost in a solemn place where no one knows him,

             Where no one can harm him,

             Where no one can tell him who and how to be.

~P.S. Colley

Feb. 2025

Cries of the Unheard

March 2025